It arrived ... I was away.

W

wesmalo

Joined
Feb 19, 2002
Messages
130
My first khukuri arrived. 15" of AK. What a knife!

It came while I was away on March Break. I was well out of town so couldn't check my mail box. I thought about it everyday I was away. After reading the posts here, what else could you expect? Well, here goes my review.

Well packaged box sitting behind the post office counter. It's from HI. Sharp intake of breath. Hold onto rest of mail. Rush out to truck. Girlfriend sees face. I search for a knife to cut the tape holding it shut. Nearly resort to chewing tape. Find Swiss army knife. Open package. Intake, sharp, number two. Too many people in parking lot. Drive to far end. Pull knife out. Girlfriend's breath, sharp. Mine ... a gasp. Only line that comes to mind, "Now that's a knife." Apologies to Crocodile fellow.

Bad stuff first. Small irregularity on handle. Different coloured horn material in one spot. Very smooth though. End of handle has brass guard that rubs on my hand and irritates it. Soon to be solved by some filing. Nothing to worry about though. Just had to list it for the record.

Good stuff. Beauty of a sheath. Lovely blade. Mark of a cross ... after a short search ... Sanu? I haven't had much more time to search out more info. Excellent weight and balance. Handle seems perfect for my hand (see note above). Looks very good out and in my hand. I'm most satisfied with it to say the very least.

Testing. It was -30 C so I wasn't too keen on going out to test it. That and the fact we don't have many trees or scrub in the yard has postponed the testing for a while. My offer to chop other things has fallen on deaf ears. Soon ... very soon I will chop.

I can now see why everyone gets so excited about these tools. I'm excited. I want to chop. And chop. And chop some more.

So it now follows me from room to room, begging to come out to play, to feel the rush of air on its naked steel. And I indulge it as often as possible.
 
precocious one HEH - already talking to you.

Tip - before you remove too much brass from the upper tip of the buttcap, try rounding off _just_ the tip, and smoothing it around the edge (very fine jeweler's file, or a fine Scotchbrite pad, staying off the horn. Practice holding the handle so this tip slides along the ball of your thumb - don't hold the handle like you would a western blade, with the butt of the handle _into_ the ball of your thumb. This will develop your thumb and finger muscles differently thanwhat they are used to, and they may complain before it becomes comfortable. Keep the ring on the handle between your middle and ring finger - it is the Nepali "guard".
Play with it this way for a while. This is part of the mantra you will see around here "Let the Khukuri teach you". If your hand doesn't adapt, you can always remove more brass, and even horn, but you may lose some of the feel of the blade. My WWII has a rounded buttcap, and now, after handling others for some time, it is the least "handleable" (new word) of the lot. It still talks, but with a bit of a mumble :rolleyes:
 
Thanks for the tip. I tried it out. Why I didn't think of taking a different grip, I couldn't tell you. Time to search more for the answers to my questions.
 
I put my thumb on the angled part of the bolster. Only my little finger goes behind the handle rings. The sharp buttcap is far away from the heel of my hand and the thumb on the bolster keeps the blade from rotating in my hand if it's wet. Dunno if it's right but in my hands a file is a dangerous thing. :p
 
Originally posted by BruiseLeee
I put my thumb on the angled part of the bolster. Only my little finger goes behind the handle rings. The sharp buttcap is far away from the heel of my hand . :p
Click to expand...

Bruise:

I have to hold them that way, too, or else I run into the pointy buttcap.

Since receiving my first HI blade, I've wondered how a khuk was "supposed" to be held with regard to the handle ring (I figured between the middle and ring-fingers, but since none of them actually fit that way...). However, given the general wisea$$ quotient hereabouts, I've been too terrified to ask.;)

S.
 
That was just the way the handle settles in most naturally for me, without any mods other than some smoothing on the edges and points.
Many of the handles are small for western hands. For me, the later 15"-17" knives have handles that fit well, but they are the result of an effort by Uncle and Pala to increase the handle size. I have an early Jag & Prem 14" that they made shortly after coming to BirGorkha. It has the same handle diminsions as most 12"s, and shows what they were used to making. If you wind up rounding off the top of the buttcap, well, it is your knife (as Uncle told me when I trimmed Bura's Bowie :D) and it's use depends on your comfort.
 
Congrats on your first khukuri!!:D There's nothing like the first one:)

You might want to check out the FAQ for care of horn handles, and a million other tips and safety issues.

Have fun!!:D
 
Ill be an oddball here, and profess that I like the smaller ones better, and while my hands aint the size of a bear's they are definitely not tiny. Like Bruise I like to have my fingers on the bolster, which is kinda hard to do with the bigger handles. Anyways with the small ones I find the ring parts add a little grip to my hand, and the fingers on the bolster add control for precision chops (great for wood workin :)). Anyways my 15" AK is my favourite user knife, great for little tasks around the house, but passable for bigger jobs. And since there arent too many trees in my yard (well there just aint that much yard in the first place), I just dont have any big tasks for the bigger boys to do.
 
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