The Most Beautiful Combination of Emotions and Engineering that Team Degon has built !!!!

This read is going to be a long three-part story. So bear with us through this journey and we assure you will not regret it.

CHAPTER ONE: ENGINEERING

Team Degon had studied Material Technology as a part of their academics. Well, a part of this subject deals with various techniques and processes involved in altering the grain structure of metals. Processes like quenching, hardening, and learning about types of hardness in metals and the list just goes on. They had seen these processes on a famous TV show “Forged In Fire”. And now they knew the science behind it, the exact temperatures for quenching of solid and the quenching fluid, and even the requirement of tempering. They were thrilled with all of it and decided to try it themselves. But the question was “What exactly should they build…?”

CHAPTER TWO: EMOTIONS

Barbeque Pit

We all have people in our lives who sacrifice everything for our betterment; ‘Our Parents’. And Fathers do work day and night, sacrificing their likings and hobbies to make us smile. Roughly around 17 years ago, one of the crew member's Dad made a ‘Barbeque Pit’ from old drilling pipes that are used in oil rigs. Yeah Right!, things do run in families. But time has power over everything and the pit had started to rust away. The Dad was really attached to it, but its time had already come. Now it was time for a new one. The crew member was determined and, so was the team. They decided to do something with the remaining pit. The idea was to immortalize the memory of the pit. But again the question arises “What…?”

CHAPTER THREE: COMBINING EMOTIONS AND ENGINEERING

Team Degon contemplated on what they could build, as the metal used in the pit was just 5mm thick. So it has to be something that thin. The son came up with a unique suggestion, "Let's make a Knife!!!" They all felt it was a great idea, but ’What kind of knife?’ The design of the knife should make some meaning. So they began their research. ‘Karambit’ to ‘Katana’ to basic kitchen knives but nothing caught their eyes until they encountered ‘The Bayonet’. Bayonets are the most commonly used military knives. It's a soldier's favourite hand combat weapon. What a knife to describe the sacrifice and bravery of a father! It was final, they were going with ‘Bayonet’. But they thought ‘How to relate it specifically with the father?’ So after a lot of thinking, they decided to engrave his birth date on the knife. And now they were ready to begin the journey of building a masterpiece.

Since they knew that they are still amateurs when it comes to forging, they decided to go with just cutting it to shape and grinding their way from there. The team was still naive while making this project. They were so short on resources that they had only two files and an angle grinder ironically gifted by the same father. They even lacked a bench vice. But they were highly determined and giving up will never be an option for them. What they did next was just crazy and is not at all recommended...

Bench Vice doesn't concern them..

Yeah, that's a knife strapped on to a safety grill of the balcony for grinding. And you can see they started to add bevels too. Well, what to say they were just crazy. A lot of patience and determination brought them to a point where all the metalwork was done and now it was time to shift focus towards the handle part. They hardly had any liberty to buy brass pins for the handle. Let me show you what they used instead.

Cycle Rear Rack used as Pins

Tempering the knife

Yeah, that's a rear rack of a cycle. They used it to make the pins. Now it was time to apply the engineering aspect to this project. They had to convert the soft mild steel into a hard one which will ensure it gets converted from a fragile showpiece to a weapon. The quenching process was very crucial. It was going to determine the worth of the work done till now. The metal had to reach a critical temperature. This can be determined in two ways. One was by observing various colours emitted by the metal at various temperatures and second by the use of a magnet. A magnet which gets attracted to metals at room temperature does not attract when the same piece of metal is at the critical temperature. They used the second method and by god's grace, they were able to successfully harden the steel. Now the entire cutting edge of the knife was hard including the spine of the knife. And we all are aware that, harder the material, the brittle it is. So now they began the tempering process which was basically reducing the hardness of the spine by locally heating it and air-cooling it at a natural phase.

And now it was time to complete the handle. They brought some great looking wood for the handles and shaped it accordingly with the help of files. They used two-part epoxy to join the handle and metal, and the pins holding the two strongly there. The only job left now was to engrave the birth date on either side of the metal, 24 and 12 which meant 24th December.

After engraving, they charred the wood to highlight the grain pattern and applied a clear lacquer coat sealing the grain.

Finally, it was accomplished. The team successfully combined emotion and engineering, learning and love through the process. Now they have something to cherish throughout their lifetime.

Proudly done by DEGON CUSTOMS.....

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