Mecha sent me some titanium...

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Lorien said:
take that you bastard!
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You know in Canada they have this thing called a chainsaw. It's like a bunch of little titanium swords on a steel rope that goes around in a circle and chops up trees real quick. 😆 HAHA!

Nice work on that little ti billet! You got to see how crude they are before being turned into a blade. That alloy is really great, don't you think? What do you think?
 
MattinLA said:
Titanium kukri?

Just dreaming...
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Ya I'm bracing myself for the day I finally get cornered and surrounded, and they say, "Look man, we've been politely asking for a ti kukri for years now, and we're done playing nice. Now make us the titanium kukri or else." And then I guess it will be titanium kukri time.
 
Mecha said:
You know in Canada they have this thing called a chainsaw. It's like a bunch of little titanium swords on a steel rope that goes around in a circle and chops up trees real quick. 😆 HAHA!

Nice work on that little ti billet! You got to see how crude they are before being turned into a blade. That alloy is really great, don't you think? What do you think?
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funny you should say that; I was running my 555 with a brand new X-Cut chain and took it into a rock and that was that. Those chains are a bastard to sharpen so I put it aside, got the chipper fired up and machete'd all the stuff going into the chipper

there was a fair amount, not a ton, of stuff that got cut with this blade. I never did get quite the edge on it I wanted before putting it to work, since the burr is so tough to remove. The edge is actually slightly better than when I started in that I think I smashed the burr off finally. The flexibility was a concern of mine from the beginning, but so long as I avoid glancing blows it's not a problem in the least, and likely of benefit. I like that I can work it hard and put it away wet

there are pumpkins need murdered, and I'd like to figure out a way to film a cut which shows the blade flexing through it...
 
Lorien said:
funny you should say that; I was running my 555 with a brand new X-Cut chain and took it into a rock and that was that. Those chains are a bastard to sharpen so I put it aside, got the chipper fired up and machete'd all the stuff going into the chipper

there was a fair amount, not a ton, of stuff that got cut with this blade. I never did get quite the edge on it I wanted before putting it to work, since the burr is so tough to remove. The edge is actually slightly better than when I started in that I think I smashed the burr off finally. The flexibility was a concern of mine from the beginning, but so long as I avoid glancing blows it's not a problem in the least, and likely of benefit. I like that I can work it hard and put it away wet

there are pumpkins need murdered, and I'd like to figure out a way to film a cut which shows the blade flexing through it...
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One of my favorite ways to remove the burr is to slice up a thick piece of leather several times. Most everyone agrees that these ti machetes seem to get better and better with use, anyway.

If you can impart a slight distal thickness taper into the blade (assuming you didn't already) it will reduce flexy floppiness and impart some extra stiffness, and help control the shock of any glancing blows. I know the billet is so thin and light already though, might want to just retain the extra grams.
 
Mecha said:
One of my favorite ways to remove the burr is to slice up a thick piece of leather several times. Most everyone agrees that these ti machetes seem to get better and better with use, anyway.

If you can impart a slight distal thickness taper into the blade (assuming you didn't already) it will reduce flexy floppiness and impart some extra stiffness, and help control the shock of any glancing blows. I know the billet is so thin and light already though, might want to just retain the extra grams.
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Idk if Mine, from David Mary David Mary flexes much? Not sure if they are the same size or same batch of materials as this one?
I think I felt a couple "twinges" from really hard hits. That might of been some shock absorbtion, perhaps....... But the log i chopped in half was Maple. So it was probably more intense.

I'll try some leather, and keep everyone posted how this blade preforms. So far I've had two sessions, and maybe more chopping tonight....ha
 
Crag the Brewer said:
Idk if Mine, from David Mary David Mary flexes much? Not sure if they are the same size or same batch of materials as this one?
I think I felt a couple "twinges" from really hard hits. That might of been some shock absorbtion, perhaps....... But the log i chopped in half was Maple. So it was probably more intense.

I'll try some leather, and keep everyone posted how this blade preforms. So far I've had two sessions, and maybe more chopping tonight....ha
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The two billets were virtually identical. I'm working on one now that's also from the same batch of billets, although I forged in more of a curvature. As a material it is stiffer than many expect, but that blade should easily be able to bend to 90 degrees and return true. Go ahead, step on it and try it. 😁

The taper thing is really about harmonic resonance, and deadening or controlling shock waves that can collide in random places otherwise (as well as dynamic balance). A sword blade can be thought of as being like the arm of a longbow, or stiff, flexible stick. In the millisecond of contact during a slicing cut it is also beneficial for the blade to get thinner toward the tip, as the blade pulls through the material being cut. This is all minutia, but these little things add up and account for a lot of the subtleties that I think can make a long blade really superior. The shorter and more knife-like a blade gets, the less it matters or effects things. I've also seen and used some long blades that made such great use of fullers that the blade behaved a lot like it was distally-tapered in thickness.

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I'm really pleased with the blade geometry, I definitely won't be changing anything. I would like to make another one though

just to be clear; the flexibility was a concern I had before making and then using this thin material. Now that I've had a couple short sessions to become acquainted with it, I regard those concerns as unfounded.

The blade feels very natural, with the balance point pretty much in the ricasso area. The swedge removed somewhere in the range of .3- .4oz and judging strictly by feel, that was the right move.
 
Lorien said:
I'm really pleased with the blade geometry, I definitely won't be changing anything. I would like to make another one though

just to be clear; the flexibility was a concern I had before making and then using this thin material. Now that I've had a couple short sessions to become acquainted with it, I regard those concerns as unfounded.

The blade feels very natural, with the balance point pretty much in the ricasso area. The swedge removed somewhere in the range of .3- .4oz and judging strictly by feel, that was the right move.
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It looks great to me. Amazing how much a small change such as adding a swedge can change the feel of something this long and thin. Dr. Keff-dogg milled a long, fairly wide fuller into both sides of a billet similar to these, quite a thing considering it's only 1/8" thick to begin with. The middle part between the fullers had to have been only 1/32" thick. The fullers totally changed the blade and I don't just mean in weight reduction. It was like a completely different animal, behaving differently than any other I've handled.

What would you like to do differently on another one? Also, did you step on it and bend it 90 degrees yet? 🤣
 
I don't know if I'd do anything significantly different, just better. Did a bunch of things I never did before on this and now I've done it once I can make improvements
I'd like to anodize it
 
Lorien said:
I don't know if I'd do anything significantly different, just better. Did a bunch of things I never did before on this and now I've done it once I can make improvements
I'd like to anodize it
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Cool, gotcha.
 
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