Visiting a Village Blacksmith Sri Lanka | Making a Traditional Spring Steel Knife | Sri Lankan Knife

Описание: We were traveling in Sri Lanka’s hill country, winding southward from Dambulla on the A9 along the narrow two lane mountain highway, jostling with three-wheelers, trucks, and the occasional farm animal. We were slowly climbing up Sri Lanka’s central highlands toward Kandy, when Edie our driver and guide slowed down and pointed excitedly to a small shack on the outskirts of the small mountain village of Akurana. I’d asked him to keep a lookout for a local bladesmith since when we were in Negombo a few days back, and he said there was a good one in the hill country. And there we were, at the bladesmith’s forge.

Jayasinghe has been making traditional Sri Lankan knives and iron tools for decades. His self-built forge looked like it’d been through quite a bit of Sri Lankan history over the decades. Yet like many of the country’s folk, life simply went on. There was always a need for the metal tools he made, and Jayasinghe and his workshop, simply stood.

The front of his workshop displayed his wares, from simple fruit knives made with saw blade steel, to larger carbon steel Pihiya, to very traditional crescent-shaped Wak Pihiya designed for outdoor farm work, to a really large, heavy chopper designed which looked like it was meant for large animal carcasses. Inside, a pile of rusty truck leaf springs on the floor against his forge, and stacked against another corner, lengths of drying forest timber for knife handles. A well-worn work table sat on one side, tabletop strewn with working tools, a wood saw, and several half-completed knives. Jayasinghe stood at its centre, in front of a shiny, well-worked anvil, wearing a sarong and short-sleeved shirt that looked like it used to be white some years back, one button fastened, hammer in hand, a smile on his face.

We were happy to be welcomed into his forge, and he spent about an hour showing us his work, using steel salvaged from old truck leaf springs, and saws. We got some video of him forging a popular local carbon steel blade that’s commonly used outdoors with farm vegetation, shrubs, coconuts, and even in the kitchen. So here’s a short video of Jayasinghe and his son forging the knife.

Enjoy!