[Rick]

Originally Posted by mross

Ok, VANDOO, I think I see where you are coming from. However I was not discussing imported blades or stock removal. Stock removal requires a lot of grinding, which usually means electricity to power the grinders (the concept of stock removal by hand hurts just to think about). On the other hand to forge a blade only requires a hole in the ground, a source of moving air, something to hit with, something to hit against. The smith still forges the blade, the mono-steel just requires less work. Mono-steel sources could be imported billets, ball bearings, leaf springs just about anything really, though the most common are leaf springs and ball bearings. There is even a smith who is making a sword from an old toilet snake.

There was an awful lot of stock removal involved in making even the hand forged Moro blades. kris and barung.
An industrious apprentice with a file can accomplish quite a lot .