My latest work for the past few weekends..

I planned to make a golok out of H-13 steel, the H-13 would form bainite easily and Bainite are very tough steel type, just right for a golok or machete.

Design stage


First grinding


Drilling the tang


Scalloping the tang to shed some weight


After heat treating


Preparing for scales


Ugh.. cedar grinding is definitely disgusting.. even with a facemask, I ended up coughing for a couple of hours afterwards..
Love the look of the scales tho..






Here is after a coat of linseed oil






Still to do:
Need to clean up the blade a bit more, give it a final polish and a good edge.
Then to make a sheath for it... I think it would be leather sheath.

very nice as always.

Looks great Gelan!

Love it! Great craftmanship gelandangan!

Lovely wood! Nice blade shape, wondering what you use to shape the metal with. Angle grinder? die grinder? bench grinder? It's just that you have a very steady hand.


Suz

Hi Suz

I modified a linisher (belt grinder) to do the job.

LOL I have steady hands because I dont do ...

You know Geland, if you're not bloody careful you'll get good at this knife making caper

Brilliant job Gelan. I like the shape, should be very versatile mate. Those scales look great as well, very nice grain. What do you use to hold the scales together mate?

I gotta get me a linisher...beats the bench grinder then file for shaping.

Great work...

"Scalloping the tang to shed some weight"
do you fill it up afterwards with epoxy or so? I don't think it's easy to shape the wood on the inside till it fits the steel when it got the shape you made.
Or you are not bothered with the strength and allow some airspace between wood and steel?
But the shape and result is very nice. You can scare some rabbits with that

The scales are glued on with epoxy,and the holes are filled with it too.
The reason why there are so many pins is so that the scales attachment get more strength around the edges where it is actually joined on.

You do some mighty fine work. My granddad on my mothers side taught me a little about making knives. He had a belt grinder that he made to grind the blades. I do mine by hand with no power tools but it takes forever. I don't get to do anything until my darn garage and shop are finished. I can't even reload til I get them finished.

This is how the project ended up, The blade is packed and now is in the tender hands of Australian Post

I have had a lot of fun making this golok, I do wish there are a bit more time so I could actually make timber sheath like what it should be for this style of golok.
But due to time constraint, this is not realized.

Some statistics
Steel: H13 at about 55 HRC tested with RC files
Scale: Mackay Cedar
Sheath: Leather
Length overall: 340 mm
Blade: 180 mm
Flat ground, with convex cutting edge.

Looks like a sandwich knife...

You can spread the mayo on the bread and slice off some roast beast to go between the slices.

It is as beautiful as any table cutlery I've seen.

Great job of metal smithing.

that would be great as a cleaver to wack up mutton chops...mmmm Im getting hungry
nice work.