I just received my 18" Amar Singh Thapa (Villager) today; and the timing was spot-on perfect! I'm geeking out so much that I just had to post something, even without pictures... but I'll try to post pics within the next day or two.
My 68 year old mother and her 103 year old father live with me on 7.5 acres in Washington State, on the other side of Puget Sound from Seattle. The southern 5 acres or so of that is private forest with a creek that runs through from East to West. It's an old homesteader lot so it's tall and narrow, running North to South, with a few nibbles taken out 'cause a previous owner sold off a few chunks.
I usually leave deadwood standing for the sake of the local woodpecker population, but an old aspen fell over in some of the high winds we're occasionally blessed with; and I'd decided that I'd clear the remnants of the tree today. So I was just about bouncing off the walls when the postman rang my doorbell and handed me a rather beat-up, triangular box.
Aside: My mum, who was standing right behind me as I took the package, said that it was creepy--the way I was chuckling, "hee-hee-hee," low and somewhat eerily, I'll admit. She also said, "There's something really wrong with you. The way you love knives and guns so much." As if...
Since I had, literally, been on my way out the door to gather all the stuff I planned to take with me to the southern end of our property to clear that downed tree, I had my 15" Sirupati jammed into my belt. So out comes the karda from my Siru scabbard and so much for the tape!
The first thing I noticed was the sheer heft of this beastie. 2.3 pounds according to my luggage scale. (I'm afraid I didn't have any other scale handy.) And then my eyes travel to an oddity--Item number one: there's a chunk broken out of the pommel (picture to follow) but the piece that broke off is still in the newspaper wrapping. Obviously shipping damage and another good reason for full butt caps. Oh well, no real biggie. A little glue and the divot's back where it belongs. After all, this girl's meant to be a workhorse, not a show pony!
Aside: Having made custom furniture in a "previous life", I'm well aware that even with the most stringent quality control, when wood is involved, there can always be hidden flaws and/or weak points. I know that from very painful, personal experience involving a Queen Anne style table... on which I had to replace a leg. Twice.
I ran a length of para cord through the handy, dandy hole (which even has a brass sleeve) in the heel of the hilt and take my new toy/tool out of the scabbard to adjust the fit; I usually make any knife lanyards long enough to wrap around the top of the hilt, cross and then wrap around my hand, which works to lock my hand to the handle. (Picture to follow.) Item number two: the finger ring carved into the hilt is really sharp. Good thing I was planning on wearing gloves. I'll take a file to the tang and some sandpaper to the rest of the finger ring. No biggie.
Adjustments made, measurement taken (the spine's a full 7/16", just as advertised), and I'm putting my new beauty to bed in her scabbard when I notice Item number three: a tendency to bind as I'm re-sheathing. A quick peek with a Surefire light I almost always keep in my pocket shows some irregularities inside the scabbard. But a couple of passes with a long wood rasp and she's sliding in and out like a champ!
So I throw my chainsaw, large and small pruning shears, machete, and telescoping tree trimmer into the trailer being towed behind my "garden tractor" (pronounced: riding lawn mower) and I'm on my way!!!
The section of tree which fell across the path to the clearing at the southern-most end of our land is only about 12" or so in diameter so my chainsaw w/ 18" bar makes quick work of bucking the dead, dry wood. I set the chainsaw aside and take my new AST(V) to hand to take care of the limbing. I wish that I could say I was surprised by how well and easily she chopped through the limbs (some as thick as 6" in diameter)... but having become familiar with HI's products in the form of my 15" Sirupati, the balance of my AST(V) and the ease with which she almost flew through the dry wood was what I had come to expect from HI and BirGorkha.
Limbing was so quick and easy that I decided to chop the first section from the trunk with my new khuk instead of cutting with the saw.
Working up about 24" from the base of my bucking cut, the trunk was was just a little less than 12" in diameter. ISYN (I S#!t You Not), the first chop sank the blade in to the full width of the bevel! The opposing cut sent a huge chip flying and I was already almost an inch through the log! The wood's probably at something like 5-10% moisture content, but geeze!!!
Four more cuts (and two more huge, flying chips) and I flip the log over to come at it from the other side. Unfortunately for my plans, one chop and the end snaps off! Looking at the cut end, I can see that the blade sank in at least 2.5" before the inertia of the log versus the momentum of two pounds of HI steel snapped the intervening wood like a straw.
The rest of the clearing job went really quickly and clearing the slash was a combination of khuk, shears, and saw... mostly khuk though. But that's mostly 'cause she's new and I was having way too much fun swinging her around. (Even if I'm a bit sore now and likely to be even more so in the morning from how long I was playing with that heavy chunk of satin-finished steel... it was--and is--well worth it!!!)
Cleaning up after getting back to the house, as expected, the edge is still exceedingly (almost too) sharp and after wiping off some schmutz from spanish moss and whatnot that was growing on the bark, you'd think that it hadn't been used at all. Instead of seeing more than an hour's worth of hard chopping. Not even any scuffs. Groovy! But as I was putting the chakmak back into the scabbard, I decided to take a look at the karda. Which leads me to Item number... whatever: wire coil on approximately 60% of the edge. But that strops right off and a quick touch-up with the chakmak and the karda's shaving sharp!
While some might question my still-gushing, still-ecstatic reaction given the negative points I mentioned, I'd like to repeat: she's a workhorse, not a show pony. There were and are no issues which in any way detract from my overflowing admiration for this khukuri.
That being said, I have a nice section of that bone-dry aspen sitting next to some wet, green 8-10" diameter birch logs. One of those birch logs is going to be another test piece for my AST(V), but the rest I'm saving for the arrival of my custom 22" Ganga Ram Special!
Like I stated previously, I'll try to get some pictures (and possibly some video) posted in the next couple/few days!
My 68 year old mother and her 103 year old father live with me on 7.5 acres in Washington State, on the other side of Puget Sound from Seattle. The southern 5 acres or so of that is private forest with a creek that runs through from East to West. It's an old homesteader lot so it's tall and narrow, running North to South, with a few nibbles taken out 'cause a previous owner sold off a few chunks.
I usually leave deadwood standing for the sake of the local woodpecker population, but an old aspen fell over in some of the high winds we're occasionally blessed with; and I'd decided that I'd clear the remnants of the tree today. So I was just about bouncing off the walls when the postman rang my doorbell and handed me a rather beat-up, triangular box.
Aside: My mum, who was standing right behind me as I took the package, said that it was creepy--the way I was chuckling, "hee-hee-hee," low and somewhat eerily, I'll admit. She also said, "There's something really wrong with you. The way you love knives and guns so much." As if...
Since I had, literally, been on my way out the door to gather all the stuff I planned to take with me to the southern end of our property to clear that downed tree, I had my 15" Sirupati jammed into my belt. So out comes the karda from my Siru scabbard and so much for the tape!
The first thing I noticed was the sheer heft of this beastie. 2.3 pounds according to my luggage scale. (I'm afraid I didn't have any other scale handy.) And then my eyes travel to an oddity--Item number one: there's a chunk broken out of the pommel (picture to follow) but the piece that broke off is still in the newspaper wrapping. Obviously shipping damage and another good reason for full butt caps. Oh well, no real biggie. A little glue and the divot's back where it belongs. After all, this girl's meant to be a workhorse, not a show pony!
Aside: Having made custom furniture in a "previous life", I'm well aware that even with the most stringent quality control, when wood is involved, there can always be hidden flaws and/or weak points. I know that from very painful, personal experience involving a Queen Anne style table... on which I had to replace a leg. Twice.
I ran a length of para cord through the handy, dandy hole (which even has a brass sleeve) in the heel of the hilt and take my new toy/tool out of the scabbard to adjust the fit; I usually make any knife lanyards long enough to wrap around the top of the hilt, cross and then wrap around my hand, which works to lock my hand to the handle. (Picture to follow.) Item number two: the finger ring carved into the hilt is really sharp. Good thing I was planning on wearing gloves. I'll take a file to the tang and some sandpaper to the rest of the finger ring. No biggie.
Adjustments made, measurement taken (the spine's a full 7/16", just as advertised), and I'm putting my new beauty to bed in her scabbard when I notice Item number three: a tendency to bind as I'm re-sheathing. A quick peek with a Surefire light I almost always keep in my pocket shows some irregularities inside the scabbard. But a couple of passes with a long wood rasp and she's sliding in and out like a champ!
So I throw my chainsaw, large and small pruning shears, machete, and telescoping tree trimmer into the trailer being towed behind my "garden tractor" (pronounced: riding lawn mower) and I'm on my way!!!
The section of tree which fell across the path to the clearing at the southern-most end of our land is only about 12" or so in diameter so my chainsaw w/ 18" bar makes quick work of bucking the dead, dry wood. I set the chainsaw aside and take my new AST(V) to hand to take care of the limbing. I wish that I could say I was surprised by how well and easily she chopped through the limbs (some as thick as 6" in diameter)... but having become familiar with HI's products in the form of my 15" Sirupati, the balance of my AST(V) and the ease with which she almost flew through the dry wood was what I had come to expect from HI and BirGorkha.
Limbing was so quick and easy that I decided to chop the first section from the trunk with my new khuk instead of cutting with the saw.
Working up about 24" from the base of my bucking cut, the trunk was was just a little less than 12" in diameter. ISYN (I S#!t You Not), the first chop sank the blade in to the full width of the bevel! The opposing cut sent a huge chip flying and I was already almost an inch through the log! The wood's probably at something like 5-10% moisture content, but geeze!!!
Four more cuts (and two more huge, flying chips) and I flip the log over to come at it from the other side. Unfortunately for my plans, one chop and the end snaps off!
Looking at the cut end, I can see that the blade sank in at least 2.5" before the inertia of the log versus the momentum of two pounds of HI steel snapped the intervening wood like a straw.The rest of the clearing job went really quickly and clearing the slash was a combination of khuk, shears, and saw... mostly khuk though. But that's mostly 'cause she's new and I was having way too much fun swinging her around. (Even if I'm a bit sore now and likely to be even more so in the morning from how long I was playing with that heavy chunk of satin-finished steel... it was--and is--well worth it!!!)
Cleaning up after getting back to the house, as expected, the edge is still exceedingly (almost too) sharp and after wiping off some schmutz from spanish moss and whatnot that was growing on the bark, you'd think that it hadn't been used at all. Instead of seeing more than an hour's worth of hard chopping. Not even any scuffs. Groovy!
But as I was putting the chakmak back into the scabbard, I decided to take a look at the karda. Which leads me to Item number... whatever: wire coil on approximately 60% of the edge. But that strops right off and a quick touch-up with the chakmak and the karda's shaving sharp! While some might question my still-gushing, still-ecstatic reaction given the negative points I mentioned, I'd like to repeat: she's a workhorse, not a show pony. There were and are no issues which in any way detract from my overflowing admiration for this khukuri.
That being said, I have a nice section of that bone-dry aspen sitting next to some wet, green 8-10" diameter birch logs. One of those birch logs is going to be another test piece for my AST(V), but the rest I'm saving for the arrival of my custom 22" Ganga Ram Special!
Like I stated previously, I'll try to get some pictures (and possibly some video) posted in the next couple/few days!
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