sub-zero khukuris

K

Kazeryu

Joined
Nov 7, 2005
Messages
960
Question for those of you in colder-weather climates....
(by 'colder' I mean average winter temperatures of 15°F to -15°F or colder)

what can I do to protect my khuks, particularly the handles? Does horn play nicely with shock and cold weather? Somehow I doubt whatever animal horn they get down in nepal is used to seeing these temperatures...
 
Horn doesn't play nicely with changes in temperature or humidity.

I'm sitting here right now drizzling glue into a crack that developed in the handle of my 18" WWII, probably due to changes in both.
 
Bitter cold break tools and all mechanical devices.
I've shot revolvers when it's minus 20 though, and have cut wood with my HI khuks also. Care is to be taken.

I don't do any thing different, but I wouldn't torture test a blade on a minus zero day, any more than I'd crank hot loads through a revolver.

I do doubt that horn is going to crack because it's cold, but it might crack because all the moisture in the home disapears through the heating efforts in the home during such a time.

Bitter cold is very dry.

After use care is what is important. Cold steel draws moisture indoors. They'll sweat for some time after coming indoors again. Don't leave the blade or gun in a sheath or holster.


munk
 
The two cords of wood I cut with the 18 inch AK (and a few other blades as well), I did in winter and it was about an average of 10 to 35 degrees. I had no problems with my AK. I doubt you'll be cutting two cords of wood any time soon.:D

Note: I did it bare handed because I didn't trust my gloves to hold the AK's buffalo horn handles and didn't want to cleave my shins. I would chop two hours at a time, go in and warm my hands up for 30 minutes and go out again.
 
I dont consider temps from 10 to 35 degrees to be any problem whatsoever. Below 10, yes.
I once hopped into the Ramcharger and turned the heat on. The knob broke off in my hands. It was 20 below.

A guy once chopped a frozen Pine in the dead of winter with a Kobra. Wrong tool. The Kobra eventually deformed. I'd mostly be worried about chips of steel flying on a bitterly cold day.



munk
 
Wow, where do you live that you don't consider 10 degree daytime temps cold???

Did I mention that I left some of the knives out overnight? And it was probably well below 0 during the night. I don't think that I left the 18 AK out. The 15 inch AK and the BM, were left out.
 
Oh, 10 degrees is cold alright; just not so cold as to make me overly wary about khuk use.

I've a question for the experts; when it's 40 below zero and the wind's blowing at 60 mph, do inantimate objects experience wind chill factor? Now, I'm assuming they do in that if they are warmer than that temp they would give out the temp much more quickly with air circulation, but after meeting the outside temp, a wrench is merely 40 degrees below zero, right?


munk
 
Yes, inanimate objects do experience wind chill. You can demonstrate by exposing standing water to a cold wind and measuring temperature.

Most of the heavily built Khukuri should be safe to use even in the most extreme low surface temperatures at low air pressures.
 
Standing water in a blizzard will disapate heat more rapidly than with still air. But once the heat is disapated, do inantimate objects experience wind chill? The human body is forever burning calories to maintain temp in the cold. Wind chill matters.
A wrench is not doing anything. Once it is the same temp as the environment, I don't think wind chill matters.

(....er...and once a human is the same temp as the enviroment....well..)

munk
 
Until an object is at 0deg. Kelvin (the absence of temperature) it has heat to give away to phenomena like wind chill (convection). It's possible to go below 0 kelvin, but that's pretty esoteric, because then you have an object that owes the universe heat.

Provided there wasn't too much gas trapped inside the blade of a khukuri, it would survive at 0 k. Basically all of the handle materials we see here would not do very well under those conditions.

Someone's gonna make a space khukuri one day.
 
A Space Khukuri- I love it! How about one manufactured in space, using methods and perhaps even materials not possible in our Earth's environment, that exceeds the ability of present day HI khukuris?
Man....your very own Space Khuk...think about it... Like "Excalibre".



munk
 
As I suggested the space khuk, I kind of imagined NASA 1960's engineering. Like with a highly reflective blade, bulky dusted aluminium handle with logos, and a lanyard of course. I'm sure there's a really good reason for an astronaut to have a khukuri, I just can't think of it yet.

The first khukuri in space will most likely be a lot more sane, and arrive with Ghurkha.
 
Superconducting handle panels, mono molecular edge composed of built-up matrices, and scabbard of woven carbon, with laminar aluminum inserts... Of course, there might be better ideas out there...


Carter
 
I'll take a contained field of plasma shaped like a khukri over your mono-molecular edge any day. ;)
 
I want to understand this business of wind chill. Are you saying that you can freeze water on a 40 f day if the wind is strong enough to produce "wind chill" below freezing temp of water?

ED:

Never mind: "The only effect wind chill has on inanimate objects is to shorten the time for the object to cool [to the ambient temperature]."

National Weather Service. Accord: NOAA and NASA.
 
Thomas.... welcome to the land of the absurd. Were words don't mean anything.

1. Steel does not experience anything. Only living things can.

2. Steel like anything else can be cooled quicker to ambient temperature when evaporative heat loss or airflow are present. But the steel will not cool below ambient.

Living things percieve thier enivironment to be colder when they are exposed to water and or wind. Thier body temperature will more rapidly as well.

Windchill can be deadly...... but that only matters if you happen to be alive to begin with.
 
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