horn thickness and strength

A

arty

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Oct 18, 2003
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I have a 12" villager Sirupati that has a horn handle. When it arrived, I treated it with lanolin-rich udder balm. Small hairline cracks appeared, probably due to the dry gas heat in the house - this is the Midwest.

How thick is the horn that makes up the handle? I wonder if these are likely to be surface cracks, or do they run deeper and affect the strength of the handle.

The hairline cracks appeared along one edge, and at the end, close to the cap on the end of the handle. I filled them with superglue....and the knife looks fine.

A 12" knife, with an 8" blade of this sort is no chopper, but I wonder what the handles are like if taken off of the khukuri. I don't plan to find out myself - I hope.

How thick are the horn and wood handles? Does the bolster cover the end of the handle, or does it abut it flat - where the wood meets it?
 
I'm not really sure on the thickness of the horn, but the cracks you are describing sound like surface cracks. You've already fixed them via the recommended method. If they get worse, you can try epoxy, but I've had superglued cracks hold up through pretty hard use. You shouldn't have any problems.
--Josh
 
Originally posted by arty
How thick is the horn that makes up the handle? I wonder if these are likely to be surface cracks, or do they run deeper and affect the strength of the handle.
Click to expand...

Arty they're probably surface cracks.

How thick are the horn and wood handles?

Does the bolster cover the end of the handle, or does it abut it flat - where the wood meets it?
Click to expand...

1- Pretty thick and the larger the khuk the thicker they are. There's plenty of strength.:)

2- The bolster covers part of the handle. It usually goes down to the beginning of the angle on the bolster.
 
I've had a hard use honrn handled Sher AK which was a grainline blem. Bill said it wouldn't go anywhere, and he is right. the line hasn't even gotten bigger (also in Midwest). I leave the horn handles alone, and only treat thw wood ones with wax or oils and such.

Keith
 
Several of mine with grain lines or small cracks have got bigger. But the handle has never broken. I also had one develop a lot of grain lines after chopping in the rain. Is it possible the rain softened up the handle?

Just my opinion and may not be true, but to me at least it seems like the sharper the Khukuri the less the horn cracks. I speculate that is because the deeper it bites into the wood, the less force the tang exerts on the back of the handle when the blade finally stops moving. Does that make any sense?
 
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

But like the contrary kamis, khuks have their own contrary way of doing things.

Incidentally If you have a good deep crack where you can get superglue down to the laha and tang, take and squirt a tube or two down there if you can. The superglue curing heats the laha up and melds the two making a tougher handle. Then you can use the epoxy to seal the crack.
 
Thanks for all of your answers. I think that it is likely that the cracks in the horn are on the surface - they are so narrow that I couldn't get much superglue into them. It just won't happen.

I don't think that it pays to look too closely at a Khukuri. I was in the process of sanding out some rough areas near the tip of the blade, and noticed some irregular "cracks?" or perhaps deep scratches in the steel - conceivably from a rough grinder. The longest is less than 1/4 inch. I tried to sand them out, but I would have to remove too much steel near the tip to do this. My guess is that there is sometimes minor cracking of the surface steel when water is poured during the hardening/tempering process. The tip is strong, since it held fine when I smacked the tip into some exterior lumber a couple of times.

Can steel sometimes show surface or deeper cracks during the process of pouring water to rapidly cool and harden the edge? Can't tell if they are small surface cracks or rough grind marks.

The blade is by Bura - and takes a nice sharp edge.
 
Arty, I find if I study the blades of antique kukris with a photo negative loupe {8X} it is realy easy too see whether they are forging cracks or scratches.

Sometimes I use a jewelers 16X loupe but it is a lot tricker to decipher what you see!

You can probably get a photographic loupe anyplace that sells cameras, teloscopes,microscopes etc. Mine is made by Agfa & I have been using it for 10 years. Very handy tool!

Spiral :rolleyes: :cool: :D
 
Arty-- the cracks could be fold lines in the steel from the forging process. They usually look a bit more rounded than angular, but can sometimes resemble cracks quite a bit. If it's a fold line, it's probably not a problem. I've had a few, and they haven't caused any problems.
--Josh
 
Could we get hold of a village model, and take some cross sections at various positons in the handle? It might make an intersting read...

Dan
 
Hmm...

Do any Cantina regulars work in NDT (non-destructive testing) professions?

Magnaflux, X-ray, etc...it *would* be interesting.

Of course, I don't think the blades would know...they'd just keep on chopping!
 
I don't think a typical x-ray machine's 500 MA would provide sufficient penetration. :( It would not make for a very diagnostic shot since you would have so many different densities coming into play; i.e., steel, bone, air (where weak spots would be) horn, and the so called "Himalayan Epoxy", which is nothing more than the kami's discarded bubblegum! You'd see a white bar, and a few darker shadows where the less dense materials are. A cross section would be a significantly greater educational tool, and give us information for future referencing... It might even show possible structurally weak areas that would tend to be the first to fail, etc., etc. Too bad H.I. didn't make crappy khukuries; we'd have a lot of broken handles that we could study. :D Heah, that's the perfect solution guys; let's get some of the competitor's models for these VVDT's (very, very destrutive tests!)? :p

LOL Dan
 
God definitely has a sense of humor.

Once Uncle Bill got a little villager that was too ugly to sell. He sent it to Cliff Stamp to destroy. It survived and some HI top of the line khuks didn't, IIRC. Check out the archives.
 
Once Uncle Bill got a little villager that was too ugly to sell. He sent it to Cliff Stamp to destroy. It survived and some HI top of the line khuks didn't, IIRC. Check out the archives. [/B][/QUOTE]

You can't say stuff like that on this forum. What would Uncle Bill say if he ever read this post, or one of the other forumites (I can be trusted!) ratted on you? You just broke 7,000 posts fella, which is a milestone; if you want to keep your job, let's stick with the company line. ;)

Dan
 
Cliff Stamp is one of us good guys, and besides, the testing was reported. Regardless, I'd walk a straight line, Rusty, exepting on New Year's eve. :D

Dan
 
Wonder if medical ultrasound unit could be adjusted
to work through the density of horn?

Have to ask my wife to give it a try sometime.
 
Come to think.............

Several members here I know have had handles off.

Yvsa, Terry, others?

What say?
 
10 mHZ of ultrasound would have the power to penetrate, I believe, but you're hardly performing physio-therapy on a sore woman's buttocks, here! :) There would be little diagnostic value in the procedure, IMHO. A very hot pin could penetrate, and a fairly accurate thickness could be gleaned afterwards; later the hole could be easily covered up... Alternatively, you could leave the hole open, and Yangdu could offer it as a blem! Let's just cough up the cash, and slice one up. If a handle yielded between 40-50 3mm sections, and each section was labeled so they could be studied and then placed together again, it would be more than a curiosity. Let's ask the kamis to perform this scientific inquiry; it would be very interesting, and give them about a week's work with a hacksaw. The shoptalk would be colorful to say the very least. The only person who would indignant about the entire procedure would be Bura himself. With all of the faults found, Pala would be so ticked off that he'd fire the poor bugger, and each and everyone of his laggard colleagues. :D Maybe then we can get some decent kamis in the shop, or just switch Shop 1 with Shop 2.

Dan
 
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