Need help repairing loose buttcap (NO 56k! big images)

Z

Zixinus

Joined
Apr 16, 2009
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So, Christmas madness is starting to roar up here. Various stalls are in the main street (which I live with a few minutes by). One of them, I notice a Nepalese flag.

I look in, and there are bunch of Nepalese stuff (meditation aids, smokes, handcrafts, etc). Later, I decide to buy a so-so flute and a shouldbag. I talk with the seller, a nice lady, who says that her husband is Nepalese. I mention that I recognize the flag because I buy kukris from Himalayan Imports. She mentions that her husband occassionally brings knives from Nepal.

Later, I meet his husband and ask about the kukris. I was considering buying a small, more portable one to the beast of a CAK I already have. So, I do.

This is the item.

vf5zXl.jpg


I decided that this had a nice weight and looked workable enough. So I brought it.

The kukri itself
gLvxyl.jpg


While sharpening, I notice that the buttcap is a little bigger than it ought to be as it cuts into my hand while using it. I decided to simply file it down.

The buttcap itself is a bit worrying, seen here. There are what I think to be rust marks. I simply thought that I could merely sand them down.

bLEFs.jpg


However, while working on it, I examined the other side and noticed that the buttcap wasn't covering enough.

I take my hammer to it, gently tapping it and find out the buttcap wasn't hammered on it right!

Look here, this is the proper position:
WsilO.jpg


And this is when I move the buttcap (by hand! not with the hammer)
PsXhj.jpg


As you can clearly see, the buttcap is lose.

Question is: what do I do? How do the kamis put the buttcap on and how should I do it? Should I take a hammer to it or use glue? Should I take it to a knife-maker (I know a grinder nearby).
 
I'm going to pop this over to the Cantina since it's not about an HI khuk. No biggie:)

Buttcaps on chiruwa/slab style handles can sometimes be loose because they really don't do much other than protect the bottom of the wood from getting dinged up. if the steel is soft enough, you can try smacking it a few times with a hammer to try and peen it out a bit more. You could also try to squirt some two ton epoxy under there and see if that holds it.

Good luck:)
 
The solution with hammering so far seems to be a combination of both: I should hammer it into place as best as I can and then put epoxy (or to be more precise, the two-component glue I have for it instead) on the exposed areas for good measure.

Thing is, that after than I'd need to grind the glue down. One of these days I really need to get a small belt grinder.
 
There are two things you can do:

1) Heat the buttcap to soften the laha and affix the buttcap back in place. Then slightly peen it tight again.

2) use the more viscous super glue and get it under the cap to remelt whatever laha is there and provide more adhesive in case there isnt enough laha there. Then slightly peen it tight again.
This will probably require a little cleanup or sanding.



EDIT: glue should be used before peening and all sanding and filing should be done by hand.
 
Zixinus said:
What do you mean by "peening"?
Click to expand...

The tang end that pokes thru the buttcap. It needs to be mushroomed over a little more.
I do it with a punch that is the same diameter of the end of the tang and carefully mushroom the end over so as not to damage the keeper or buttcap.
 
I'm sorry, I get that I should hammer the keeper (of the tang-end) but with what?

I'm not a native English speaker and easily confused by technical vocabulary.
 
By a punch, you mean something like this?

Sorry if I am a bit doesn't-know-the-obvious, but I think I figured that is what you were talking about but I want to be sure. I don't want to accidentally ruin the kukri.
 
Zixinus said:
By a punch, you mean something like this?

Sorry if I am a bit doesn't-know-the-obvious, but I think I figured that is what you were talking about but I want to be sure. I don't want to accidentally ruin the kukri.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's a punch, but you probably want one with a flat end rather then coming to a point. Pointed ends are for marking.
 
Zixinus said:
By a punch, you mean something like this?

Sorry if I am a bit doesn't-know-the-obvious, but I think I figured that is what you were talking about but I want to be sure. I don't want to accidentally ruin the kukri.
Click to expand...

No problem, Zix, i'm happy to explain!
But, yes.... but those are center punches. You need a pin punch that is flat on the end.
It is used by going around the sides of the end of the tang to fold them over.
 
Okay, thank you everyone! I'm going to try it tomorrow.

I've already hammered the buttcap (doesn't seem to move now) a bit but tomorrow I'll try heating it up to get the laha moving a bit.

If there are no exposed bits, I'll skip the glueing. Then the good, old bit of boring filing and sanding.
 
Okay, I think I messed up when I took a whack at it.

I tried heating it up with a pen-heater. I have doubts that there was enough laha between the handle and buttcap, but if there was, I think I might have beaten it out.

Now the buttcap is uglier, one of the diamond points of the keeper is flat and if anything, the buttcap is more lose.
 
Zixinus said:
Okay, I think I messed up when I took a whack at it.

I tried heating it up with a pen-heater. I have doubts that there was enough laha between the handle and buttcap, but if there was, I think I might have beaten it out.

Now the buttcap is uglier, one of the diamond points of the keeper is flat and if anything, the buttcap is more lose.
Click to expand...

Probably going to have to just glue it now.
 
That seems the most straightforward solution, yeah.

Now the buttcap is "flipping" to one side or another, as well as not being aligned with the handle. The keeper itself is also moving, something that it did not do so before.

I REALLY screwed up.
 
Zixinus said:
That seems the most straightforward solution, yeah.

Now the buttcap is "flipping" to one side or another, as well as not being aligned with the handle. The keeper itself is also moving, something that it did not do so before.

I REALLY screwed up.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately the fix for it now is not easy, unless you can just get some glue under the buttcap and keeper.
If you can't get glue under them, you will have to grind/file off the peened end. Then remove both keeper and buttcap. And then you will have to remove some material from the end of the handle to give you enough tang to peen over again. Then glue cap and keeper down properly and re-peen the tang end again. It is alot of work.
 
Since it's chiruwa (full tang) and the peened end is just holding the buttcap in place (instead of holding the handle in place), I would grind or file off the peening, take off the buttplate and keeper and maybe try to hammer out the dents, and then epoxy the buttplate and keeper back into place. I'd skip the re-peening if it involves shortening the handle, since I think that epoxy would be sufficient.
 
I took it to the local grinder. He managed to hammer it mostly back into place (it still moves slightly). He said that it was Chinese copy, hence why he did it for free.
I suspect that he might be right (though, he named the starting price of an authentic kukri to be higher than that of HI's Kothimoda). Is there any test or way to verify?

Anyway, I brought a pocket knife from a "local" (that is, made inside this country) knifemaker and I had an idea. I tried using 2-component glue before, but I couldn't get it below the buttcap properly.
Here, I saw that they used an injection needle to put oil on the pocket knife. I plan to do the same with glue, if I can get a needle (where's a drugy when you need one? :P). I'll show pics later of the current and hopefully fixed condition of the kukri.
 
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