Jim March
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Oct 7, 1998
- Messages
- 3,018
So far, as I've done is ogle the pics and read.
That doesn't do these beasts justice at all, but you knew that.
At the forums Pizza Party tonight in the South SF Bay, somebody brought a 15" Ang Khola, probably the most common type (?) of HI.
My, my, MY what a lovely bit of steel.
Now, my primary mode of thinking is "weapon potential". It can clearly hack like nobody's business, but you knew that too.
What was far more interesting was it's stabbing potential, and it's "feel".
When doing a stab, the big risk is that the tip will "hang up" either on unexpectedly tough clothing, bone or whatever and the hand will do a "slip up" type accident. This is where your hand slides down the blade and you cut all four fingers, often badly.
This is considered suboptimal by most.
The standard "Western method" of dealing with it is to throw on one or more guards. The Kamis don't do that.
Instead, that circle around the middle of the grip is angled so that it locks your grip from sliding, sort of a "one way valve" effect. At least on this specimen, the grip behind that series of rings was of smaller diameter than the grip closer to the blade.
The end result was that it felt *wonderful* in what's sometimes known as the "FMA grip", where the pinkie through middle finger are the primary grip strength digits and the thumb and forefinger are loose. I'll bet you dollars to donuts the primary Bando grip will be the same. The same technique is seen in some Japanese practices although it's not the primary knife grip in some (most?) systems. It's seen more in swordwork.
Anyways...the "FMA grip" is often used with machete/bolo length weapons that shouldn't be too different in heft to the Sirupati and other "lighter combat-oriented Khukuris".
Also: it seems clear that on a stab, you'd angle the tip "up" quite a bit, so that it's at around the same height as the middle of the grip. At that point the grip would be slanted upwards at about a 30degree or so angle as you push directly horizontal, and that would increase the "friction effect" between the grip and your palm. Trying to stab with the grip horizontal (ignoring the blade curvature) would be idiocy, so you'd need a lot of "feel" and practice to change the muscle memory around, but that's no biggie.
So without question, I'm now going to score a 20" Sirupati or similar "light and fast model". It'll have to wait a bit on cash availability but I *will* order one at some point. The Outsider is somewhere between the size of a 12" overall and 15" overall Sirupati and in many ways is similar in function, so I'd go bigger on the HI to avoid having "duplicate function knives"...which if I *didn't* avoid, I'd go broke
.
Jim March
That doesn't do these beasts justice at all, but you knew that.
At the forums Pizza Party tonight in the South SF Bay, somebody brought a 15" Ang Khola, probably the most common type (?) of HI.
My, my, MY what a lovely bit of steel.
Now, my primary mode of thinking is "weapon potential". It can clearly hack like nobody's business, but you knew that too.
What was far more interesting was it's stabbing potential, and it's "feel".
When doing a stab, the big risk is that the tip will "hang up" either on unexpectedly tough clothing, bone or whatever and the hand will do a "slip up" type accident. This is where your hand slides down the blade and you cut all four fingers, often badly.
This is considered suboptimal by most.
The standard "Western method" of dealing with it is to throw on one or more guards. The Kamis don't do that.
Instead, that circle around the middle of the grip is angled so that it locks your grip from sliding, sort of a "one way valve" effect. At least on this specimen, the grip behind that series of rings was of smaller diameter than the grip closer to the blade.
The end result was that it felt *wonderful* in what's sometimes known as the "FMA grip", where the pinkie through middle finger are the primary grip strength digits and the thumb and forefinger are loose. I'll bet you dollars to donuts the primary Bando grip will be the same. The same technique is seen in some Japanese practices although it's not the primary knife grip in some (most?) systems. It's seen more in swordwork.
Anyways...the "FMA grip" is often used with machete/bolo length weapons that shouldn't be too different in heft to the Sirupati and other "lighter combat-oriented Khukuris".
Also: it seems clear that on a stab, you'd angle the tip "up" quite a bit, so that it's at around the same height as the middle of the grip. At that point the grip would be slanted upwards at about a 30degree or so angle as you push directly horizontal, and that would increase the "friction effect" between the grip and your palm. Trying to stab with the grip horizontal (ignoring the blade curvature) would be idiocy, so you'd need a lot of "feel" and practice to change the muscle memory around, but that's no biggie.
So without question, I'm now going to score a 20" Sirupati or similar "light and fast model". It'll have to wait a bit on cash availability but I *will* order one at some point. The Outsider is somewhere between the size of a 12" overall and 15" overall Sirupati and in many ways is similar in function, so I'd go bigger on the HI to avoid having "duplicate function knives"...which if I *didn't* avoid, I'd go broke
Jim March
