- Joined
- Mar 5, 1999
- Messages
- 34,096
Yangdu and I spent a couple of hours on the phone with Gelbu and Pradeep last night and now I know more about this mystery kami and here is the story.
First of all the mystery kami is actually three kamis. They were making khukuris with no marks on a trial basis, conditional employment. Pala and Gelbu were not sure they would keep them on permanently. Once the guys showed their stuff, they all started using a trisul for their mark. That is being changed. Each will have his own special mark but none has been decided on. I guess this is more or less standard procedure.
Of special interest to me, and maybe a few others, these men were recruited by our old master kami, Ganga Ram, and hail from the same village of Chorikot and are related to him one way or the other. Ganga gave them explicit instructions on how to get to BirGorkha out in the middle of the vegetable fields or they would have never found us. "You can get rich working there," Ganga told them. I guess maybe by Nepal standards.
I don't know the names of the men yet but they are "around 30 or 35", good workers, know their stuff, and are staying with Gelbu temporarily until they can find a place of their own. I can see by the work they know what they are doing but have not quite adapted to the special requirements of HI khukuris and they have not yet discovered how to make full use of the power tools they have available to them. You can see some of this reflected in this Chiruwa AK.
The knife is 16.5 inches in length, about 9/16 thick (I am sure they are using Sher's pattern) and weighs about 2.25 pounds. Overall the knife is a 9.5 or 9.6 out of 10. They did not mark this blade and this is to alert us that the knife was not make by a full time BirGorkha kami. In a way that's not a bad idea. As you'll notice the handle is just a bit smaller than our usual HI handle so guys with big hands pass on this one. They used steel pins on the handle -- I think maybe they are more familiar with steel than aluminum -- village boys and not a lot of aluminum available in village aruns. Fit is pretty good but I like to see better. Finish is certainly acceptable but they have not learned to use the magic stone on a buffing wheel yet. Hardness is very good. Karda and chakma are good and certainly useable but are not quite as big as standard HI versions. Scabbard and HI superfrog being polished by Vikash and up to par.
This is khukuri number two by the Chorikot gang. Take is for $100 and give us your feedback on it. We will pay shipping.
Call or email if interested.
