- Joined
- Oct 25, 2004
- Messages
- 3,178
Light day at the Camp today. It was sunny and a bit hotter than I would've liked, but the skeeters minded their business for once and I got to chop some wood. Life is good.
I started off with reopening the fire road heading up to the Christmas tree plantation on the next lot. It was just scotch broom and saplings, nothing to write home about. No problems.
One of the benefits of working in an old growth forest is that there's always dead wood lying about, and some of it has been there long enough to get reasonably seasoned. It wasn't difficult to locate a fallen log that was nice and small to start out on.
Even the sapwood wasn't too bad. The thinner edge gives superior penetration to what I'm used to but didn't seem to sustain any damage. Just thick enough?
Since there were no problems I moved on to bigger game. This particular log was half buried in the ground so I simply pried it free and got to work.
I took frequent pauses to keep an eye on the edge. Again, there were no issues. The edge got quite hot on this one.
Since I already had the Foxy Folly embedded in that chunk of wood for photographic purposes, and the wood was nice and seasoned, I figured that I might as well split it. I found a fragment of a 2x6 that would make a suitable baton and had at it.
I hunted around for something a bit harder than wood.
That used to be a cinderblock. No problems with using the spine as an impact tool. Later, Gunnerike and myself had a bit of an argument about something sticking out of the ground. He thought it was rusty metal. I thought it was a rock. I smashed the end off with the Folly to validate my position. It was a rock. The spine did pick up some minor stippling from smashing up cinderblocks and such but it's nothing that will affect the integrity of the khuk. I wasn't able to effectively photograph it.
It wouldn't be a day in the woods without hamming it up for the camera. Unfortunately, I'd left the mask at home.
That hamon is something else, huh? Sher outdid himself on the heat treat with this one. As usual, the frog fits a USGI pistol belt perfectly. (One of my favorite things about these scabbards. Did someone send the sarkis a web belt as a pattern?)
The edge picked up a bit of toothiness again; the flats got plenty of scratches and scuffs. Stropping got the edge polished again. That nick that it'd picked up on the chair is pretty much gone. The blade remained straight despite my prying. The tip suffered slightly more toothiness than the sweet spot but stropping alone was sufficient to repair it - it just took a few more passes than the rest did. The area just ahead of the cho is noticably softer and is difficult to strop due to the radius of the curve so I've decided to leave it toothy - that's now the slicing area.
The edge didn't shave at the end of the day, even after some chakma work. It doesn't have the "magic edge" that my BGRS has. It does, however, have a very good edge. After a slight loss in sharpness it doesn't seem to decrease any further. Stropping was all that was required to get it back to where it was supposed to be.
The handle has a hairline crack proceeding a quarter of the length of the handle, starting from the bolster. It's small enough that I may not have noticed it before. There appears to be a laha patch near the base of it (I'd assumed that it was a dark spot in the wood but looking more closely, I can see it for what it is) so the folks at the shop may have known that it was a potential problem from the start. The handle's on its third coat of Ballistol and appears to be soaking it up like a sponge so I'm going to wait on this one. If it lengthens or widens it'll get glued. I doubt that I could get a significant amount of adhesive in it as it is now. As it stands, I'm not even able to photograph it - far too narrow.
Also regarding the handle, it's nearly perfect for my hands. The ring fits securely between my ring and pinky fingers. This is the first occasion in recent memory where I spent some time chopping without rounding off the point first. No hot spots, no blisters...merely perfection. If you have small hands, YMMV but it's always easier to remove wood from a handle than to put it back on. Bigger is better.
IIRC Yangdu specified that the Follies weren't intended for very hard use (although she me have been referring to the longer variants) so I'd recommend caution if you're planning something along those lines. Mine is holding up very well thus far but we probably need a more statistically significant amount in circulation before we can say anything for sure.
But this one? It's a keeper, brass fittings and habaki bolster be damned.
Me likey.
I started off with reopening the fire road heading up to the Christmas tree plantation on the next lot. It was just scotch broom and saplings, nothing to write home about. No problems.
One of the benefits of working in an old growth forest is that there's always dead wood lying about, and some of it has been there long enough to get reasonably seasoned. It wasn't difficult to locate a fallen log that was nice and small to start out on.
Even the sapwood wasn't too bad. The thinner edge gives superior penetration to what I'm used to but didn't seem to sustain any damage. Just thick enough?
Since there were no problems I moved on to bigger game. This particular log was half buried in the ground so I simply pried it free and got to work.
I took frequent pauses to keep an eye on the edge. Again, there were no issues. The edge got quite hot on this one.
Since I already had the Foxy Folly embedded in that chunk of wood for photographic purposes, and the wood was nice and seasoned, I figured that I might as well split it. I found a fragment of a 2x6 that would make a suitable baton and had at it.
I hunted around for something a bit harder than wood.
That used to be a cinderblock. No problems with using the spine as an impact tool. Later, Gunnerike and myself had a bit of an argument about something sticking out of the ground. He thought it was rusty metal. I thought it was a rock. I smashed the end off with the Folly to validate my position. It was a rock. The spine did pick up some minor stippling from smashing up cinderblocks and such but it's nothing that will affect the integrity of the khuk. I wasn't able to effectively photograph it.
It wouldn't be a day in the woods without hamming it up for the camera. Unfortunately, I'd left the mask at home.
That hamon is something else, huh? Sher outdid himself on the heat treat with this one. As usual, the frog fits a USGI pistol belt perfectly. (One of my favorite things about these scabbards. Did someone send the sarkis a web belt as a pattern?)
The edge picked up a bit of toothiness again; the flats got plenty of scratches and scuffs. Stropping got the edge polished again. That nick that it'd picked up on the chair is pretty much gone. The blade remained straight despite my prying. The tip suffered slightly more toothiness than the sweet spot but stropping alone was sufficient to repair it - it just took a few more passes than the rest did. The area just ahead of the cho is noticably softer and is difficult to strop due to the radius of the curve so I've decided to leave it toothy - that's now the slicing area.
The edge didn't shave at the end of the day, even after some chakma work. It doesn't have the "magic edge" that my BGRS has. It does, however, have a very good edge. After a slight loss in sharpness it doesn't seem to decrease any further. Stropping was all that was required to get it back to where it was supposed to be.
The handle has a hairline crack proceeding a quarter of the length of the handle, starting from the bolster. It's small enough that I may not have noticed it before. There appears to be a laha patch near the base of it (I'd assumed that it was a dark spot in the wood but looking more closely, I can see it for what it is) so the folks at the shop may have known that it was a potential problem from the start. The handle's on its third coat of Ballistol and appears to be soaking it up like a sponge so I'm going to wait on this one. If it lengthens or widens it'll get glued. I doubt that I could get a significant amount of adhesive in it as it is now. As it stands, I'm not even able to photograph it - far too narrow.
Also regarding the handle, it's nearly perfect for my hands. The ring fits securely between my ring and pinky fingers. This is the first occasion in recent memory where I spent some time chopping without rounding off the point first. No hot spots, no blisters...merely perfection. If you have small hands, YMMV but it's always easier to remove wood from a handle than to put it back on. Bigger is better.
IIRC Yangdu specified that the Follies weren't intended for very hard use (although she me have been referring to the longer variants) so I'd recommend caution if you're planning something along those lines. Mine is holding up very well thus far but we probably need a more statistically significant amount in circulation before we can say anything for sure.
But this one? It's a keeper, brass fittings and habaki bolster be damned.
Me likey.
It'll be wonderful if they're all like this one! 
