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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is $300 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Speaking of kardas...
- Thread starter Ripper
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It's a fact that married men live longer, but only because women have figured out a way to prolong their suffering.
Sarge
Sarge
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Wooooeeeee!! Just picked up some files that are destined to become some very nice knives. My favorites, JK "Sunflower" files, made in India. They're carried by Ace Hardware under the brand name "Vermont American" (go figure). I've tried a variety of files from different sources and found that, of the modern files, the cheaper ones like these from India are a perfectly good source of raw material. No complicated alloys, just good honest carbon steel. Of course, the place to really find files is flea markets/swap meets. Look for old Nicholson files. If you find a big smooth/bastard Nicholson marked "Black Diamond" on both sides let me know, and I'll pay you four times what you paid for it. I could make a knife from that steel that would filet a firebreathing dragon.
Sometime in the future I'll be able to say, "I've got this special antler handled bowie" ~or~ "I've got this special ivory handled neck knife". Good googely moogely.
Sarge
Sometime in the future I'll be able to say, "I've got this special antler handled bowie" ~or~ "I've got this special ivory handled neck knife". Good googely moogely.
Sarge
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Sarge, when you finally decide to hang up your AF cap we'll give you a job at BirGorkha. India is only a hundred miles or so away and we can get you all the files you want.
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I greatly appreciate your offer Uncle, there is much I could learn there.
Sarge
Sarge
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LOL!
I recently bought a coarse half-round one of those to shape handles. Mis-placed a Nicholson, but knew it would turn up, so not willing to shell out for another. Got a good laugh myself over the names.
Of course the other file did show...I put a handle on it--slightly harder to mis-place that way.
Originally posted by Sylvrfalcn
Here's a pic of one of my homemade kardas next to the one from my Bura Siru. Mine's made from an old file, ground freehand on a 29 dollar bench grinder from Tractor Supply, and fitted with a handle of French Boxwood. Total cost of the little knife, about a buck and a quarter.
Sarge
And tell us again how you heat treated this after you shaped it?
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I picked up a few files at Ace hardware too. One of them is sharpened, polished, and waiting for a handle and sheath, looks a lot like Dan Dennehy's old triangular bladed hideout knife. Except longer. Just about right size for insertion into ears and noses.
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John, I have this hi-tech heat treatment apparatus known as my kitchen oven. Have to experiment to get the temperature right, so I won't mention what temperature I go to. Scared if I say something like,"crank it up to 450 degrees for twenty minutes", that somebody will wind up doing exactly that with different results. Watch the steel, it'll tell you when it's ready by turning colors. I don't temper past a dark straw yellow, about the color of a good lager beer.
My methods are kind of crude and primitive, but ask anybody who owns one of my knives (Pappy, Berk, I think Uncle Bill even has one tucked away somewhere)what kind of edge they take and how well they hold it. I guess what works, works, and I don't try and analyze it too much.
Sarge
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Greg, I grind first, then do the temper. The heat treatment to draw the brittleness from the blade has the side benefit of relieving any stresses caused by the grinding. I'd better hush before I start to think I know what I'm talking about.
I know what you're thinking, that's some pretty tedious work grinding a file at full hardness, let alone strictly by hand/eyeball on a 6" wheel bench grinder. I never said I was smart. In seriousness, if I were going to be doing much of it, I'd set up a gas forge so I could anneal the files, then grind (maybe even forge?) them, reharden, and temper. If that were the deal, I'd also probably migrate to knife blank material that was less work than files. You have to grind all the teeth off a file before you even begin to make a blade from it.
Still, I just made a nice 4 3/4", fully convex ground, blade, last night, so I can try out some wood Pappy gave me for a handle.
Sarge
I know what you're thinking, that's some pretty tedious work grinding a file at full hardness, let alone strictly by hand/eyeball on a 6" wheel bench grinder. I never said I was smart. In seriousness, if I were going to be doing much of it, I'd set up a gas forge so I could anneal the files, then grind (maybe even forge?) them, reharden, and temper. If that were the deal, I'd also probably migrate to knife blank material that was less work than files. You have to grind all the teeth off a file before you even begin to make a blade from it.
Still, I just made a nice 4 3/4", fully convex ground, blade, last night, so I can try out some wood Pappy gave me for a handle.
Sarge
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"Please post some pics when you get the new knife finished. "
Here's the knife (sorry not a very good pic) along side of the little boxwood handled karda already pictured in this thread.
That wood pappy gave me is some mysterious hardwood from the Amazon. It's incredibly hard, my hands are sore from whittling the handle (since I don't have any power tools except my grinder, I roughed out the block of wood for the handle with my khukuri).
edited to add: Note the way the light plays on the blade of that new knife and you can see I wasn't joking about it being full convex ground. By the way Bruise, it slices paper like a laser beam.
Here's the knife (sorry not a very good pic) along side of the little boxwood handled karda already pictured in this thread.
That wood pappy gave me is some mysterious hardwood from the Amazon. It's incredibly hard, my hands are sore from whittling the handle (since I don't have any power tools except my grinder, I roughed out the block of wood for the handle with my khukuri).
edited to add: Note the way the light plays on the blade of that new knife and you can see I wasn't joking about it being full convex ground. By the way Bruise, it slices paper like a laser beam.
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Here's a close up (sorry, bad light) of the handle. Pappy told me the Amazon natives call it "Eetay" or something like that.
Sarge
Sarge
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That's another fine looking knife Sarge.
I have a puukko with a similar style handle.
It has a rounded off triangular cross section and is very comfortable.
I bet your knife there would be just as at home in a dangler sheath or
tucked into the top of a boot. Nice work.
Regards,
Greg
I have a puukko with a similar style handle.
It has a rounded off triangular cross section and is very comfortable.
I bet your knife there would be just as at home in a dangler sheath or
tucked into the top of a boot. Nice work.
Regards,
Greg
Rusty sometimes I think between you Uncle Bill, Sarge and Pappy There is more being forged than just steel on these pages. As far as pushing words around, words are the coals used to forge mens hearts granted its harder to see tangible results but then again sometimes hearts can be harder than steel to shape. Guess thats why I'm stuck on this forum. Good men, Good advice, Good times.