forging of a kukri machete

[Shane Wink]

Hello everyone, I have been a member here for a while but have not really posted anything so thought I would share my kukri machete build. Just started forging the blade out and the pics below show what I was able to get done yesterday.

When I was in Panama with Uncle Sam many moons ago I used a kukri machete and have never used another machete that chopped as well however I wanted one with quality steel. I made a template of the machete and referred to it while forging.

I started with a flatbar of 5160 18" long 3/8's thick and 2.5" wide. The final.dimension of the machete will be 18.5" blade with a total lenght of 23.5" at the widest 3.25" and at its thinnest 1.75"

The last pic is on the 5th normalizing cycle and on the 6th cycle I placed it in vermicilite overnight. This morning I placed it in a vat of vinegar for a day or so because I will be at work the rest of the week and can't worrk on it again till Sunday as well as needing to order more suppiles from Tracy!

Hope you enjoy and feel free to ask questions or comment.

Shane

 

[Doug Lester]

Thanks, Shane, that look interesting. I've been thinking about trying a chopper like that also. Nive to see how you worked it out.

Doug

 

[Lagrange]

Looks good. It also looks like fun. Cant wait to see more of this!

Eric

 

[Shane Wink]

Just got the belts ordered from Tracy and looking to finish this puppy! Decided to make a stock removal one just like it and see which I like better. Prob wont be much of a differeance at my skill level but 2 machetes are better than one

 

[stekker]

Keep posting, i can't wait to see this one finished!

Gr. Theo.

 

[Shane Wink]

Here is the stock removal machete. 1/4" thick and 3/16ths oversize at the edge. 5160 as well. It will be Sunday before I can post anymore pics as I will be at work

 

[Drew Riley]

Lookin good!

 

[Shane Wink]

I got a lot done today and I am nearing the finish line with the machete. I started off the day with profiling the annealed and normalized blank I forged last week. I left approx 1/8 of steel along the belly to protect the edge that lies within when its hardened later. Most of the grinding was done to shape the handle. Once I was satisfied with the handle and profile it was time to grind and draw file the flats, Oh joy !

Once the flats were done, the tang tapered and the primary bevels were set I drilled 3 holes for the handle that will be attached with SS corby pins and a 4th hole that will be the throng hole. Now look close in the pic and you will see four holes, the top hole will be the throng hole!

The guy helping me with this project is Todd Yelverton and he specializes in machetes. He was the one that talked me into placing the throng hole 3/8 of an inch above the handle. This limits the machete from slipping out of the hand and swinging back in to you as well as provides a brake for the flicking action when using the machete correctly with just your thumb and index finger chocking the handle. I used several of his blades utilizing the throng as posted above and was very surprised as well as convinced of how well it preformed or rather how well it out performed the lanyard being drilled in the tail of the tang. More on this with pics later.

The hardening phase was flawless! I used the gas forge to bring the steel up after warming the forge. This is to minimize the thermal shock of the steel. After a minute or so of that I turned the gas back on and with a neutral flame brought the entire blade to nonmagnetic and quenched in super quench heated to 120*. I will be using a salt bath in the future to marquench @ 400* instead of oil. Molton salt is easier to use and a more consistent medium to use than an oven or air for heat treating just a blade or too.

Here are two pics of the blade after it was hardened. Notice the blade is pretty clean, which I am told is a good sign that the blade did in fact harden but to be certain I used a HRC file rated for 65 RC and it could not scratch it anywhere except the corner of the handle where the tongs held the blade.

So we are good to go on to tempering which it is doing right now in the oven. I started at 325 and after one hour I used the 60RC file and it would not scratch it so I bumped the temp up 25 degrees and waited another hour. After this hour the file did barley scratch the edge and the 55RC would not scratch it so I know that my edge is between 55 RC and 60RC but since the metal is a straw color and the 60 RC file will barely scratch it I suspect it is @ 60 to 59 RC which is what I want.

Later in the week , most likely after Christmas I will finish the blade out and have some action pics ready to go! Thanks for reading this far!