- Joined
- Dec 28, 2003
- Messages
- 4,793
Thought someone might learn from a couple of mistakes I made just in the last two days; at least the new guys might. I'm sure everyone else already knows this stuff so I guess I'm slow to learn.
An 18" Dui Chirra that I had received had some minor scratches across one side near the spine of the blade. No worries, I put on an 8" buffing wheel that I use with Red Rouge, added some new compound, and went to polishing. The scratches came out nicely, and I was about to turn the buffer off when I noticed a few more minor scratches down by the edge of the blade. Rather than doing what I KNOW to be correct and holding the cutting edge down and away from the rotation of the buffer, or at least vertically in line with the wheel, for some dumbass reason I held the edge UP. I actually got away with this for about 10 seconds, and just as I was about to pull the edge away from the downward rotation of the buffer, the wheel grabbed the sharp edge, which proceeded to shred my new buffing wheel into a thousand threads. What was left of the wheel then grabbed the edge of the blade and spun it around in my hand and slammed the cutting edge up into the cast iron underside of the buffer. DOH!
Now my beautiful new khuk had 3 nice dented rolls in the blade. I thought I was going to be sick looking at the damage, and of course felt like a total noob.
In any case I was lucky, as using a large 12" long burnisher (like the chakma only more so) with the khuk in a padded vise I was able to get the edge almost exactly back in line with a half-hours worth of effort. Thank God it was a solid edge as the whack it took into the buffer body was tremendous. Finally a resharpening removed all the incriminating evidence and it looks as good as new.
Luckily for me also I was wearing gloves. If the khuk had spun in my hand any differently, it could have taken a finger off or other bits of my arm, and / or ruined the khuk as well, which would have been even worse! Just a word to the wise.
SECOND thing happened this morning. I have always thought of the loose scabbards on some of these khuks as only a minor irritation. Sometimes I fix them with a leather glue-in and sometimes I don't. This morning I was looking at a 14" BDC and set it down on the edge of the bookshelf. It started to fall and I grabbed for it and got the sheath no problem, but the handle was pointed down and the loose knife in the scabbard kept on falling. My little finger and index finger were under the mouth of the sheath, and of course for once Bura had decided to give one of his knives a razors edge! As it fell it sliced neatly across the first pads of both fingers. Ouch.
So, I am spending this morning hot gluing in black or brown leather shims into all the scabbards that I have been ignoring that are loose fitting! Don't have to bother with most of the old stuff I have, or anything by Sgt. Karka, but many of the others are hit or miss as to looseness.
It's funny, but not one HI sword I have has a loose scabbard, it's only some of the khuks. With the fat habaki bolsters you would think fitting a scabbard would be even easier (?), but not so.
Anyway, live and learn. If this thread prevents one of you from making the same mistakes it will be worth it. (Or I should say, if just one of you makes these same mistakes I'll feel better!
)
Regards,
Norm
An 18" Dui Chirra that I had received had some minor scratches across one side near the spine of the blade. No worries, I put on an 8" buffing wheel that I use with Red Rouge, added some new compound, and went to polishing. The scratches came out nicely, and I was about to turn the buffer off when I noticed a few more minor scratches down by the edge of the blade. Rather than doing what I KNOW to be correct and holding the cutting edge down and away from the rotation of the buffer, or at least vertically in line with the wheel, for some dumbass reason I held the edge UP. I actually got away with this for about 10 seconds, and just as I was about to pull the edge away from the downward rotation of the buffer, the wheel grabbed the sharp edge, which proceeded to shred my new buffing wheel into a thousand threads. What was left of the wheel then grabbed the edge of the blade and spun it around in my hand and slammed the cutting edge up into the cast iron underside of the buffer. DOH!
Now my beautiful new khuk had 3 nice dented rolls in the blade. I thought I was going to be sick looking at the damage, and of course felt like a total noob.
In any case I was lucky, as using a large 12" long burnisher (like the chakma only more so) with the khuk in a padded vise I was able to get the edge almost exactly back in line with a half-hours worth of effort. Thank God it was a solid edge as the whack it took into the buffer body was tremendous. Finally a resharpening removed all the incriminating evidence and it looks as good as new.
Luckily for me also I was wearing gloves. If the khuk had spun in my hand any differently, it could have taken a finger off or other bits of my arm, and / or ruined the khuk as well, which would have been even worse! Just a word to the wise.
SECOND thing happened this morning. I have always thought of the loose scabbards on some of these khuks as only a minor irritation. Sometimes I fix them with a leather glue-in and sometimes I don't. This morning I was looking at a 14" BDC and set it down on the edge of the bookshelf. It started to fall and I grabbed for it and got the sheath no problem, but the handle was pointed down and the loose knife in the scabbard kept on falling. My little finger and index finger were under the mouth of the sheath, and of course for once Bura had decided to give one of his knives a razors edge! As it fell it sliced neatly across the first pads of both fingers. Ouch.
So, I am spending this morning hot gluing in black or brown leather shims into all the scabbards that I have been ignoring that are loose fitting! Don't have to bother with most of the old stuff I have, or anything by Sgt. Karka, but many of the others are hit or miss as to looseness.
It's funny, but not one HI sword I have has a loose scabbard, it's only some of the khuks. With the fat habaki bolsters you would think fitting a scabbard would be even easier (?), but not so.
Anyway, live and learn. If this thread prevents one of you from making the same mistakes it will be worth it. (Or I should say, if just one of you makes these same mistakes I'll feel better!
)Regards,
Norm
