Making a Khuk (Advice pls)

B

Bill Sanders

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Aug 18, 2003
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Ok, a friend has an old coal forge on his ranch that he uses for horseshoes and such. He is willing to let me use it as long as I buy the coal. I am now looking in junkyards for a couple of truck springs. I am going to try ("TRY" being the operative word) to make a khuk, using the methods that the kami's use. I have never forged any knife. If nothing else, it will give me a better understanding of the HI khuk's that I own (and will own). Any advice from those that know khuk's would be appreciated. Of course I have no way of duplicating the "Magic Stone", but will have to make due with commercial stuff. I have Mexican Bocote wood that I will use for the handle. And I've found some brass plate that will work for the bolster and buttcap. My first attempt (Knowing me I will not stop at one) will be an 18 in AK. I will be taking mesurements and pics of the passaround 18" HI AK that Roadrunner has going, for use as my design plan.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=273116
Or I may decide to start smaller, and see if I can duplicate my Bilton. Sort of depends on how much the junkyard wants for the springs. I will of course keep you all updated as to my progress.

Bill

Bill
 
Good luck, those things are not as simple as they appear. Spend a lot of time examining dimensions, and thickness, at various spots.
 
Originally posted by Seabee17
Any advice from those that know khuk's would be appreciated.

My first attempt (Knowing me I will not stop at one) will be an 18 in AK.

Bill
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Bill take my advice and start smaller, much, much smaller!!!! Several reasons as to why. A smaller kukri done successfully will build your confidence.
An AK demands forge welding to build the steel thick enough and you know little or nothing about forges I assume?:rolleyes: ;)
A smaller kukri like the Bilton wil be easier to control both in the forge and on the anvil. Get The Jim H's, can't recall his last name and too lazy to go to the back room and dig it out but someone who knows will chime in I'm sure, book on forging. Whew!!!!:rolleyes: :o
Study up on forging a bit before you start again assumeing you know little or nothing about forging.

In place of the laha you can use any plastic bag from the local supermarket for the stick'em stuff.
Read about that in an article in Blade Magazine. Try to find that also if you can. I think Blade has back issues for sale. Given a few days I might be able to dig out which issue it was if you're interested.
I would recommend pinning it if you don't make it a full stick tang.
Start small and as your skill and confidence improves then go on to bigger and better kukris.:D
That's it for me at the moment unless you have more pointed questions.
 
Thanks Ben.:D I knew someone would know Jim's last name. I knew it started with H and that it's an unusual name.
 
A straight knife might be an easier place to start. I belive someone with some forging experience and an air-hammer attempted to forge a khuk - posted in the last year. He commented that getting the bend was a real bear. Then again, if you cut out a rough khuk shape with a torch, then forge the bevels and distal taper, it might be easier.

I know next to nothing about forging, and have no experience, just distilling earlier forum posts. So YMMV. :rolleyes:
 
Yvsa and Tohatchi are right. You'll make better progress if you start with a small straight knife and learn with progressively harder projects.
There's a lot to learn about shaping steel with a hammer, and even more to learn about heat treating the blade. Determination to succeed in spite of setbacks and just plain stubborness will see you through.
Most of all, have fun with it.
 
I'd definitely suggest a straight knife to start too, least from little I've picked up(information only, admittedly no experience) on bladesmithing while learning knifemaking.

Geneverally when I see a picture of someone taking straight stock to a bevel through forging, they actually start with a rough profile(if they profile to starT) that's curved down at the tip if they want a straight blade, this is due to way steel moves as you try to take it from thicker proportions down to bevel needed for edge.

Whatever you do though, don't let anyone discourage you(including yourself). My first knife is butt ugly, but they ekeep gettin gbetter(slowly, as I maybe finish one every othe rmonth).

Nothing beats the feeling of making something yourself from scratch. Creation is an amazing thing.
 
I'd definitely say to start smaller, and try a straight blade first. Takes a smaller fire, easier to move smaller amounts of steel, smaller piece of red hot steel that can come flying back at you if you get a poor grip with your tongs, WAY easier to heat treat. You shouldn't have to buy spring steel ~ go to any repair shop that does suspension work and they will give you springs (leaf and coil) for free. You can actually get truck springs off of pickup trucks that are thick enough to forge an AK out of without any forge welding.

Buy Jim Hrisoulas' book, get Wayne Goddard's "$50 Knife Shop", and buy Tim Lively's video on unplugged bladesmithing. If I had to pick one just to get started and was starting from scratch I'd get the video. Picture says a thousand words and a moving picture says a million.

Jim's book has good info on forge welding, tending a coal fire etc. For general forge work I'd recommend Jack Andrew's "Edge of the Anvil". Scrounge and scrounge some more. I made the mistake when I first started out of thinking that I needed everything now, Improvise it what I say now.

Go for it, be careful and have fun.

2 cents from someone with no sense,
stevomiller
 
Thanks for all the advice. I found a car spring in the scrap metal bin at work. It will be the right size for a Bilton size khuk. I have worked with a forge some. I've made several horseshoes, and re-shaped many more to fit each particular horse, for corrective shoing. However, I've never made a knife, or, another project, a throwing 'Hawk. I've borrowed a friend of my dad's copy of Tim Lively's video, and will probably order the books y'all have suggested. I will have to do a bit of hammering to bring back the muscles that haven't been used for a few years, so maybe I'll make an even smaller knife to start with. Great Idea guys!
The knife itself will be a full tang, with slab sides. The handles will be pinned and glued. The glue I will be using is a mixture that a Navajo Indian friend from high school came up with. It starts out with boiled and partially carbonized pinion pine pitch. Seems to work as well as the laha.
Again, thanks for the advice. This project may take a while to complete. But then, I like learning new things. Keeps the brain from turning to jello, or rock.:D
 
Originally posted by Seabee17 ......The glue ......starts out with boiled and partially carbonized pinion pine pitch. Seems to work as well as the laha.
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Details please.

Always interested in pitch recipes.

"partially carbonized" sounds interesting.

How?
 
One useful bit of advice I recall from one of Jim H's books is to be careful when scavenging steel. Stay away from any chromed-things - as when heated to forging-temperature the chrome can turn into toxic (fatal?) gas.

(I'm not a smith, and I haven't had an opportunity to try forging anything - I read Jim H's book on pattern-welding because I was interested to know the details of the technique. But I just recalled this safety tip. One may want to peruse the safety section of some forging book, or ask an experienced smith. I just recall being surprised how many seemingly-innocent materials that one might think could be easily re-smithed apparently release toxic gases when heated to forging-temp)...
 
One may want to peruse the safety section of some forging book, or ask an experienced smith.
Click to expand...

Better yet, invest in an expert smith. There are some things that are simply not worth doing on your own, and this is one of them. Get some knowledgeable help to get you going safely and efficiently, and then go ahead and bang on steel on your own for practice. Without the help you are just going to be stuck on a problem until you get frustrated. Learn the basic techniques, get comfortable with them, then modify them to suit your desire.

n2s
 
the modern method of stock removal followd by professional heat treat. A machinist buddy of mine makse his blades by shaping steel bars with grinders and stones (calle stock removal), then takes them to a commercial heat treatment place. They are fine blades.

The stock removal/heat treat method can yield some good results (Kris cutlery and many other maufacturers like Paul Chen use this method). This method does not leave muc forge time.

Japanes swords were rough forged, chiselled/filed into shape, then forged again and heat treated.

If you do use the forge, be sure to avoid "green coal". this noxious stuff gives of tons of monoxides and dioxides, burns dirty, and stinks reel bad.

Keith
 
I have forged an 18 inch Kukri, but it was hard work and I would have taken forever if I hadn't had a friend helping me with a sledge hammer. If you start with a nice big truck spring you'll have plenty of steel for the job, but the hard bit is narrowing it at the bend. Interestingly we found that the blade took on a sufficient bend as a side effect of using a fuller to stretch the steel in this area.

I learnt all I know from Jim Hrisoulas' excellent books like many people, and practising with a small blade first has to be good advice. Don't be put off, because it's good fun!

ps. I'm just about to try hardening my blade, so I hope I don't have to back to square one!
 
I think if I was going to try to harden something like a khuk would get a good hot fire, do a clay coat on spine of blade, and do a full quench. I prefer to edge quench knives that i make myself, but with that kind of bend, no good way to do it(except for the clay coat).

DOn't want it fully hardened of course.

COuld also try doing it like the kamis but know I don't know enough to do that.
 
ddean, I will have to get the ingredients from him. I've got a piece that he gave me, that's about the size of a small soap bar. To use, it gets heated with a heat gun until it drips. It is then applied. Kinda like hot glue. Hmmm, wonder if it could be used in a glue gun, if it was molded the same shape as the glue sticks?
 
etp777, what kind of clay is best for the coating before quenching? And how/when is it applied? This area may be the hardest for me to do, as I know very little about it.

beoram, I am staying away from any steel that is plated or coated with any other metal. Chrome, zinc, and any galvanizing does give off toxic fumes when heated. I think I'll stick with car and truck springs. Prefferably ones with visible rust on them, so that I know they are not plated with something.

Bill
 
Friend who got me started on knifemaking was using furnace cement for his clay quenching.

Here are a coupla more threads on it from our Shop Talk forum here:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=269352&highlight=clay

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=261451&highlight=clay

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=234019&highlight=clay

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=223131

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=222410

THere are more threads on this topic in SHop Talk forum too if you look around.


I still haven't quite mastered how you would quench the curved edge of a khukuri. What you might want to do is just throw some water or something in various possible quench pans, and without heating khuk up, figure outmethod that lets you quench the whole edge.

I'm not using a liquid quench anymore, using Goddard's Goop quench, so really don't htink there's a way to do it in that. I dunno. On eof htose things where I'd have to experiment I think.
 
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