Hello everybody. I'm Dave from Portland. I've never posted on this forum before, but I just wanted to say that it is one of the best that I have read, and also very educational to a newbie.
In any case, I have recently begun the process of going broke through excessive purchasing of HI khukuris,
and when I ordered my third khukuri, Uncle Bill suggested that I take all of them out and do some serious chopping with them. So, when my third khukuri arrived, I put all three of my HI khukuris in a duffel bag with the intent of going down by the river to chop up whatever I could find. I also threw in a Cold Steel Rifleman's Tomahawk for comparison purposes.
I started out with some sort of huge, waterlogged old stumps, one vertical and one horizontal. They were so mushy that the khukuris had a marked tendency to bounce off of them rather than chop in very far. Best penetration was achieved with the (much thinner) Rifleman's hawk. I also tested the tips of the khukuris, but the wood was so soft that I soon grew bored of effortlessly ripping it up.
Next I moved on to a dry piece of heavy hardwood. I started off with my most recent purchase, a shop 2 20" sirupati sn 2. It chopped much deeper into the dry wood, and I then began hammering with the spine just to test the tang. Satisfied with that, I then went onto my final planned test of smashing the side of the blade into the log. BOING!!! On the second strike, the blade of the sirupati decided to try and escape my cruel punishment by detaching itself from the handle, breaking off right at the tang and luckily falling to the ground without hitting anything or anybody on the way back down. I was now left with a 15" sirupati that was razor sharp for its entire length, so I carefully picked it up, wiped off the sand, and slid it back into its sheath.
I then tested the other two khukuris in the same manner. They both chopped much better than they did in the waterlogged stumps, and I was especially impressed with the chopping performance of the relatively smaller 16" WWII. I smashed them as hard as I could in every way I could think of, but all the only things I managed to hurt at all were the log and my poor little hands.
The tomahawk still chopped a little better, but it was a close call with the harder wood.
On the way to my next planned test, I saw a discarded board with some big rusty nails driven through it, so I decided to try and chop some of them up. I started out with the shop 1 WWII. The first chop resulted in a fairly large chip on the blade, and little detectable damage to the nail. I tried about ten more chops, but the blade just got totally ripped up while the recalcitrant nail sat there and laughed at it. Next I brought out my only other remaining khukuri, another 20" shop 2 sirupati special. This one had been giving me major headaches with rust in spite of a near-daily olive oil regimen, but it turned out to be the best-performing khuk of the day when it went right through the nail on the second chop with only the slightest of impaction to the edge. Finally tried to chop some nails up with the tomahawk, but it couldn't quite get through them, instead it bent them up severely. It got notched up worse than the sirupati, but not nearly as bad as the WWII.
My next planned test was to whack some trees with my two remaining knives, but this turned out to be kind of irrelevant as the bark cushioned the blows compared to the bare hardwood that had broken the sirupati. I did notice that the remaining sirupati had started to make weird noises when I smashed it against Mr. Tree. I also noticed that the flat buttcap had gotten loose and the corner had started ripping up my palm. I was nervous that its tang may have been damaged as well.
My final test was the one I felt to be the most brutal, and was the real reason I brought the tomahawk along. I found a couple of big rocks and covered them with rags so as not to scratch the blades when I placed them on the rocks. I then put the sirupati's frog around its blade, put the blade on the rocks, picked up the tomahawk, and began hammering the hell out of the knife at the blade/tang juncture. The frogs got a bit scratched up, but neither khukuri took any damage whatsoever. Satisfied that I had tested all 3 khuks to the limits of my ability, I packed everything back up in the duffel bag and trudged back home to the trailer my landlord calls an "apartment."
I did pass by a discarded steel grocery cart on my way back home, but I wimped out and opted not to try and chop it up as well.
All that was left to do was to call Uncle Bill with the bad news. He told me to send it back, of course, but I also included the nail that the other had chopped up to show what a good performer the other sirupati was.
Did you get that package yet Uncle Bill? Don't forget to look in the envelope!
-Dave
In any case, I have recently begun the process of going broke through excessive purchasing of HI khukuris,
I started out with some sort of huge, waterlogged old stumps, one vertical and one horizontal. They were so mushy that the khukuris had a marked tendency to bounce off of them rather than chop in very far. Best penetration was achieved with the (much thinner) Rifleman's hawk. I also tested the tips of the khukuris, but the wood was so soft that I soon grew bored of effortlessly ripping it up.
Next I moved on to a dry piece of heavy hardwood. I started off with my most recent purchase, a shop 2 20" sirupati sn 2. It chopped much deeper into the dry wood, and I then began hammering with the spine just to test the tang. Satisfied with that, I then went onto my final planned test of smashing the side of the blade into the log. BOING!!! On the second strike, the blade of the sirupati decided to try and escape my cruel punishment by detaching itself from the handle, breaking off right at the tang and luckily falling to the ground without hitting anything or anybody on the way back down. I was now left with a 15" sirupati that was razor sharp for its entire length, so I carefully picked it up, wiped off the sand, and slid it back into its sheath.
I then tested the other two khukuris in the same manner. They both chopped much better than they did in the waterlogged stumps, and I was especially impressed with the chopping performance of the relatively smaller 16" WWII. I smashed them as hard as I could in every way I could think of, but all the only things I managed to hurt at all were the log and my poor little hands.
On the way to my next planned test, I saw a discarded board with some big rusty nails driven through it, so I decided to try and chop some of them up. I started out with the shop 1 WWII. The first chop resulted in a fairly large chip on the blade, and little detectable damage to the nail. I tried about ten more chops, but the blade just got totally ripped up while the recalcitrant nail sat there and laughed at it. Next I brought out my only other remaining khukuri, another 20" shop 2 sirupati special. This one had been giving me major headaches with rust in spite of a near-daily olive oil regimen, but it turned out to be the best-performing khuk of the day when it went right through the nail on the second chop with only the slightest of impaction to the edge. Finally tried to chop some nails up with the tomahawk, but it couldn't quite get through them, instead it bent them up severely. It got notched up worse than the sirupati, but not nearly as bad as the WWII.
My next planned test was to whack some trees with my two remaining knives, but this turned out to be kind of irrelevant as the bark cushioned the blows compared to the bare hardwood that had broken the sirupati. I did notice that the remaining sirupati had started to make weird noises when I smashed it against Mr. Tree. I also noticed that the flat buttcap had gotten loose and the corner had started ripping up my palm. I was nervous that its tang may have been damaged as well.
My final test was the one I felt to be the most brutal, and was the real reason I brought the tomahawk along. I found a couple of big rocks and covered them with rags so as not to scratch the blades when I placed them on the rocks. I then put the sirupati's frog around its blade, put the blade on the rocks, picked up the tomahawk, and began hammering the hell out of the knife at the blade/tang juncture. The frogs got a bit scratched up, but neither khukuri took any damage whatsoever. Satisfied that I had tested all 3 khuks to the limits of my ability, I packed everything back up in the duffel bag and trudged back home to the trailer my landlord calls an "apartment."
All that was left to do was to call Uncle Bill with the bad news. He told me to send it back, of course, but I also included the nail that the other had chopped up to show what a good performer the other sirupati was.
Did you get that package yet Uncle Bill? Don't forget to look in the envelope!
-Dave
