Here's the 18? inch Salyan -- pix.

Bill Martino

Bill Martino

Joined
Mar 5, 1999
Messages
34,096
<img src = "http://members.aol.com/yangduspag/pict26.jpg">


Here is the 18 inch Salyan. It is really about 20 inches in length. 2 & 15/16 wide (we asked for 3). Almost 5/8 inch thick and weighs about 3.5 lbs. I view this as nearly a 20 inch AK but without the spine.

This is not exactly what I had in mind but I realize that I put two constraints on the manufacture of this knife which made it come out as it has. One, I specified a Salyan style with a width of 3 inches. The kamis used information from photos and dimensional sketches they had on file of our logo Salyan khukuri and tried to scale these up. Shop 1 is a far piece from Salyan and there are no kamis from Salyan so they used what they had. They determined that an 18 incher 3 inches wide simply could not be made to Salyan specs so upped this to 20 and they said this was still not enough. My 7/16 thickness did not match a scaled thickness so they scaled it up as required.

The result is what we have here. My mistake was making them stick to a strict Salyan design (notice the Salyan cho). Next time I will know better.

Anyway here it is if anybody still wants one email me. I know Cliff has one on order and he will love this knife but not everybody is a yeti.

The 12 inch Sirupati at top is for comparison purposes.

Uncle Bill
 
For those interested, here is a pic of a Salyan :

http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/images/khukuri.jpg

Its a large image so I didn't inline it. You can see slight differences. The Salyan in the picture seems to have less of an angle to the spine and more of a sweep to the edge.

Anyway, it should be a nice piece. My 20" AK is a bit of an oversize model, it will be interesting to see how the Salyan fits inbetween it and the 18" AK.

-Cliff
 
Ohmygosh... That thing is humungous. For some reason, it reminds me of fishing for small trout in a little stream and all of a sudden ending with a monster trout with a deep, fat belly. Don't know why that thought popped into my head.

sing

 
By my rubber ruler, that looks like about an 8" ( front of bolster to back of pommel ) long handle on a 12" long blade, if the 12" Sirupati is proportioned like mine. What's the handle circumference? Under 6" is usable, and 5" is better for me. Also, the 8" handle is very usable for a 2 hand grip with plenty of room left, with my sized hands.
 
Someone just emailed me asking about the performance of this Salyan and I had to tell them I didn't know what it would be since this is the first of this size I've ever even seen. I'd guess it to fall just a bit behind the 20 inch AK but Cliff is getting one and I am sure in due time we will have a comparison.

Uncle Bill
 
Just measured my old 7 D cell Kel-light. 20" long, 5 and 1/4" circumference.

OH
MY
GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Bill, the Salyan Cliff linked to appears to have what I understood to be a Sherpa style buttcap. Are the Salyan and Sherpa styles similar in blade form? Handle shape? Just different style buttcaps?

Oh, and I'd disagree with 'goat's characterizing your gigantic Salyan as monstrous. MONUMENTAL is more like it. The Janawar Katne is functional but without a real use for it. The Salyans create awe because they are NOT decorators. The mind just hasn't stopped boggleing long enough for anyone other than the Canadian Yeti ( Cliff )to figure out how to use it properly.
 
Oh yes, it looks gorgeous Uncle Bill.

Lovely blade contour as well.

Being 6'6" and 325 in my socks this actually looks like it is approching "proportional". But then we grow thing pretty big up here in Canada.
smile.gif


It is a beauty.

[This message has been edited by Big1 (edited 15 July 1999).]
 
Proportioned like a 7 cell mag light? Well, heck,the first thing they teach you in the acadamy is how to swing one of those!! (Ha, ha) Sign me up for one.

Mike
 
My mind showed up briefly this morning, and answered the question "what do you do with THAT thing?". Cliff already had the answer re: his 20/22" AK, i.e. "Anything I want!"
 
Rusty, you are right. Cliff's link is to a Sherpa style made by old Kancha Kami but the blade forms are very similar.

I know this is not what I should be saying but personally I do not like the looks of this Salyan we designed. It is too stubby for me but I realize that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Uncle Bill
 
Bill, "stubby" cracks me up since the blade is like what - about 15" long. Do you have a picture of a Salyan khukuri on hand? I seem to recall it having a similar curvature as I think when I first saw that (the pic I linked to) I wanted one and you commented that a large Salyan would be similar.

As to why you want large khukuris - what do you do with them, on a serious note there are extreme performance advantages to the heavier models. Getting specific :

For the last few days I have been doing some comparasion testing on a few knives. Some bowie style, some khukuris, some others. As an example I was doing runs on a 2x10" . Comparing the 18" AK to the Cold Steel Trailmaster, the AK had a 50% reduction in number of chops needed with about a 25% increase in penetration per chop. The large decrease in number of required chops was helped by the increase in penetration but mainly due to the fact that the AK could clear the chips out from the entire width of the cut (8-10 cm wide initially), whereas the TM had to resort to making multiple notches to clear out the wood.

This however was not the primary advantage which is fatigue. I used the Trailmaster first and after two cuts in succession I noticed a loss of precision in the final few chops so I took a break. When I repeated this with the AK it was not a concern. It feels very different, like playing more than working. The level of exertion is much more different than the 50% noted above. Its just - chop - twist - chop. No effort made to do it quickly, yet the wood gets cleared at about the same pace as the TM in which the chops are done much faster.

I wonder if this could be due to me having more experince with one style than the other so I intend to repeat this for awhile and compile the results having a look at times runs as well as just counting ones. I don't think the results are that biased though. I think its just the optimal geometry showing itself. There is a significant difference in technique being used, and that could account for the performance difference somewhat. With the much lighter TM its mostly just forearm exertion. On the AK its actually a great deal of back and shoulder. If the knife is light then its hard to try and lean into it the same way. You can of course but it just doesn't feel right. Its like trying to hit a sponge ball with a hollow plastic bat, there is a limit to the exertion and once you go above that the gain in performance seems to not be worth the effort.

As for how the even larger khukuris perform. Well, with one of the smaller bowies I ran into a series of knots and stopping chopping as I had doubled the number of cuts the TM had used and since the wood density was so different it was not informative to continue. I simply took the 22" AK and hacked right through the wood, knots and all. No effort was made to actually v the last 2-3" out I just went down through it breaking it more than chopping.

It would be useful to measure the fatigue rate. I think I will keep and eye out for some constant stock and do say timed runs for an extended period, say 15 minutes of continous high exertion chopping and see what the difference in amount of wood cleared would be. I know that I could not have chopped at the level I was using the TM on the 2x10" for 15 minutes continuously but it would not have been a problem with the 18 AK. It would be interesting to measure lactic acid buildup or maybe just heart rate.

-Cliff


[This message has been edited by Cliff Stamp (edited 15 July 1999).]
 
Cliff, that's some very interesting considerations regarding fatigue. If you keep increasing the scope of your results you are going to end up "wired", believe me.
But what you point out is certainly a very important factor. I'm sure that 800 pound Salyan we almost got would outperform anything -- but how many times can you swing it in a minute -- or at all?

It is fair to point out again that Cliff's tests are extremely valuable because they give a great indication of what a knife is going to do under heavy and/or extreme use. And, they are a very strong indicator of who is giving a line of BS about their knives and who isn't.

By the way, Cliff, I got only three Salyans in the first shipment and they are spoken for. The one you have on order will be shipped to you as soon as the next three arrive.

Uncle Bill
 
Bill :

'm sure that 800 pound Salyan we almost got would outperform anything -- but how many times can you swing it in a minute
Click to expand...

Its a fair bet that only once would probably be necessary.

By the way, Cliff, I got only three Salyans in the first shipment and they are spoken for. The one you have on order will be shipped to you as soon as the next three arrive.
Click to expand...

No problem. I am well set for the next few months anyway. Hope your shipping luck starts to improve.

-Cliff
 
It may not matter if you personally like the proportions or not Uncle Bill. As Jaeger said
"Proportioned like a 7 cell mag-lite?" You can bet that most all the cops who read this forum are fondling their D cells and wondering if the kamis can carve black horn handles in basketweave. You may even need to make another run of them once word gets out.
 
Rusty, you could well be right again. I have found that customers seldom pay attention to my personal tastes and never cease to surprise me.

OK, Cliff. But I have not forgotten you.

Uncle Bill
 
It is true that different proportions may be more visually appealling, but you must admit, this beauty would be a work horse.
smile.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top