M43 Steel Bolster Attached How? query....

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mtngunr

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Apr 10, 2005
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Another search and another coming up empty on forum of a question others might have when thinking of buying an M43.

I know the original issue India factory knives can be found with integral (cast?) blades/bolsters and also assembled separately.

The steel bolsters are assumed solid on new HI versions, especially after watching the blessed Howard Wallace virtual tour video and watching scales seated against them while peening
https://www.facebook.com/story.php?...php/785433-A-virtual-tour-of-HI-in-Nepal&_rdr
, so how are these secured?.....most such knives such as Loveless and all copies thereof used crosspin(s) through blade. What do the HI kamis do?
 
Mine appear to be glued, penned, and brazed together. I can't say for sure, but I see a braze line joining the bolster to itself.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and assume the bolster is secured in place by the pressure between the scales and the ricasso. The gaps are filled with a glue/filler substance.
 
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I can see a braze line on all of my HI kuks, so I'm assuming that the bolster is joined tightly to itself by brazing, after it is pressure placed between the scales and the ricasso. I must admit, this is not first hand information, as I have not dissected one of my kuks. I haven't. I just can't see another way it could be done.

I worked with a bladesmith in North Carolina once. I made a knife by stock removal under his guidance. It was stock removal. I cut, ground, and we heat treated the blade. As I made the one, He had made two or three others. He added bolsters, and pinned them. I don't see the evidence of pins on any of the bolsters of my HI kuks. I could very well be over looking them. I'll take another look this evening.
 
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The answer will pop up soon....my assumption them being solid chunks of steel and firmly affixed somehow well enough in above video link scale seating to not pop off from impact which would seem to imply more than a simple braze...i mean....if i were that close to finishing a knife and a bolster popped off and i had to back up a long way in process to reattach, it would be last time that happened.....however attached, the video shows great confidence in the strength judging by the blows against the rear end of handle scale material.

Thinking this through and if solid bolsters butted against ricasso shoulders and brazed to self across tang and to tang/ricasso, pins might be superfluous despite my automatic assumption of necessity while thinking only of solid lumps pinned independently to sides as are many bolsters.
 
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You are a Randall aficionado. Are any of the hand guards pinned, or are they held in place by pressure?
 
They are not held by pressure and clearly neither the M43 in the video as they are there firm enough he hammers on back end of scales to seat them against the bolsters...

The Randalls are one-piece drilled and filed to slide forward and fit snugly over tang as a very large chunk, seated firmly, and then soldered all the way through front and back....then spacer/gasket material and handle material also drilled and filed to fit snugly over tang it driven on while wet with epoxy and weights placed on assembly until set up (knives are driven point first vertically into a large cut tree trunk in shop as they always have been, not a thing has changed except electric forge instead of coal in 1952)....after then, pommels are fit, nuts run down and tangs peened......then the huge mass is filed and ground by eyeball as are blades into finished shape....

Sound familiar?......i hope it does as aside from better equipment making it more realistic to approach but never reach perfection, this is exactly how HI knives are made at a pace 10 times slower due to technology lacking, and if anything, should cost 10 times more than a Randall.

Back to bolsters, i expect aside from two-piece due to full tang, they are made exactly the same, butted firmly against ricasso shoulders and brazed into a solid unit...

I suppose most anyone could drill and add a pin or two, but why bother....the bolsters are there to give a solid surface for scales to butt against, and they do that in spades as video shows...
 
They are not held by pressure and clearly neither the M43 in the video as they are there firm enough he hammers on back end of scales to seat them against the bolsters...

The Randalls are one-piece drilled and filed to slide forward and fit snugly over tang as a very large chunk, seated firmly, and then soldered all the way through front and back....then spacer/gasket material and handle material also drilled and filed to fit snugly over tang it driven on while wet with epoxy and weights placed on assembly until set up (knives are driven point first vertically into a large cut tree trunk in shop as they always have been, not a thing has changed except electric forge instead of coal in 1952)....after then, pommels are fit, nuts run down and tangs peened......then the huge mass is filed and ground by eyeball as are blades into finished shape....

Sound familiar?......i hope it does as aside from better equipment making it more realistic to approach but never reach perfection, this is exactly how HI knives are made at a pace 10 times slower due to technology lacking, and if anything, should cost 10 times more than a Randall.

Back to bolsters, i expect aside from two-piece due to full tang, they are made exactly the same, butted firmly against ricasso shoulders and brazed into a solid unit...

I suppose most anyone could drill and add a pin or two, but why bother....the bolsters are there to give a solid surface for scales to butt against, and they do that in spades as video shows...i suppose a pin or two would not hurt a handguard designed to stop a tarwar, but handle material already firmly seated and pinned reimforces the braze which probably needs nothing since that is a large flat under the bolster of brazed area trying to shear.....

Yep....#3 on my hit list
..
 
I don't know about HI, but I think I recall that some bolsters are bent around and not two-piece. I know that the Laha serves to help affix it, I can see some of it around the edges of the bolster and running out into the Sword of Shiva fullers, and I also know that they do braze the seam of the bolster. In fact, many of the bolsters have the brazing seam in random spots or used to, which supports that they were bent to shape and not formed in two pieces and pinned together.
 
Here are a few close-ups of a bolster on one of my m-43s.
The first shows the braze line.
65a3c782489826993e395d367fc12264.jpg


The next shows the glue in the fuller trailing into the bolster.
19bce061e396613b4ef30e6f021f52c9.jpg
 
Scara said:
I don't know about HI, but I think I recall that some bolsters are bent around and not two-piece. I know that the Laha serves to help affix it, I can see some of it around the edges of the bolster and running out into the Sword of Shiva fullers, and I also know that they do braze the seam of the bolster. In fact, many of the bolsters have the brazing seam in random spots or used to, which supports that they were bent to shape and not formed in two pieces and pinned together.
Click to expand...

Strictly talking the M43 solid bolsters here...i was impressed watching the video of the kami whacking the scales against the bolsters with a hammer to keep the scales seated....and this was the selling point as well as ease of manufacture which made i believe the original M43 a rave at the time as both tougher AND cheaper to make.
 
Dobe i appreciate the photos....cannot, of course, tell, but appears the laha is only filling a gap up front across edge, laha in back smeared on just before handle scale peening, while bolster mostly 100% contact braze if solid......i must keep in mind that if those are solid and not formed, they still would likely not be dead flat on the brazed side while the forged tang itself most certainly is not....if solid they would be held/clamped into place with possibly already heavily tinned with solder and heated until solder flowed while extra perhaps added from outside....watching the other sweatshop video of the kid soldering formed brass seemed to suggest a flash fire of perhaps flux put to flame and quickly extinguished and, voila, joined metal on the thin stuff......would think solid bolsters and blade would take a lot more heat, maybe stuffed back in forge?.....

How i wish i could watch these guys work!.......Thanks for the trouble of photos....i have been curious ever since i first read the M43 listing and read historical links on the model....and wondered how Bir Ghorka/HI tackled the project....actually was expecting formed thinner stuff until i watched the video of them firmly attached and taking(what appeared, anyhow) basically wood drift punch blows....
 
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I probably should have started the whole thread with "do the bolsters appear a solid?", followed by "solid WHAT, if solid?"......and then digressed into attachment based on first answers...

I am not the sharpest tack in the box...
 
They are whatever sheet metal (brass, etc.) shaped and brazed into place. I did do an ang khola once where I think it was just held in by the laha. The bolsters are filled to varying extents (sometimes partially and sometimes completely) with laha. Out of a dozen blades or so where I have removed the bolsters, they have all been a formed sheet metal - not solid. Out of dozens of khukuris, I have only seen one beat to heck blade with a dented bolster. The design works.
 
roninsgrips said:
They are whatever sheet metal (brass, etc.) shaped and brazed into place. I did do an ang khola once where I think it was just held in by the laha. The bolsters are filled to varying extents (sometimes partially and sometimes completely) with laha. Out of a dozen blades or so where I have removed the bolsters, they have all been a formed sheet metal - not solid. Out of dozens of khukuris, I have only seen one beat to heck blade with a dented bolster. The design works.
Click to expand...

The handle on an M43 is quite different than an Ang Khola....as are you quite sure of that statement?
Am aware normal reduced tang knives have formed sheetmetal bolsters slipped overtang, but the M43 bolters slip over nothing and would manage to be only a halfshell formed somehow...
And the question is as to historicity and how close new come to old in that regard given their little shop and not a booming WWII true factory in India......the video whacking seems to show perhaps something a bit stouter than a hollow halfshell...
 
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mtngunr said:
The handle on an M43 is quite different than an Ang Khola....as are you quite sure of that statement?
Am aware normal reduced tang knives have formed sheetmetal bolsters slipped overtang, but the M43 bolters slip over nothing and would manage to be only a halfshell formed somehow...
Click to expand...

Absolutely sure. No matter the handle style the bolsters are not solid. They are filled with laha and often times the handle or slabs are fitted inside the bolsters. This is the very traditional method of manufacture. In 27 years of business there have been very few failures.
 
No question at all of them holding up...was only trying to find out how close to historic design.....truth be told, had assumed formed and attached somehow until i saw the Howard Wallace tour video and it seemed they sounded as solid as....well....a solid, as the kami kept reseating as scales peened...
thanks for the authorative replies guys...
 
Theyre about as historical as it gets. Khukuri have been made this way as long as they have been made. The solid steel bolsters were a wartime british addition.
 
But of course...and only to the original M43 were they different (as far as i know)....suchlike as knife in question is named...so the questions expressed above are seemingly quite natural, i would think....thanks again for the confirmation of construction method on current knives.
 
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