Gurka Kukri Knives

Business as usual it seems with suppliers. But then as a rule most orders are for standard size blades well under the 50cm limit so you should have no problems with the type you are interested in.
Happy hunting!
 
Just to throw another name into the ring, I have a few Khukhuri, I was very impressed with the most recent one I ordered from Kailash Blades, I ordered their 'Pensioner' model from their Traditional range, and it's a very nice piece indeed. They're well worth a look.
uefgfnr.jpg
 
GB2014 said:
When you say your Kukri House models is not good is that the Kukri House Handicraft Industries (KHHI) or different manufacturer ? Do you have a link to the real Himalayan Imports website ?
Click to expand...

Yes, I believe my first kukhuri was from KHHI and I would not recommend their products. As I said earlier, I really do not think they hardened the blade at all. I should have known better but figured I for $43.00 it was worth a try.
 
Kailash is really underrepresented on the forums since it’s still a new company, but the quality is far and above the other three players. KHHI uses a process that makes the edges prone to rolling, quenches poorly, and the spines are too thick. Himalayan Imports makes them too heavy and way above recommended weight. And Tora takes three to 4 times as long as Kailash to make a blade but doesn’t even offer refunds or warranty. My Historical Service Issue from Kailash is all I was anticipated when I ordered others but never got until 2 days ago when it arrived and I put it through its paces. Can’t recommend them enough, they’re bound to be the next big thing.
 
They offer a direct replica of the Modern Service Issue, but they heavily criticize its design and geometry, preferring to recommend models like the HSI or World War 1/2 era kukris.
 
I'll second the motion above. I've seen a lot of Kailash posts on Instagram but haven't seen much discussion of the brand on BF.

Pics, videos, and reviews would be appreciated.
 
I don't have any problems with all my "KNIFE MAKERS" links on the desktop apart from kailash. I get blocked from entering a couple of their links for some reason!
I get to see the gallery though for reference.
 
Hey guys!

I'd like to echo the sentiments of a few members already that the knives being made as service issue blades currently aren't of excellent quality. The contract goes to whoever can make the most knives for the cheapest so both quality and working conditions for smiths on these orders are about as low as things get in the industry. Many different houses have held the contract over time though I'm not aware of who's doing it currently. When I was involved with KHHI they weren't trying to compete for it at that point as the amount of workshop time it took up compared to the amount of money it brought in was very poor. It's mostly a prestige thing for the houses, but with everyone claiming the same thing most, if not all of that pedigree is lost. Furthermore a look into the types of knives being produced gives the impression that it's not something that should be sought out or bragged about really.

Tim.E said:
Just to throw another name into the ring, I have a few Khukhuri, I was very impressed with the most recent one I ordered from Kailash Blades, I ordered their 'Pensioner' model from their Traditional range, and it's a very nice piece indeed. They're well worth a look.
uefgfnr.jpg
Click to expand...

Raiden Day said:
Kailash is really underrepresented on the forums since it’s still a new company, but the quality is far and above the other three players. KHHI uses a process that makes the edges prone to rolling, quenches poorly, and the spines are too thick. Himalayan Imports makes them too heavy and way above recommended weight. And Tora takes three to 4 times as long as Kailash to make a blade but doesn’t even offer refunds or warranty. My Historical Service Issue from Kailash is all I was anticipated when I ordered others but never got until 2 days ago when it arrived and I put it through its paces. Can’t recommend them enough, they’re bound to be the next big thing.
Click to expand...

Thanks so much for the kind words guys and it's great to hear that you're enjoying your blades. Raiden, would it be okay if I used that quote on the testimonials page on our website? It's great to get positive feedback from someone who has contrasting experience with the other houses. As for our forum presence, we initially planned to train up one of the guys to jump on here and get involved, but it didn't really end up working out. We've been working away at improving our processes and getting our systems running really smoothly, and in the next few months that'll be all done and we'll be ready to push out into the world a little more. Consider this post the start of it! And expect a Bladeforums Subforum in the not too distant future.

Steve Of England said:
I don't have any problems with all my "KNIFE MAKERS" links on the desktop apart from kailash. I get blocked from entering a couple of their links for some reason!
I get to see the gallery though for reference.
Click to expand...

Raiden Day said:
Their website is a little buggy, but their customer service responses are the fastest of all the other companies. Might suggest they upgrade
Click to expand...

Sorry to hear you guys have been having issues with the site! I made the site myself a couple of years ago so it's definitely pretty clunky and could do with a big cleanup. I think the issue you're running into about being blocked would be that we don't have an SSL certificate for the site yet so your browser might recognise it as unsecured. I don't really know much about what this means but we've just moved over to a newer, better host so we should be able to sort it out soon.
Take care,
Andrew
 
Kailash Blades said:
Just as an update, we have our on subforum now!
Not a heap on it as of yet, but if you've got some photos you can post then chucking them in this thread here would be a big help.
Take care,
Andrew
Click to expand...

This is the first that I have heard of Kailash blades. You are catching my interest. I have a number of HI and KHHI kukris. I have been happy with all of them, but your website I think is the first that mentioned normalizing in respect to the 5160 steel that all the kukri houses use. I have never seen normalization mentioned in respect to HI, and from watching KHHI´s "How its made" videos, it does not look like they do it either, though some effect might be had from both parties due to the constant heating cycle the kami´s used. 5160´s properties, namely grain size, shows major improvement from a properly executed normalization cycle, and it might allow a party that does so to make their knives thinner than the competition, while not sacrificing strength. I tend to like a thinner kukri myself.

I think the reason most of HI´s blades are so heavy is driven from their intended use, namely heavy wood processing. Users have directed them towards that goal, evolving their product line. KHHI seems to be driven by two variables; one, producing a variety of traditional styles, particularly those linked to gurkhas, and two, throwing anything at the wall to see what sticks if you know what I mean. They have a large number of non traditional, more or less experimental designs. I don´t own any Tora kukris, but my impression from them is they are directed at historical accuracy and collectors, while still being a good tool.

Honestly, I have wanted to slice a kukri apart for a while, etch it, and look at it under my ore microscope (Olympus BHM+P). The kamis, in my opinion, are more or less abusing 5160, (repeated heating and forging which should lead to mad grain growth, water quenching, no normalization and no controlled tempering, AFAIK the only tempering is in the residual heat of the blade after quenching) and still getting good results. Not to mention they typically use recycled steel of unknown quality. There is some research to be done to help explain why the results are pretty bloody good and consistent. All the kukri houses seem to put out lemons from time to time, but they are still pretty good as an average.

Its just hard to justify slicing up a perfectly good tool, ya know? Maybe if I break one by accident I can do that, to make lemons out of lemonade.
 
Last edited:
uraninite said:
I have never seen normalization mentioned in respect to HI, and from watching KHHI´s "How its made" videos, it does not look like they do it either, though some effect might be had from both parties due to the constant heating cycle the kami´s used. 5160´s properties, namely grain size, shows major improvement from a properly executed normalization cycle, and it might allow a party that does so to make their knives thinner than the competition, while not sacrificing strength. I tend to like a thinner kukri myself....The kamis, in my opinion, are more or less abusing 5160, (repeated heating and forging which should lead to mad grain growth, water quenching, no normalization and no controlled tempering, AFAIK the only tempering is in the residual heat of the blade after quenching) and still getting good results. Not to mention they typically use recycled steel of unknown quality. There is some research to be done to help explain why the results are pretty bloody good and consistent.
Click to expand...

Hey there mate!
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head with a lot of this. Normalisation does a few things for us, which are all linked in with our other processes. We also all have experience working with KHHI and other houses, so can make some sound comparisons.

It allows us to relieve the stresses from forging, but most importantly the stresses from the steel's previous life as a spring under a truck for 30 years. While this reduces the chance of failure over the lifetime of a blade, for us it's crucial because our oil quench is a lot harder on the blade than a traditional water and teapot quench. It more or less eliminates the likelihood of cracking and lessens the amount of warp that results.|

It also reduces the grain size, which decreases hardenability and makes our oil quench gentler still. This is fine as we're only aiming for moderate hrc on our blades. It also increases sharpenability, which helps with field maintenance while also bringing the sharpening experience closer to traditional blades, which are seldom touched by stone or ceramic.

A smaller grain size as well as our tempering procedure both allow for a tougher blade at a higher hardness. No other house in Nepal tempers their blades in any meaningful way and it leaves them having to walk the line between an edge that rolls or cracks. That sweet spot occurs at a much lower hardness for them, with our processes giving us much, much better edge stability. We offer a few types of grinds to best take advantage of this and generally go much thinner for better performance while landing at a similar if not slightly more durable edge.

With all this said though, there are some benefits to the traditional quench. Our blade design and heat treat process is optimised for performance while the standard method is geared to be economical and have a low rejection rate.
While water quenching is typically harsher than oil, the nepali way of pouring it out of a teapot makes it much, much gentler. The lower thermal mass from it being poured on gradually rather than dunked means that it cools at a very slow rate. It also doesn't quench as deeply, stressing the inside of the blade less. This makes the blades much less prone to warping, cracking and lost work. The lower rockwell out of the quench allows them to passibly avoid temper completely and also makes for an easier and quicker grind/sharpen. This all saves money and speeds up production.

To compensate for the lower strength of the softer, untempered blade, the vast majority of khukuris in nepal are ground very thick, much thicker than would traditionally be the case. This allows for a much more stable edge, primary grind and also means they have to take less steel off the blade when coming down from thick stock. This once again saves on labour but also reduced the likelihood of hitting a void and needing to scrap the blade. A final benefit of a softer, thicker blade like this is that it's much less likely to break catastrophically in use, meaning less warranty claims and the ability to market the blades based on that benefit. HI got a large foothold in america through advertising their panawal angkhola as being the toughest knife in the world, if you break it you get sent two more and KHHI and their imitators do similar things nowadays. I've seen my fair share of snapped khukuris and in the majority, you're right that an enlarged grain structure is usually but not always present. I doubt you'd need a microscope though, it's usually chunky enough to show up in photos.

As a comparison of blade strength, a standard ground blade from KHHI is almost always tough enough to chop buffalo horn very hard without chipping or rolling. When I was working for KHHI I used the current Kailash heat treat on one of their grinds and it could chop and carve rebar without issue. Our standard grind is closer to what tora put out and shows similar cutting performance but with ours being capable of much harder use. Our performance grind is leaner still and would most likely not hold up on a tora and would certainly crumple on something from KHHI.

Important side note: Not all manufacturers in Nepal are currently using 5160.
Neem tenji of gurkhasblades plasma cuts all blades and KHHI plasma cuts any blade that isn't rat tail tang. While this brings in it's own issues in terms of heat control at the edge etc, it forces them to use sheet EN31, a 52100 equivalent. 52100 is a lot less forgiving steel due to the higher carbon content making it much less suitable for water quenching. Furthermore while it does have increased chromium for depth of hardening it doesn't make up for the reduced amount of manganese. This causes shallow, harsher quenching and is in general a worse match for the teapot method and I'd expect more blade failures as a result.

Anyway, a long post but hopefully it's informative and covers why normalisation is crucial for us and also how current nepalese blades hold up so well with such a basic traditional quench.
 
Kailash Blades said:
Hey there mate!
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head with a lot of this. Normalisation does a few things for us, which are all linked in with our other processes. We also all have experience working with KHHI and other houses, so can make some sound comparisons.

It allows us to relieve the stresses from forging, but most importantly the stresses from the steel's previous life as a spring under a truck for 30 years. While this reduces the chance of failure over the lifetime of a blade, for us it's crucial because our oil quench is a lot harder on the blade than a traditional water and teapot quench. It more or less eliminates the likelihood of cracking and lessens the amount of warp that results.|

It also reduces the grain size, which decreases hardenability and makes our oil quench gentler still. This is fine as we're only aiming for moderate hrc on our blades. It also increases sharpenability, which helps with field maintenance while also bringing the sharpening experience closer to traditional blades, which are seldom touched by stone or ceramic.

A smaller grain size as well as our tempering procedure both allow for a tougher blade at a higher hardness. No other house in Nepal tempers their blades in any meaningful way and it leaves them having to walk the line between an edge that rolls or cracks. That sweet spot occurs at a much lower hardness for them, with our processes giving us much, much better edge stability. We offer a few types of grinds to best take advantage of this and generally go much thinner for better performance while landing at a similar if not slightly more durable edge.

With all this said though, there are some benefits to the traditional quench. Our blade design and heat treat process is optimised for performance while the standard method is geared to be economical and have a low rejection rate.
While water quenching is typically harsher than oil, the nepali way of pouring it out of a teapot makes it much, much gentler. The lower thermal mass from it being poured on gradually rather than dunked means that it cools at a very slow rate. It also doesn't quench as deeply, stressing the inside of the blade less. This makes the blades much less prone to warping, cracking and lost work. The lower rockwell out of the quench allows them to passibly avoid temper completely and also makes for an easier and quicker grind/sharpen. This all saves money and speeds up production.

To compensate for the lower strength of the softer, untempered blade, the vast majority of khukuris in nepal are ground very thick, much thicker than would traditionally be the case. This allows for a much more stable edge, primary grind and also means they have to take less steel off the blade when coming down from thick stock. This once again saves on labour but also reduced the likelihood of hitting a void and needing to scrap the blade. A final benefit of a softer, thicker blade like this is that it's much less likely to break catastrophically in use, meaning less warranty claims and the ability to market the blades based on that benefit. HI got a large foothold in america through advertising their panawal angkhola as being the toughest knife in the world, if you break it you get sent two more and KHHI and their imitators do similar things nowadays. I've seen my fair share of snapped khukuris and in the majority, you're right that an enlarged grain structure is usually but not always present. I doubt you'd need a microscope though, it's usually chunky enough to show up in photos.

As a comparison of blade strength, a standard ground blade from KHHI is almost always tough enough to chop buffalo horn very hard without chipping or rolling. When I was working for KHHI I used the current Kailash heat treat on one of their grinds and it could chop and carve rebar without issue. Our standard grind is closer to what tora put out and shows similar cutting performance but with ours being capable of much harder use. Our performance grind is leaner still and would most likely not hold up on a tora and would certainly crumple on something from KHHI.

Important side note: Not all manufacturers in Nepal are currently using 5160.
Neem tenji of gurkhasblades plasma cuts all blades and KHHI plasma cuts any blade that isn't rat tail tang. While this brings in it's own issues in terms of heat control at the edge etc, it forces them to use sheet EN31, a 52100 equivalent. 52100 is a lot less forgiving steel due to the higher carbon content making it much less suitable for water quenching. Furthermore while it does have increased chromium for depth of hardening it doesn't make up for the reduced amount of manganese. This causes shallow, harsher quenching and is in general a worse match for the teapot method and I'd expect more blade failures as a result.

Anyway, a long post but hopefully it's informative and covers why normalisation is crucial for us and also how current nepalese blades hold up so well with such a basic traditional quench.
Click to expand...
How long is your waiting list for new orders?
 
WilliamTheKnifeGuy said:
How long is your waiting list for new orders?
Click to expand...
Usually from receiving payment it's about 5-7 weeks including shipping time but now is a particularly slammed time. We had a review from skallagrim recently that's had us operating slightly over capacity with orders (2 week delay) and also have the Festival season in Nepal coming up where the hwole country shuts down for about a fortnight. So right now about 9-11 weeks but once Dashain and Tihar have finished we'll be back to normal.
 
Kailash Blades said:
Hey there mate!
You've pretty much hit the nail on the head with a lot of this. Normalisation does a few things for us, which are all linked in with our other processes. We also all have experience working with KHHI and other houses, so can make some sound comparisons.

It allows us to relieve the stresses from forging, but most importantly the stresses from the steel's previous life as a spring under a truck for 30 years. While this reduces the chance of failure over the lifetime of a blade, for us it's crucial because our oil quench is a lot harder on the blade than a traditional water and teapot quench. It more or less eliminates the likelihood of cracking and lessens the amount of warp that results.|

It also reduces the grain size, which decreases hardenability and makes our oil quench gentler still. This is fine as we're only aiming for moderate hrc on our blades. It also increases sharpenability, which helps with field maintenance while also bringing the sharpening experience closer to traditional blades, which are seldom touched by stone or ceramic.

A smaller grain size as well as our tempering procedure both allow for a tougher blade at a higher hardness. No other house in Nepal tempers their blades in any meaningful way and it leaves them having to walk the line between an edge that rolls or cracks. That sweet spot occurs at a much lower hardness for them, with our processes giving us much, much better edge stability. We offer a few types of grinds to best take advantage of this and generally go much thinner for better performance while landing at a similar if not slightly more durable edge.

With all this said though, there are some benefits to the traditional quench. Our blade design and heat treat process is optimised for performance while the standard method is geared to be economical and have a low rejection rate.
While water quenching is typically harsher than oil, the nepali way of pouring it out of a teapot makes it much, much gentler. The lower thermal mass from it being poured on gradually rather than dunked means that it cools at a very slow rate. It also doesn't quench as deeply, stressing the inside of the blade less. This makes the blades much less prone to warping, cracking and lost work. The lower rockwell out of the quench allows them to passibly avoid temper completely and also makes for an easier and quicker grind/sharpen. This all saves money and speeds up production.

To compensate for the lower strength of the softer, untempered blade, the vast majority of khukuris in nepal are ground very thick, much thicker than would traditionally be the case. This allows for a much more stable edge, primary grind and also means they have to take less steel off the blade when coming down from thick stock. This once again saves on labour but also reduced the likelihood of hitting a void and needing to scrap the blade. A final benefit of a softer, thicker blade like this is that it's much less likely to break catastrophically in use, meaning less warranty claims and the ability to market the blades based on that benefit. HI got a large foothold in america through advertising their panawal angkhola as being the toughest knife in the world, if you break it you get sent two more and KHHI and their imitators do similar things nowadays. I've seen my fair share of snapped khukuris and in the majority, you're right that an enlarged grain structure is usually but not always present. I doubt you'd need a microscope though, it's usually chunky enough to show up in photos.

As a comparison of blade strength, a standard ground blade from KHHI is almost always tough enough to chop buffalo horn very hard without chipping or rolling. When I was working for KHHI I used the current Kailash heat treat on one of their grinds and it could chop and carve rebar without issue. Our standard grind is closer to what tora put out and shows similar cutting performance but with ours being capable of much harder use. Our performance grind is leaner still and would most likely not hold up on a tora and would certainly crumple on something from KHHI.

Important side note: Not all manufacturers in Nepal are currently using 5160.
Neem tenji of gurkhasblades plasma cuts all blades and KHHI plasma cuts any blade that isn't rat tail tang. While this brings in it's own issues in terms of heat control at the edge etc, it forces them to use sheet EN31, a 52100 equivalent. 52100 is a lot less forgiving steel due to the higher carbon content making it much less suitable for water quenching. Furthermore while it does have increased chromium for depth of hardening it doesn't make up for the reduced amount of manganese. This causes shallow, harsher quenching and is in general a worse match for the teapot method and I'd expect more blade failures as a result.

Anyway, a long post but hopefully it's informative and covers why normalisation is crucial for us and also how current nepalese blades hold up so well with such a basic traditional quench.
Click to expand...

Thanks for taking the time to give such a detailed response. I feel since the kukri system evolved in a low carbon environment, with the blacksmiths probably using something equivalent to 1045 or 1055, the design probably reflects those parameters to an extent. (An aside, I have linked a recent article at the beeb showing how cultures copy behaviors and modify them to optimize behaviors over generations.) I have always wondered about the cho surviving that process of optimization, as its existence from a pure engineering standpoint contributes nothing and serves as a massive stress riser. But in low carbon steels, plate martinsite is not able to form, that might not be as big of an issue. In addition, the initial teapot quench allows for the residual heat of the blade to temper slightly, and the traditional handle fitting heats up the tang to red hot, and it seems reasonable to think that the base of the knife would be tempered again by this process, so that this area would likely be a ferrite - pearlite microstruture, perhaps accounting for its strength even in the light of the stress risers from the cho.

I also think that traditionally hardened kukris tend to be surface hardened as opposed to completely edge hardened, which you alluded to in your post. The water coming out of the tea pot cannot cool the entire thickness of the blade, or even the edge, quickly enough in the simpler steels to give a full hardening thickness, which also probably contributes to their toughness. The chrome in 5160 helps boost up that hardenability, but I dont know if it does so sufficiently to allow for a fully hardened edge.

I am just kinda tossing ideas out there, the metallurgy of kukris interests me quite a bit. Probably why I have so many.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-48859333
 
uraninite said:
I have always wondered about the cho surviving that process of optimization, as its existence from a pure engineering standpoint contributes nothing and serves as a massive stress riser... In addition, the initial teapot quench allows for the residual heat of the blade to temper slightly, and the traditional handle fitting heats up the tang to red hot, and it seems reasonable to think that the base of the knife would be tempered again by this process, so that this area would likely be a ferrite - pearlite microstruture, perhaps accounting for its strength even in the light of the stress risers from the cho.
Click to expand...

The cho is a tricky one and as we both well know theories abound for its origin and purpose. Most of these are bordering on the ridiculous but I had a dscussion with a guy recently who claimed to ahve had some FEA simulation done on a model of a khukuri and claimed that it actually reduced stresses in the blade. I come from an industrial design background and didn't think it made much sense as it's a big cutout in a pretty crucial part of the blade, but potentially it reduces the suddenness of the transition down to the rat tail tang?

Personally I think it serves no purpose and is a decorative element that over time has become entrenched as an essential part of the blade's form. To a westerner this might seem strange but Nepal is a very dogmatic place. Traditions aren't often questioned, things are slow to change even int he face of clear benefits and sometimes tradition exists just for tradition's sake. Both a great source of strength and weakness for the country.

I think the heating of the tang to burn it into the wood certainly helps to temper the area, but tang breakages are still common regardless. I think that the old residual heat tempering the blade situation is a bit flawed. If you look at how long a soak time is deemed as necessary to temper 5160 normally within a certain temperature range, the steel would only be in this useful region for 5-10 minutes at most, and wouldn't be stable for any of that. Another thing is that very few blacksmiths talk about this technique and you just don't see effort being put into it during making. If it has any effect it's more of a dulling of the original hardening, rather than an actual post hardening temper type situation IMO.

I think if you were to look at a big pile of broken traditional khukuris you'd see that about 70% broke at the tang. 20% broke at the cho and 10% broke somewhere along the blade. Maybe the reason the poor design of the cho isn't more of an issue is that the tang is more likely to break first so we just don't see those kind of failures as much? On full tang blades I'd say it's certainly a lot more common, with us getting requests on harduser blades to have it removed quite frequently.
Take care,
Andrew
 
That would make sense to have it removed. I don´t find that it adds anything but character to my blades. Its a place to choke up to, but so would an extended ricasso. I am considering visiting nepal at some point, everything about it sounds interesting to me, mostly the mountain climbing though. Its certainly curious that kamis nationwide use the same blade decoration elements, but I remember reading that up until recently, the lower castes were not encouraged to experiment or be creative.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top