How To First kurkri...sirupati

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Jul 3, 2017
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Hey guys so I bought myself a 18" sirupati..it's really heavy in all honesty but I can manage...anyway let me just say it's my first ever kurkri...so I have many questions...1. Would be how do I sharpen it...I looked it up and tried to sharpen it but it had hardly any effect...2. How do I maintain it..3. How do I chop wood with it properly...I have more questions but let's get those ones out of the way..I'm most likely going to carry mine when I go hiking...and camping...another thing actually would be is it common for the blade o have tiny imperfections such as a tiny dent or ridges on the blade..?.
 
1) Get some wet dry sandpaper ranging from 300 grit to 2000 grit or so, get it wet, put it on a mousepad (or something else with a little give to it) and run the knife over it. The idea is to keep the bevel on the paper. Use a sharpie or something to make marks on the bevel, you'll know you're doing it right when you 'wipe off' the sharpie marks.

2) Clean it, dry it, and oil it after use. Occasionally oil it if it's in storage. Use hooflex if the handle is horn, and/or mineral oil or ballistol on the entire thing.

3) Think of it as a hatchet, use it like a hatchet. Strike with the part of the blade between the recurve and the belly or on the belly. The other parts are less hardened. The tip is usually quite soft and the recurve portion near the handle is not as hard as the 'sweet spot' but is useful for carving and being used as a draw knife. You'll eventually figure out the differences between it and a hatchet. Use a snapping motion with your wrist and a generally loose grip, grip the knife with the ring between your middle and ring fingers.
 
1) Get some wet dry sandpaper ranging from 300 grit to 2000 grit or so, get it wet, put it on a mousepad (or something else with a little give to it) and run the knife over it. The idea is to keep the bevel on the paper. Use a sharpie or something to make marks on the bevel, you'll know you're doing it right when you 'wipe off' the sharpie marks.

2) Clean it, dry it, and oil it after use. Occasionally oil it if it's in storage. Use hooflex if the handle is horn, and/or mineral oil or ballistol on the entire thing.

3) Think of it as a hatchet, use it like a hatchet. Strike with the part of the blade between the recurve and the belly or on the belly. The other parts are less hardened. The tip is usually quite soft and the recurve portion near the handle is not as hard as the 'sweet spot' but is useful for carving and being used as a draw knife. You'll eventually figure out the differences between it and a hatchet. Use a snapping motion with your wrist and a generally loose grip, grip the knife with the ring between your middle and ring fingers.
I very much appreciate your help...but you are going to have to go into detail with the sharpening because I have tried using the chamak, not much it did, but I will what you said...another thing is there is nothes on the blade..does sharpening get rid of them...and what's a bevel...?
 
There have been many postings on the subject of sharpening khukuris, some recent and some going back years. I suggest that you use the "Search Forums" link, which is near the top of this page. It will take you to a page that lets you specify keywords and choose the forum to search. Use keyword like "sharpen" and "khukuri", and specify HI and its subforums to search. Then browse the postings.

There is a difference between sharpening and touch-up. The chakma is really for touch-up, to remove small burrs and slight rolling on the edge that might appear after chopping. Most knives that come direct from HI don't need initial sharpening, but occasionally one does. I don't know if yours is in that category. Opinions differ about how sharp a chopper should be. Personally I am happy if I can get a clean cut on a sheet of paper. For chopping wood, think of your khukuri as a small axe, where the edge geometry is relatively thick to hold up to repeated impact. Maybe the best thing for you is to try chopping some wood; if the edge bites well and penetrates deeply, it is probably sharp enough.

You mention "tiny imperfections" in the edge of your sirupati. The question, of course, is how tiny? Can you post a closeup photo? Without more information no one can say whether this is normal or not.

One bit of advice is never try to put a secondary bevel on the edge. Anything that changes the edge geometry is likely to worsen the chopping power.
 
I very much appreciate your help...but you are going to have to go into detail with the sharpening because I have tried using the chamak, not much it did, but I will what you said...another thing is there is nothes on the blade..does sharpening get rid of them...and what's a bevel...?
The bevel is the part of the knife near the cutting edge that starts to taper. To sharpen you would lay the knife down on sandpaper with only the bevel touch (keeping the back edge of the knife up off the paper) and drag it backward. This removes material from the entire bevel and cutting edge helping to maintain the correct angle. By doing this on a mousepad it maintains a convex edge, which is appropriate for a khukuri.

The chakmak acts like a butcher steel, realigning an already sharp edge. It doesn't remove material, so it doesn't really sharpen anything, but it can bring the edge back into alignment if it has rolled over which can make a dull knife sharper (until the edge rolls again).

If you go the sandpaper route start with the low grit and work up to the high grit. If you work up enough you'll polish the blade, just like how it came to you (i.e. highly polished).

If by small imperfections you mean itty bitty little dimples and divits all over the knife, that's just part of getting a hand forged blade. They literally pound the knife out of a truck spring with hammers, that's going to leave a few marks. They could grind those marks away, and they could grind the bevel in, but why remove expensive material when you can just shape it appropriately and leave it all there? As such, there might be some hammer marks.
 
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