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Chaveta (cigar knife) Build Log

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Frozenthunderbolt

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Hey Troops,

Saw a couple of cool chaveta's in people vids and thought I would do a build log for one.

1. find yourself an old circular saw blade.
I have marked this one out with a two circles - this is only because I want to slice off the teeth with enough metal attached to make a medieval flanged mace later! You could just cut off the teeth.
1Cuttingplan_zps3241484f.jpg


2. Make a handle if desired
Alot of the authentic ones on the web seem to have no handle and a wider blade so that it can be used to roll and compact the cigar - personally, I want to be able to pick it up off the table easily so i turned a handle from a local pittosporum species.
2Handle_zpsa2502226.jpg


Note: this gave me a lot of shit later on when drilled - the bit snapped on inside, wouldn't drill out, messed up my cut through the middle, put the bolt holes out of alignment and generally made it look like dogs balls in the end - hope the next one comes out better - might use slabs of wood or bone instead, rather than trying to get a perfectly even cut on a cylinder with a jig saw; nightmare.

3. First cuts; two long slices to be stabbing points on my mace - all the others are 2 tooth cuts
3firstcut_zps3bc54c43.jpg


4. Once you have cut all the teeth off split it down the middle
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5. Rough grind your edge with whatever tool you prefer; I used a grinding disk in my angle grinder - DONT use your cutting disk for this it is likely to blow apart and injure/kill you. If you aren't heat treating, keep it as cool as you can; grind slowly, dip in water etc
5roughgroundedge_zpscd012a19.jpg


6. shine that sucker up - I used a lap sanding disk in the trusty angle grinder - haven't taken it much further as I didn't know if it would work and if I would be heat treating or not. I also used the lap sander to refine the edge at this stage - keep cool yaddah yaddah yaddah.
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7. I fought with the f-ing handle at this stage and forgot to take pics of drilling.
Basically drill one handle slab, place it on the blade as you like it and mark the hole position with a sharpie.
The use a centre punch to ding the center of each sharpie mark.
Drill the blade and then line up the other slab so they match then mark the hole through the blade onto the other slab and drill it out.
Screw the sodding thing together, and mark the recess for the nuts and bolt heads with a sharp PENCIL.
Unscrew and cut out the recesses - I used a sharp chisel for the square nuts (better than a Stanly knife I found) I use a structured tooth bur in my drill press to create the recesses for the bolt head side.
Put it all back together again and angle grind and sand until you're fairly happy with the fit
7handleon_zpsacb112de.jpg

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8. I ran over it again with my orbital sander, and used 3 grades of paper on the blade edge; at this point it cut wood happily and sliced equally well through 6 sheets of newspaper stacked up - I figured in would handle tobacco leaf fine - there was no need to heat treat (or pull it apart to use my Lanskey sharpening system on the sucker).
If you were going to heat treat, I would wrap the body of the blade in a big ol lump of clay and hit the exposed 10-12mm edge with a torch till cherry red then quench in oil - less thermal shock and therefore less likely to crack or warp the blade.
But as I said earlier - if you keep it fairly cool when grinding this step is probably unnecessary.

Oiled it up, and while it's not as flawlessly pretty (blade-wise) or as smooth and symmetrical (handle wise) as I would like, it works OK - took me 4ish hours to make on and off while doing other bits and bobs so overall pretty happy for a first attempt - hope the one i make with the other half is nicer.
might try a < shaped handle on it to make it easier to grip - or a sort of T shaped ullu style one, we'll see.
9oiledwithpenforscale_zps8ac96ccd.jpg
 

johnlee1933

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Excellent post Bolt. I will use part of your ideas when I make my next one. For the handle I used 6" of clear plastic tubing (slotted) and some masking tape to secure it. After I decided I liked it I removed the tape, squirted a bit of Silicone bathtub calk inside the tubing, re inserted the blade and let it dry for a few days. It works very well. As you mentioned if you use the blade to round/finish roll your cigar the handle is not a good idea. I use a rolling mat made from a bit of shelf liner so it is not a concern for me. When I make the new one I'll try to get pics a good/detailed as yours. My new one will be larger for making the long straight cuts on the edges of my wrapper-- John
 

Frozenthunderbolt

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Thanks for the kind words guys,
If I have time today I'm going to make a standing block sheath for it - I'll post that up here too.
Chicken, I'm keen as mustard to get me some cigars made - loved your vid; recon I could even get me a huge ass buddy to stand there gigglin when I made them like you had!
Got some Burly that is dashboard curing at the moment that will make me one or two and some more colour curing at the moment - might have to use VA for the wrapper though as most my Burly leaf got holes in it :(
Got some Havana from Seanz that is about an inch high at the moment - will pot up today in the hope of getting it in the ground and a pick off it for ceegars this time next year - bit of a case of hurry up and wait. I'll work on my kiln in the mean time!
 

webmost

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What's the advantage of this over using a twelve ulu from the kitchen store?
 

johnlee1933

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What's the advantage of this over using a twelve ulu from the kitchen store?
It is shorter and easier to handle. It can be used to finish roll/round a cigar. I don't but some do. I have a couple of antique ulu and naturally tried them at first. For me they were clumsy and I made a couple of chevetas to get one I liked. -·- J
 

deluxestogie

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That's the Kuhn Rikoh "kulu." I hold it by the riser opposite the handle, which positions my hand perfectly, and allows enough force and leverage to cut through a compressed 1" thick press-block. It has served well through thousands of cigars, as well as for slicing pipe flake and making shred. Its high-grade steel never rusts, and never requires sharpening.

Ulus generally position the hand quite far from the cutting surface, requiring more than twice the wrist and arm motion of a chaveta or the kulu. At ~$15, the 6" kulu is hard to beat. Between uses, I just hang it on a nail in the wall.

Bob
 
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