Caution Re: Antique Kukris from Atlanta Cutlery

T

the possum

Joined
Jul 31, 2002
Messages
2,954
Hi fellas. Don't get too alarmed yet, but I thought ya'll might want to hear this.

I got back from vacation the other night. Our whole family went, and on the way back home, we stopped at Atlanta Cutlery's showroom in Conyers, Georgia. They were even kind enough to open one (they have more than one!) of their warehouses for me and my dad for a private view of some of the treasures they brought back from the Royal Armory in Nepal. We got to see some old cannon, howitzers, machine guns, pallets full of thousands of rifles, bins full of kukris and bayonets and gun locks & parts and flints and balls and guns and more guns and more knives and scabbards and accessory knives and ohmygawd I'm rambling again....

Eh, it was truly a sight to behold. Highly recommend just stopping by if you're in the area on a week day, but ya gotta be nice- they may not even appreciate me advertising the private tour...

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. I've been interested in the 114+ year old kukris they brought back for some time now, and inquired here about their quality a while back. I have waited on buying one after hearing of spotty quality/condition. Well, I decided to buy one of the antique longleaf blades without a handle, since I got to hand pick one from a box in the showroom, and plan to make a traditional handle for it myself. They are also offering these bare blades in their latest catalog. This was much cheaper, and I plan to use it, so I'm not too concerned about it being all origional.

Here's the note of caution part; since these were hand forged by individual craftsmen possibly decades apart, there is indeed a fair amount of variance in blade thickness, weight, balance, and edge geometry. And, when I got home, I took a file to some of the dings in the edge of my blade, and it filed like brass. Dead soft. I touched the tang to my grinding wheel, and the sparks make me believe it's not even high carbon steel. (or at least not very high) My father also got a blade just like mine, but I have not gotten to test it yet. Several others in that box had nasty edge damage, and a few were even bent. I assumed they warped in heat treatment, but in retrospect they may have actually been bent in use. Forget about carrying a sharpening stone if you intend to use one of these- bring a bastard file.

Now, again, this was just one blade out of several hundred they had there, and is probably also 50 years older than several of the models they're offering. I don't doubt that many of them were indeed hardened better; I just wanted to let you all know of the possibility of getting a butter soft blade, or one that is not quite what you were envisioning. Luckily, their return/exchange policy seems pretty good, so you may be able to score a better one.

On the positive side, the shape of the blades, tapers, hollows, convex edges, etc. all seemed great even if not consistent. I am currently trying to contact a 'smith to see if he is willing to try hardening my blade better before making the handle. Will keep you posted on how it turns out.
 
Given the fact that these blades were made in Nepal over a century ago, your description doesn't surprise me in the least. Caveat emptor!
 
My very first kukri which I had gotten years ago was a softy.I bought it to use but found while the edge was ok the rest of the blade was dead soft. It bent easily, though it was easy to straighten by hitting the side of the blade lightly against a tree !! They're ok as show knives but not users.
 
Remember these were made to be used by people who couldn't afford a replacement, or fancy stones for sharpening. A bent blade can be fixed. A broken one can't.
 
Mete- Since you've chimed in I was wonder if you could offer any reassurance. Lower carbon steels can still be heat treated with a water quench, right? At what percent carbon does this also become impossible?

Mr. Bad-
I can't speak authoritatively on why the troops could be issued a rifle and knife, but no proper maintenance equipment. ? However, I don't want my knife to break or bend. Any way you define the term, hardened and tempered steel is still stronger than dead soft steel. And I certainly don't want my edge to squash like silly putty if I accidentally hit something hard with it. (some of the edge damage on those other knives I saw was pretty bad- complete failure in fact.) I can't help but believe Shri Chiandra Indra Dhuj (the soldier who carried my blade 100 years ago) would agree. I'm just betting this is the best they had available at the time.
 
Possum ,I see you have an interest in miniatures.Sometime last year on this forum I posted a photo of my 1/4 scale kukri. It's made of 1095, properly hardened !! Actually the appropriate quenchant is dependent on more than just carbon. Shallow hardening steels[ low hardenability] use water. W-1 is water hardening [that's what the W is for] yet with the addition of small amounts of chromium and vanadium you get O-1 which is oil hardening. Both contain about 1% carbon.
 
very interesting.....I have little experience with the blades from A.C. - but hopefully that will change in a week or so....;)

Can I ask you how much you paid for yours?
(email me if you like)
 
Mete-
Yeah, I hadn't thought of that. But thanks for the thoughts. I do like minis. Your kukri sounds neat- I'll have to search for it. I don't have any good pictures of my work, but maybe one of these days I'll post some grainy photos of a few...

Dan-
No worries, these bare blades and complete antique kuks are in their printed catalog anyway; I paid like $90 for mine. I think it was worth it from the novelty/collector standpoint, but for a good user Kukri I'd probably rather look at Himalayan imports or something. AC's modern made kuks from Windlass looked decent for the money, and from other knives I've got from them, the hardness may range from Rc 45-55. Other knives and repro swords from Windlass again looked pretty good for the price, but many are made from rather thin stock.
 
Excuse me, but this sounds to me like someone buying a Model-T Ford and being shocked!, shocked to find that it doesn't have cruise control.
 
This thread points out a pivotal and very important fact. Many of us seem to believe that antique knives and swords are always of high quality, somehow superior to the cheap production knives we use today. I used to be one of them. The fact that folks used to depend on these blades for survival helps lead to that misnomer. The real fact is that even medium grade cutlery today is light years ahead of some of the real old stuff in metalurgy, design and durability. I have lost count of the times I have viewed antique knives, swords and axes from collections that were genuine pieces of history and marveled at how crudely they were made. This is not to say there is not some really functional blades out there from long ago but they were much more rare and valuable than today. I believe this is the origins of the magic or enchanted blade legends. When some guy got a sword or knife that really performed and did not fail under heavy use it got a reputation and was passed down from father to son. Like wise a blade smith that could consistently produce such weapons and tools was held in awe and reverence by the people of his culture.
 
I...believe....these things have been on the market for YEARS.

I had one identical to the ones Atlanta shows and paid something like 10 bucks or less for it. I played with it and cold blued it and stuff. Finally sold it at my coin shop for $20 or so.

It was dead soft, did take an edge, wouldn't hold it, and was generally a cheap hunk of very deadly whacking material. I would NOT want to have one chunked at me.

But neither would I want to consider it a .....knife.

Rather have Cold Steel's modern one for less money. This has to be the score of the century for Atlanta. AND they got guns too.

Nepal considered it scrap.

Most of it is IMO.
 
Guys,
I am not shocked by this; I didn't mean to come off that way. I expected it to be in the mid 40's Rc, and that would have been fine with me. A bit surprised that it's this soft maybe, but not as much as you're making it out to be. I just wanted to make sure no one else got shocked.

Riddle-
That topic is worthy of its own thread. But to sum up my opinion, this blade is better in shape and geometries than many blades made today. I don't have enough experience with kukris to form an opinion on the balance and dynamic handling. It does not compare to modern blades in the fit & finish department. (because it doesn't have to) But especially if we start discussing swords, well, the antiques did perform. This blade is from the late 1800's. Mankind had many centuries of experience smelting, forging, and heat treating steel by then. These were just shoddy.

Lavan-
I wondered about that myself. Yeah, they sure did score on this. Those cannon I mentioned- If I understand things right, they got them for scrap price. The Nepal government was just gonna melt them down, and had already started piling up the carriages and burning them. AC is selling them for like $35,000 to $44,900.
 
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