A village kami makes us Chiruwa khukuris. Take a look.

Bill Martino

Bill Martino

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Here are three Ang Kholas. The village kami who made the top two called them "Chiruwa" Ang Kholas. The bottom was made by a shop 2 regular. Chiruwa as I remember means "split" and he is referring to the handle style which most call a pana butta. I am going to stick with his name of Chiruwa since he is the guy who made the top two.

I noticed that the village kami made knives do not get the HI marking on the blade. Nobody told me this, I just happened to notice it. The blades are marked "Nepal" on the left side, all of them. Khukuris only get blessed if they are worthy of blessing. I am certain these blades got the blessing since they seem to be very worthy to me. I also noticed a couple of village kami made knives have a strange serial number like 10G. They have some sort of code going on in the shop but I don't know what it is.

These knives are a bit over 15 inches in length -- bottom is near 16 inches -- and blades are 2 to 2 & 1/8 wide. Top two are 7/16 thick and bottom a bit more than 3/8. All weigh in at about 1 lb 10 oz. Finish is very good and hardening seems just about perfect.

top is SN 117
center is SN 100 (that's a duplicate number -- why I can't say)
bottom is SN 96

All have pretty good scabbards and good kardas and chakmas.

Kami set the price at $100 each on these with full HI guarantee. He said these handles are easier to make.

So, anybody interested in a top notch Chiruwa Ang Khola email or call.

Uncle Bill

[This message has been edited by Bill Martino (edited 01 September 1999).]
 
So 'pana butta' (?) is essentially a full tang blade ? Not only do the handles seem easier to make but the knife seems that it will be more robust. Do they do such handles in something like a 15in or so Suripati ?
 
These appear to be a full tang type construction or is it an inlay or filler used to get the "look"? Actually, I guess all your blades a full-length tang. These may look more robust, but I don't know how you'd improve on HI's record.

Are the top two khukuris Shop 2 blades with a village kami handles, or did you guest kami make the whole thing?

Whichever, they look great.

Richard


[This message has been edited by RHJohnson (edited 01 September 1999).]
 
Johno, pana butta means 'riveted through' and does indicate a full tang blade. Some folks say the pana butta tang transmits too much vibration to the hand on impact, so they usually do it the other way.

Now that I own a khukuri or two, I am seeing cheap (that is, really bad) pana buttas everywhere. That may be why I like the other kind, or it could be that I like the look of the handle without the rivets. Certainly the tests indicate that the skinny tang is plenty strong enough.

Namaste,
Jeff Paulsen


[This message has been edited by JeffPaulsen (edited 01 September 1999).]
 
There were some broken tang problems with shop 2 knives that have been fixed, at least one shop 1 has had a broken tang, and it seems that a number of people are trying to fix loose handles. The percentages are very small but I suspect that the percentages are much smaller still for full tang knives. If the knive is to be used around the house and such the differences aren't worth worrying about, but if one intends to keep one in a car as an emergency tool for instance, the diferences might be worth considering.
 
Those are full tang all right.

Now, per the many comparisons that have been done with the Cold Steel Khukuris and pretty much every other heavy chopping blade made, the "classic rat-tail" tangs will transmit less shock on impact.

On a piece bought mainly as a "fighter" such as the double-edge special I'm pondering, the shock resistance feature might be less critical. It should also put more weight into the grip to "counter-balance" the blade, making for faster tip speed?

Does that sound right? Also, is that shock resistence with the classic tang valuable in a fight?

Last thing: this full tang would seem to be more "reliable". Even if the classic tang has a miniscule chance of failure, the one thing that MUST not happen in a fight is to have the blade "follow it's own path" while you're holding the grip like a dummy. Reducing that possibly by even less than 1% would seem worth thinking about?

Unless somebody has a good reason why not, methinks I want that "double-edge special" in full tang, now that I know it's possible.

Jim March
 
Jim - I am not a fighter or a MA - but YES! I guess in fighting people care less on shock resistence BUT care more on reliable tang.
 
Do these AK feel any different in hand that the normal HI ones? If you closed your eyes could you easily tell the difference from heft and balance?

-Cliff
 
Cliff, they seem to have gone to "extreme" lengths to preserve the feel. Look at the lower picture of the tang's top - they carved the "center groove" normally found in the handle right through the metal, so there's no "transition" between wood and steel.

Now, weight is another thing altogether. In my experience, more handle weight (within limits) is a good thing in a fighter.

BILL: If you still have these cuties laying around, do us a favor, willya? Measure the "balance point" on them in comparison to something of similar blade shape and heft. Hold one finger out, lay the blade on it sideways and try to "balance" the knife on your finger, getting an idea as to the location of the balance point of each.

You then "report" the balance point as a function of "how far forward of the grip, in inches". A good "chopping" blade will balance somewhere out onto the blade, maybe 3" or more. Good "tip speed" will come from being balanced "right in front of the grip" - the blade will then have an "airy" feel, like it just plain weighs less. Many swords have a pommel weight for exactly this reason.

Jim March
 
These three are gone. Yangdu has two packed but I'll pick up the last one she's not packed yet and try to get a "feel" and post results here.

The top two are unmarked and my guess is the entire knife was made by the village kami. The bottom one is marked with HI and I am assuming again was made by HI kamis. Nobody tells me anything about the details except some village kamis are making knives so I have to try to figure out what they are doing over there. I have noticed also that some of the village kami made khukuris have crazy serial numbers like 10G and also a couple of them duplicated HI serial numbers. They have a coded system of some kind going on but I don't know what it is. They also code parcel shipments with a code I don't understand. I hope Kami will be able to explain some of these mysteries when he gets here.

Running late today -- 4 hours on phone and email before I could get here.

Uncle Bill
 
Namaste Uncle and all Forumites,

I finally became a member after reading the forums for over two months. I am anxiously awaiting my new WW2 and only regret that I was too late on the chiruwa that I wanted. I hope that you get more in with pinned wood handles or I may have to order one special. Thanks again Uncle and I look forward to many more responses now that I am a member and can reply to posts..

Namaste,

CT

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"In the land of the blind, the man with one eye is King."
 
I managed to run a quick check on the balance point. Standard tang is ab outr 3 inches out as you mentioned, Jim. The Chiruwa is back about and inch or maybe inch and a half. The full tang does make a difference which you can look at as 50% or a mere 1.5 inches.

Welcome to the forum, Curt. It's a great bunch of guys who will make you feel right at home here.

Uncle Bill
 
Bill, THANK you, that's very close to what I would have guessed.

It's just about perfect, in fact, the suggestion is that it'll put the balance point at a GREAT place yet the extra weight won't be severe.

This also suggests that the "normal" one isn't balanced all that terribly either...but this full-tang critter is better.

No question, this is the tang for me.

Jim March
 
Not for me.If Cliff can`t break a traditional one,I`m losing no sleep over it. Wood and horn tend to crack at the rivets. I have a few old knives with no,or part, of the scales left.One of these days I`ll rehandle them.

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Thanks for the info Bill, as I would have guessed the balance point is unfortunately moved much further back. If I was going to have a handle made like this I would probably get a wide blade like a Salyan to drag the CG back to the right spot.

-Cliff
 
OK, Jim. I'll check a little more if and when we ever get some more Chiruwas in.

Cliff, I doubt that it would make more than a half inch difference on your 20 inch AK. If you got a little piece of steel about 7x1x1/4 inches and taped it to your handle you could check the difference that made in balance point and this would get you very close to what you could expect from a Chiruwa 20 inch AK.

You can see the old flight test engineer talking here. We used to have available a tape that was like super duct tape and you could actually tape stuff on the wings or fuselage, flight test it, and the tape never failed. A lot faster and easier than drilling and riveting and it left no holes when the test was complete. I wish I had some of that tape.

Uncle Bill
 
FWIW I like using a full tang on my handmade knives and to get the point of balance just the way I wnat it I just cut holes in the tang between the rivet holes. That way I still have a strong perimeter with more than twice the cross section of a stick tang but the balance is where it should be. They also seem to soak up vibration a little better than a solid full tang IMHO. Bill,do you think the Kamis could do something like this? Marcus
 
Why didn't I think of that? Sure, shop 2 kamis could do this easily. They have a hand drill and the tang is fairly soft so this should be a breeze for them. If we make this knife a regular item this is what we will do.
Very good idea and thanks.

Uncle Bill
 
I found one more of these Chiruwas hiding in the bottom of a box. It is like the middle one in the above pix.

Interested parties call or email. This is the last one for sure. At least for now.

Uncle Bill
 
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