Marion the quality is a significant influence but the technique is just as or probably even more so. What I like about the traditional khukuri design is how all the elements form a coherent package. You can take any aspect and starting from it the whole package will evolve to suit that.
For example to start off you want a knife that chops well. This means two things (a) the penetration is good so as to minimize the number of chops, (b) the binding is low so as to minimize the time / fatique rate. The second factor is the easiest to work with you just make a thick blade with a convex grind. The convex part being important as wood will wedge on a flat grind because of the much greater surface area.
Now the problem comes how to you get strong penetration on a thick blade - you need a lot of impact force. Ok, the first part of this is that the blade needs to have a decent mass or otherwise you will reach maximum velocity with low momentum, that's cool because thick blades are heavy.
However you need to consider another factor. When you swing something heavy really hard the impact force that the wood feels pretty much goes back to your hand as well. So now you need a way to prevent your grip from being mangled. First off to reduce the pressure you make the grip round so as to prevent a large surface area. Second you bend the blade to split the contact force and thus reduce the effect you feel. Thirdly you taper the tang so as to reduce the vibration.
This is basically an Ang Khola khukuri.
It is interesting to note that the various aspects influence other factors besides what is noted there. For example the tapered tang also shifts the balance forward which both increases power and reduces counter torques, the bent blade also produces a shearing effect which increases chopping ability, etc. . So basically you can run the argument from many different points along many different paths and get the same design.
One of the reasons that many people may get the wrong impression about a khukuri is that if you alter the specs even a little the whole thing falls apart because it is so integrated. For example if you took an AK and flat ground it it would bind so readily that chopping would be extremely frustrating. Or if you modified the handle to be more square you can no longer use the necessary force because the contact pressure would be to high and so the penetration falls to pot.
Will, can you expand on the CS shovel weapon comment?
Yvsa, I like the bent machete description.
-Cliff
[This message has been edited by Cliff Stamp (edited 02-10-2000).]
