Chiruwa Anatomy

Daniel Koster

Daniel Koster

www.kosterknives.com
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Oct 18, 2001
Messages
20,978
For the curious ones....



I took the handle slabs off this chiruwa tang. See how it is notched? That's how they get the brass even with the handle, despite having a thickness of its own.


Oops....already ahead of myself....



Pic #1

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A little bit of soaking in boiling water (large, deep pot) to release the laha....a chisel to encourage it along....and some prying with a screwdriver.

The pins were indeed peened, and if I had been interested in keeping the handles neat and pristine, I would have drilled them out first....being peened made it a little harder to get the slabs off....but with some oomph, they let loose.



Pic #2

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Here you can see inside the bolster where the end of the handle slab goes. Notice the unfinished and smaller piece on the handle. Goes all the way to the inside of the bolster. Nice. ;)


Pic #3

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The blade completely stripped of handle material. Here's where we can get a good look at the profile of the chiruwa khukuri. I think I'll make a tracing of this before I go any further....need to do a mock-up of what the handle will look like.


I'll let the future owner pipe in if he wants (or doesn't want, that's fine too).

Basically, this one's getting a new, reworked handle. In order to preserve the full-tang look, I'm going to have to remove part of the blade to match the notch in the tang. Not a big deal....just a little grinding time.



That's it so far....had to do something while my grinder was being fixed...so I thought a hammer and chisel would be fun.....:D....eases the tension.....:p


I'll keep y'all posted on the progress.
 
Cool Dan!

Thanks for the pics.

So, do I need to convert mine to a hidden tang then? :confused:

Tom :)
 
My first thought was, "Ya know, If he torqued that handle enough, it might just be able to beat that clamp!"

That last pic is kinda strange. An appropriate caption would be, "Where's the handle!?!? :( "
 
So, boiling removes laha... didn't know that. Thought the "Himalayan Superglue" was unremovable by mortals... What's the new handle material going to be, Dan? Ivory? :D Kraton? :barf:

AA
 
Yep, AA, boiling will loosen up the laha. There have been several threads on how guys filed down the peen, put the handle in boiling water for a few minutes, and then quickly yanked the handle free from the the tang. IIRC, you have to be pretty dang quick or it'll reset in a matter of seconds. Yvsa and others know a lot more about this.

Jake
 
I've used a heat gun to get the same result. I like it better than putting wood and metal in water.
 
Whatever works best.....like I said, this time, I knew I could throw away the handles...so I did what was quickest/easiest.


Here's another pic - this time with the tang ground down and flattened the best I could.

(in the pic, the tang looks bumpy...but it's not - it's even)


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For those curious....here's a pic of my shop:

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And here's a pic of the grinder setup I have. It's a KMG-1 with a flat platen & tool rest (not shown). The motor and drive I got from friesen.com - both came with a 1 year warranty. Which is good because the drive itself is $275....:eek:
(the arrow is pointing to the drive - variable frequency drive)

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If anybody is interested in a full technical explanation....feel free to email me offline about it. Otherwise, I want to keep this discussion on track.


I'm surprised there haven't been more questions.....:confused:
 
Between the pics and your explainations there isn't much to ask... :)

For more posts, you have to skip pics and say "So then I used my special piece of shop equipment do get this shaped just right so the Khuk would never need sharpening again."
 
Very interesting. Thanks for the pics. I'm excited to see the finished product. :)

John, drooling
 
Thomas Linton said:
Nice to see that you keep up with current events. :)
Click to expand...

The trouble with being oblique is that you can fail to communicate. :footinmou I was referring to the reading material in Dan's pic's.
 
The KMG is available from http://www.beaumontmetalworks.com/grinder.html. You can see prices there. The grinder comes without a motor though, however, you can pick them up used on eBay for cheap. I got a 3 hp. industrial motor for $28, attached to a VFD which cost something like $280. The KMG seems expensive, but seems to be cheaper than other high-end grinders out there.

I really like mine, even though knifemaking is a hobby, not an occupation, for me. I got this device called a rotary platen (you can see it on the Beaumont Metal Works website) which is perfect for putting a convex edge on khuks, and for sharpening them. The rotary platen is also kind of expensive but seems to be worth it.

My friend (Jebediah Smith, on the forum) bought a Grizzly 2x72 grinder. He had to mess with it a little, filing down the contact wheel to make it round. However, it seems to work very well, considering the price of only 300 or so, plus shipping. Plus it has a buffing wheel attached.

(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...02304-2652021?v=glance&s=home-garden&n=507846)

picture:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~robgaunt/KMG.jpg
 
oblique is better than obtuse....:D


The newspaper was put there by my wife....to cover where the cat took a dump in my shop (supposed to be outside cat, but she brought them in the garage during a cold snap).........I wasn't told until later......:mad: :grumpy:
 
Daniel Koster said:
oblique is better than obtuse....:D


The newspaper was put there by my wife....to cover where the cat took a dump in my shop (supposed to be outside cat, but she brought them in the garage during a cold snap).........I wasn't told until later......:mad: :grumpy:
Click to expand...

If cat knows your attitude, this MAY NOT have been an "accident." :eek:
 
the dang cat would spray ME if I stood still long enough to let him.....:mad:




brantoken - what KM said. ;)
 
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