- Joined
- Jun 16, 2002
- Messages
- 1,104
I don't feel to well, so i'm gonna make this as brief as possible.
my favourite khukuri for going on camping trips is an older model, 18" WWII Bura made, horn handled khukuri mounted in steel. The wide cho is close to the bolster.
the edge is thinner than usual, and it's almost a cross between a sirupati and a WWII. it is quite light, 1lb 8 oz. i like it b/c it's light enough to clear brush all day long but definitely capable of handling midsized branches for firewood or kindling. Great all around carry. to me, it's the perfect cross between an axe and a machete.
well, i let a friend borrow it.
the first thing the guy did was cut some branches so we could start a fire. he took my WWII and began sawing the branch with the area between the cho and the "sweet spot". The long slender part of the blade if you will. i corrected him after chuckling quietly to myself.
i told him to cut with the "belly" area of the blade. i went away to gather some kindling.
i came back to find out he was cutting 2" diameter branches with the tip of the khukhuri!! (first 1" of the khukuri) for God's sake! i corrected him, told him again to cut with the sweet spot. "the tip is made to be soft, so that it will bend rather than break off"
anyways! i came back and guess what. he completely folded .5 cm of the tip. i tried to hammer the tip back but it just broke off. DAMN. i wasn't really thinking...
he also had the oddest way of chopping wood. he would chop at a 45 degree angle and once the blade sunk into the wood, he would twist than blade. i guess to "break off" the chip of wood.
he also took a very nice hand axe from a friend of mine, placed his "walking" stick on a piece of flat granite and began chopping away. i got it back with edge damage.
i've used that khukuri for 2 years now. i shudder to think what this guy would do with a lesser blade. i'm going to regrind the tip (if at all possible).
i would like to say that he's the nicest guy. you come over to his house and he'll treat you like it was your place. the one thing about him is that he's the type of guy to borrow your stuff and either never return it, or possibly return it in a state of disrepair. we had a saying that his house was the blackhole of returned items.
at first i thought that he was the type of guy that didn't think much of possessions. you know, he'd freely give as much as he freely borrowed (whether you wanted to or not). well, he carved some kind of walking stick out of a branch he cut off my friend's property and he COVETED that piece of wood.
anyways, i said to him, you're a great guy, you'd stand up for your friends no matter what and have more worldly knowledge on the state of the human condition than most i know, but man, you don't know squat about knives.
that's my rant.
p.s. i don't pretend to know more about the wild than ya'll do, as i'm just a city boy who hikes on the occasion. but man, i thought that everyone knew that you couldn't start a fire with rotten, spongy wet wood. used up all my starters! GEEZE!
my favourite khukuri for going on camping trips is an older model, 18" WWII Bura made, horn handled khukuri mounted in steel. The wide cho is close to the bolster.
the edge is thinner than usual, and it's almost a cross between a sirupati and a WWII. it is quite light, 1lb 8 oz. i like it b/c it's light enough to clear brush all day long but definitely capable of handling midsized branches for firewood or kindling. Great all around carry. to me, it's the perfect cross between an axe and a machete.
well, i let a friend borrow it.
the first thing the guy did was cut some branches so we could start a fire. he took my WWII and began sawing the branch with the area between the cho and the "sweet spot". The long slender part of the blade if you will. i corrected him after chuckling quietly to myself.
i told him to cut with the "belly" area of the blade. i went away to gather some kindling.
i came back to find out he was cutting 2" diameter branches with the tip of the khukhuri!! (first 1" of the khukuri) for God's sake! i corrected him, told him again to cut with the sweet spot. "the tip is made to be soft, so that it will bend rather than break off"
anyways! i came back and guess what. he completely folded .5 cm of the tip. i tried to hammer the tip back but it just broke off. DAMN. i wasn't really thinking...
he also had the oddest way of chopping wood. he would chop at a 45 degree angle and once the blade sunk into the wood, he would twist than blade. i guess to "break off" the chip of wood.
he also took a very nice hand axe from a friend of mine, placed his "walking" stick on a piece of flat granite and began chopping away. i got it back with edge damage.
i've used that khukuri for 2 years now. i shudder to think what this guy would do with a lesser blade. i'm going to regrind the tip (if at all possible).
i would like to say that he's the nicest guy. you come over to his house and he'll treat you like it was your place. the one thing about him is that he's the type of guy to borrow your stuff and either never return it, or possibly return it in a state of disrepair. we had a saying that his house was the blackhole of returned items.
at first i thought that he was the type of guy that didn't think much of possessions. you know, he'd freely give as much as he freely borrowed (whether you wanted to or not). well, he carved some kind of walking stick out of a branch he cut off my friend's property and he COVETED that piece of wood.
anyways, i said to him, you're a great guy, you'd stand up for your friends no matter what and have more worldly knowledge on the state of the human condition than most i know, but man, you don't know squat about knives.
that's my rant.
p.s. i don't pretend to know more about the wild than ya'll do, as i'm just a city boy who hikes on the occasion. but man, i thought that everyone knew that you couldn't start a fire with rotten, spongy wet wood. used up all my starters! GEEZE!
). Maybe if you devide the work up like that he wont feel like he's being talked down to. I have a friend very much like yours. He's watched too many movies and expects knives to behave in same way they do on film. On top of that he's a huge brute of a guy and kinda akward. He and I were on a camping trip up in some cliffs a year or two ago. I let him use my Shanker 15" AK and he was just wailing on a log (for no real reason mind you). It was then that on his upswing the blade flew from his his big monkey paws and rolled end over end down a 20 or 30 foot cliff. It seems to hit every rock it possibly could on the way down. The good news, it survived it. I had a lot of grinding and sharpening to do and the handle is held together with super glue, JB weld, and black hose tape. BUT, the AK still works. I never got mad at him because it was an accident and he felt really bad about it, but i wasn't HAPPY about it either. Best of luck to you and your injured khuk
:barf:
You're right. I hadn't thought of that. On second thought, maybe you should just take your friend to the park next time