- Joined
- Dec 28, 2003
- Messages
- 4,793
The Kesar lal from the UBBB's on 2/7 arrived last night, and after my wife stopped screaming at me because she knows Uncle Bill's boxes by heart, I spent some time alone comparing it to the YCS model as requested the other day by Dan and Ad Astra.
I need to send a separate mail to Uncle Bill asking about this knife and where it dropped in from, but my impression is that it has been sitting for a long time. The scabbard was dusty and had stuff down inside it, the overall impression was of something that had been sitting for a long time.
The karda and chakma were hard to remove, and when I got them out I was pleasantly surprised at their unique shape, but they were very badly rusted; the karda all along the cutting edge, and the chakma along the top ridge and side. I had to run them against a wire wheel as the rust scale was that heavy. (This is not a complaint against UB, just an observation.) I finally got all the rust off, with some minor pitting left behind, and then tried to shine them up on a buffing wheel as best I could. They now have a pretty decent satin finish.
The blade was perfect; not a spot of rust. Go figure. It is marked with the initials "K.L." which I have never seen before. The reverse side of the blade has a half-sun symbol.
The scabbard cleaned up nicely with ballistol and some kiwi polish. I hot glued a black leather shim into the karda pouch mouth to cover a nail head there. Even though the knife has the big habaki bolster, the scabbard is a perfect fit and snugs right up to the blade the entire length. The bolster is not needed at all to tighten up the fit, which is a nice change from the "normal" knife to scabbard fit. The wood handle appears to be a dark satisaal, with almost a purplish tone to it.
The knife is exactly 17" and 32 oz. as advertised. For comparison purposes to the two YCS's seen here, the first YCS on the left is 18" and 27 oz., and the one on the far right is 18.5" and also 32 oz. (It has a chiruwa handle though with accounts for the extra 5 oz.)
The lal feels heavier than both the YCS's. The lal has a very flat spine, like the YCS's, but it is wider by 1/16th, being 3/8" thick as opposed to 5/16" for each of the YCS's.
The lal blade is 2.5" at it's widest point. The karda is a full 1" wide at it's widest point, and is 6" long, as is the chakma. The edges on both the khuk and the karda were decently sharpened.
Bottom line: it's a YCS that is 1" to 1.5" shorter than standard, with no fullers, no inlays on the handle, a very pretty Sword of Shiva, and very unique karda and chakma, and a slightly thicker spine.
I apologize for the poor quality pictures (as usual!), but they at least give you an idea of the dimensions of the blade and how it compares to the other two knives that flank it on each side in the pictures.
Regards,
Norm
I need to send a separate mail to Uncle Bill asking about this knife and where it dropped in from, but my impression is that it has been sitting for a long time. The scabbard was dusty and had stuff down inside it, the overall impression was of something that had been sitting for a long time.
The karda and chakma were hard to remove, and when I got them out I was pleasantly surprised at their unique shape, but they were very badly rusted; the karda all along the cutting edge, and the chakma along the top ridge and side. I had to run them against a wire wheel as the rust scale was that heavy. (This is not a complaint against UB, just an observation.) I finally got all the rust off, with some minor pitting left behind, and then tried to shine them up on a buffing wheel as best I could. They now have a pretty decent satin finish.
The blade was perfect; not a spot of rust. Go figure. It is marked with the initials "K.L." which I have never seen before. The reverse side of the blade has a half-sun symbol.
The scabbard cleaned up nicely with ballistol and some kiwi polish. I hot glued a black leather shim into the karda pouch mouth to cover a nail head there. Even though the knife has the big habaki bolster, the scabbard is a perfect fit and snugs right up to the blade the entire length. The bolster is not needed at all to tighten up the fit, which is a nice change from the "normal" knife to scabbard fit. The wood handle appears to be a dark satisaal, with almost a purplish tone to it.
The knife is exactly 17" and 32 oz. as advertised. For comparison purposes to the two YCS's seen here, the first YCS on the left is 18" and 27 oz., and the one on the far right is 18.5" and also 32 oz. (It has a chiruwa handle though with accounts for the extra 5 oz.)
The lal feels heavier than both the YCS's. The lal has a very flat spine, like the YCS's, but it is wider by 1/16th, being 3/8" thick as opposed to 5/16" for each of the YCS's.
The lal blade is 2.5" at it's widest point. The karda is a full 1" wide at it's widest point, and is 6" long, as is the chakma. The edges on both the khuk and the karda were decently sharpened.
Bottom line: it's a YCS that is 1" to 1.5" shorter than standard, with no fullers, no inlays on the handle, a very pretty Sword of Shiva, and very unique karda and chakma, and a slightly thicker spine.
I apologize for the poor quality pictures (as usual!), but they at least give you an idea of the dimensions of the blade and how it compares to the other two knives that flank it on each side in the pictures.
Regards,
Norm
The half sun mark sounds like the one on my Kesar GS. Kesar did some great work in his day. I miss some of those old kamis. 
You may have gotten one of the Plain Jane YCS models that many of us requested after the first run on YCS's came through. Some of us asked for a YCS version that we could beat without feeling guilty. Finally I got over it and beat my Sanu YCS and grew to love it even more after finding what a great workhorse it could actually be! IIRC, Kesar made some of them. I had always hoped for one with steel furniture , fullers, but plain otherwise. I never did see a variation like that come out though. Basically a 17" FF will be one of those I think. I look forward to getting my mitts on one of those! 
Congratulations on a cool find. It looks like it could be a great user. Have fun with it.
