How to correctly use a khuk?

Joined
Aug 7, 2005
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We all read the safety thread (I hope so), but I think something is missing to it.

As a lot on BF, English is not my main language. And on something as serious as using a sharp object that, if use in the wrong way, can cause serious injuries, I want to make sure how to use it.

Do someone have pics, or even a short video, on how to hold and hit with a khuk.

If someone has a video about a good chopping technique, it would also be appreciated.

When I first came on HI forums, there was also a video about "how to sharpen a khukri", but the link already was dead :( Do someone still have one?

This simply is a suggestion, but the techniques in the sticky subjects should have a visual help to complete it.

Take care.
 
some of the stickies have TOO much information now...

it would be fantastic to have a single FAQ which had pointers to safety, use, sharpening, and all that. it would be way usefull.

some of teh other information that's there is fantastic, but much needs to be organized too. hey nasty, i got some homework for ya ;)

bladite
 
definently agree that some of the stickies have too much info

would be a pretty good situation to use a wiki setup so that everyone here could help organize the data that already exists, and those with more info to add can. that way it wouldnt fall to one person in particular and it would be a central repository that one could look to

we could take the info that is linked to in some of the stickies and turn it into articles, and then link to the original thread at the bottom of the article.

would probably want it to be moderated, have a few people read the entries prior to their posting, and maybe only allow people access to contributing till they have written one article and it has been approved, then they can have an account.

just an idea I figured I would toss out.
 
Just getting some feedbacks about this.

Mainly for Koster, but to all the others too. And I see other noobs like me looking for the same things.

There are a lot of video links that can be found by the search engine, even on the stickies, but most of them are dead links.

So, any of you have pics/vids about testing/using khukries?

Thanks again.
 
I've been thinking about this a bit. It may indeed be time to revise the existing knowledge database. A wiki would work well for that. I'm willing to generate opinionated rant ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H content (and plenty of others doubtless are as well) but there are certain technological hurdles that would need to be dealt with, not to mention the near impossibility of organizing such a thing in the first place and monitoring it.

This is where a wiki fails, IMO -- without constant supervision and monitoring, it's relatively simple for someone with an abundance of ignorance, an agenda, or simply an unpopular point of view to make some rather damaging alterations, yet without that openness, the burden of keeping things up to date falls on the shoulders of a small group of people who probably have other burdens that they'd rather shoulder.

I'm willing to help but my ability to help is limited. Someone else would have to get this going.

As far as use is concerned, there's more than one way to skin a cat. I primarily use one technique but I've seen a few others that work at least as well as mine. I'll see about getting some pics up later this week showing how I do it.
 
In short, hold it how you have to and make sure that it can't hit your body on the way back. Everything else is academic.

Yep. That should be concern #1. Right up there with "don't chop something your holding on to with your other hand" they can and do skip out sideways with a bad swing--usually just after your little voice says "boy my hand is really tired" and you ignore it.

One of my first near misses (read near crapping of pants) was with my first khuk a 20" AK. I swung at a palm tree about 3 inches in diameter and the khuk kept on going like it hit butter---RIGHT TOWARD my shin!! came so close it hit the hairs on my leg (yeah, AND I was wearing shorts:o ). That would have been very messy (both the wound AND the crapping of pants):eek: :o
 
In a nutshell, don't get your body in the way.

I mean that both literally and metaphysically.

John
 
Like folks are saying. Think of the arc of travel of the blade ... and keep yourself out of the way of that arc once the blade's passed through the target.

For me, that means that any strike which has a chance of passing through the target will be a backhand stroke, where the sharp edge will follow-through in clean air. Forehand strokes are fine with a backstop in the way, but you've got to really think. Test the distance to the chopping block, so the blade will stop on it after passing through your target - especially when splitting. As with an ax, when limbing a tree, have the trunk between the blade and yourself). But otherwise, the angle of a lot of forehand strokes - especially at full power - gives me the willies. Think before you strike.

Once the safety stuff is addressed ... the "value added" from a khuk comes from the slicing action from the recurved blade. Unlike a hatchet, which just hits and bites, a khuk is pulled slightly forwards in a hard hit, which amplifies the effect of the hit. I find that knowing that, I can cooperate with the slicing action, by doing a bit of a push cut. For me, it makes the cuts cleaner, as well as deeper.

The other thing to be conscious of, is where the blade will move if it glances. The push cut works well when it grabs into the target ... but if your angle of hit is a bit off, a khuk can twist and glance. So two things - concentrate on the angle you're hitting at - don't let the khuk rotate in your hand in the arc of approach. And make sure that when the khuk does glance, as it eventually will, that it careens off into free airspace, rather than your leg.

t.
 
The good news is that I now have a video. The bad news is that it's 79.7 megs in length and I have no way to host that. I could realistically cut a fifth of that off without losing much content but it would still be far too large for me to host. Blame Apple's stupid .MOV format. I'll see about converting it to something else.

Other than this small detail, things are going swimmingly.

EDIT: The things that I do for you! I got it down to under ten with WMM, although going from a .MOV to a .WMV format is generally not pleasant. The sound quality suffered significantly but my speech should still be understandable. You can find it here:

http://home.wavecable.com/~satori/Movie.wmv

I forgot to mention some things in the video, as I often do.

1. I keep my weak hand high and near my chest; the concept was ripped of...err, borrowed from another source. I've tried holding that hand anywhere you can imagine and I always hit it sooner or later. I've never managed to hit it in its current position and should the khukuri come that way, it'll have to go through my arm before it gets to something more important. This was the philosophy behind this hand position according to the source that I stole it from, not surprisingly.

2. Power is inversely proportional to control, and fatigue reduces both. There's a law of diminishing returns that applies to loading up hard on swings. If I go 100% on every swing, it'll generally take me longer to get the job done that it would if I was only going 40% and I'll be less tired to boot, and less wood will be wasted as chips. Use the minimum amount of effort necessary to do the job; when you're cold, wet, fatigued, and injured, you won't have all that power and control on tap like you do when you're rested and healthy. Learn to burn calories on a budget. Hollowdweller in particular has an excellent technique for nibbling through wood using only the wrist but he's better qualified to demonstrate that than I am.

In general, keep the power level low and use your large muscle groups (legs and back) and the weight of the khukuri to do the work. The only time you should be loading up and really going to town is if the target is small enough that one or two powerful chops will get through and you're in a hurry; otherwise, throttle back. Your body will thank you and you'll be more accurate (and thus, safer) with a reserve of energy.

3. The new beard style was an effort to address ongoing complaints about my appearance; I was told that I looked too threatening before. I thought this would look more friendly but I'm told that I now look like an Amish axe murderer. Since I like that, it's staying.

4. Don't drop your weight on rising cuts, as this is counterproductive. Simply remain standing, or crouch before the cut and stand up as you make it. The goal is to shift as much of the workload onto muscles more adapted to long periods of work (such as the back and the legs) to make things easier for the arms. The arms will give out first; make them last as long as possible.

I'm willing to answer any questions either here or privately, and remember, this is just one way to do it. There are other ways, other techniques, and other tricks, and hopefully we'll see some of them in this thread.
 
... The bad news is that it's 79.7 megs in length and I have no way to host that. I could realistically cut a fifth of that off without losing much content but it would still be far too large for me to host. Blame Apple's stupid .MOV format. I'll see about converting it to something else.
...

if you have a proper pc with ms windows, rather than a propriatory apple box and if you can put up with never ending offers from them, www.ashampoo.com has a product called movie shrink and burn that handles mov & wmv format files and allows you to shrink them to a user-entered size without losing content, tho the smaller you make it the worse the quality....you can get it as a 30day trial then can it, i got a copy with a proper license from last months pcw magazine for free....

this wmv was made from a larger mov file: Herding Cats
 
Dave, Thanks for the safety video. And you got through it without having to call the appliance repairman.
Lloyd
 
The good news is that I now have a video. The bad news is that it's 79.7 megs in length and I have no way to host that. I could realistically cut a fifth of that off without losing much content but it would still be far too large for me to host. Blame Apple's stupid .MOV format. I'll see about converting it to something else.

Would you mind putting it on youtube?

If you don't want the world to see it, you could set it to "private"

Thanks again.


By the way, I just opened my first HI package :D A wonderfuk 18" Ganga Ram by Bura... Let's see if any trees need a haircut around.
 
The good news is that I now have a video. The bad news is that it's 79.7 megs in length and I have no way to host that. I could realistically cut a fifth of that off without losing much content but it would still be far too large for me to host. Blame Apple's stupid .MOV format. I'll see about converting it to something else.

Nice video....well done. Thanks

You do know there are lots of ways to reduce the size of a .MOV file without going to .WMV? Change frame size, frame rate, compression, etc. If you don't have the software let me know and I can do it for you.
 
No, I don't have the software and I'm unwilling to pay Apple for yet another video editing suite simply because Microsoft and Apple want to engage in a pissing contest over whose video format is better and I've already pretty much standardized on WMV. :) I appreciate the offer, although I'm not sure if my ISP will allow me to email movies of this size.

What I need to do is to stop fooling around with my digicam (which only records in .MOV) and get my camcorder fixed.

As for Youtube, I wasn't comfortable with the idea of uploading my stuff there for a variety of reasons...then I came to find that others had already been doing so without my knowledge. :rolleyes: I'm not going to put it there but others are welcome to.
 
Good Vid Dave! Nice one!

If anyone wants it emailed it shouldnt be a problem size wise from my provider.{AOL.}

Spiral
 
Dave, are you on a Mac or PC? and no you couldn't email it, but you could drop it on my public folder and upload it that way. Kinda a poor man's ftp.
 
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