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Thanks guys!!!!
Yup, that's the heart shaped cho and it is a copper bolster and keeper.
I thought the copper would look better against the blued blade and dark handle of the African Knobthorn courtesy of Uncle Bill and Lance Strong and for which I thank them.
For those of you that want to see what the blade looked like originally you can do a search for the plain blades, or perhaps Berk will come to the rescue and put a link to it for us.
There was extensive work done to the blade blank getting the knife to this point.
I am fortunate to have one of the Grizzly belt and knife sanders to enable that much work to be done.
The blade was taken down considerably along the spine to get the full curve, even though it doesn't appear that it is in the pix. When the knife is layed on its spine it will rock in a continuos curve from the tip to the butt.
The spine is also rounded on its top instead of the angle of most khukuris or flat like the Malla.
There was just enough taken off the edge to get a good geometry and enable it to be sharpened properly.
I did round it off along the edge line near the cho to get a more full curving effect and to make the front part of the blade more leafed shaped and symetrical.
The tang was also bent considerably to get the old style handle shape.
It's much, much more difficult to get a curved handle drilled correctly than it is the straight handles that are on the modern knives.
I also took some material off the spine at the handle juncture making it necessary to file the tang down a bit to have enough material to set the boster and handle against. The tang was also filed down a bit on both sides to get the bolster to fit without any nasty looking gaps between it and the blade. The bolster was put on 1st with JB Weld and allowed to set up before the handle was put on with 2 ton 30 minute epoxy.
I made a trip to the local gun store to get the Brownell's Cold Blue for blueing the blade.
This is one project that would have looked really nice with the old style brown or plum finish.
It's gonna be a long while before I get to finish the Hanuman style blade.
I have already done extensive work on it getting the spine worked down and thinned some and getting the general shape to what I want.
The Hanuman is One Serious Sized Blade!!!! It is Definitely not a light weight khukuri.!!!!!
Although I appreciated what the kamis already do, by finishing this blade made me appreciate their efforts even more.
And by doing this one I believe I have a bit of understanding why the design of the old style khukuri evolved into what it is today.
That curved handle is much more difficult to make an get fitted correctly than the modern ones.
I haven't had a chance to try it that much in actual cutting tests, but I absolutely love the way it feels in the hand.
Oh Yeah!!! The handle has just one treatment of boiled linseed oil on it!!! That's absolutely the Dirtiest Wood I have ever worked in my life.!
Even Fast Orange Hand Cleaner with Pumice wouldn't take the residue off my hands!!!
But as you can see it finished out beautifully even though I did cheat and buff the finish on it. I may take the time to take the Hanuman blade handle out to a fine hand sanded finish. It would be awesome!!
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>>>>---¥vsa---->®
"I would rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."
........unknown, to me anyway........
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