My farrier gave me a bunch of quality rasp files recently, and after looking the brand up on line (Bellota files). other makers have said these make good blades. My buddy wants a Saex made as he has Viking in his family tree, so I though I'd quickly forge a blade and throw a handle on it and go to town chopping something to see how the file held up to heat treatment.. After smashing this 4x4 as hard as I could and picking away with the tip, I'm pretty impressed with the way it turned out (edge wise). Now the handle and forge time didn't exceed 6 hrs so I'm going to pick this up another day and refine the handle a bit more and maybe finish the blade up a bit, as it went from tempering to a quick edge for testing haha kind of like the over all look though, kind of an old school jungle knife maybe.. 14'' over all, 10 "blade first time doing a hidden tang too
Cool chopper! How was the first hidden tang as an experience Parker? Any obstacles or things you'll do different, or was it easy going?
Actually it wasn't too bad. I mean I raced through this knife to get to testing it, as that was the sole perpous of this build. But if you get the brass bolster good and tight and the spot where the tang meets the blade. ( sorry for lack of terminology) square and flat. The rest is pretty easy going. I used a irwin quick grip wood clamp to hold it well the glue set. Check out dcknives blog as dan has a great wright up on steps to take makin one.
