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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
"Khuky" question... ;-)~
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actively parsing hurf durf
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So that I know for future discussions, what method do you use? a diamond bit pressure tester, or rockwell files?
Both. Files are used in the Nepal shops, but we test with a pressure tester here in the states periodically and as needed.
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actively parsing hurf durf
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Awesome :thumbup: Very good to know. I haven't etched a single blade from HI that wasn't hardened enough at the sweet spot, and I've only had 1 that chipped and felt too hard under a fresh file. The consistency of being a good usable blade is very high, even with the depth and position of the hardened zone being variable.
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Thank you LVC. I learnt a great deal from these posts.
Now will you keep it coming?:thumbup::thumbup:
Now will you keep it coming?:thumbup::thumbup:
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Thanks to everyone who posted in this thread. It contains a wealth of good information. :thumbup:
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Prompted by this thread I decided to try to find out a little more about our issue Khukri's ... came across this article here ...
http://www.swordforum.com/forums/sh...y-British-Military-Pattern-Gurkha-Issue-Kukri. ... great read :thumbup:
http://www.swordforum.com/forums/sh...y-British-Military-Pattern-Gurkha-Issue-Kukri. ... great read :thumbup:
Yes a great read, one of a few by Spiraltwista, a very good H.I. forumite and friend....among other things.
He posts these article on our forum, at IKRHS.com and several other places. If you havent checked out IKRHS, you should. Lots of fine reading and info there.
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I've thoroughly enjoyed this thread, thanks to Karda and LVC for the fantastic information, and Peter for the article. 
I've actually been a Khuk fan longer than I've been a Busse collector. Very good to see they're still very popular, and its looking like I'm starting to catch the fever again.
I've actually been a Khuk fan longer than I've been a Busse collector. Very good to see they're still very popular, and its looking like I'm starting to catch the fever again.
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I wonder if upcoming khuks from Busse, would they have a larger belly?
That would further propel the chopping power.
That would further propel the chopping power.
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To answer your question Jay, rather than take the belly of the khukri bigger, which would increase the gradual taper of the blade and combined with the extra weight of the knife, it's ability to bite "deep" ... what has happened from the first TTKZ Proto's is that the shop, through feedback, have looked at the shape of the existing belly "convex" grind and fine tuned this to a very effective "appleseed" convex shape to radically improve it's chopping power.
The exercise to my mind is akin to fine tuning a bullet design to maximise it's ballistic co-efficient ... VLD bullets ( very low drag ) are basically a re-finement of the simply FMJ shape ... but their ability to drop less and be deflected by the wind less is considerable. Apply this sort of exercise to the cross section curve of the convex grind and you start to develop a shape which "bites" really deep without gaining the disadvantage of the extra weight.
This for me is one of the great advantages of "Busse" as a company ... the engineering attention to detail in making a knife and the work they will put into this is for me akin to the ancient Japanese swordsmiths who around 700 A.D. were refining metal and making swords whose strength and technical "fit for purpose" advantages were way beyond what could be achieved in the western world up until recently.
It starts with the "steel" ... Infi does'nt need to be differentially hardened ... the chemical make up of the steel and the manner in which the heat treatment is applied makes the strength of the blades eclipse the very best properties that were gained from the most technical of differential hardening processes, which were employed by the Japanese. The Noss tests are a laugh to many ... but if you see what their blades stand up to in terms of abuse which "shows" how effectively the "stress" has been taken out of the blade so it will not break ... and yet how well the edge still takes an "edge" ... then you have an ideal beginning.
Combine that with applications like the "light series" of handles now being done where the benefits of CNC tolerances in removing the steel are done to give a handle which weighs less but is still as strong as you would ever need ... and then the attention to detail in the grind and "ideal balance" of thickness of stock to strength required ... you have a company which is fairly unique in it's attempts to make the best "power to weight" performance blades for hard use that I have come across.
If you do a search on the posts I have done you will see I have done many reviews where I have looked at the performance of their Khukri's and compared them to similar weighted axes and to other blades from some very fine makers.
I compared the TTKZ to the Gransfors Brux Small Forest Axe ...
They are about the same size and the same weight ...
To chop effectively and deep with the axe requires a wide cut and a lot of wood to be removed ...
To chop as deep ( each going half way into the tree to bring it down with a lower and upper cut so I could direct the fall) the TTKZ only needed half the depth of the axe, mainly because it is a slimmer blade compared to an axe head and was able to work as fast as the axe if you put the effort in ...
An example of the cuts and their depth after the same amount of time can be seen here below ... you can also see in the cut below the main group on the right hand side the depth the Zilla can go to ...
Taking a view from above the stump you can see that the Zilla chopped in just as far as the axe in the same amount of time ...
And the tree was a full grown mature tree ...
The Zilla also made short work of sectioning the trunk and limbs ...
I prefer to use the Zilla for the sectioning work as the longer edge and the difficult "lay" of the logs makes it a safer and more effective tool as there is greater liklihood of the edge being able to "contact" ... the slimmer profile makes it more likely to "bite" ... an axe is much more prone to "glancing" on a difficult "stroke" where you are working around a myriad of "branches" ... and the warranty on the knife is "lifetime replacement" no quibbles or hassle ... which I won't get if I dink my axe haft by a miss judged stroke where it has caught on a branch ... and soaking and lifting the dent out of the axe haft using a towel and a hot iron is very time consuming compared to the agility I have with the Khukri and if it hits a branch mid swing it usually just cuts through it or sticks in it ... no damage ... no hassle ...
I did alter the grind on my Zilla though ... I took off metal using marker lines to show where on the blade the steel was being removed and "how much" by replacing the lines once they were worn off and using a belt sander and varying grit belts I kept the knife "cool" by taking my time ... but given that these blades are fully convex though you could just say I sharpened and re-profiled the blade ... which gave it a more "appleseed shape" and a sharper edge akin to what the current models now have from the factory ...
I also smoothed off the grips so I could use them without developing hot spots ...
But aside from a basic sharpening and smoothing of the grips to the knife it has had nothing done to it except have the edge stropped back after use and it must have chopped down four or five full grown trees and countless limbing and sectioning as I heat my house with wood burning stoves ...
So the Zilla really is pretty good on the performance aspect as it is ... the only thing I would personally like to try is a "lighter" model which could be worn on the belt for long treks ... my TT Zilla weighs in at 32 oz's ...so does my modified KZII and my Nuclear Zilla at 30 oz's ... so they are all in the fairly heavy bracket ... a lighter Khukri would be a nice alternative and if the balance aspect is kept to the same forward point I think it would chop just as well :thumbup:
The exercise to my mind is akin to fine tuning a bullet design to maximise it's ballistic co-efficient ... VLD bullets ( very low drag ) are basically a re-finement of the simply FMJ shape ... but their ability to drop less and be deflected by the wind less is considerable. Apply this sort of exercise to the cross section curve of the convex grind and you start to develop a shape which "bites" really deep without gaining the disadvantage of the extra weight.
This for me is one of the great advantages of "Busse" as a company ... the engineering attention to detail in making a knife and the work they will put into this is for me akin to the ancient Japanese swordsmiths who around 700 A.D. were refining metal and making swords whose strength and technical "fit for purpose" advantages were way beyond what could be achieved in the western world up until recently.
It starts with the "steel" ... Infi does'nt need to be differentially hardened ... the chemical make up of the steel and the manner in which the heat treatment is applied makes the strength of the blades eclipse the very best properties that were gained from the most technical of differential hardening processes, which were employed by the Japanese. The Noss tests are a laugh to many ... but if you see what their blades stand up to in terms of abuse which "shows" how effectively the "stress" has been taken out of the blade so it will not break ... and yet how well the edge still takes an "edge" ... then you have an ideal beginning.
Combine that with applications like the "light series" of handles now being done where the benefits of CNC tolerances in removing the steel are done to give a handle which weighs less but is still as strong as you would ever need ... and then the attention to detail in the grind and "ideal balance" of thickness of stock to strength required ... you have a company which is fairly unique in it's attempts to make the best "power to weight" performance blades for hard use that I have come across.
If you do a search on the posts I have done you will see I have done many reviews where I have looked at the performance of their Khukri's and compared them to similar weighted axes and to other blades from some very fine makers.
I compared the TTKZ to the Gransfors Brux Small Forest Axe ...
They are about the same size and the same weight ...
To chop effectively and deep with the axe requires a wide cut and a lot of wood to be removed ...
To chop as deep ( each going half way into the tree to bring it down with a lower and upper cut so I could direct the fall) the TTKZ only needed half the depth of the axe, mainly because it is a slimmer blade compared to an axe head and was able to work as fast as the axe if you put the effort in ...
An example of the cuts and their depth after the same amount of time can be seen here below ... you can also see in the cut below the main group on the right hand side the depth the Zilla can go to ...
Taking a view from above the stump you can see that the Zilla chopped in just as far as the axe in the same amount of time ...
And the tree was a full grown mature tree ...
The Zilla also made short work of sectioning the trunk and limbs ...
I prefer to use the Zilla for the sectioning work as the longer edge and the difficult "lay" of the logs makes it a safer and more effective tool as there is greater liklihood of the edge being able to "contact" ... the slimmer profile makes it more likely to "bite" ... an axe is much more prone to "glancing" on a difficult "stroke" where you are working around a myriad of "branches" ... and the warranty on the knife is "lifetime replacement" no quibbles or hassle ... which I won't get if I dink my axe haft by a miss judged stroke where it has caught on a branch ... and soaking and lifting the dent out of the axe haft using a towel and a hot iron is very time consuming compared to the agility I have with the Khukri and if it hits a branch mid swing it usually just cuts through it or sticks in it ... no damage ... no hassle ...
I did alter the grind on my Zilla though ... I took off metal using marker lines to show where on the blade the steel was being removed and "how much" by replacing the lines once they were worn off and using a belt sander and varying grit belts I kept the knife "cool" by taking my time ... but given that these blades are fully convex though you could just say I sharpened and re-profiled the blade ... which gave it a more "appleseed shape" and a sharper edge akin to what the current models now have from the factory ...
I also smoothed off the grips so I could use them without developing hot spots ...
But aside from a basic sharpening and smoothing of the grips to the knife it has had nothing done to it except have the edge stropped back after use and it must have chopped down four or five full grown trees and countless limbing and sectioning as I heat my house with wood burning stoves ...
So the Zilla really is pretty good on the performance aspect as it is ... the only thing I would personally like to try is a "lighter" model which could be worn on the belt for long treks ... my TT Zilla weighs in at 32 oz's ...so does my modified KZII and my Nuclear Zilla at 30 oz's ... so they are all in the fairly heavy bracket ... a lighter Khukri would be a nice alternative and if the balance aspect is kept to the same forward point I think it would chop just as well :thumbup:
benthughes
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Im going to bump this up because I find it pretty interesting. I'm not so much interested in the KZ versus other Khukri variants but the KZ versus other large Busse choppers. I personally find the KZ II to be very durable but find it's chopping ability to fall behind blades with thinner edge profiles. It surely has the weight to chop like a beast which in itself is tiring during extended chopping, however, the blade profile doesn't allow it to cut as deep as a V profile. I find a Cold Steel SK5 Khukri to be a superior chopper and faster in hand and have really never questioned edge retention, it's definitely adequate.
How does the Killa Zilla II compare to a .250-.320 Busse choppers? I prefer a traditional chopping blade but definitely see the merits of a well profiled khukri. I'd be interested in how this compares to a BWN or FFBM. Thanks!!
How does the Killa Zilla II compare to a .250-.320 Busse choppers? I prefer a traditional chopping blade but definitely see the merits of a well profiled khukri. I'd be interested in how this compares to a BWN or FFBM. Thanks!!
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I compares favorably because the profiles on a lot of the larger busse's have similar profiles these days. Even if it's a flat grind versus the heavy convex, the edge thickness is comparable (ie too thick). When you go to sink the knife in on that initial strike it's stopped early by the force of the thick edge pushing into the wood. The TTKZ I'm using now is a custom shopped version thats thinned down from the standard. It's still thicker at the edge than I would prefer, but it's better. If you really want the TTKZ, the KZ2, or really any of the busse choppers to perform well in any blade grind type (flat or convex) you need to bring your initial edge thickness to below .035" thick and raise the grind above the 50% mark, preferably above the 75% mark. A 50% thick convex grind with an edge thickness of .050" is going to perform poorly, because it's just simply to thick. It will resist major damage well, but thats not a worth while mark of performance if you can't do it's main task well.
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If you want to go for a completely standard grind from the factory ... the best I have encountered which needed no alteration was the BWM LE with it's high sabre grind. The shoulder of the edge I took higher by giving the edge a convex grind on my belt sander ... but the profile of the blade's thickness is very much a perfect appleseed shape ... ideal for biting deep.
The next one which needed only a small amount of fine tuning was the Combat Grade NMFBM ... stripping the blade of the paint job revealed some tooling marks which I polished out with the belt sander ... this left the blade around 0.26 thick at the spine IIRC ... but the grind was once again a very good appleseeed shape ... those thinner NMFBM's are probably the best performer's on chopping and biting deep of any of the "stock" Busse's I have had. The extra length and weight give it the edge on a BWM LE.
Anything flat ground is also very good but lacks the extra weight and shape of a high sabre grind or an appleseed convex grind. So the B11 which is flat ground is also a great performer. So is a FBM LE and the SHBM's. All may benefit from raising the shoulder a little higher on the edge so there is less resistance to the cut/chop. The overall shape only comes into play when chopping with enough technique and power to sink the blade up to the spine. If you can do that and slightly more on occaision ... then the grind shape is pretty much "ideal".
Because this is possible with a suitably shaped Zilla and because the depth of the blade is deeper than any of the Mistresses at the sweet spot ... that is why my Zillas out chop the Mistresses I have ... but with the exception of my Nuclear Zilla which is a flat high sabre grind and was "perfect" from the shop ... my other Zilla's were modified.
If you want a standard shaped blade which is a great chopper the NMFBM is a good call ...
The FFBM is the only Mistress which I did'nt take to ... it felt lacking in balance for me ... too thick for me ... I did'nt use mine and moved it along ... but plenty here do like them.
The next one which needed only a small amount of fine tuning was the Combat Grade NMFBM ... stripping the blade of the paint job revealed some tooling marks which I polished out with the belt sander ... this left the blade around 0.26 thick at the spine IIRC ... but the grind was once again a very good appleseeed shape ... those thinner NMFBM's are probably the best performer's on chopping and biting deep of any of the "stock" Busse's I have had. The extra length and weight give it the edge on a BWM LE.
Anything flat ground is also very good but lacks the extra weight and shape of a high sabre grind or an appleseed convex grind. So the B11 which is flat ground is also a great performer. So is a FBM LE and the SHBM's. All may benefit from raising the shoulder a little higher on the edge so there is less resistance to the cut/chop. The overall shape only comes into play when chopping with enough technique and power to sink the blade up to the spine. If you can do that and slightly more on occaision ... then the grind shape is pretty much "ideal".
Because this is possible with a suitably shaped Zilla and because the depth of the blade is deeper than any of the Mistresses at the sweet spot ... that is why my Zillas out chop the Mistresses I have ... but with the exception of my Nuclear Zilla which is a flat high sabre grind and was "perfect" from the shop ... my other Zilla's were modified.
If you want a standard shaped blade which is a great chopper the NMFBM is a good call ...
The FFBM is the only Mistress which I did'nt take to ... it felt lacking in balance for me ... too thick for me ... I did'nt use mine and moved it along ... but plenty here do like them.