Kailash Khukuri Review Megathread!

philbrownell05 said:
Gorgeous photos of your collection!

I absolutely love my Falo! I was surprised at just how much of a chopper this is as opposed to brush clearer as you stated. I love the ruggedness of the grind as it is very robust and can stand up to some abuse. Even with the standard grind that I went with.

Meanwhile, I'm sure forging is set to begin on my most recent order in a week or 2. My patience is always rewarded!
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Thanks!

What do you have on the horizon?
 
Bill_Melater said:
Thanks!

What do you have on the horizon?
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A 3.5" Bhura with a stacked leather handle but no handle ring. As with something that small, I won't be swinging it like my Falo. Performance grind, acid wash and western leather sheath.

And a Plain Jane Bowie with Orange Micarta handle, unsharpened swedge, serrations acid wash, performance grind and western leather sheath.

Both are going to be bushcrafting/just-in-case bag knives. Purpose built tools and performance you can count on.
 
philbrownell05 said:
A 3.5" Bhura with a stacked leather handle but no handle ring. As with something that small, I won't be swinging it like my Falo. Performance grind, acid wash and western leather sheath.

And a Plain Jane Bowie with Orange Micarta handle, unsharpened swedge, serrations acid wash, performance grind and western leather sheath.

Both are going to be bushcrafting/just-in-case bag knives. Purpose built tools and performance you can count on.
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Ah, that's right, you posted that earlier. I've been eyeballing some of those knives for a while now. Looking at the Spur and Regent Long.
 
Bill_Melater said:
Anything I post you are absolutely free to use and share.

I always thought the black and silver look had a classiness to it. Just the right amount of flash IMO. But, ever since I saw you mention it somewhere, I've been thinking about how that brown micarta too. Is that something available on request or is it not typically on hand?

In all fairness, the thin handle works really well with thick and/or insulated gloves where a fatter handle would make things worse. Give and take I suppose. Personally, I appreciate the adherence to the traditional design.

The Falo also followed me out there and got at least one decent photo of it despite the lighting issues. Forgot to include it. It won't zip through light brush like the other two but really shined when chopping thicker branches or logs which is to be expected
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Wow- what a stunning photo of the new falo. This falo redesign has actually been in the works since day 1 at Kailash but it's been a long and slow journey to get it there. It's required a little bit of rewiring of the teams brains in terms of aesthetic philiosophy and beauty standards. The team associate high polish and finer materials with high quality so to them the concept seemed ugly and unfinished. In reality it's been very hard to halt a blade 2/3rd of the way through production and have a final result that's beautiful with some not insignificant process changes. The handle looks so beautiful in this image- very proud of everyone.

The brown micarta we can make at custom request whenever and we'll be going standard with it in future also. It's beautiful- not as woodlike as some may expect but has a little more of a natural look than the black micarta while just as practical and understated.
 
Bill_Melater said:
Ah, that's right, you posted that earlier. I've been eyeballing some of those knives for a while now. Looking at the Spur and Regent Long.
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I bought my wife a Regent Long Knife for our anniversary. Slight modifications such as 80CRV2 for the steel was used. And there was some slight hollow griding done to it since it will be a primary kitchen knife. Also they engraved the spine for me with a custom message. It is a beautiful and very functional knife.
 
I'm pretty happy I was able to keep the facets on the handle when I filed it to oil the handle. Just keeping to a bastard cut files helped simulate the tool marks on the facets. The only thing I keep coming back to is just how much that handle ring does to keep my hand in place so that might be my only hang-up on the Falo handle. But it could be a technique thing too. Letting it fall into wood I'm chopping is no issue but controlling an overswing on anything light and it gets a bit iffy.

I could never recommend it as a fighter though. I recalled Matt Easton saying that the ring helps keep your hand from sliding forward on a thrust and tested it. Even just a very perfunctory stab into a dead tree set my hand just over the bolster.

So, brute de forge was never a thing in Nepal? What about even just leaving on the black scale traditionally? Or is it more a matter of it being okay on certain things but making a blade for someone put it in under a different set of standards? Now I wonder if the satin finish even took a bit of convincing.
 
Bill_Melater said:
The only thing I keep coming back to is just how much that handle ring does to keep my hand in place so that might be my only hang-up on the Falo handle. But it could be a technique thing too. Letting it fall into wood I'm chopping is no issue but controlling an overswing on anything light and it gets a bit iffy.
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Yes the handle ring helps a lot in this respect for sure. The super bare-bones handle is common on this kind of blacksmith khukuri but when deciding the handle shaping we also tried to include a bit of hand retention through an oversized bolster to stop and slightly angled ricasso to stop the hand sliding forwards. This can be seen on the mk3, mk4 as well as some broader 19thC blades where the bolster itself is much wider than the hand can hold. Aside from retention there are also balance implications on these earlier blades- unusable handle length near the front essentially comes blade length while being a lot lighter.

Bill_Melater said:
So, brute de forge was never a thing in Nepal? What about even just leaving on the black scale traditionally? Or is it more a matter of it being okay on certain things but making a blade for someone put it in under a different set of standards? Now I wonder if the satin finish even took a bit of convincing.
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It's definitely a thing, particularly on proper village made blades. It's more just that our guys come from a background of making khukuris for the export market with certain machines and so their style of making and aesthetic standards have shifted from these blades made in rural nepal with no power tools. These rural blades are forged very close to final shape as the bevels are filed and scraped in which is hard, tiring work. Sometimes it is skipped completely. Such Powered grinding wheels make this a lot easier so the final shape as-forged isn't as crucial.
For us satin finish hasn't been difficult to communicate as its use predates kailash's existence in the industry. It has been a bit hard to establish qc expectations on satin though. To them satin finish is a rough working finish and polish is for looking good- it's a bit confusing for us to suggest that the satin finish also needs to look good but in a different way and to a set of different standards.

Take care,
Andrew and the team at Kailash
 
Great little cutting demo here on the new falo (this one customised with a full tang). Not sure how much of queensland survival's stuff I've posted in this thread but he has a lot of cutting videos with our knives as well as other khukuris
 
philbrownell05 said:
...I wonder when the serrations on the spine will be added? I figured they would have been ground in before heat treat? Just my guess. Maybe Andrew has could shed some light on when and why the serrations are added when they are...
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It's a good question! I've checked in with the team and they like to do them as part of final finishing. They're filed in by hand so it's a cold process and the spine is relatively soft due to our edge quench so it's not a pain. They prefer to do it later so the steel is as crisp and clean as possible before shipping to reduce the risk of rusting etc. The serrations have a knack of collecting grime and dust in the workshop quite rapidly otherwise.

Thanks for sharing the photos- things are looking good!
 
Kailash Blades said:
It's a good question! I've checked in with the team and they like to do them as part of final finishing. They're filed in by hand so it's a cold process and the spine is relatively soft due to our edge quench so it's not a pain. They prefer to do it later so the steel is as crisp and clean as possible before shipping to reduce the risk of rusting etc. The serrations have a knack of collecting grime and dust in the workshop quite rapidly otherwise.

Thanks for sharing the photos- things are looking good!
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I knew I had nothing to worry about! Thank you very much sir. My expectations are always exceeded and will keep me ordering from my future wants and needs, mostly wants, from Kailash.
 
https://imgur.com/a/hH3lKSg

Here's a comparison shot - all four knives shown have different micarta options (brown, desert camo, forest camo, and black). It's interesting how similar the Pensioner is to the Mutiny in look, but they feel completely different. Same with the 12 and 14 Mutinies... they are completely different knives. As for the "mega mini," it's heavier than everything else in this pic and is basically a short Fort William with a mean streak. I got this as a portable pack knife for my annual trips to nowhere, it's a far more effective piece than any other 9" blade I've ever used.
 
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Thanks very much for sharing the pic :)
I think it's a great example of the oversized influence that blade length has on chopping power. 50 grams of weight that's 16 inches away from the hand hits a lot harder than 100 grams of weight. That's 8 inches away from the hand. That's why the mutiny can be so powerful while still being so light. It's also why it's hard for us to go shorter than 13 inches and have power without putting quite a lot of weight into the knife.

Would love to get some more feedback on the Mega Mini once you put some hours through it :)
 
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