Keris Daggers, Kris blades and antique Kris blades

[Christopher Barringer]

Hi Folks, I’m new to the forum and need a bit of advice on using the Wicked Edge to sharpen my collection of Keris Daggers and Antique Kris blade Stiletto’s both Damascus steel and high carbon steel blades. The old knives are the real thing with ebony wood panels, Ivory panels, and engraved sterling panels.

In the past I used a ceramic rod to put a somewhat decent edge on these knives, but not a superb edge as I desire. Some of the blade edges have deep nicks which is what I would expect from an old knife that was used (and possibly abused). Most of the blades appear to have been hand forged. The biggest Stiletto (with a freaking long blade of 14.5″ and a blood groove cut in the center that almost runs to the tip) has a polished Kris blade which appears to be Solingen steel as the knife appears to be Austrian made around 1910.

It a beautiful knife, but a real bear to sharpen. It appears the knife had one purpose, and it ain’t designed to cut Sauerbraten.

Any ideas on how to use the Wicked edge to sharpen Kris blades?

[Christopher Barringer]

so lotsa views, no ideas?

[Mark76]

Hi Chris,

What sort of ideas are you looking for? Even though they are large knives, sharpening them on the WEPS should be no different than other knives. You will definitely get much better results than with a ceramic rod!

One thing you might want to ask Ken is whether his Japanese stones (see here) also work for bringing out the pattern on Damascus blades.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Christopher Barringer]

Kris blades are wavy, my concern is that the acute angle for the bevel changes with a fixed angle sharpening system. While I can set the angle to sharpen the “ridge”, that same angle would change when the stone reaches the “valley” on the blade because the width of the blade changes. I suppose I could use the rounded stones and change the angle, but my concern is to get an even polished bevel and edge on both sides of the blade. The old timers used to use round whetstones to sharpen the blades, but the edge and bevel were inconsistent because it was done freehand.

[Robert Nash]

Hi Chris –
Got an email that someone was looking for help with a Kris blade on the forum – I have sharpened Kris blades (2) on the WE before and can offer some assistance. One was basically a blank and needed the edge created, the other was just dull. I’m really buried right now so can’t get into a lot of detail immediately, but didn’t want you to keep waiting for someone to offer up something.
Your concern is correct that the angle will vary as the stones ride through the valleys and over the ridges. Depending on the size of the “wave” and it’s steepness in the blade this can be a small amount of variance so hardly noticeable, or it can be quite a bit. There are some ways to deal with this, but to get them to match up pretty precisely down the full length of both sides can be very time consuming. Here is the short version: if the wave is large so you are getting noticeably wider bevels at the ridges, you need to work your way down the blade sharpening short sections using the sharpie marker to find the angle and blade position by overlapping the previous section slightly. I found the sections to be: working down the back of the valley and part way up into the ridge, then moving the knife, overlapping with your stones to adjust your angle and working over the top of the ridge and down into the next valley, and so on. I found both of the ones I did easiest to work with my choseras as I could work the corners of the stones so could work through the grits and didn’t have parts of the flat stones where I was not in contact with metal. You can work to your finest grit on each section and do all your stropping at the end to further blend everything together.
Hope that maybe gets you started – I’ll try to follow up more soon
Have fun!
Bob

[Robert Nash]

PS – sounds like some nice knives – have any pics?

[Mark76]

Hi Chris –
working over the top of the ridge and down into the next valley, and so on. I found both of the ones I did easiest to work with my choseras as I could work the corners of the stones so could work through the grits and didn’t have parts of the flat stones where I was not in contact with metal.

Hi Bob, this sounds like an interesting technique for recurves. However, I find it a bit hard to visualize. Perhaps it’s because English is not my first language – how do you use the Choseras to work the corners of the stones? I have the round stones which work great for recurves, but are 400/600 only. If I use flat stones, there are indeed parts of the stones that are not in contact with the metal, whereas their corners attack the metal agressively. Would be great if you could elaborate on it a bit. Thanks!

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Robert Nash]

Hi Bob, this sounds like an interesting technique for recurves. However, I find it a bit hard to visualize. Perhaps it’s because English is not my first language – how do you use the Choseras to work the corners of the stones? I have the round stones which work great for recurves, but are 400/600 only. If I use flat stones, there are indeed parts of the stones that are not in contact with the metal, whereas their corners attack the metal agressively. Would be great if you could elaborate on it a bit. Thanks!

Hi Mark,
My Choseras and Shaptons are all still packed from my last show, but I’ll try to explain and be a little more precise for you (I get a little lazy sometimes in my language which I imagine doesn’t always make it easy to follow :S ). I’ll also open up one of my new chosera sets that are ready to ship and try to get a photo for you tomorrow or Tuesday if this doesn’t help you visualize it – just let me know.
What I do is rotate the stone on the rod so that the corner is what is contacting the knife – so it is similar to working with a triangular ceramic. I rotate out on my fingers and in with my thumbs as this is most comfortable for me. I haven’t tried it the other way to see if it makes any difference though I don’t imagine it does.
The choseras will of course round off much faster than the ceramic would – but I found this to only help in their performance when I did the Kris blades. I don’t know that I would want to do this all the time as it is a bit awkward holding the stone twisted, but for the Kris it worked great.
Best,
Bob

[Robert Nash]

Here is a link to another forum thread where razoredgeknives has some pics of a kris dagger he did on the WE.

[Robert Nash]

Ok :angry: trying this link again 🙂

link here

[Mark76]

Thanks, Bob. I think I get the point now. Am I correct in thinking you only used the corner of the stone(s) to sharpen the recurves (at least the most acute parts)? That must have been a hell of a job, taking a long time. Or do the Choseras round off so quickly that you have a larger surface area to work with early in the process?

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Robert Nash]

Thanks, Bob. I think I get the point now. Am I correct in thinking you only used the corner of the stone(s) to sharpen the recurves (at least the most acute parts)? That must have been a hell of a job, taking a long time. Or do the Choseras round off so quickly that you have a larger surface area to work with early in the process?

Hi Mark –
Like Josh (RazorEdgeKnives) in the other the other thread I actually did both – used the stone flat so it was riding on both corners – not fully in contact, and turned the stone so it was riding on only one corner. Since then I have found that in most cases I have found you can do quite a bit of inside curve even with the stone flat and get great results – and the work does go faster this way. I did not lap the corners of my stones like Josh did – that is a great idea as it rounds them much faster.
I found on the Kris blades I worked on that using only one corner did allow me to track the knife shape a little more easily, even though it meant that I was using a lot less stone surface to work with. Both of the blades I sharpened did take a while to do, though I’m unsure of how long it would take me to do those same blades again from scratch as there as a lot of experimenting along the way that took up lots of time (and they weren’t mine so I was trying to be very careful). Repositioning the knife slows the process as well – and they are difficult to clamp in my experience due to the blade geometry. In the end, the only step I ended up doing along the full blade length was stropping, everything else was in shorter sections blended together. I can only find one photo right now – didn’t realize at the time they were going to come in handy so didn’t take many. This one was also taken with my phone so not the best quaility 🙁 .
Bob

At this point I was trying the curved ceramics and as I recall I had only worked with diamonds. The luks in this knife are fairly gentle so I was able to work it in two sections. I tried out choseras after this to even up the bevel. This was super soft metal, wouldn’t hold an edge and scratched really easily. I’m sure Clay remembers this knife which plagued me for days it seemed! :sick:

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[wickededge]

Yep Bob, I remember this knife well. It’s a shame the metal was so soft since you did such a fine job of getting nice bevels cut into it.

-Clay

[Mark76]

Thanks, Bob. Vey clear! I am going to try this soon on a recurved blade.

Do you happen to know whether a similar technique is used for free-hand sharpening of recurves (i.e. Use the corners a lot more)?

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Robert Nash]

Thanks, Bob. Vey clear! I am going to try this soon on a recurved blade.

Do you happen to know whether a similar technique is used for free-hand sharpening of recurves (i.e. Use the corners a lot more)?

Have to admit, I’m terrible free hand, so haven’t really tried working a recurve that way. As I learn more though I’m thinking of trying again. Maybe Ken or Tom have some suggestions on Free Hand and recurves?

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