The Indonesian Knife and my Girlfriend

C

coote

Joined
Apr 3, 2006
Messages
1,465
I first met Charlotte over thirty years ago. I used to see her occasionally more recently when I travelled to the capital city. Naturally I always carried some sort of knife, and one time she expressed interest in a home-made sheath knife I had in my bag... and I ended up giving it to her (the knife, of course).

Knowing of my interest in knives, she asked me to fix a small knife that a friend had given her.

This knife was bought in Indonesia. The original handle was not particularly robust... as I recall it was made from wood and wrapped in some sort of heavy aluminium sheet. I think that it was claimed that the blade was made from a car spring.

Anyway, she got the knife to me (she lived a long distance away), and I fitted a new handle made from red deer antler. The tang that goes into the handle is very small.

Charlotte came to live with me a while after my wife and I separated, so now I get to use the little Indonesian knife. It has done quite a bit of work with its new handle now, and it is still holding together well. It is surprisingly robust (although I would not recommend the thin blade for batoning work :) )

The shape is practical. The wide blade helps to compensate for it being so thin. The tapered point is good for doing some jobs like taking curved slices throught fruit and vegetables (like cutting the pips from a quartered apple).

It rusts, but it takes a very good edge.
IndonesianKnife.jpg
 
That is a nice looking blade. Spring steels are excellent for blade materials, most leave them a little soft but they still work well there. Rust is an issue on acidic foods but sharpening it pretty trivial with them anyway. Very nice job on the grip, it really suits the blade, both speak of natural and significant use.

-Cliff
 
I've no doubt that the blade could be changed by heat treating, but of course I'd have to remove it from the handle.

But it isn't too bad as it is currently. The blade has quite a spring to it and it holds a good enough edge for the kitchen.

I think that often I would choose to have a slightly softer blade, than a thin hard blade. It may need to be sharpened a bit more often, but it is unlikely to snap when it is bent.

One of the toughest jobs in our kitchen is cutting up a new hard-skinned pumpkin. It would be easy to snap a hard blade doing this.

When you think about hardening and tempering cutting tools it can seem a bit odd that cold chisels (which can cut steel) and wood saws (which do a lot of work) are often tempered to be softer than a knife blade.
 
I have some very thin and very hard knives and they work very well for precision cutting where you are applying no lateral load to the knife. However not all cutting is like this and for a general use knife where not everyone is so discriminating it isn't ideal. In general most kitchen foods are really soft and not abrasive and I doubt that there is a problem in keeping the blade working sharp.

-Cliff
 
When I was a kid, I'm familiar with this type of knives; used them to make my own toys from banana leave, bamboo, and wood. Same blade shape, but usually has very short handle. I love the blade shape. Convex grind, soft steel, makes it easy to sharpen freehand. I have not used this type of knives since then, and I become more familiar with stainless steel knives. But quite recently something make me want to go back to the locally made traditional knives, so I bought a golok, which performs pretty good, the blade is tough although not that hard.

When I broke one of my stainless steel kitchen knife about three weeks ago, I replaced it with this carbon blade type knife. I have to go to an agricultural hardware at the local traditional market to find one. It came with the same old blade design - only thinner, simple leather sheath, and again short handle. It was not sharp, but it only took about 15 minutes to make it sharp.

So far it performs well, and best of all, it brings back my childhood memories.
 
That is interesting Danielp. Where did you grow up? Where are you living now?
 
danielp said:
Hi Coote, I grew up and still live in Indonesia.
Click to expand...

This is so cool!. I love the diversity in this little community of ours here we call BF.com!.:thumbup: :cool: Great thread too.:D
 
Yes... I think a shorter handle could compensate for a weaker blade or tang.

Now that I have come to think about it a bit, I reckon that for many jobs my hand often comes down right over the base of the blade...especially when I am doing intricate jobs with the point of any knife. In cases like this there would be quite a bit of unnecessary handle protruding from my hand.
 
Danielp ? what is your method to freehand sharpen a convex edge ? Do you use a different technique for an axe or kitchen knife ?

Coote ? I still like the job you did . The longer handle is esthetically pleasing . It also give you a bit more reach .
 
My method of freehand sharpening convex edge is similar with the one for sharpening in hard surface in this link, it works great: http://www.mhcable.com/~yocraft/sosak/convex.htm

I'm not familiar with axe, so I don't know, but I think the same method will work. Almost all of my knives that sharpened freehand become convex over time, although I did not intend to, I guess that's due to inconsistence angle during sharpening.
 
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