Ulpara

This Parang has a blade made from a Maraging Steel (martensitic aging) called ULTRAFORT.It is used for the armoring of Limousines and other vehicles against bomb attacks and stuff like that.It is not heat treated normally(furnace, oil quench, tempering)it is hold 7 Hours in 570 degrees. in that time it developes and excretes carbides which bring the steel up to 61 HRC. It came out like it get in, no bending and warping.
Just a few carbon spots from the forging process, the steel has a carbon amount not worth mention it( less than 0.10 %).
This is no material with great edge holding ability but it is extremely tough.Whacking through an 10mm mild steel rod with no damage or loss of sharpeness to the convex edge, which was ground to 0,4 mm bevor sharpening.
Forging was no fun, but grinding and finishing was easy like a normal tool steel.
Blade Length is 375 mm, width: tapers from 6mm down to 3,3mm.
Handle and sheath are made from the same Padouk root, Ferrule and fittings are made from blackened copper.Tang peened over the butt.
Overall Length: 530 mm.
Thanks for watching.

Always a pleasure to see your work Jeremiah...

great attention to detail. beautiful job.

Excellent Parang and some very interesting steel that you used. Sounds great for tools like this one.

Very nice!

Great looking parang. Long sword battle axe. I made a small 12" knife out of a piece of armoring steel. Didn't work very well and mine was ugllllllly!

Another beauty! Thanks for sharing.

Great Parang and can imagine that's hard work to forge with!
gr Igor

Thanks a lot, Guys!!

i love everything about this one, the wood is mind blowing, great work.

Your knives are exceptional! How did you come across this steel?

Raymond Richard said:

Your knives are exceptional! How did you come across this steel?

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Thanks, Raymond! The steel was a gift from Achim Wirtz, a good friend of mine and an outstanding damascus smith.He is the man when it comes to real special steel.
here is some more information about the material:
https://www.aws.org/mwf/attachments//72/69072/ultrafort6355_english.pdf

Jeremiah Rostig said:

Thanks, Raymond! The steel was a gift from Achim Wirtz, a good friend of mine and an outstanding damascus smith.He is the man when it comes to real special steel.
here is some more information about the material:
https://www.aws.org/mwf/attachments//72/69072/ultrafort6355_english.pdf

Click to expand...

Achim also makes a great knife besides the damascus. He's done several favors for me over the years. I got to know him through the old Outpost years ago. He'd sent me a piece of steel that was salvaged from an old bell tower in Belgium. If I remember right the steel was part of a machine that was used to hoist the bells up to the tower 500 years ago.

Sounds like some very interesting steel. Did you get enough to do more blades?

Sounds like some very interesting steel. Did you get enough to do more blades?

Raymond, I only had a single piece. The material is expensive and the HT is completely different, makes it an "exotic" steel wich needs more special effort.
This steel makes superior blades, but 2442, 2519 and 2552 and especially 2550 do as well, 2550 even better.
Consequently, the effort is not economically viable, it was just fun, like it is always to me, trying something like a "new" blade material.

Very nice work! Nice treatment on the end washer, and patina of the copper.

very nice. I don't understand that particular steel, but the blade you made from it looks great.
kc

The various components come together to make a beautiful package. Excellent work.