"damascus" khuks

firkin

firkin

Joined
Jan 26, 2002
Messages
2,737
This has maybe been discussed/dismissed sometime before, but has it been considered to fabricate a khuk blade from something like a motocycle or forklift chain?

like this for example?

http://www.customknife.com/Damascus.html

billet made from chain on same site:

http://www.customknife.com/Motorcyclechain.html

There must be some articulated or stranded metal stock locally available that's close enough to the truck springs that the Kamis could forge it with little adjustment.

The resulting "pattern-welded" blades might be a high-ticket, high-margin line if it could be pulled off.

Obvious obstacles are:

1) lots more heating/pounding

2) convincing a Kami that it's not 110% insane to make a billet from a chain when he can just lop one off a spring. (this is probably impossible)

3) getting a Kami to try it anyway

4) stuff like chains or cables that aren't all rust are probably a lot more valuable locally than truck springs.

5) additional fuel requirements may be prohibitive.
hmmm, if switch to gas is actually made???

But it could sure turn out pretty!
 
Yeah, it would be awesome to see something along the lines of a kothimoda or dhankuta done with a patternwelded steel. Believe me, I've thought about. :)
Your plan sounds like the most technically feasible plan that I've heard of. Mine involved just buying a pattern welded billet over here and shipping it over. Of course the process would be extremely long and difficult, and therefore prohibitavely expensive. :(
 
firkin - very interesting site.

What little I've gleaned of pattern-welded blades, they're not easy to make, so I think it would involve the kami learning/developing different methods. Though I agree it would probably be a good-selling item.

I'm sure someone will be along who knows much than I on this.

cheers, B.
 
A young (under 50) lady said the same thing about me yesterday....maybe I should try to buy the knife :rolleyes:
 
not for sale??

makes one wonder what you could get for a motorcycle chain khuk if advertised to the right people.
 
Originally posted by firkin
not for sale??

makes one wonder what you could get for a motorcycle chain khuk if advertised to the right people.
Click to expand...

It would have to be made in the States, and wouldn't be a Khuk, when all was said and done. This blade was in their Gallery - pics of their private collection - which they sell from only rarely. If this one ever breaks out into their "for sale" section, I'll burn out my keyboard trying to get to it, not to mention my bank account.

Bill, I still remember what to to with the knife :(
 
Oh boy...I try to make all my knives by traditional methods, no power tools, charcoal forge, etc and I've tried, I've really tried to make a khukuri. I might have set my ambitions too high, but about a half a year ago, I hotcut a leaf spring that was half an inch thick by twelve inches long to forge into a khukuri. Now, granted I don't get to forge everyday and I have worked on other projects, but it's just me, no assistants. I still haven't gotten the thing to look like a khukuri. A half inch is alot of material to move. Now, for someone like me to try that in damascus it would involve starting out with all the forging and folding and forgewelding, until the right amount of layers were achieved and then forging the blade to shape, filing, heat treating and putting a handle on it. When a 15-20 inch bowie takes me a week and a half to two weeks eight hours a day, do you have any idea how long that would take? The only reason I use myself as the example is because I'm picky about details. That is why I do this the way I do. Traditional looking and feeling pieces why? because they were made the traditional way. A person witha press or a power hammer and a bader grinder might not be as accurate to detail. I can almost guarantee it wouldn't be 1/2" thick at the spine. Most other makers I've talked to said it would be a waste to make it that thick. That and if you do find one that would do it, it would cost an arm and a leg. Mostly because of the overhead they have. Belts and electricity cost money. That and the fact that anyone making their own damascus is probably charging twenty bucks an hour plus.

Plus if the kamis tried it there's a whole slew of problems that people run into with damascus. Cold shuts, welds in the steel that don't take. If they're anywhere near an area to be hardened they could crack or shatter, same for slag inclusions. Even if they don't do you really want a black pit on the surface of the blade? Copper impurites in the forge making it nearly impossible to forge weld. The ferrules on the khuks are brass. I don't know if there annealed or hot formed in any way but if you use the same forge for brass and copper as you do for steel you can't forge weld. The copper when hot releases oxides that bond to the steel and for whatever reason won't allow steel to forge weld. I haven't had it satisfactorily explained to me, but I had it happen to me in my last forge. I was welding fine and then after a friend tried to hot forge some brass i couldn't make a forge weld to save my life. Now that I use a different forge, I haven't had a single problem.


Believe me, at some point I hope I can make a damascus khukuri with traditional feel to it, but for now, I'll settle for when I have a regular one done. I hope I didn't bore anybody :)
 
Walosi:

My text quoted below was a bit tongue-in-cheek--

I KNOW the "right people" frequent this site.

I just couldn't find an apropriate smiley goober-face to fit.

And Scott, not bored, --you sure make it even clearer that we're fortunate be able to get what HI offers.

I have no (currently at least) realistic aspirations of owning such a thing, but it would be wonderful just to know one (or more) had been made where real khukuris are made. And to see at least a photo, if not the actual thing.

----------------------------
quote:

Originally posted by firkin

not for sale??

makes one wonder what you could get for a motorcycle chain khuk if advertised to
the right people.



reply:

Originally posted by Walosi

It would have to be made in the States, and wouldn't be a Khuk, when all was said and done. This blade was in their Gallery - pics of their private collection - which they sell from only rarely. If this one ever breaks out into
their "for sale" section, I'll burn out my keyboard trying to get to it, not to mention my bank account.

Bill, I still remember what to to with the knife
 
Scott:

As a chemist,(GIANT QUALIFIER--NOT METALLURGIST!) I find your remarks regarding "contamination" of a forge by brass and copper quite fascinating.

I am familiar with chemical reactions whose results were initially dependent upon whether the glassware or teflon-coated magnetic stirring bars had been previously used for particular other reactions. Granted these reactions involved catalytic metals like palladium or platinium. Only by quite remarkable recollection of the experimentors (such a history of prior uses of "inert" equipment are not normally kept track of) were these factors realized and finally brought under control and reproducable results obtained and optimized to yield useful results. And this was in a modern chemical laboratory, not a one-off open forge.

It can take years of man-hours and literally millions of dollars to learn how to reproduciably and economically produce tons of a substance that the original chemist made a few milligrams of. (One of MANY reasons drugs are so damned expensive.)
Sometimes it can even take months to duplicate a reaction that was recently published and thats on the same small scale (milligrams or grams). Again under modern, "well-controlled" chemical laboratory conditons. It can literally depend on who runs the reaction.

So, I have some admittedly tiny idea of the magnitude of the daunting task of reproducing ancient smithing techniques in an essentially unique ancient forge replica. Add to that aspects such as appearance and balance of the final work and you have a meld of art and science. I know that the science alone can be hard enough in the most controlled environment.

I think that's one of the reasons that these khuks and traditional smithing methods appeal to me.

Keep trying to do it.

EDIT:

All of the above chemical I give examples refer to reactions in solution. To my understanding, under unachievably ideal conditions a large pot of molten wootz metal might approximate solution conditions. Forge-welding a chunk of metal will most definitely not. This adds more variables like how deep transformations occur in the metal, and the degree of working under transforming conditions etc.

The art/experience required boggles the scientific mind and feeds the artistic/mystical mind.
 
Originally posted by firkin
I just couldn't find an apropriate smiley goober-face to fit.
Click to expand...

Firkin, et al:
Try this site. Should be a smily for every occasion.:) :p :rolleyes: :cool:

http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/
rock_band.gif


And here's the link that shows individual smilies of all sorts. On a boring, rainy, snowy afternoon a good place to wander through checking things out for future posts.
Uncle Bill's favorite barf smily is on these pages somewhere.:)
Oh yeah, here it is.
puke.gif
:)

Ooopsie.
http://www.stopstart.fsnet.co.uk/smilie/
 
That's the one I was looking for when we were talking about the BirGorkha charpi. Maybe Beo can invent me one that will cover the entire screen with vomit.
 
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