Hi Friends.

Nameste Suraj,

Welcome to the forum. I'm a new member myself and trying to get acquainted.

I was in India a year ago and I made it to the Western Ghats in Kerala, which is fairly close to you, but I did not get to Bangalore. In the northern part of the country I saw a lot of knifemaking and I brought back a few Damascus blades to finish out. I haven't gotten to that yet.

I was also fortunate enough to run across an old scissor smith who was hand forging his wares and sharpening them on a foot turned stone wheel. I bought one for just a few rupees. It's probably my favorite thing from the trip. There seem to be a lot of people using sewing shears for clothing there and a lot of his business was just sharpening shears for the ladies.

I will be curious to see what you are up to and how your knife making adventures compare with my own. India is a different world. By the way, I'm in Iowa, USA.

Cheers,



Cameron
 
Hello good to here you have been to India especially the south part as most of them go to only the north of India. I love the western Ghats i usually go there to take wildlife photos. You should come to Bangalore its a great place for beer drinkers because its called the beer capital of India lot of good pubs. There are lot of people who are passionate about firearms and knifes in India also. You can find people making machetes of spring steel from trucks used to chop coconuts or meet. The are these knife sharpening guys on bicycles who go around to sharper kitchen knifes and as you said scissors. I was working 3 knifes which i designed and got it cut in a EMD machine with Elmax steel but i am currently unable to work on it as i dont have right tools i could not find a belt grinder. This steel is so hard to work with unless you have the right tools. So i put them up for sale on this forum so some one can make some great knifes out of them. Look at the pictures these are the ones i am talking about.
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Hi,

I dont have have the ability to use Elmax either, though it is very nice stuff.

Would love to see some pictures of people working on blades as well as hear about any traditions or details in knifemaking that are unique to your area. I did see a few of the heavy coconut knives you mentioned when I was in Kerala. They were about eight inches long, with simple wooden handles and upswept tips. Several were in split wood sheaths tied together with palm fiber.
 
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