- Joined
- Dec 27, 2010
- Messages
- 6,852
I've been working on a kukri (I use kukri instead of khukuri to indicate that it's a KLO, not a true kukri) for BePrepared, and I wanted to share my progress thus far, and also mention some of the lessons I learned for those who, like me, are very new to this whole process. Maybe you can learn from my mistakes, etc.
Anyways, I knew that BePrepared had been lusting after a Killa Zilla, but didn't have the budget, and I'd been thinking about doing a kukri myself, so I got in touch with him, and we put together a design, which I'm putting together for him at basically cost. He sent me a few pictures of things that he wanted, and I made a few changes here and there to make sure I could fit the design onto my stock, and ended up with this:
The pattern is 18" OAL (compare to a Himalayan Imports 18" Ultimate Fighter), and yes, I'm so ghetto that I did it on a couple pieces of computer paper taped together:
Next I cut it out, so I can trace it onto the steel. I'm not too concerned with precision, because I'm cutting these out with an angle grinder, and that doesn't exactly lend itself to precision. Metal-cutting bandsaws are expensive...
After tracing it onto the steel (3" 5160 from Aldo, aka the NJ Steel Baron), I clamp it to my bench and carefully do a rough cutout of the shape with my angle grinder, with frequent dips into a quench bucket (I use one of the orange home depot buckets, full of water). I've discovered that there seems to be a natural stance for angle grinder cutting, with my elbows locked up against my body. That way I get more stability, and have a LOT more control, so there's a much lower chance of hurting myself. We like to avoid injuring ourselves. Not sure if anyone else does it this way, but hey, it works for me. I'd welcome any tips from those who also use angle grinders (if there are any) to rough cut their shape.
I touch up any roughness with my bench grinder, 1x30 belt sander, and a little on the dremel with sanding drum for the hard-to-reach places. Comes out looking like this:
Next I throw on the 60 grit ceramic belts onto my 1x30, and put on an initial bevel. Now, I'm using a Rikon 1x30, which has a pretty short platen, and I'm not confident in my skills at making a replacement platen. What that means, is that for tall blades, if I go above the platen, I get ugly gouge marks at the top of the platen. That's very annoying, and very difficult to get out, so I ended up grinding this one upside down, with the edge facing down. It's a lot harder that way to do right, but I think I got the process down fairly well, having done the same thing on a couple chinese cleavers I made up for some of my family members. I periodically clean up the straightness using the disc portion of the belt sander.
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Over the next few days, I finish it to 400 grit or so:
Then it's off to Darrin Sanders for the heat treat. Darrin offers a fantastic heat treat service, and the blades I send off always end up capable of holding amazing edges. I requested that he do a clay temper on this one, just to see how it would turn out. At that point, I had no idea that 5160 is very difficult to get a hamon from. BePrepared wanted something like the two-tone from claudio-cas's kukri, which I also have drooled over on many an occasion, so we thought we'd experiment. I'm doing a lot of firsts here, but I figure, I can't be afraid to try new things, or I'll never progress as a maker. After just a short while (I think less than 2 weeks for the small batch I sent out this time), I got the blade back. Also, I want to give a shout out to Darrin for his generosity, as he also sent me a DVD entitled "Flat Grinding with Harvey Dean." It's been very informative, and I'm excited to put what I've learned from it to work. Darrin's been a fount of advice for me, and has really helped me progress as a maker. Although I do still occasionally forget to chamfer my screw-holes. Bah.
Anyways, it came back, and had a nice decarb pattern from the clay temper. I soaked the blade in white vinegar, and then buffed it, which gets a good amount of the decarb off. A word to the impatient. Don't go past halfway on the buffing wheel, especially if you have a cheap buffer. Mine was a cheapy from Harbor Freight, and it started wobbling when I was working on a wakizashi, and I ended up catching the back of the blade on the wheel, and ended up with a good cut in my hand as a result. Safety first! Also, I love my Mechanix M-Pact gloves. I'm pretty sure the rubber knuckle protection saved me from losing a finger.
Decarb pattern still present, I then touched the line up with some FeCl on some Q-tips, so I could get a better idea of what it would look like. Turns out that was a good idea. More on that later.
I then started the polishing process. LOTS of hand sanding, and some work on the slack part of the belt. I have very little wiggle room with my 1x30, so it's rather difficult. I alternate between the hand sanding and the belt, using lower grits for hand sanding than I use on the belts. Helps me remove scratches and all. I think this one's to around 400 grit again.
I put an edge on a bit earlier than some. Wanted to see how it was doing, and what my balance looks like, and whether I wanted to convex the shoulders more than I already was. I have a big piece of plywood that I use for testing chopping power. I use an 18" HI WWII for comparison, since that's one of the best choppers that I own. One full swing with each:
Well, alright then! Got about 3/4" better than the HI. Granted, the edge profile is different, but this blade chops better than any that I've made before. I'd say the balance isn't half bad. Finished polishing to 1500 grit.
Then I started the etching process, using NickWheeler's video in which one uses warm vinegar with some drops of dish soap to cut the surface tension, and a micarta stick and shop towels to rub it on. 4 hours later, I had a whole lot of nothing. Where did that hamon go? I had a little line from where I'd etched with FeCl before I started polishing, but I wasn't getting any real action. Well, I'm shooting for the two-tone look, and that's impossible to get at my skill level with this steel, it seems. So, back to the Q-tips and FeCl. That gave me a good faux hamon look. Next I roughed out some scales out of black/blue G10 (at BePrepared's request). Traced them out on some paper to get a comparable look, then cut out on the bandsaw, since my jigsaw didn't like the G10. Hard stuff to cut!
Next step, filework. I wanted to do something like a pattern I'd seen on one of Robert Carter's blades. Did the bigger grooves first. Did I mention that filework is hard? I feel like my forearm muscles are much buffer now. Especially since all I've got are the cheap diamond files from Harbor Freight.
More etching and polishing while I wait for my arms to recover, and you can see the faux hamon taking shape:
Then I finished up the filework. Not half bad, if I do say so myself.
Back to hand sanding. Man, I could probably spend months doing this. Etch is visible, and looks pretty okay.
Next I made sure the tops of my scales were clean and matched, since I won't be able to work that portion as much without risking scratching the blade. Then I epoxy the scales on, and cut some pins from some steel wire, and clamp them using a drill press vise. I protect my vise by wrapping some wax paper around it, and I usually wipe off as much epoxy as possible, and then oil it heavily before I put the wax paper on. Some of the wax paper inevitably sticks, but since I'm still going to be shaping and contouring it, that doesn't matter.
Here it's come out of the vise, and I've completed shaping, using my 4x36 HF sander, and a high speed dremel with sanding drum:
Next step, contouring. I use the roller on the sander to shape it into a simple contour with palm swell. I try to keep it fairly light so I can get it as close to round as possible, since I finish up with hand sanding, and if you press too hard, you scratch it, and that takes forever to get out.
Touched up the patina on the edge:
Next step, wet sanding with oil on the handle, will probably take it to 400 grit and call it good.
Anyways, that's the process I generally follow on my blades. I would welcome suggestions from experienced makers on how I can improve my end result, or my efficiency. So far, it's been working reasonably okay for me, but I love to try new things. Thanks for looking!
Anyways, I knew that BePrepared had been lusting after a Killa Zilla, but didn't have the budget, and I'd been thinking about doing a kukri myself, so I got in touch with him, and we put together a design, which I'm putting together for him at basically cost. He sent me a few pictures of things that he wanted, and I made a few changes here and there to make sure I could fit the design onto my stock, and ended up with this:
The pattern is 18" OAL (compare to a Himalayan Imports 18" Ultimate Fighter), and yes, I'm so ghetto that I did it on a couple pieces of computer paper taped together:
Next I cut it out, so I can trace it onto the steel. I'm not too concerned with precision, because I'm cutting these out with an angle grinder, and that doesn't exactly lend itself to precision. Metal-cutting bandsaws are expensive...
After tracing it onto the steel (3" 5160 from Aldo, aka the NJ Steel Baron), I clamp it to my bench and carefully do a rough cutout of the shape with my angle grinder, with frequent dips into a quench bucket (I use one of the orange home depot buckets, full of water). I've discovered that there seems to be a natural stance for angle grinder cutting, with my elbows locked up against my body. That way I get more stability, and have a LOT more control, so there's a much lower chance of hurting myself. We like to avoid injuring ourselves. Not sure if anyone else does it this way, but hey, it works for me. I'd welcome any tips from those who also use angle grinders (if there are any) to rough cut their shape.
I touch up any roughness with my bench grinder, 1x30 belt sander, and a little on the dremel with sanding drum for the hard-to-reach places. Comes out looking like this:
Next I throw on the 60 grit ceramic belts onto my 1x30, and put on an initial bevel. Now, I'm using a Rikon 1x30, which has a pretty short platen, and I'm not confident in my skills at making a replacement platen. What that means, is that for tall blades, if I go above the platen, I get ugly gouge marks at the top of the platen. That's very annoying, and very difficult to get out, so I ended up grinding this one upside down, with the edge facing down. It's a lot harder that way to do right, but I think I got the process down fairly well, having done the same thing on a couple chinese cleavers I made up for some of my family members. I periodically clean up the straightness using the disc portion of the belt sander.
Over the next few days, I finish it to 400 grit or so:
Then it's off to Darrin Sanders for the heat treat. Darrin offers a fantastic heat treat service, and the blades I send off always end up capable of holding amazing edges. I requested that he do a clay temper on this one, just to see how it would turn out. At that point, I had no idea that 5160 is very difficult to get a hamon from. BePrepared wanted something like the two-tone from claudio-cas's kukri, which I also have drooled over on many an occasion, so we thought we'd experiment. I'm doing a lot of firsts here, but I figure, I can't be afraid to try new things, or I'll never progress as a maker. After just a short while (I think less than 2 weeks for the small batch I sent out this time), I got the blade back. Also, I want to give a shout out to Darrin for his generosity, as he also sent me a DVD entitled "Flat Grinding with Harvey Dean." It's been very informative, and I'm excited to put what I've learned from it to work. Darrin's been a fount of advice for me, and has really helped me progress as a maker. Although I do still occasionally forget to chamfer my screw-holes. Bah.
Anyways, it came back, and had a nice decarb pattern from the clay temper. I soaked the blade in white vinegar, and then buffed it, which gets a good amount of the decarb off. A word to the impatient. Don't go past halfway on the buffing wheel, especially if you have a cheap buffer. Mine was a cheapy from Harbor Freight, and it started wobbling when I was working on a wakizashi, and I ended up catching the back of the blade on the wheel, and ended up with a good cut in my hand as a result. Safety first! Also, I love my Mechanix M-Pact gloves. I'm pretty sure the rubber knuckle protection saved me from losing a finger.
Decarb pattern still present, I then touched the line up with some FeCl on some Q-tips, so I could get a better idea of what it would look like. Turns out that was a good idea. More on that later.
I then started the polishing process. LOTS of hand sanding, and some work on the slack part of the belt. I have very little wiggle room with my 1x30, so it's rather difficult. I alternate between the hand sanding and the belt, using lower grits for hand sanding than I use on the belts. Helps me remove scratches and all. I think this one's to around 400 grit again.
I put an edge on a bit earlier than some. Wanted to see how it was doing, and what my balance looks like, and whether I wanted to convex the shoulders more than I already was. I have a big piece of plywood that I use for testing chopping power. I use an 18" HI WWII for comparison, since that's one of the best choppers that I own. One full swing with each:
Well, alright then! Got about 3/4" better than the HI. Granted, the edge profile is different, but this blade chops better than any that I've made before. I'd say the balance isn't half bad. Finished polishing to 1500 grit.
Then I started the etching process, using NickWheeler's video in which one uses warm vinegar with some drops of dish soap to cut the surface tension, and a micarta stick and shop towels to rub it on. 4 hours later, I had a whole lot of nothing. Where did that hamon go? I had a little line from where I'd etched with FeCl before I started polishing, but I wasn't getting any real action. Well, I'm shooting for the two-tone look, and that's impossible to get at my skill level with this steel, it seems. So, back to the Q-tips and FeCl. That gave me a good faux hamon look. Next I roughed out some scales out of black/blue G10 (at BePrepared's request). Traced them out on some paper to get a comparable look, then cut out on the bandsaw, since my jigsaw didn't like the G10. Hard stuff to cut!
Next step, filework. I wanted to do something like a pattern I'd seen on one of Robert Carter's blades. Did the bigger grooves first. Did I mention that filework is hard? I feel like my forearm muscles are much buffer now. Especially since all I've got are the cheap diamond files from Harbor Freight.
More etching and polishing while I wait for my arms to recover, and you can see the faux hamon taking shape:
Then I finished up the filework. Not half bad, if I do say so myself.
Back to hand sanding. Man, I could probably spend months doing this. Etch is visible, and looks pretty okay.
Next I made sure the tops of my scales were clean and matched, since I won't be able to work that portion as much without risking scratching the blade. Then I epoxy the scales on, and cut some pins from some steel wire, and clamp them using a drill press vise. I protect my vise by wrapping some wax paper around it, and I usually wipe off as much epoxy as possible, and then oil it heavily before I put the wax paper on. Some of the wax paper inevitably sticks, but since I'm still going to be shaping and contouring it, that doesn't matter.
Here it's come out of the vise, and I've completed shaping, using my 4x36 HF sander, and a high speed dremel with sanding drum:
Next step, contouring. I use the roller on the sander to shape it into a simple contour with palm swell. I try to keep it fairly light so I can get it as close to round as possible, since I finish up with hand sanding, and if you press too hard, you scratch it, and that takes forever to get out.
Touched up the patina on the edge:
Next step, wet sanding with oil on the handle, will probably take it to 400 grit and call it good.
Anyways, that's the process I generally follow on my blades. I would welcome suggestions from experienced makers on how I can improve my end result, or my efficiency. So far, it's been working reasonably okay for me, but I love to try new things. Thanks for looking!
As far as finer sleeves, I cut strips just a little wider that the drum and tape them to the drum and wind them in the proper direction and just let the end flap. When the paper gets dull just tear the dull paper off and go again. That way you can go all the way to 2500 if you want. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you. 
