Sorry guys, the little one started fussing and my "How To" turned into a "check this out" as I hurried to get the thread posted. Anyway, I started wanting to just round the edges of the ring a little. They were pretty sharp. The file easily worked the ring metal down. Even though the big ring felt good, it was kinda big. I decided to take the whole diameter of the ring down. I used some rough grit sandpaper, maybe 120 or so, and worked the wood down. I went a little higher grit and worked over the whole handle until I couldn't feel ANY sharp edges. I even worked the pommel over. At times, I got a little fast and had to rework what I was doing to make the top and bottom match. I don't have a lot of time for projects, and I could have sanded this smoother, but I wanted to finish. With some deeper scratches still visible, I went ahead and worked the whole handle over with 800 grit. The 800 gave the metal a nice satin glow. I'd like to do the entire khuk with it some time. I finished with the danish Oil and it soaked up a lot! I'm very pleased with the results. It looks good to my eye, but feels incredible. I can't say enough about the feel of this handle. It sure doesn't look like the satisal on my M43 though. I think this one was advertised as satisal, but seems different. It doesn't really matter though.
As I worked this handle, the thought of taking the ring totally off crossed my mind. This, I figured, would give me a nice traditional M43 grip. But, two things stopped me from this. First, I don't really want it to be an M43, the ring helps make it a B43 (For those new here, I made up "B43". This khuk is a bit of a mutt. It's really more of a very heavy duty chiruwa Bhojpuri or heavy ringed M43.) Second, that ring feels so good and REALLY locks my hand exactly where I want it to be. This is a beast at 36 ounces. I want as much control as I can have over it! So, the ring stayed and I'm glad. This khuk would be more versitile with a longer handle, like my M43. The M43 handle allows you to choke up, feeling much less blade heavy, or grab the pommel end for a lot of swing power, or just go two-handed. With that said, It's a very cool khuk with much more blade than most 18 inchers I've seen. It's my "heavy" for sure. If they made one around 25 ounces, I'd buy another real quick like! That might be the perfect khuk! All in all, I'm falling pretty hard for this B43. The handle modification added a lot to those feelings. It was much easier than I thought it would be. Thanks for the replies and for looking. Take care and God bless.
