Two khukuris from Khukuri House

C

Cliff Stamp

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These khukuris have the basic shape and design as the Himalayan Imports khukuris, and can take a decent edge and thus to a large degree handle in a similar manner in cutting and chopping.

However the edge is much more readily damaged than in the HI versions and the body was also more readily permanently bent. Both of these are likely due to lower grade steel and/or heat treatment issues.

There is also a durability concern with on of the frogs due to the nature of the attachment of the belt straps.

A pic :

http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/images/kh_khukuri_front.jpg

More info :

http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/knives/khukuri_house.html

-Cliff
 
No problem. It was interesting to work with these and compare to the last ones I used from Gurkah House. In short, they are basically at the same level of steel performance.


-Cliff
 
As an update, I have been using these off and off over the last two years. I used one awhile back to show a friend the problem with really soft spines, even on thick blades and it now looks like a pretzel. They really don't have much rigidity even though the spines are very thick. However the rougher finished one works decently well as a chopping tool. I even used it recently on some slight lumber and it worked better than a number of heavier blades as they tended to just break the wood apart. It is also usually the blade I reach for to chop up really dirty wood because concrete/sand/rock tends to do a number on any blade anyway and wearing out a blade of this class makes a lot more sense.

-Cliff
 
Cliff-
I'm curious. In your review (in the section titled "and a lot more splitting") you noted how batoning in different locations in regards to the center of percussion induced vibrations/shock to the hand. Is this something you noticed two years ago or did you recently add that section?

By the way, I hope to have the new handle glued in place on my Khuk in the next day or two and start taking measurements. I was not able to move the sweet spot as far out as I wanted to (just too much blade mass) and I botched the grinds on the blade, but it looks like it should still be a better performer for my purposes than before.
 
It was in the origional work. It was one of the first times I noticed localization of impact being a problem with vibration. It isn't a problem with chopping because there is little impact work done with the point generally. Mike Swaim did however note it when comparing a Cold Steel khukuri to a Ontario machete and noted the machete had a much broader sweet spot. Lately I have noticed with batoning some blades it is actually more comfortable to run the point close to the wood and actually baton next to the handle. I have also been focusing more on balance outside of just center of mass due to points you have made regarding vibration, power and speed.

-Cliff
 
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