- Joined
- Jul 31, 2002
- Messages
- 2,954
Hi all. I posted this in the general forum as well, but figured it would be better where all the kukri fans hang out. If any of you have had different experiences with your own, please let me know.
I recently aquired a bare blade (the handle was broken off long ago) traditional long leaf kukri from Atlanta Cutlery. I got to stop by their showroom and handpick my blade, and also saw some of the other treasures they brought back. (anybody got an extra $35,000 burnin' a hole in your pocket? You can get a twelve pounder brass canon from the late 1700's, or another cannon was like $44,900) Anyway, when I got home I took a file to the edge of my blade, and found that it filed like brass. Dead soft. I guess that explains all the edge damage and bent blades I saw on the other kuks in the box. I'm currently trying to contact a bladesmith to see if he's willing to attempt to heat treat it before I make a traditional handle for it. But, I'm not getting my hopes up since a spark test revealed it's not even made of high carbon steel. (or at least not very high carbon)
On the plus side, I really like the shape, tapers, edge geometry, etc. of it. There was a fair amount of variance in these factors between all the blades they had available, as would be expected of work produced by individual smiths, but all looked good- just different.
So, I guess if anyone has already gone through this & found a smith who can harden these better, let me know.
edit:
Oh, since this is the HI forum, I don't mean to be impolite talking about their competition. So, if you're looking for a genuine 100+ year old kuk to admire, Atlanta Cutlery may be the way to go. But if you want a serious use knife, based on my one experience I might sooner look at HI.
I recently aquired a bare blade (the handle was broken off long ago) traditional long leaf kukri from Atlanta Cutlery. I got to stop by their showroom and handpick my blade, and also saw some of the other treasures they brought back. (anybody got an extra $35,000 burnin' a hole in your pocket? You can get a twelve pounder brass canon from the late 1700's, or another cannon was like $44,900) Anyway, when I got home I took a file to the edge of my blade, and found that it filed like brass. Dead soft. I guess that explains all the edge damage and bent blades I saw on the other kuks in the box. I'm currently trying to contact a bladesmith to see if he's willing to attempt to heat treat it before I make a traditional handle for it. But, I'm not getting my hopes up since a spark test revealed it's not even made of high carbon steel. (or at least not very high carbon)
On the plus side, I really like the shape, tapers, edge geometry, etc. of it. There was a fair amount of variance in these factors between all the blades they had available, as would be expected of work produced by individual smiths, but all looked good- just different.
So, I guess if anyone has already gone through this & found a smith who can harden these better, let me know.
edit:
Oh, since this is the HI forum, I don't mean to be impolite talking about their competition. So, if you're looking for a genuine 100+ year old kuk to admire, Atlanta Cutlery may be the way to go. But if you want a serious use knife, based on my one experience I might sooner look at HI.