Bending Bura Bowie Blade

H

hollowdweller

Joined
Sep 22, 2003
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Took my Khonvention AK Bowie out in the woods to play today. The thing chops like mad. Unfortunately I trailed a little too far from the belly and laid a quarter inch section of the edge over while chopping a pine :confused:

It bent in almost the same section as my Bura Ganga Ram. Right before the curviest part of the blade. Upon hammering it back in line I found that this section is quite soft. I had to file it back to even it up again and I am evening it up now.

I think Bura makes some of the finest edges, but this is the second one of his I have had that is not well tempered enough all along the edge. On a Khukuri this is not so much of a problem, but with the shorter bowie it is easier to hit the softer part. So far two of my 3 buras have bent with field use. The pen knife is the only one unbent.

I think I am going to try to take it back farther and make the edge angle steeper to avoid bending it in the future. I did this with my Ganga Ram and so far it is working, although you can see where it bent.

Wish there was a Kami that made an edge as nice as Bura with more tempering along the whole length of the blade.

This is also the bowie that is too big for it's sheath and has cut it's sheath. It must have been made on a Monday or a Friday. ;)
 
Sorry to hear that HD...maybe this one was meant to be a fighter and not a chopper? Do knives have their own karma???
 
Too heavy for a fighter :D

Just have to deal with it. That's the downside to Bura's blades. Sometimes they bend. ;)
 
I found that the edge near the cho of my Kumar Sirupati Villager is not very hard. The blade gets much harder once you get to the belly of the blade. It is easy to put a shaving-sharp edge on it where it is hard, but you can't do this near the cho, and close to it - in the concave section of the blade.

I suspect that this has to do with the Kami's method of hardening the blade - by pouring water on the hot edge. It is easier to get a hard edge along the full length of a shorter blade.
 
arty said:
I found that the edge near the cho of my Kumar Sirupati Villager is not very hard. The blade gets much harder once you get to the belly of the blade. It is easy to put a shaving-sharp edge on it where it is hard, but you can't do this near the cho, and close to it - in the concave section of the blade.

I suspect that this has to do with the Kami's method of hardening the blade - by pouring water on the hot edge. It is easier to get a hard edge along the full length of a shorter blade.
Click to expand...

Right. But it is possible to have the blade harder all along the edge using that technique. The HI kamis just usually don't do it.
 
Took the re edged blade out yesterday and cut through a 6" dry birch. Tried to concentrate on hitting the area that had the bend in it and tried hitting at angles to see if it would bend. The edge remained intact and only required a little touch up with the "Warren" strop to shave. Looks like I must have ground out the flaw that bent and the steel behind it seems hard enough.
 
if it was convex, it'd be less of a problem.

I've had this happen on blades by other kamis. It's not just Bura.


And yes, that AK Bowie is a chopper, my boy!
 
I'm afraid the handle would come off with the heat of re-tempering. This does, however open the question of doing a Japanese sword type differential tempering. Can you imagine a khukuri with a hamon?
 
Brian - They *do* have hamons...I did an AK just to see where it was but have since buffed it off after use. If you have any particular blade, all you have to do is a vinegar dip or wipe. Clean the blade completely (I used "Everclear", hi-potency alcohol that's illegal in Ohio) then dipped the thing in regular vinegar for about 10 minutes. A hamon could be clearly seen...showed all along the edge (there's a posting about it here in fact)...very cool! After dipping, I just did a baking soda wash to neutralized the mild acid and re-oiled.
 
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