What sort of steel is this please? (Indian blade)

Philip · 5th February 2009, 06:10 AM

Spiral: Thanks for sharing your experience with polishing "kooks", I've learned some new things about hairpin welding on some of these, thanks to you. Do you mind sharing pics of one of yours with this type of lamination?

Gene: Sadly I didn't take pics of either of the two spectacular kukris I polished for JP, but he, being an expert photog, did and I believe that he posted them on this forum. This being back in 2003-04 sometime (? memory is hazy) you might need to search the archived threads.

Yes, if you polished your knife to a finer surface and carefully etched with ferric chloride, it's possible to get the pattern to pop out more distinctly if the steels in the layers have enough differentiation in terms of alloying or carbon content. Sometimes the stuff can be stubborn and a slow, controlled oxydation process is necessary to get the contrast.

Sorry, I can't tell you much about the style of your knife other than the blade design looks quite Western-influenced and doesn't appear to be traditional to the area. Perhaps another forum member can shed light on blades of similar type.

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5th February 2009, 06:10 AM	#17
Philip Member Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: California Posts: 1,036	Spiral: Thanks for sharing your experience with polishing "kooks", I've learned some new things about hairpin welding on some of these, thanks to you. Do you mind sharing pics of one of yours with this type of lamination? Gene: Sadly I didn't take pics of either of the two spectacular kukris I polished for JP, but he, being an expert photog, did and I believe that he posted them on this forum. This being back in 2003-04 sometime (? memory is hazy) you might need to search the archived threads. Yes, if you polished your knife to a finer surface and carefully etched with ferric chloride, it's possible to get the pattern to pop out more distinctly if the steels in the layers have enough differentiation in terms of alloying or carbon content. Sometimes the stuff can be stubborn and a slow, controlled oxydation process is necessary to get the contrast. Sorry, I can't tell you much about the style of your knife other than the blade design looks quite Western-influenced and doesn't appear to be traditional to the area. Perhaps another forum member can shed light on blades of similar type.