Originally posted by Kmark
Do khuks NEED to be that thick? For that matter, does any knife need to be that thick? It seems to me that battle khuks (the ones meant for combat, obviously) were thinner but more wide...is this true, or am I just imagining it?
I think the fact that HI khuks tend to be considerably thicker than their antique predecessors is the result of a change in the traditional time/materials equation.
Until comparatively recently, one of the main perameters of blade design was the difficulty of making high carbon steel. The traditional Japanese sword; the pattern-welded or Damascus blade; the old-time axehead made by forgewelding a carbon steel edge into a wrought iron head; these are examples of the lengths old-time craftsmen had to go to in order to create a hard steel cutting edge in the days before you could just fax an order to Admiral Steel and quote an AISI number.
Accordingly, the village kami couldn't afford to 'waste' precious high carbon steel. He made thin blades, and fullered them to spread the steel out without sacrificing strength or rigidity. All this, of course, took a lot of time and a lot of laborious work with the big hammer. But that was OK, because demand was limited to the village he lived in, where folks didn't tend to buy a new khuk every week...
Then along came the motor industry, with its amazing by-product; 5160 spring steel, the best material in history for forging large blades. Scrap truck springs mean that quality steel is now plentiful. However, truck springs are big and thick, and it takes a long time and a lot of effort to draw it down, especially with a small forge and a sledgehammer (as opposed to an electric-fan-powered forge and a power hammer). Meanwhile, the HI kamis are turning out khuks in umprecedented numbers, for export. They don't have time to draw down a half-inch-plus truck spring to between three-eighths and one-quarter; and they're no longer under such intense pressure to conserve material. Hence, khuks with thick spines.
Which is no bad thing, as we all know; they don't break, they don't bend, and the skill of the smiths mean the extra weight is made useful rather than cumbersome because they know how to design a perfectly balanced blade.
FWIW; it's not that easy to thicken up a leaf spring. Hammering on the spine of the spring tends to squash it up and therefore thicken it; but it also distorts it, so you have to lie it on the flat and even it up. When you do this, it draws out ie becomes longer and thinner; this is the essence of the process of drawing down. Uniformly 'jumping up' something like a leafspring to make it thicker without losing the *width* you need for shaping the blade is a tricky business, and would take an inordinate amount of time & effort. What you'd be likely to end up with would be a half-inch spring turned into a three-quarter square section bar, which you'd then have to fuller out to get the width you wanted. Much easier just to comb through the scrap pile and find a thicker piece of truck spring.
) will work as a lever to improve control and balance while still keeping the blade from slipping away.
