Yesterday I decided to do some further testing on my 21 AK. When I began the blade was easily razor sharp and capable of slicing the ends off of pine trees with little effort. However, I was worried that it was a little to sharp and delicate of an edge. The reason behind this being that after learning about steeling from Mr. Stamp in the reviews forums under Mission-12A2MPK I thought I might have steeled the blade excessively and created a fragile edge.
So rather than tackle the pine tree trunk that was aged and hardened over the last 6 years or so I decided to cut up a spling maple tree in my back yard growing among the weeds. Hence, I preceeded to wade out into the weeds and cut down the tree, which was a bout 7 feet tall and a spot on its trunk about 2 inches+ thick. It took me about 5-10 wacks before it fell down. I am sure I could have gotten it down with less but there was a few problems. First I was tired as I had just dragged our picnic table about 50 feet so I could chop things on it. I never knew those things weighed so much. Second, I didn't have the room for full power swings. Third I couldn't really nocth the wood for the same reason. This meant I had to basically keep swinging into the same intial cut until I went through. I didn't place a couple of simings on the other side oppisite my inital cut as well though but they were simple hacks mainly under the wieght of th eblade as I was lacking room again to do anything more.
Anwyways I dragged the sapling back to teh picnic table where I preceeded to delimb it.
The limbs ranged in size from half an inch to about 3/4 of an inch. I could go through most with 2 cuts. I am sure it could have been one but I kept hitting it at the wrong angle so I would often end up have the blade run down the middle of the limb. As well I was only bring the blade even with my face and then swinging from there to make the but so not muck power was involved . Al ot of it was the weight of the blade. Occasionally, I would get mad and just slam the blade into the limb against the grain and it would cleave right in two.
After doing this I had the main trunk left. I began sectioning it up into about 1 to 1 and a half feet lengths. I made it throught he first to sections with no problems. Probably about 5 or so chops each with the thickness being about 1 and half inches to 2 inches +. One section I made it a little over halfway through and then turned over and just hacked into it against the grain with a power stroke to finish off that section.
Now after cutting down the tree originally the blade had no indentations or chips and edge retention was good. I didn't really have any hair left on my arms to try to see if it would shave and I didn't feel like pulling up my pants legs but i still ran in down my arm and thought I saw a few hairs pop off. The blade would still cleanly go threw light weeds and pine tree ends.
Throughout the delimbing and sectioning I didn't really pay much attention to the blade. I would say it made it throught the delimibing fine though. However when I began taking off the third section I noticed to chips in the blade. One was rather large--easily 3 millimeters long and 1 to 1 and a half millimeters deep. The other was much smaller at about 1 by 1 millimeters deep, perhaps a litlle under that. I figure they resulted during the cuts perpindicular to the grain in the sectioning stage on which they came into contact with the hard picnic table pretty forcefully, during some other time in the delimbing stage in which they came into contact with teh table, or during the sectioning in which I noticed I was chopping around a small knot which I may have hit. I am leaning towards reasons number 1 and 3. BTW, the larger chip was right in the belly of the blade and the other was about 1 cm from the tip. The rest of the blade was still sharp though and could easily do more pruning.
Needless to say though I was somewhat dissapointed so I started to head in to try and work out the chips and post on here about this and what to do. Along the way I took a couple of power whacks into the afore mentioned well seasoned pine tree to see if it would chip the edge but nothing happened. It just bit in with authority.
Now, at this point my dasd spotted me while mowing and wanted me to go hack on the sumac stumps up by the road that he had left me to hack on. I didn't want to but he talked me into it.
I picked one about 4-5 inches thick and began hakcing it to it. The blade bit in nicely and it was easy to pull back out. I wacked from all sides on it and it probably took me about 20+ whacks to go through it. My dad took a couple as well. The strenghts of the whacks ranged considerably. A few were very strong swings but most weren't.
After doing this the blade was just as it had been before--only the two chips and rest was still fairly sharp I would guess. I wasn't quite finished though. I wanted to do somoe lateraly strenght testing and put some strain on the edge to see if it would chip more. So I slammed teh blade into the end of sumac stump I had just cut. It was a little over halfway in teh stump and I pushed hard to the right. The stump just split. I did this a number of times--moving onto another stump eventually. Each time the blade would just twist out because the wood would give way. The depth of penetration ranged from as deep as the first time to just half and inch. Each time the edge took consideralble strain and no chipping occured.
I also tried swinging the point into a few short stumps to pry them apart with it and test ptip strength but I couldn't get teh right swing to get the blade to penetrate enough where I could do this. I didn't want to swing real hard wither in case I missed the short stump because teh blade would then be coming back at me.
I went inside then and it was 5:30 by the time I finished cleaining the blade. I began to work the chips out then with a DMT coarse blue stone. It took me a over an hour before it was at where you could barely see the chips. My stone isn't as abrasive as it first was though and I need a new one. It then took me the nxt two hours to get a truly razor edge on it. I could get it to bite into paper realy well and scrape a few hairs but not until the end could it really shave. I used a number of devices--a coarse diamond stone, a fine diamond stone, a coarse diamond rod, a fine ceramic one, an extra fine ceramic one, a steel (I use it after the fine stone and often after the ceramic rods to help give ti the razor edge, and a strop. After this I rubbed the blade with a scotchbrite pad to dull the finish and I ended up dulling th eedge which I didn't think I had touched to much but I guess I did quite a bit actually. So I had to resharpen it but this time it went much more quickly and easily. Now over the two hours I ended up starting over with the coarse stone or rod a number of times. It really suprised me that it took me this long. I didn't think it would.
The strange thing is the recurve will take an edge much more easily than the belly and the area towards the tip is the hardest to get razor sharp (in fact I didn't really get it razor sharp) but I don't like it to sharp anyways as it will see a lot of abuse digging in wood and the ground and such.
Overall, I was impressed with the blades chopping abilities and lateral strength. My Ontario SP-8 would have taken twice the cuts and twice the time on everything I am sure.
My only problem is with the 2 chips. I don't know if its my sharpenign and getting the edge to thin or if the blade is to hard.
I would say I sharpen somewhat excessively (and many would say very excessively but I like that razor edge) and that the pad took the edge off would lead me to believe its me.
So does anybody know how I can tell if my edge is to fragile and thin and how to make sure it isn't.
I mean I really want to use my khukuri but if it chips everytime I can't bacause I will end of sharpening it away to nothing the way I do it. And I am pretty sure it is my sharpening causing the problem.
All in all, thank you for listening to me ramble, I know its long and any help would be greatly apprecieated.
thanks and take care
collin
Also, please forgive any typos.
So rather than tackle the pine tree trunk that was aged and hardened over the last 6 years or so I decided to cut up a spling maple tree in my back yard growing among the weeds. Hence, I preceeded to wade out into the weeds and cut down the tree, which was a bout 7 feet tall and a spot on its trunk about 2 inches+ thick. It took me about 5-10 wacks before it fell down. I am sure I could have gotten it down with less but there was a few problems. First I was tired as I had just dragged our picnic table about 50 feet so I could chop things on it. I never knew those things weighed so much. Second, I didn't have the room for full power swings. Third I couldn't really nocth the wood for the same reason. This meant I had to basically keep swinging into the same intial cut until I went through. I didn't place a couple of simings on the other side oppisite my inital cut as well though but they were simple hacks mainly under the wieght of th eblade as I was lacking room again to do anything more.
Anwyways I dragged the sapling back to teh picnic table where I preceeded to delimb it.
The limbs ranged in size from half an inch to about 3/4 of an inch. I could go through most with 2 cuts. I am sure it could have been one but I kept hitting it at the wrong angle so I would often end up have the blade run down the middle of the limb. As well I was only bring the blade even with my face and then swinging from there to make the but so not muck power was involved . Al ot of it was the weight of the blade. Occasionally, I would get mad and just slam the blade into the limb against the grain and it would cleave right in two.
After doing this I had the main trunk left. I began sectioning it up into about 1 to 1 and a half feet lengths. I made it throught he first to sections with no problems. Probably about 5 or so chops each with the thickness being about 1 and half inches to 2 inches +. One section I made it a little over halfway through and then turned over and just hacked into it against the grain with a power stroke to finish off that section.
Now after cutting down the tree originally the blade had no indentations or chips and edge retention was good. I didn't really have any hair left on my arms to try to see if it would shave and I didn't feel like pulling up my pants legs but i still ran in down my arm and thought I saw a few hairs pop off. The blade would still cleanly go threw light weeds and pine tree ends.
Throughout the delimbing and sectioning I didn't really pay much attention to the blade. I would say it made it throught the delimibing fine though. However when I began taking off the third section I noticed to chips in the blade. One was rather large--easily 3 millimeters long and 1 to 1 and a half millimeters deep. The other was much smaller at about 1 by 1 millimeters deep, perhaps a litlle under that. I figure they resulted during the cuts perpindicular to the grain in the sectioning stage on which they came into contact with the hard picnic table pretty forcefully, during some other time in the delimbing stage in which they came into contact with teh table, or during the sectioning in which I noticed I was chopping around a small knot which I may have hit. I am leaning towards reasons number 1 and 3. BTW, the larger chip was right in the belly of the blade and the other was about 1 cm from the tip. The rest of the blade was still sharp though and could easily do more pruning.
Needless to say though I was somewhat dissapointed so I started to head in to try and work out the chips and post on here about this and what to do. Along the way I took a couple of power whacks into the afore mentioned well seasoned pine tree to see if it would chip the edge but nothing happened. It just bit in with authority.
Now, at this point my dasd spotted me while mowing and wanted me to go hack on the sumac stumps up by the road that he had left me to hack on. I didn't want to but he talked me into it.
I picked one about 4-5 inches thick and began hakcing it to it. The blade bit in nicely and it was easy to pull back out. I wacked from all sides on it and it probably took me about 20+ whacks to go through it. My dad took a couple as well. The strenghts of the whacks ranged considerably. A few were very strong swings but most weren't.
After doing this the blade was just as it had been before--only the two chips and rest was still fairly sharp I would guess. I wasn't quite finished though. I wanted to do somoe lateraly strenght testing and put some strain on the edge to see if it would chip more. So I slammed teh blade into the end of sumac stump I had just cut. It was a little over halfway in teh stump and I pushed hard to the right. The stump just split. I did this a number of times--moving onto another stump eventually. Each time the blade would just twist out because the wood would give way. The depth of penetration ranged from as deep as the first time to just half and inch. Each time the edge took consideralble strain and no chipping occured.
I also tried swinging the point into a few short stumps to pry them apart with it and test ptip strength but I couldn't get teh right swing to get the blade to penetrate enough where I could do this. I didn't want to swing real hard wither in case I missed the short stump because teh blade would then be coming back at me.
I went inside then and it was 5:30 by the time I finished cleaining the blade. I began to work the chips out then with a DMT coarse blue stone. It took me a over an hour before it was at where you could barely see the chips. My stone isn't as abrasive as it first was though and I need a new one. It then took me the nxt two hours to get a truly razor edge on it. I could get it to bite into paper realy well and scrape a few hairs but not until the end could it really shave. I used a number of devices--a coarse diamond stone, a fine diamond stone, a coarse diamond rod, a fine ceramic one, an extra fine ceramic one, a steel (I use it after the fine stone and often after the ceramic rods to help give ti the razor edge, and a strop. After this I rubbed the blade with a scotchbrite pad to dull the finish and I ended up dulling th eedge which I didn't think I had touched to much but I guess I did quite a bit actually. So I had to resharpen it but this time it went much more quickly and easily. Now over the two hours I ended up starting over with the coarse stone or rod a number of times. It really suprised me that it took me this long. I didn't think it would.
The strange thing is the recurve will take an edge much more easily than the belly and the area towards the tip is the hardest to get razor sharp (in fact I didn't really get it razor sharp) but I don't like it to sharp anyways as it will see a lot of abuse digging in wood and the ground and such.
Overall, I was impressed with the blades chopping abilities and lateral strength. My Ontario SP-8 would have taken twice the cuts and twice the time on everything I am sure.
My only problem is with the 2 chips. I don't know if its my sharpenign and getting the edge to thin or if the blade is to hard.
I would say I sharpen somewhat excessively (and many would say very excessively but I like that razor edge) and that the pad took the edge off would lead me to believe its me.
So does anybody know how I can tell if my edge is to fragile and thin and how to make sure it isn't.
I mean I really want to use my khukuri but if it chips everytime I can't bacause I will end of sharpening it away to nothing the way I do it. And I am pretty sure it is my sharpening causing the problem.
All in all, thank you for listening to me ramble, I know its long and any help would be greatly apprecieated.
thanks and take care
collin
Also, please forgive any typos.
