Horrible tourist khuks

J

Johan van Zyl

Joined
Oct 11, 2000
Messages
372
I'm here to ruffle some feathers today. Seems there's not many forumites tuned in anymore. Or the topics aren't interesting enough to generate wide reaction. So how about this:

There's this constant deriding of khukuris made outside of Nepal in an endeavour to protect the "real thing". Is it fair to summarilly downgrade other products in a bid to upgrade those which you have chosen to embrace?

Now I've got this Standard Indian Army Khukuri. Made in India. Genuine Gurkha kukri. True, it was a bit rough about the edges when I got it. Spent two Saturdays smoothing it out. Now you can come and inspect it. It's a rootin' tootin' spittin' image of the WW II K45. Close as you can get. If I knew how to age it artificially, I'd bet my bottom South African Rand I'd flummox most forumites into thinking it was "real" (JP and Co excluded). Take the sheath. Neat and sturdy as any of the best.

I did my homework. This khuk was made in Dehra Dun. They've got the contract for the Indian Army Gurkha khukuris. They manufacture issue khuks for the Indian Government. Have done so for many years. My one comes from there, made to exactly the same specs as the issue ones. Difference is, mine wasn't marked out to the Army, but landed on the open market. So by comparison it is just like a GH SN1 which was NOT marked NEPAL and given a year date.

So if my khuk is deficient and 'orrible, so is the very many hanging on the belts of Indian Army Gurkha Regiment recruits and soldiers since WW II. Made with the same materials, tools and techniques.

Same quality as the actual WW II K45. Difference is: one is old, one is new.

Put that in your Nepalese pipe, strike a spark with your chakmak (repeatedly), and smoke it. Let the aroma permeate the forum.
 
I too have what you may labelled as a "tourist" khukri. A relative bought it about 25 years ago and somehow about 10 years ago, it was passed on to me.

Frankly, I am not sure it is the real thing but since the blade is chromed, I assume it is one of those being labelled as tourist type.

However, recently, I took it out and gave it several licks on my Sharp Maker 204. What do you know, it is now amazingly sharp. It bears the same weight as as real khukri.

It has the right balance and it cuts paper like a hot knife going through butter. Who is to say this khukri is not as good, if not better than the next one to come out of a Kami village.

The hand that wields the khukri knows the truth, as I always say.

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Make Love your strongest weapon. Compassion your shield and forgiveness your armour.
 
You get a good khukuri wherever you find one, I suppose. And there's something to be said for rounding out the collection (which I don't have), and the name brand thing can be taken a bit too far.
 
Hello

A while ago I asked Bill Martino, from HI, if there were good khukuris coming from India nowadays. He said there were but, problem is, I have yet to find a reliabile source of Indian pieces like we have of Nepalese ones (HI and GH), so maybe this is one of the main reasons the Indian stuff is so bashed on. besides there seems to be billions of Indian made crap pieces around, so it makes it hard to find a good one (Would love to get one like yours, Johan. Can you tell me how?)
I should mention that sharpening is not too much of a valid test as most anything can be sharpened - I can sharpen even a Kydex scrap - what works is to know for how long the edge will be there when the knife is put to its intended use.
Surely there are good Indian khuks, but it is not 1 out of 10, it seems more like 1 out 1.000, as a quick look at e-Bay can confirm, so we have to search very carefully not to end up with a wall hanger and avoid generalizations in order not to be unfair with the good stuff.

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Ivan Campos
Full-time knifemaker...finally!


http://www.bitweb.com.br/users/campos

Visit Cutelaria Hoje - The first Brazilian virtual knife magazine
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Ivan, you asked where you might be able to get a khuk like mine? I was afraid forumites might ask me this question after reading my post. Now I suppose, after divulging the answer, I'd have to get my stuffing whipped out because of the statements I made.

O.K., check out the following site:

http://www.atlantacutlery.com/cgi-bin/ePages.storefront/200095089/Product/View/2431-74082

I'm not saying this is where my khuk came from. I'm saying my khuk looked EXACTLY like this one (marked "A") when I got it. And this one on the site was made at Dehra Dun etc etc like I said. I believe that this is the source of my khuk.

How did my khuk come into my hands? I attended a reenactment shoot one day in October 2000. There was this militaria dealer from Johannesburg who laid out his stuff on a long trestle so that we could look his wares over between competitions. This was where I got the khuk in question. At R400 ($50) it was quite expensive! I never asked if it was second-hand or new. It looked new, and was quite sharp. The chakmak was missing. I made me a karda in my workshop identical to the one supplied with the khuk. (JP wrote once that some military khuks had two kardas.) And thereafter I have been busy researching this type of khuk as to it's worth. Once I saw a pic of a K45 that JP posted, and notived the striking similarity, I was all fired up to get at the truth about quality and authenticity.

The company that makes these khuks is called (and I quote) "Windlass Steelcrafts in Dehradun, India. Windlass Steelcrafts started in 1943 as Area Contractors for the British Gurkhas. After India's independence they manufacture for the Indian
Government. They supply 15-20,000 kukris every year to the Gurkha regiment.
This year there is no contract out and they will not be supplying. These are not production overruns from the contract or military surplus. These are made for us to the same specs as the Indian government contract." (Unquote).
 
Hi Gang,
I've been lurking for about a year now, and thought I'd reply to this one.

I too have one of these cheap tourist khukuris. The workmanship on mine was spotty. The blade itself seemed well finished, but the edge was dull, with a few notches and dull areas. The blade profile is also kinda strange. It seems to have wide flattish spot at the bottom of the curve. The worst part was the handle - the steel protruded far past the handle slabs, and the ring in the handle was so large it made the knife nearly impossible to use comfortably. The Karda's (there are indeed 2) appear to be cut from sheet metal. The sheath appears to be sound, though the frog was a bit loose.

I got this knife for about $25 US, so I decided to use it as a project knife for the car trunk. I spent several pleasant hours grinding and filing the edge, recontouring and refinishing the handle, and shrinking the frog by soaking it in warm water and allowing it to dry on the sheath. Just to wrap it up, I did a cold blue job on the blade.

After viewing the Ghurka Steel video, I did what I call "TB's hardness test" with the edge and spine of my Khukuri House mini-jungle. The tourista passed, as far as I can tell. Edge seems to be nearly as hard as the KH knife, and the spine was softer than the edge, as it should be. Just for grins, I chopped into a traintamona machete I have in the garage, and it's harder than that, also (not surprisingly).

All in all, not a bad deal for what I paid for it, and it sorta goes with my Indian enfield. There's also a review of these knives on cruffler.com under the accessories review archive.

Patrick
 
Outdoors,

Welcome to the forum. Sounds like you did all right for yourself and have a fun project to boot.

Enjoy....Dan
 
Thanks for your comments, Patrick. Good to have you aboard! I too looked at the Cruffler review and didn't like it at all because I thought it was not fair. The critic seemed to have his/her knife in (pun intended) for the "other" khukuri from the start, so that at the end I felt it didn't stand a chance in any case. Actually I felt the whole "comparison" was for laughs.
 
Well, I'd have to agree, it's not fair to complain that your knife won't cut a tomato if you haven't even sharpened it.
Overall, I'm fairly pleased with my "tourist" knife. It's no kothimoda, but it's not pretending to be, either.

Patrick
 
Agreed, Patrick! A thought just occurred to me. WHY, if the khuks we are talking about here are exactly the same as the thousands upon thousands of Indian Army issue khuks (which in their turn are dead-ringers for the K45), do we not hear about them? No one (to my knowledge) has in this forum mentioned having or getting a "real issue Indian Army" khukuri, or has shown a pic of one of them. There must be a durn good reason for this.
 
John Powell recently posted a picture and text dealing with the post-1947 Indian Army issue kukri.
FWIW, this is an Indian tourist kukri with all the classic "no-nos" - lion head pommel, punch dot engraving with "India" on the blade. However, pretty nice workmanship for all that.
View


[This message has been edited by Berkley (edited 05-28-2001).]
 
Berkley, how nice of you to bring this contribution about the current Indian Army khuks to our attention, and to provide a link to the bargain! Thanks! So basically the difference is that the pins have a smaller diameter, and the scales are of horn. Which was a bit strange to me when I read it the first time, because I thought a supply of Indian hardwood would be easier to get hold of than horn. However, taking into consideration that it's India we are talking about, wood might be in shorter supply than horn. Domesticated water buffalo are probably bred in large numbers for food, so that the horn would be a common by-product of the abattoirs.

Now that I have seen the pics John posted, I recall that he posted a pic of a K45 and what he called a post-war Indian Army "K" model next to one another for comparison. This was quite some time ago in GH Bladeforum.

All this info is helping us along in this topic, Patrick and others! Berk's tourist khuk would have to be classified as a copy of a kothimora, I think. On the photo it looks very nice. Does one get to buy a khuk like this off the counter at knife shops in the US of A? I suppose a highly ornate tourist khuk like the one Berk posted might run up three-quarters of the way to a hundred bucks?

[This message has been edited by Johan van Zyl (edited 05-29-2001).]
 
There's a guy, J Flaherty, who posted an interesting item in HI Bladeforum this month, which I feel is very relevant to my post, especially in the light of the various contributions I've been getting. This is what he wrote (and I hope Mr. Flaherty, the Moderator and others don't mind that I add it in here):

"Real or repro? My father recently gave me a khukuri (no scabbard) which he aquired from a local militaria dealer. It is 16 1/2" in OA length. Split handle/full tang construction with double peened buttcap. Single handle ring and no bolster. Rear of handle is bell shaped. Blade is blued (seems to have been before grip was mounted) and is marked DD 64 with the broad arrow above. Blade has a slight distal taper in the final 7" of its length. I would call the fit and finish utilitarian and it seems quite sturdy. Grip panels are solidly riveted and have no play. The Khukuri has an overall patina and the grip panels were quite dark with built-up residue. It shows no evidence of recent use."

Well, I think this description is the same as my 'orrible khuk that I described at the top. So I wonder if Mr. Flaherty might have an authentic K45, or the post-war K model that Berk linked us to? Hopefully Mr. Flaherty will get around to send a pic and get a definite identification.
 
Johan,
the streets here in the US are paved with gilt and silver kothimoda! Seriously, I've seen few tradition style khukuris offered here in the US at all, and those were offered by GH, HI, and Atlanta Cutlery. (Apologies for the name dropping
redface.gif
)

Of course, there are also a number of production "khukuri style" knives. However, I've never seen a kothimoda in a knife shop.

Any of you more experienced collectors seen kothimodas available over the counter?

Patrick
 
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