First village khukuris arrived -- surprise, surprise!

My thanks as well for the "pana butta" translation, Sonam. Your insights are always appreciated...

Jim
 
NO WAY!!! Uncle Bill, this gift khukuri is going to turn out to be the most expensive to me of the lot of them. Maybe not in money (yet), but certainly already in the time I've put into it.

Talk about a rough finish, I'm past most of the filing part on the blade, but I'm on 36 grit sandpaper, which is as coarse as I can buy, and there are still lots more marks to sand out. By the time I get this thing's blade up to snuff, I may as well go whole hog and rehandle it. When I do, the handle will be half an inch shorter, reducing overall length to 13 & 1/2 inches with it's 9 inch blade. It'll be halfway between a 12" Sirupati and a 15" BAS. You might call it a "Compact BAS", or maybe a "Mini-BAS". At the rate I'm going, I may finish it up before the year 2000.
 
36 grit! Rusty, you do have a ways to go and I don't blame you for not jumping at a chance to work in shop 2. It is a job I would not want, either -- at my age it is way to much. I don't know how those old timers do it.

Uncle Bill
 
Bill,

Do you think you could get the name of the kami who made this batch of village khukuri’s? I would like to know who he is.
 
My aunt always said “ a nickel to a doughnut.” I guess times are a-changing.

Hopefully you can get a first name also. With first names, and town of origin, we should be able to tell all the Bishwakarmas apart.
 
Howard, I really don't know how they differentiate people by name only in Nepal. It seems a near impossible task to me.

Take the Sherpas for example. I personally know five or six Kami Sherpas, including father-in-law and brother-in-law. Pemba Sherpa is another -- I know maybe five of these, including a nephew and brother-in-law's brother.

It is even worse with the Bishwakarmas because they often go by their first initials. T. B. Bishwakarm, R. B. Bishwakarma, N. B. Bishwakarma and so on. The middle B. is usally for Bahadur.

When I went on a person search in Nepal I had to have a "tag" of some kind -- only the name was not enough and many times name and village was not enough. I had a pal who was a trekking guide named Dawa Sherpa, another common name. He was very tall for a Sherpa so when I went looking for him I would always add, "the tall Sherpa trekking guide" to his name and that usually did it.

If you went to Nepal and said, "I want to find kami N. B. Bishwakarma who made this khukuri," and showed them your village knife you would get sent to five hundred different places.

By contrast I was easy to find -- "the tall American with the Sherpa wife." I'm only 5' 11" but in Nepal that's tall. I had a village pal who came into Kathmandu wanting to find me. He had no idea where I lived so he started asking on the streets of Kathmandu and he used the tag above. In less than an hour he was knocking on my door.

Uncle Bill
 
Work continues. There were some spots down in the fullered part that were extra hard, and nothing seemed to take them down. Then I got a grinding stone on a 1/4" shank, put it in my electric drill, and I'm now getting somewhere. The deep grind marks are coming out now, and the 36 and 50 grit sandpaper should start working shortly. Maybe by the time the blade's ready I'll have figured out what to handle the thing with. This village khukurie may not end up my favorite, but it's for darned sure the one I'll be the most familiar with.
 
Rusty, that’s going to be an $800 khukuri by the time you get done with it.
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My villager helped me clear some saplings out of the raspberry patch today. Along the way it got slammed full force into a rock hidden in the grass. I was able to straighten part of the ding with the chakma, but not all of it. The work did get some of the black gook off the chakma. I don’t think this chakma was hardened quite as hard as the HI chakmas. I notice the blade put some scratches in the chakma. I finally smoothed out the remaining protrusions with a few strokes of a file. There’s still a slight ding in the blade, but not enough to interfere with this villager’s future work.
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It will be interesting to track the reports of the various village khukuris by different makers. I think certain kamis may start to develop reputations for various qualities in their blades.

 
Howard, I don't know about $800 but I already have no doubts it'll end up costing more in time, money, and tools than if I'd just bought an HI. ( And this is the one I got free, courtesy of Cliff!!! )

[This message has been edited by Rusty (edited 23 May 1999).]
 
Howard, thanks for the report from the field -- I am pleased to see that the rock did not knock a chunk from the blade and that the knife did what it was supposed to do.

I get a great kick out of your efforts, Rusty, and you are not alone. Several owners of the villager are doing the same thing -- spending hours making the blade beautiful and I will admit that I have done the same thing myself.

By contrast, in Nepal the owner of such a knife would not spend a second making the knife beautiful. This shows the difference in our cultures.

Uncle Bill
 
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