Replacing my broken Web-Tex golok............. STKR style!

[CanadianMike]

Ok, so last camping trip, after much chopping and batoning firewood, the tang of my issue golok broke, Some of you know through me, they stamped a rectangular hole in between the rivet holes in the handle, which is purely stupid, and mine broke top and bottom of the front rivet, with the upper piece (about 1/4" wide) fell out at the campsite. Anyways, this is a proven design and when rebevelled right, it's a beauty of a camp knife for chopping, splitting, etc.

So, here's the progress since Friday, using 3/16" (4.5mm for you blokes) O-1 steel, hardened and tempered softer than my knives, with some cool additions to the design. Figured I'd post it here as you guys know this as a staple of British gear and a commonly found tool over there, but is rare to find over here.

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[JEEP]

Wicked T^

[Metal mug]

I'll take ten :D

[Ben Casey]

I'll take ten :D

Me to :)

[CanadianMike]

The reason I'm replacing my Web-Tex one......... Gorilla Glue fixes everything, except this!

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/312532_10150378697964207_510619206_8061092_7655780 92_n.jpg

[Notredame11211]

Looks great Mike!

[CanadianMike]

Thanks guys, just need to put the handle on it then shape it. :)

[rossbird]

Great job Mike:)

[Ashley Cawley]

Well done Mike that looks like a great job so far :) I've made a few knives before but never a machete!

I too have seen others break unfortunately.

Is it all finished up yet? A picture of the finished article would be great if you have the time. Thanks for sharing.

[CanadianMike]

Thanks Ashley, I got the white oak scales glued on last night and the 1/4" brass pins rammed through, clamped and left overnight. After work today I'll be shaping the handle and when done, a soak of Minwax wood hardener, more sanding, then likely a good wipe of linseed oil.

Is my first machete too, was a challenge to rush to set up my "forge" since I hadn't used it since spring, and it was set up for smaller stuff. Will get some pics when finished, then it's off with my buddy/co-worker Gary who wants to take it with him deer hunting this weekend and next week for use and testing clearing shooting lanes, and such. I hardened it softer than my usual knives, but hope I didn't go too far with it, I wanted it fixable with a file if possible, but we'll see.

[CanadianMike]

More pics.......

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[Notredame11211]

Looks good Mike. Are you going to add a lanyard hole to it?

[CanadianMike]

Thanks. The lanyard holes are there already, one in front and one in the back. :)

[CanadianMike]

Done! And ready for a week of testing by Gary while he goes deer hunting and brush clearing. I'm confident in this blade, and he's excited, didn't even want me to put the final touches on it other than a longer lanyard when I took it to work today to show him (hehe, yes, is quite comical, I can bring any knife to work to show off, and it's acceptable because I'm known for my knife making hobby/small business.......... funniest thing, I work for the federal government!!)

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[Notredame11211]

Looks great Mike!

[JEEP]

Looks great indeed!

[Realearner]

Ok so what is min wax wood hardener and is it available in the UK that you know of, and the scales look like the bit of timber I just used on my mora re-handle! So that also solves that part for me as I just had a bit in my workshop.

[Realearner]

Oh yes sorry bloody brilliant job, very talented you are.

[CanadianMike]

Thanks guys, it's a beast and cuts easily!

Minwax wood hardener is used to solidify rotten wood on windowsills, door jambs, floorboards, etc. to allow painting over or such. It's acetone with plastic disolved in it (it seems into the pores deep, the acetone evapourates leaving the dense plastic behind), and am pretty sure it's available in the UK, I recall researching threads on British Blades on wood stabilization techniques, and quite a few mentioned using the wood hardener. You can also use instant glue, works the same way, and have seen others come up with a glass like finish from just using glue!

[Realearner]

Thanks guys, it's a beast and cuts easily!

Minwax wood hardener is used to solidify rotten wood on windowsills, door jambs, floorboards, etc. to allow painting over or such. It's acetone with plastic disolved in it (it seems into the pores deep, the acetone evapourates leaving the dense plastic behind), and am pretty sure it's available in the UK, I recall researching threads on British Blades on wood stabilization techniques, and quite a few mentioned using the wood hardener. You can also use instant glue, works the same way, and have seen others come up with a glass like finish from just using glue!

thanks for that, will source some of that i like the idea :o

[Wrighty28]

love it!

[bushcraftboy]

Mate, that's a brill' job you've done!

[CanadianMike]

Thanks lads, too bad I couldn't take it out for a photoshoot/whacking (I know, that's funny words to you guys over there) in the back brush, I was/am looking forward to that, have to wait til Gary gets back from hunting, gave it to him today. Oh well, a week and a bit I will. Funny, he came into my office today having seen it sitting on my desk, unsheaths it and starts swinging it a bit behind me testing the new lanyard I put on it while I talk to Matt in front of me, hear Gary say "Yup, it's sharp, it just bit me!" I turn to see a bite worse than a paper cut on his two fingers, he puts it down, I grab some tissues for him and hand it to him since there was a reasonable little pool of blood forming on his fingers, and typical me said "I think it likes you!" He laughed and said he better pack a lot of Band-Aids (what you guys call 'plasters') in his pocket while out whacking brush to create new shooting lanes in the woods.

[Adam Savage]

Nice job with the new Golok Mike. I have been thinking of the dual grind idea, but it's hard to imagine what it's going to look like until it's done lol. Yours has turned out fantastic though.




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It kinda looks like a folding machete. :p

[CanadianMike]

Lol, yup it does, folding in a bad way!

Go for trying it out, in little tests mine worked out great, wicked chopper and good at shaving wood off to make feathersticks, etc. Wont find out how it performed in the rough though til next Monday when Gary gets back from hunting, I hope he's safer in the woods with it than he was behind me in my office last Thursday and got his little 'love bite' from it when playing around with it.

[Adam Savage]

haha. You can't have sharp objects and not get bitten every now and then. Those little bites help us get to know our blades better :)

[CanadianMike]

Funny, I very rarely get bit by the knives I make, is always the unassuming ones such as the utility knife on the ruler scoring kydex......... slip, off goes a small peice of finger tip! Odds and ends get me, my knives not even. Guess I know better or something. :)

[Ashley Cawley]

Great job Mike, dead impressed, looks lovely.

[CanadianMike]

Thanks Ashley, can't wait to get it out myself to do some testing and pics. Thing is a brute too, 4.5mm (3/16") thick, about 16" long, won't take much to lop off branches up to 1/2" thick, I'd assume a lazy half arsed swing..................

[CanadianMike]

Looks like i over tempered the blade and softened it too much, Gary left it on my desk this morning and I found this:

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Have to ask him what exactly he was trying to chop!

[JEEP]

Bugger. It looks like he has tried chopping copper tubing, like they do in some of Cold Steels' videos.

[rossbird]

Looking at that Mike....I'd say reinforced concrete.

[CanadianMike]

Hehe, he said it was about 1" thick maple branches he was hacking away with, kept telling him to hit closer to the tip as that's where the weight is, but with his experience with machetes, he mostly hits closer to the handle. I know I softened it too much, at this point am unsure what to do next, make another one or take the handle off this, normalize it a few times, then harden it again. Not much I can do til spring as the snow is about to hit..........

[Adam Savage]

Ouch, that looks painful. I know maple can be hard, but wow. Although the rear bevel you put on it, was more for finer work, with it's shallower grind angle, so it's not entirely your smithing to blame. Looks more like chips in the photo, which would suggest too hard, rather than too soft. Unless it's buckles, then maybe a little too soft. What steel did you use?

[CanadianMike]

The 'chips' are actually rolled over, so it's too soft. I could likely pound some of them straight again, but looks like I'll have to do a total overhaul on it. Maybe to make things easier in the future, just a simple cordwrapped handle.......... BTW, is my usual O-1, 3/16" thick. Likely my drawing the temper out of the spine caused the edge to soften too much due to my using a propane torch instead of something hotter.

[rossbird]

Better too soft than too hard, like you say it can be beaten back into shape.

[Adam Savage]

Ahhh, I see. Like Ross says, it's better too soft, as that way you don't get pieces or sharp tool steel flying into your eyes lol.
Propane should have been ok for it, I use benzomatic gas, which is a propane/butane mix, and as propane burns hotter than butane, it should have been plenty hot enough. Weird.

[CanadianMike]

Is why I didn't heat all the way to non-magnetic (went for a dull orange as opposed to a bit brighter orange), tempered twice for an hour each at 450F, then ran the torch over the back. Likely that is what did it, but I DID intend to make it softer than my other knives for the above reason, to be able to fix the edge in the field, or in this case, after the field. I'll have to run it through my own tests with it because I know the steel in my original golok was soft (a medium carbon steel), where this is a high carbon steel made softer on the RC scale, and I know how to use properly and what I should expect from it, if I use it normally and get the same result, I'm going back to the 're-heating board at some point. If it doesn't react to my usage, then it should be fine to keep as is.

[Adam Savage]

Sounds like a plan mate. With my last two blades (the bigger ones) I double hardened them, then double tempered them. First temper was 400f then second at 450f. They seem to be soft enoguh to polish the bevel with a stop, but hard enough to keep their edge when dragged upright across the strop, under heavy pressure. I found a burr forms on soft blades when you drag them like that.

[Adam Savage]

If any of that makes sense lol

[CanadianMike]

Double hardening them doesn't make sense, reminds me of the knife blade I pounded out from a file back in the spring, heated to non-magnetic then quenched in water, ground and shaped the blade more, then heated to non-magnetic again, quenched............... major ping of death!!!! Mulitiple cracks along the bevel to render it a "FUC'T" stamp, is no sitting on my shelf at work. :D

My biggest problem with this blade is the width, makes me see I need a bit larger brick forge to harden with gas (as I have all year), I can't control the charcoal in my woodstove forge well enough to be able to get any kind of consistancy like I can with my brick forge, so I think that's the way I will have to go. Besides, my brick forge was falling apart and had to wrap it in chicken wire to keep it together, need a new version anyways, this thing has proven itself to me for ease of set up, fast heating, and consistant results. Literally it's a pair of high temp bricks with an oval area cut out, hole in the side, propane/MAP gas in through there, get orange within about 5mins. I just need a longer and wider (as in blade width, vertically) space inside.

[Adam Savage]

Double quenching/hardening, alters the structure of the steel slightly. If you continually heat and quench steel, eventually it will crytalise. Only doing it twice (before tempering and finishing) makes it that little bit harder, but not too hard. It seems to harden the first few mm of the steels surface more on the second quench too, but keeping the core the same. I have tested the steel from this method a couple times before tempering, by placing offset blocks in the vice, and slightly bending the steel. The steel flexes at least to 5mm either way, without snapping (never had a piece snap yet, but could only bend to 5mm lol), but the surface is still too hard to mark with a file. After tempering....I haven't tried bending them yet, as it's a finished knife now haha.

I could use a larger forge too, but need to get hold of some fire bricks and propane system. If you take photos of your new one when you build it, I'd be really interested in seeing them. :)

[CanadianMike]

Guess we should simplify this, do you only heat it to non-magnetic once then perform your quenching cycles? That's the thing that is confusing me, you don't mention it, and the double quench, I assume you may be talking about heat once, dip for a second to quench, pull out for a second, quench again, etc.? Is what I do, I do it three to four times then stir, then pull out and put down to cool in air, then do two or three temper cycles.

[Adam Savage]

sorry mate, I was half asleep last night when I wrote that last one. I heat to deep red, quench (I find there's no flame at this stage with the oil I use), then back in the forge, heat to bright red, then quench again, with tip down until the flames go out, which doesn't take too long. I have been using this method with cooking oil, for the last few knives. i leave to cool in the oil for a few minutes, then pull it out when it stops smoking, then finish cooling in water, so I an clean off most of the scale with a copper brush, before tempering.

[CanadianMike]

Hmmm, odd............. wouldn't there be more stresses in the blade after the first quench?

Lol, I don't get as many flame ups as I wish I did, they are fun!

[Adam Savage]

They seem to work ok so far. I'll soon let you know if I bend or shatter one though lol.

Yep, flames are goooood hahaha

[CanadianMike]

I'd be more worried about the "ping of death", which I experienced from heating to critical, quenching in water (was a file knife), reheating and quenching again. Maybe with oil there is a much lesser chance....

[Adam Savage]

True. I know O-1 is listed as oil quench only, as oil is much more forgiving than water, and most old files were made of O-1. I have never actually seen a water quench steel, but I haven't been into the dipping business for long lol. My old man used to do it in technical college, but that was many, many years ago.

[Realearner]

You two do have something going on here ;)

[Adam Savage]

In the words of Bob Hoskins "It's good to talk" :p

[CanadianMike]

So, here's the update on my golok that got the snot kicked out of it because I tempered it too soft.

Finally made a new brick forge, big enough to accomodate this thing (after hammering out the fold overs on the edge):

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Normalized 3x (heat to critical, aka non-magnetic, let air cool), then fourth heat I quenched it, then double temper at 375F.

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[Ben Casey]

It is looking good :)

[Adam Savage]

And at least it'll be better made than the Brit ones. :)

[CanadianMike]

Ya, and sharper too! This is actually a bit thicker too, the Webtex one is 4mm, this is 3/16", so it measures about 4.5mm thick.....

[Adam Savage]

Yeah, even the genuine British forces ones are only 4mm (or 5/32, can't remember, but it's bout the same I think).

[CanadianMike]

Just checked my reference card at my desk, you got it right, 5/32".

[LandRoverMatt]

looks great mate