Developing a fascination with KC Nepal Khukuris

Now there are a load of Khuk´s around on the market. Some are decent, some are of subterranean quality, so to say. And some are legendary, and some deserve to be. In my humble opinion, the folks at the tiny Kathmandu smithy KC Nepal qualify. Talk is cheap.

Watch.

Enjoy.

And find their website here: www.nepalkhukuri.com

Also take note that I am not getting paid to say this, even if some of you may sense a bit of fish odour ;-). But these folks do it with a passion. They burn for what they do, they work hard, under circumstances most European smiths would mock at. People make fun of me because I use salvaged spring steel and other materials and not some heebie-jeebie-goobalahbah unobtanium steels, and they mock at me for using my hammer, my tongs and not much more, they laugh at me because I do not have hundreds and thousands of money to spend on tempering ovens and wuptity controllers ;-).

Fact is, it´s true. I don´t have the money, of course. But that is not all there is. It does not matter. If you don´t understand the passion, the fire and the fierce desire to always get better, you will not understand. I am fascinated by these guys, not because they are the "significant other". Not even by the quality of their knives, nor the bargain prices they offer. Even if I have little money, I would pay more for their work.

I am just a mere hobbyist, an amateur. But these guys do this shit for a living... and still yet, they burn with a fierce passion for their work. Even if I work with simple tools... I cannot even compare to them. It is not in the equipment, it´s in the mastery of the equipment you have.

Those who know me and have followed my blog know that I don´t just do "Tribal knifemaking" as a mere fashion fad (oh, yes, there ARE people around like that), but had the privilege to have had, one must sadly say, several "true" "tribal" knifemakers (they would whack me if they knew I called them thus) as tutors, the late Mielenko Bednarcz from St. Petersburg and Viktor Paukow, a smith from Kazakhstan, who was a tutor of mine from 2004 until 2014, both of which taught me a lot with sparse words, some brawls, a bit of Vodka and a lot of making me watch in awe.It was definitely no formal training I received. What they taught me, first and foremostly, is respect. 

And thusly, it is not that I would not, with a bit of time and preparation, be able to make a knife that would do similar things. It is not that it is about the "product". It is a matter of respect and modesty.

I don´t like the words, but for me it is part of Bushido. I don´t like the words, because they seem not to apply. Maybe you can see it that way: We live on a planet, and there are several different kinds of human beings on it. Some do what they want, some do what they can, and some do what they must, some do whichever is force-fed to them. 

I do not want to define them, because, even if I have the privilege to call Ambar a friend, even though we have never met in actual and most likely never will, which tells a story in itself, I know that we might have many similarities, but that there are differences, too. But this is exactly the point.

Sometimes I feel a bit ashamed of my fellow Westerners. I mean, while of course there are loads of guys and gals doing a really, really great job with so-called "modern equipment", most of the blades they produce go to fatcat, overweight nocturnal predators who would rather cut their own head off with a knife than peeling an onion. A knife somehow has become sort of a fetish, to be polished and admired, but not for actual use, for the rich. And then there are some of those knifemakers, mostly amateurs like me, who as I said sneer at a lack of equipment.

Try this, BSTDs... I doubt most of them would be capable to make a knife like this with modern equipment, let alone with the traditional setup. Don´t get me wrong... there is nothing romantic about forging that way. It´s back-breaking labour.

I know how it is to forge that way. I know how a herniated vertebral disc feels like. Tried that, tickles.

And this is why this will not be the last you have read about KC on my blog. Because they make excellent knives. Because they burn with passion for what they do. And because they fucking deserve it! 

Bushcraft knife evolution

I am increasingly fond of the style of the traditional Finnish puukko as opposed to other Scandinavian knives and as far as I know no one has tried to incorporate the rhombic cross-section of this kind of knife into a full tang design. Plus, I am constantly playing with shape, balance and style of a knife suited for all the everyday kinds of work you can encounter when using a bushcraft knife. And while there are a lot of really fancy tactical designs (I spare you the rant, I hope you appreciate it ;-)), what works for me, i.e. "the knife that feels right", is a rather compact design with no crosspiece, a high Scandi or convex bevel (which screams "puukko" on top of its lungs, by the way), and a handle that is rather short. 

I seldom work with gloves, for I find they compromise my ability to feel where I am headed ;-), so this is not a problem. Also, if you use a knife with no guard the way to go when stabbing e.g. at a piece of wood in spooncarving or prying at an arrow stuck in wood in archery is to put the pommel end of the handle into your palm, which is very secure no less. I like my balance point on the knife on my index finger. Hollow rivets or better, pins, give you the ability to put the knife on a stick when harvesting fruit or mistle twigs with a length of paracord. Carving is facilitated by a slender tip design. To aid in durability, I prefer spring steel that is selectively tempered and thoroughly normalized. It is a simple steel, that also can be re-tempered with simple methods if the need arises, and makes for very durable knives. The handle is dyed yew. The knife needs some work still, of course, and I have to make a sheath for it yet, but as is, it represents my thoughts on the quest for the "perfect" knife as they stand for now. But since there is no such thing as a "perfect" knife, this quest will not end so soon... ;-)

Remake of an old Puukko

 Now this knife had been on my shelf for quite some years now gathering dust, and if knives do so, I ask myself why they do so. In this case I tested the blade again (crucible steel / file steel Damascus, 40 layers) and found it well enough, but the handle (walnut with a copper ferrule) felt awkward, because it was oddly shaped and far too much out of proportion. So out comes the hacksaw and I shortened it and fitted a butt cap out of yew. Since this is no machete, no need for peening the tang over it, and the glue stands up to the same tensile force as construction steel, so I just epoxied it on.

Now I like it far better, and it´s waiting for a sheath... it´s a good whittler and will serve well for a bimble round the local woods, if not for a bigger outing.

Why Tai Goo is a master;-)

Yeah, of course I am not always agreed with the guy (I was taught to use different techniques), but here´s some real bladesmith porn...;-) enjoy.

Those were the days... an old knife rediscovered

 There is an advantage to being a chaotical character... you can always rediscover things you thought were long lost.;-) I recently found this knife in my attic-turned home and it made me a bit melancholic. It is one of the knives I forged in the garden of my old home with a dirt forge, with charcoal and an old vacuum cleaner for a bellows in, wait, is that 2002?. Originally the blade was a lot longer. It was forged from file steel, and it was intended as a seax. There also was a swan´s neck lanyard loop at the end of the handle. It´s a full tang blade, but the handle goes around the tang. Now I have always been a funny chap, and yeah, I know you do not throw seaxes at hardwood logs. But as it turns out, I did, and the tip broke off, for I had my heat treating not that wired in ´em days. I always used very little tempering, misjudging the need for monstrous edge retention;-), meaning, many of the file steel blades I made in these days were so hard (and brittle) they could easily cut glass. I was that naïve I was even proud of it!:-D This took the beating relatively well, for it had been quenched in a Bainite concoction after the "curicus und offen hertzig wein artzt" from the 1700s and has a monstrous spine thickness.

So, the damage was done, but it was a great knife so far out of a great steel, so I simply heated the thing all in all, with a wrapping of wet rags around the handle and took the hardness down to 59 - 60 HRC and then redid the tip with careful grinding and even put a kind of hollow grind and a fuller on it. Since the proportions were so awkward after that I hacksawed off the swan´s neck and put a butt cap on. I also carved the burned-coloured stag antler handle with some spiral ornaments and made the somewhat weird leather sheath for it.

The steel, the heat treating and the grind now work in unison to make it a most able cutter in spite of the spine thickness.

 

Whenever I am a bit doubtful about my work I remember this knife and then I realize there´s always more than one way to do things, and you can save a lot by improvising.

On the bench: Viking / Rus age replica blades work in progress-and the question of the Kopis edge line

Currently I am working on my first genuine replicas / museum artefact interpretations, and I am faced with some difficulties. First and foremostly, I am inspired very much by the Novgorod Viking age finds. The culprit is, there are some of the blades found in Novgorod showing a somewhat "recurve" blade line, as the Kopis style blade below. That blade you might know from another post. As you can see in the pattern, the blade is forged that way.
(picture courtesy of http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/NovgorodMetalp.html)

As you can see, the topmost find, not identical to my interpretation, which follows the lines of this one:

 picture by http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/NovgorodMetalp.html

 is also presumeably forged that way, because the fuller (top photo) follows the edge line.

But there is a problem Mielenko pointed out: If you look at old kitchen knives which have seen a lot of hard use you will often notice a recurve edge line, too. This is often due to a mistake in stropping. If a knife is sharpened a lot just where the edge became dull the blade will develop this edge line, because the edge always gets dulled near the handle first. If you look closely at the second knife in the topmost picture you might get the impression too. The knife has seen a lot of use apparently, for the edge line is drawn in quite a bit and also shows a recurve form. So I must admit I have gone to liberties with the design. I simply cannot tell whether the longer blade actually is authentic.

I have thusly decided, since I am forced to interpret anyway, to dismiss the authenticity a tiny bit and do something of an interpretation again.

The little blade, however (ancient crucible steel and 1.2842) follows the lines of a great many finds and thusly poses no problems whatsoever. I like how the pattern shows, even if it did not weld that good. That´s the problem when you work with salvaged steels - you´ll never know what you get!

But the blade is coming along nicely, with a nice and crispy hardness and great flexibility, so watch this place for news!;-)

Progress on my Rus reconstruction - and Lúgra Móros

 The first steps towards my new Rus knife have been made, and I realized in the process that the Kopis knives I love so much actually have a historical background. One of my all - time favourite and ritual knives, Lúgra Móros (the moon-mare) is very close to a Novgorod find without me intending. In fact, I was always having the opinion, it was more of a Celtic design (hence the Old Gaulic name), but it seemingly also has roots in the Achaemenid Kopis but also in the younger Pishqabz. I wonder a lot of things these days. Could it be that the Varangians who served as a Byzantine palace guard served as a cultural vehicle to submit Persian or general Oriental weaponry and culture to the North? Or was this style of edge line original to Viking culture? What with an Irish influence) Quite certainly an Anglo-Saxon influence can be dismissed. I am fascinated by the thought that the Varangians, when returning home to Kiev or Scandinavia, brought Oriental wares with them (this is well documented). I also wonder whether Varangians also came in contact with Iranian and Oriental Martial arts? Plus, it is safe to say that at least one Russian martial arts and combat style of the medieval ages that was a predecessor to Systema originated in the Ukranian region around Kiev / Novgorod. This is a speculation of course. But a fascinating one...;-)

Anyway, the design of my Rus blade went a bit off the mark of the original drawing, but it is still somewhat historically accurate, for it mixes characteristics of the several Novgorod finds. The deviation is due to my forging it out of memory and not making a scheme out of brass or wood beforehand. This will happen next time. As is, the blade is 115x5mm in dimensions and made out of 45 layers of historical crucible and file steel. A first etching only revealed a tiny bit of pattern, but it is forged out in Masame technique to show the strands better. Below is a small whittling / neck knife I made for fun.

Flea Market find of a Greek miniature knife

 This is a knife I found on a recent flea market that screams "high-end tribal design" on top of its lungs. It is the "miniature" of a popular Greek design, and I got it for 5€. The blade presumeably is high carbon spring steel, bolster is a beautifully accomplished "habaki" design from brass, the scales are highly polished buffalo horn.

 The blade has a great edge retention while being flexible to the max. Whoever made this knows a thing about heat - treating.

 Beautifully swallows tail handle design.

 That blade is extremely thin, making it a monster slicer at 1-1,5 mm spine thickness.

The sheath is ... a good excuse to make a new one, but still, the craftsmanship is great, even if it does not work so well. I will make a neck sheath for it.

I am proud of it!