The Rundown

Now that the blades have safely arrived at my wasteland sanctuary, they have been revealed.  Now that you've seen the blades, you have a chance to learn a little bit about them from Storm Crow himself.  This is what he said:

"The blades were forged from the same piece of truck leaf spring.  They were filed to a cutting edge and given multiple heat treatments cycles utilizing hardening in vegetable oil and differential heat treatments, using slightly different methods for the two differently sized blades. The blades have both been thoroughly tested as the teaser pictures attest. Remember the really nice camp ax my student made a little while back? The golok does everything it can do and much more. Notice how you can trace an elongated sine wave down the length, from the butt of the handle through the cutting edge? That helps it chop as well as the ax, but it also splits, slices, delicately chops, drawknifes, and can even be used as a skew chisel with the fully sharpened forward edge. It also is light enough to work well against whippy brush and briars. The companion blade is the opposite of the golok in that it is a very slim, pointed blade. Its edge is about as sharp as I've gotten a blade, cleanly dry-shaving my arm hair and leaving a very smooth patch.

The blades are easy to maintain. A few strokes on a fine whet stone and no more than six strokes on a leather strop should return them to their original sharpness. The blades are forge finished, which, in addition to just plain looking primal, is incredibly durable as a finish. If it starts to rust or if you need to clean it after use, you can use 150 grit sandpaper and get it back to like-new condition in a few minutes.

The golok's handle is an integral socket. It is not intended for storage, but for incredible strength. The socket also does not transmit the shock of chopping into your hand the way it might if it was just a standard flat tang. It is very comfortable in use and does not slip or make your hand tired or numb. The end of the socket is plugged permanently with a piece of mesquite wood (which was what I was making in the teaser pics. That's right, I used the blade to make its own handle plug!), with a copper lanyard ring and a short horse hair tassel with copper beads and wire.

Both knives' handles are wrapped in hemp cord and sealed with orange shellac. The golok features double Turk's head knots of black leather lace at the ends of the handle, and the companion knife has hemp Turk's head knots. It has an integral lanyard hole and sports a matching horse hair tassel with beads and wire."