Principles of Nepalese drafting, or at least Pala's...

Jim March

Jim March

Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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OK, as best I can I've drawn two pictures of a generic Khukuri, one in "Western drafting tradition" and the other a crude copy of what I saw Pala do last Saturday.
paladraw.gif


If I was trying to do the Western approach in more serious fashion, I would have done more "cutaway blade profile mini-pictures", spaced maybe one per inch or so. But those two give a decent impression of the blade shape at those two points. I also did a "rear view" to show the pommel in detail.

The most startling thing about "Pala's version" is that the pommel is "twisted around" to show it to you in the same view. The limited computer drawing tools I have on hand cannot properly do this so the pommel looks "artificially flat" - that's not a limit of the drawing system. The grind faces on the blade are indicated by light sketched lines and the angles they're drawn at indicate "steepness" - compare the lines on the spine bulge to the main blade edge face lines.

The Nepalese system isn't quite as accurate but it's very "information dense" - less drawing needs to happen to show more of what's there. As long as the draftsman and the maker both understand the conventions it'll work just fine.

But NOW you know why the kamis cannot translate the drawings some of us have sent! They use totally different conventions.

Send a wood/plexiglas/whatever mockup, or bring Pala an original to draw in "Nepali fashion". I wouldn't trust my limited understanding and interpretation of the system shown here to draw something for the kamis in "Nepal drafting style"!

Neat, huh?

Jim
 
Very interesting. Jim, do you know if this way of drafting is unique to Nepal, or is it used in other countries?
 
That's a hell of a good question. The next time I've got access to a book of, say, old Greek or Egyptian drawings of some type I'm going to look for similarities.

We know the Khukuri is a decendent of something carried by Alexander and company, so that would be one place to start looking. That and India of course.

Leonardo DaVinci used a definate "western" approach so western drafting has been around a while. Now I'm curious about several things: what does Chinese, Indian and Greek drafting look like on a similar object, and then how does Nepali architectural drawing compare to our type and the others mentioned? I'm not at all willing to try and extrapolate what I saw Pala do all the way into a drawing of a house!

Really interesting stuff, no?

Jim
 
Jim, the Nepali engineers I knew used the standard western style drawings. But, kamis and other village folks have their own methods of sketching a prototype of some sort. They are as you showed.

The kamis only understand the plan or profile I send them. They don't understand top, bottom, left end, right end views. Or cross sections. They will understand Pala's sketch he made on the cardboard.

It is interesting stuff.

------------------
Uncle Bill
Himalayan Imports Website
http://members.aol.com/himimp/index.html
 
Been a long time since I took any drafting courses...Isn't what Pala has done a sort of "isometric view" ?


--Mike L.

Real men sharpen freehand.
 
Bill, is that a decent adaptation of Pala's style? I think I got pretty close...

Jim
 
I think we (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Burmese, Siamese, Malays, Indonesian, Filipinos ... even Chinese) are traditionally having the same convention of plan viewing - which is exactly like what Pala & Nepalese viewed ie. an isometric view.

Nowadays - we (those attending medern type of education) already adopted the western view!
 
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