20" Sirupati Villager Arrival

  • Thread starter Thread starter -
  • Start date Start date

My long-awaited 20" Sirupati Villager arrived yesterday! I left work a little early so that I would have some daylight to test this new toy. Upon opening the box, the first thing that struck me was the narrowness of the blade. I'm used to my 20" General Utility Villager which weighs in at about 2.25 lbs and has a WIDE blade. Anyway, the finish on the blade is good for a Villager, some work is needed, but generally in good finish.
I went to attack the brush stand in the back yard to see what I could see. The grip on this Khuk is a little small for me. I had a hard time holding on to it with gloves on, as it slipped some (not a good thing). However, once I started hacking with it, I figured that I could find some way around this slight inconvenience. This critter is great on light stuff. We have a lot of light black-berry bushes and other various assaulting 'pickers' in our pile. The General Utility just knocks these around, as the blade is much thicker. Not so with the Sirupati. It nicely slice through all but the tiniest brush, and does amazingly well on the larger stuff. I was able to take out 2-3" trees with 1-2 whacks! I didn't expect this kind of performance out of such a light, thin knife.
The only place that I have found that the Sirupati is not at home is at the wood pile. I didn't expect that it would do very well splitting, as it is not very thick at the blade, and has little mass, but I figured that I'd try it anyway. It performed better than I expected, suffered no impaction from the seasoned oak, but again, is not designed for splitting wood.
All in all, this is a performer. Does anyone have any suggestions about building up the handle so that it is a more comfortable size for me?
TIA

Rob

------------------
'He's losin' it... (Words spoken about me by a visitor seeing me with my Khuk!)
Lucky for them I'm not...
 
Rob, I use adhesive, tennis-grip tape on some of my smaller-handled khuks. The tape is very durable, is foam-backed, and you can get it at most sporting-goods stores as well as Wal-Mart and K-mart. The tape doesn't look bad and it comes off very easily when you decide to remove it.
 
Thanks for the input guys. Another thing that I've found that the Sirupati is good at (although maybe not its intended purpose) is planing wood. It works well as a spokeshave to shape wood with.

Another question, what can you do with horn? Can you polish it? can you re-shape it? What if anything is used to make it black, I notice some grey/white areas that look like they've been rubbed more than other areas. Are these just variations in the color of the horn? I need to re-shape the butt of the handle, as it is a little too sharp for my liking.

TIA,


Rob

------------------
'He's losin' it... (Words spoken about me by a visitor seeing me with my Khuk!)
Lucky for them I'm not...
 
Rob, it's been my experience that horn requires a bit more effort than wood to get a nice finish. When working on horn, once I have the basic shape I want, I begin the refinishing process with various grits of automotive wet/dry sandpaper, using increasingly finer grits as I go along. Then I finish it on the buffer, going from course to fine compounds. And I think you almost have to have access to an electric buffing wheel of some sort, otherwise it takes so long to get a really polished look. Incidentally, you can get wet-or-dry sandpaper just about anywhere that sells sandpaper.

[This message has been edited by Steven F (edited 29 December 1999).]
 
Thanks again Steven, I already have some wet/dry paper up to 1500 grit that I am using in refinishing the wood handle on my 20" General Utility. I guess that you can think of the horn as "really hard wood". Do you seal it with anything (wax, oil, etc.)?

Rob

------------------
'He's losin' it... (Words spoken about me by a visitor seeing me with my Khuk!)
Lucky for them I'm not...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top