Started another project today. I had someone ask me about a Gurkha Khukuri with a blade of 9". I did a rendering for him and he okay-ed the job. Starting with a piece of leaf spring that's 2 1/2" wide, 5/16" thick, and over 15" long, I cut out the blank and rough shaped it. On the forge, I straightened (flattened) the blank then proceeded to finish the arc in the blade. After all that, normalizing was in order to relieve the stress and soften the steel. What you see is after a total of about 4 hours of work. I'm taking my time as mistakes cost more.