KHUKURIVEDA, or, tips from the pundits on dings & swings

beoram

beoram

Joined
Nov 27, 2001
Messages
1,780
Originally posted by Yvsa

Seasoned Birch can be pretty dayumed hard, even the knots on a growing Birch tree can be pretty dayumed hard as well. Seems like another German friend dinged his Sirupati up by chopping some almost frozen or frozen Birch in the woods one day.
Using the chakma can be sort of an art until one gets more used to using one as most people aren't used to using such a device to maintain their knive's.
Most people start out by not using enough force to move the metal and using a chakma can be very dangerous if not done carefully and with an eye to safety.
And sometimes enough pressure to take a ding out can't be generated by hand with such a short fulcrum point.

Sven if you can't generate enough force by hand you may have to resort to using a smooth faced hammer and something like an anvil, the top of a steel vice for instance.
Don't try to pound the ding out if you have to use a hammer, but just tap it a bit harder each time until you can see the steel starting to move.
Also many times if the ding isn't to deep I just stone it out if it's in the sweet spot or file it out if it's at the point or near the cho.

When you become more accustomed to using a khukuri you will learn better techniques and the khukuri will also teach you how to use it so that the dings will be at a minumum unless a rock or something hard happens to accidently get in the way.
The scratches and scars and the patina a blade takes on from multiple uses just makes the khukuri or other knife become more beautiful to me.
You can always tell how a person feels about their tools by the way they look and are treated.:)
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Just finished testing out my new HI BAS. Couldn’t actually chop through any logs with it (then again, I’m a rather ‘slight’ person, so that may be part of the problem), but managed to bury the khukuri quite far into them and make a lot of mess of wood chips ;). And chopped some kindling fairly satisfactory after a few swings. I’m a knife-amateur yet-—a new HI khukuri doesn’t require sharpening before use, or does it? Or perhaps I’m just not swinging it quite right (though, admittedly, the BAS is ‘only’ a 15inch one....).

But like Sven (though I didn’t chop for 2 hours!), I managed to get a few dings in the blade, mainly towards the tip (and one right at the tip) :(. I too tried using the chakma on them, with absolutely no apparent effect. Does anyone have tips on using the chakma—perhaps I’m just not using it properly.

Yvsa also mentions hammering out or filing off dings—I’m a bit hesitant to do so—can dings be got out with the chakma, if used properly? Or does anyone have more hints for hammering/filing without damaging?

Partially as an aside—just to show the diversity of the cantina—I’m by no means a knife-expert/collector, ‘outdoorsman’ or anything like that. I’m a rather wiry post-graduate student doing research in linguistics :rolleyes: [including Indian languages]. The only knife I’ve owned prior to my fabulous HI BAS (other than the odd pocket-knife) is a fishing-knife (not that I ever went fishing more than once or thrice), which my friend actually managed to gash my hand open with (when I was about 13 or so) on one of the few occasions I was using it. [something else which should be added to the ‘safety’ thread is: DON’T ever draw a blade when someone is handing you a sheathed-knife, not in the least expecting you to pull out it whilst he is still holding it and thus ‘unsheath’ it through the palm of his hand :mad:. I’ve still the scar from this….]

I stumbled into this forum, as one might guess. I’ve an avid interest in Indian (& subcontinental) things in general, and bought a rubbish-khukuri (your standard-issue post-1940’s Indian knock-off, complete with lion-butt) off of eBay before I knew any better. After doing some research, I was determined to obtain a proper khukuri!

(Actually I also ordered another khukuri off of eBay—not one I’ve posted any pics of on the forum—which seems like a pre-WWI model, but I’ll have to wait until I receive it to know….was expecting it today, but no-show :( )

In any case, the point of this is (mainly) that I don’t like being an ‘armchair scholar’—-anything I buy I want to know how to (& be able to) use! I never get anything I don’t fully intend to learn at least the rudiments of and be able to use with respectable proficiency. ;)

So any more tips on getting dings out of a khukuri-blade, preferrably with the chakma, would be greatly appreciated :D . (as would tips on the proper way(s) of swinging/chopping with a khukuri).

And I’d just like to say again many thanks to everyone on this forum. You’ve all been very welcoming, friendly and helpful! :D I’ve learnt a great deal in the past fortnight or so. :eek:

Cheers again, Ben.

p.s. 'Khukuriveda' is (anachronistic) Sanskrit for 'khukuri-wisdom' or 'expert-knowledge of khukuris'.
 
Any tool you use heavily is going to suffer. Doesn't matter what it is, if you use it long and hard it's going to suffer. Somewhere I've got an old pair of pliers that have been with me 30 or 40 years. The chrome plate is long gone and they are rust patinaed. The teeth are worn and rounded. There's play at the pin joint. They are scratched and have electric shock marks on them. But they still work pretty well.

Yvsa gives good advice.

While chopping or using the knife in any way for that matter, if you just keep in mind that the tip of the blade and the area near the cho are softer you'll cut down your dings.
 
I got a small ding in my BAS when I tested it too. I managed to get it out with my chakma using a lot of pressure and many strokes. (I was really pressing down on the thing) Remember to chakma away from the cutting edge. :o

I also got a blem with a ding recently and wasn't able to chakma it out. I used my nephew's hammer (which is really small) and did some light tapping on the flat part of a vice. One can still see the part where it was dinged but it's servicable.

My suggestion is to tap very lightly with a small hammer till you can see some small improvements then increase the force as you get more confident.
 
perhaps sometimes someone could give me a more detailed description (a drawing would be great...) of how to use the chakma properly...

cheers for the responses, Ben.
 
I should perhaps also mention I was chopping dry oak, so it's pretty damn hard wood. B.
 
I chopped a brick and got only a small chip, I wanted to see how well the knife would perform. After I chopped the brick I used the spine to break it. I was able to get the dents and dings out of the spine using the chakma, but the spine is pretty soft. I have also done a little damage to the tip when clearing some brush, but I don't think the chip is effecting the performance. The first few dings and scratches hurt, you'll get over it pretty quickly though ;)

Matthew
 
Originally posted by beoram
perhaps sometimes someone could give me a more detailed description (a drawing would be great...) of how to use the chakma properly...

cheers for the responses, Ben.
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Ben it sure isn't rocket science, it's just a knife steel used to remove minor dings, actually indents into the softer point or area near the cho.
Instinct is probably the best teacher.
An easier way might be to use a plain old smooth screwdriver shank. That will give one a little or lot more leverage than a small chakma depending on what size the screwdriver is.

Lay the steel at an angle close to what the edge is and put all the pressure you can over the indented area. If it can't be moved by hand with a steel then it's time to tap it with a hammer.
The way you can tell if it's in an area that can be steeled out is to run a file over it. If the file cuts its soft enough to be moved, if the file doesn't cut then it's stone or hone time since any tapping with a hammer on hard steel is just liable to chip it out more.

Hope that explains things just a bit better.:)
 
That's the beauty of the village models. When you do some damage to them you don't mind nearly as much as when you do it to something like a Garud Ang Khola.
 
Ben, what is the approximate dimension of the dings? I generally ignore small dings and dents that are small (approximately a mm deep). Yes they can be irritating but I like to think of them as serrations.

Yvsa's suggestion about using a screw driver is good. It is actually much safer and more efficient than using the chakma. You could try putting the flat of the screw driver against one side of the blade and a flat surface on the opposite side and tap on the screw driver blade. Becareful with the screw driver as you can deeply scratch the blade with it.

The worst I have done is hit a rock full force with my GRS. The edge was badly dented near the tip. I actually put the spine of my chakma against the ding and tapped the opposite side of the chakma with hammer to force the metal back into place. I finished by putting the side of the khukuri against a soft iron block and tapped the edge back into shape. Becareful where you tap as the hammer can mark the softer sections of the blade. I resharpened the tip with a belt sander. One would have to look very extremely closely to see any damage.

My village khukuri suffered minor denting behind the sweet spot where it was softer when I chopped the leg off a deer. This was due to poor technique. I had already removed the head and other legs with the khukuri with no sign of damage to the blade. I kept hitting the last leg at bad angles. I think the worst was a few mm deep. I left these dings in place as they will eventually be sharpened up with use.
I would not expect any other knife to fair better in this application, a lot would do worst.

The oak trees that I chopped up with did ding or dent the khukuri, my blows were mostly with the sweet spot where it is harder.

Will
 
Many thanks for the help all! :D (esp. Yvsa & Will).

Smoothed things out a bit. Most of the 'dings' are probably 1mm or less - no scratches though. All of it takes a bit of practice I suppose. Going to try the '3-strop' sharpening method sometime.

Cheers, B.

khukuriveda.jpg
 
Uncle - do you know if that is indeed the right nagari-spelling of 'khukuri'?, wasn't sure about the vowel lengths....

cheers, beo
 
The rasho might be going right when it should go left but I can't remember for sure. It's pronounced the same way either direction as I recall.
 
ah, then it might actually be /khukurii/, with a long /i:/ I suspect--probably, looks like a feminine form :rolleyes: ....in any case :o ...cheers, B.
 
As I said before, the picture of the BAS on the HI shopping page doesn't come close to doing it justice - I took a few shots of my new Durba-crafted BAS khukuri. So, especially if you don't own one (and it's a fabulous design) you might want to take a look:

********Heaps of Photos of the HI BAS khukuri*******

sneak-peak:
bas-kali.jpg


Cheers all, Ben.
 
Good pics.

Have the kamis gone back to the more pointy version of the BAS and WW2? Mine is a little less pointy than the one in the pic.

Perhaps it's time for another :D
 
Originally posted by BruiseLeee
Good pics.

Have the kamis gone back to the more pointy version of the BAS and WW2? Mine is a little less pointy than the one in the pic.

Perhaps it's time for another :D
Click to expand...

Dunno - could just be individual kami stylistic differences - who made your BAS?

Cheers, B.
 
Each kami believes he can make the best version of anything. It's something that I don't mind because it emphasizes the fact that these are "hand crafted" blades and no two are exactly alike.
 
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