Large Fierce Mammal

Still life with khukuri, axe, gloves, and pack.  (LFM photo — Click image to enlarge)

Today we will look exclusively at the birth of my own khukuri, beginning with why I commissioned it to be made in the form that it is, and following it through the process as it was dutifully reported to me at every stage. My overall reasons that drove choosing it for integration into my garniture as an implement of Adventure will await revelation in a further episode.

But first, a bit about nomenclature.

The traditional grip design of the khukuri inspires astonishing security and confidence in the hand that grasps it. Beyond just the handle though, and taken in its entirety, the same cannot be said for the Western mouth attempting in its conceit to take hold of the seeming simplicity of the very name Chitlange.

Notwithstanding my stellar experience with Kailash Blades in their prompt, complete, and kind guidance throughout the procurement phase of the knife under discussion since last we gathered, I must report that my request for pronunciation assistance, selfishly suggesting even an emailed sound clip of a native speaker actually saying it, is the one item yet to receive a response. That being said, and in recognition that they are an extremely busy outfit from which I still fully expect to receive a reply as soon as they stop laughing, I am determined to aid my audience insofar as may be immediately possible in the nomenclature relevant to the subjects upon which I pontificate. As it turns out, relief was found from a Kailash Blades post dated 16 December 2022 in a Sword Forums thread in which a similar question was asked:

“My Nepali is pretty rubbish but the guys pronounce it Chit-lahng-eh. Chit kind of halfway between “ship” and “cheep”. Lang with a very soft a almost like lung. It’s hard to phoneticize with the variety of people’s accents.” ~ Kailash Blades

“The only non-Nepali amongst us is our designer Andrew (Lucas) and even he has a bit of Nepalese under his belt,” says the KB website, suggesting the admission of “rubbish” Nepali just may have come from him. No matter. Take this and run with it say I!

Likewise, Khukuri with its spellings and pronunciations:

“You may well have seen khukuri spelt a few different ways. Within the knife community, the correct way to refer to these blades is a point of some contention. We refer to our knives as khukuris for a few reasons.

“Firstly, it allows for the correct pronunciation of what is a Nepalese word. Khoo-koo-ree.

“The ‘H’ after the (first) K signifies in Nepali that it as an aspirated consonant, so should be pronounced a little bit harder that the second k. The terms khukri and kukri both miss out on the second vowel sound and blend the whole word together. We use this spelling because we are a predominately Nepalese run company.”

The Chitlange page on the Kailash Blades website affords a thorough overview of this style in all its wondrous variety, and in blade lengths from 12 to 24 inches.

“Chitlanges are an interesting style of khukuri. A subset of particularly ornamental sirupate that was originally intended for trade with India, the form developed a reputation for its beauty, swiftness and cutting performance that saw it broadly absorbed back into Nepal’s blade culture and into the international spotlight in the hands of many modern gurkhas.”

My personal choices in equipage being informed by years in the Wild, I am not easily impressed absent sober study grounded in Garniture, True Tools, and of course the Way of the Wild. A dish having been chosen from the menu, when presented with choices as to how I would like it prepared, I have rarely gone astray by going with the way the Chef thinks it best presented. So in the spirit of the foregoing, here is the list of my choices and why I made them, noting at the outset that meteoric iron and glowing blue when Orcs are near were NOT options on offer, although I find no unhappiness in 5160 carbon spring steel on the grounds that if it’s good enough for a Gurkha, it’s good enough for me:

Blade Length:
14 inches, listed as the “optimal standard length”. I would not look a Craftsman in the eye and presume to know more about the definition of “optimal” as it applies to his work than he does.

Guard:
No. This is not my first rodeo with the khukuri and I have complete trust in its operability absent Western design features.

Blade Finish:
Satin. A personal preference common across all blades in my Garniture.

Tang Style:
Rat Tail. This is the traditional default on the order page and my personal preference for field knives to be handled in all weathers. The handle material completely surrounds the steel of the blade’s tang so that skin will never touch and potentially adhere to an exposed steel tang in freezing conditions.

Hardware:
Steel. This refers to the bolster (where the handle meets the blade) and butt cap, and again I went with the default on the order page because why the hell not?

Handle Material:
Indian Rosewood. Again the default and chosen both for traditional authenticity and durability. In almost all cases I choose natural grip materials for knives and other tools, leaning toward Black Walnut and Rosewood for knives in particular.

Handle Length:
Offerings here are Small (4.25 inches), Medium (4.75 inches), Large (5.25 inches), and X Large (8 inches for two handed use). I wear large size in gloves and often wear work gloves when in the field, so the choice here was 5.25 inches. Prior to ordering, I did email pictures of my hand gripping my Jerry Fisk Bowie Knife, adjacent to a ruler, with and without gloves, and the end result is perfect.

Sheath:
Traditional Dap is the default, being the wood lined, leather covered scabbard in which a khukuri traditional rides. This was perfect for me as I already had a plan for a specific Hunting Scabbard for field use with the Dap dedicated to home storage. I was NOT disappointed! Note though that had I not wished to build one of my own design, sheath options include more Western leanings like Kydex and more traditional leather designs.

Sheath Colour:
I chose brown, in keeping with all my leather field equipment.

Grind Type:
This refers to the nature of the blade edge so the end user can start off optimized for the cutting problems his Chitlange is intended to solve. As a Hunting Tool, mine needs both to cut and slice so I chose the Performance Grind.

Our final grind type is our Performance Grind.

These knives are where our skills in design, metallurgy and blacksmithing all combine to do what all knives should do. Cut things up as best as they can. These are thinner in both the primary and secondary grind are optimized to minimize cutting and chopping resistance while also maximizing edge retention. This makes this grind well suited for all day working choppers that will be used sensibly as well as blades that will see a lot of slicing and general cutting work.

From there, my order was placed and promptly acknowledged on 7 June 2025, and the wait began. The “current lead time” announced and regularly updated at the top right corner of every page on the Kailash Blades website (~ 6.5 weeks as of this writing) was at the time of my order running ~8.5 weeks due to a backlog in the sheath making shop from a higher than normal influx of orders. Not to worry though. By Western quite understandable custom/semi-custom knife maker standards, this was almost “next business day”, and certainly nothing demanding of apology.

Here are the updates I received with the photos that accompanied each emailed progress report. Click the images to experience The Enbiggening!

24 July 2025

Kailash Blades photo.

“Thanks for your patience in waiting while your order has been in the forge queue. Here’s a photo to let you know how things are progressing.

“At this point the smiths have worked as a striking team to rough forge the steel to the general profile as well as establishing rough taper and bevels. We’ve also completed a second pass of forging with a smaller hammer to refine these details and straighten things up. All this work is done over hot coals in a traditional clay forge on the floor. We use large sledgehammers embedded into logs as anvils. It’s hard and hot work so we all work together to get the entire batch done as quickly and smoothly as possible.

“We’ll have another photo for you in around 3 or 4 days once we’ve finished the heat treat.”

30 July 2025

Kailash Blades photo.

“Things are moving along nicely now- here’s a photo to let you know how things are progressing with your order.

“At this point we’ve used stone grinding wheels to clean up the profile and refine the taper and blade grind features. We leave plenty of meat on the edge to help avoid warping and cracking in quench but we still remove a lot of metal in this step.

“After this we normalized blades three times to refine grain size, reduce residual stresses from forging and get the steel into a more controlled state where it will quench more consistently.

“The blades are then brought up to quench temperature and quenched into an oil bath, with the cooling being focused on the edge but with some hardness through the body and spine of the blade. We still use coal for these heat treat stages, but use a special forge design for more even, controlled and consistent temperatures.

“From here the blades cool naturally and are then stacked up on racks to be tempered in an electric oven. This helps increase toughness enormously while only slightly reducing hardness. We temper 3 times- cooling to room temp between cycles. This helps to ensure that we have no residual brittle structures inside the steel.

“We’ll have another photo for you in around 3 or 4 days once we’ve fitted the blades and they head to QC.”

As an educational aside, here is a video from the Kailash Blades YouTube channel showing the process of fitting handle to tang.

8 August 2025

Kailash Blades photo.

Kailash Blades photo.

“Hope the wait is going well. Currently your order has been fitted and gone through the first stages of finishing.

“Fresh out of temper the blades are cleaned up to remove scale and are ready to be fitted. Handles are roughly carved by hand and traditional hardware is now hammered to the exact shape we need for each blade. Rat tail Tangs are burned in to ensure a perfect fit before being glued with epoxy and peened in place. Unlike in western knifemaking these handles are then shaped while fitted to the blade and are sculpted as one big block on grinding wheels. The fine details of the handle are done by hand with handle rings carved in and the entire handle hand sanded to ensure a smooth and uniform surface.

“Next we refine the grind but as these blades are now heat treated we need to take extra care to avoid overheating the steel. We use rough grits to further refine the taper, edge and grind features, stopping frequently to dunk the blade and release stored heat before it becomes problematic. Here we now have to focus on getting the correct grind geometry and weight for your order which can be a tricky balance. As we move through the grits we slowly remove excess material at the edge and refine the finish until we reach a final apex. Slower wheel speeds are used to keep heat even lower.

“At this point your order has not yet gone through the first QC stage. It will be checked for details, form, alignment, weight etc and also test chopped into horn to ensure stability along the entire edge. If the edge rolls or chips it will be rejected and we will begin a new blade. Smaller details can be fixed by the smiths and the blades are sometimes sent back multiple times before they pass inspection.

“We’ll have another photo for you in 1-2 weeks once we’ve completed the sheath.”

18 August 2025

Kailash Blades photo.

“Not too long to go now.

“Your order has gone through finishing, sheathmaking, and detailing. From this point the knives leave the hands of the smiths and head to different parts of the workshop.

“Sisir handles all the traditional daps (wood lined sheaths). He starts by tracing the blades onto 2 lightweight wooden slabs which will become the core- pulling the blade towards him as he does to ensure there is space for the belly to pull through neatly. He trims them from the larger plank with a hand saw and then rough carves them to shape with a khukuri. The internals are carefully carved out via baak. These blades are extremely sharp and he uses a lot of force- pulling with his whole body and using a big, hard plank of wood to cut against and protect his body. Depending on the angles involved he will use his feet to grab and clamp things to free up use of both hands. He has many different sizes and shapes of baak that help with getting into small corners or remove large amounts of wood from the exterior. The blade is test fit into the sheath repeatedly to ensure a smooth draw and adequate retention. Once happy with this he glues the halves together and does a final pass of shaping- sometimes involving rasps and sanding. Leather is soaked in water to expand and become pliable and the exterior of the dap is covered in a light layer of glue. From here the leather is pulled tightly around the sheath and stitched together. The blade is inserted while the leather dries as the extreme force of the shrinking leather is enough to crush and warp the core unless supported. After being fitted with frogs and hardware these are sent to Bisnu for QC and break-in – a process of ensuring that there is a good clean draw and nice retention despite the dimensions changing as the sheath dries.

“At this point your order is about to head to Bisnu for final finishing, detailing and QC. Any blemishes that have occurred during sheathmaking are removed, acid washes are completed and final edges are placed on before shipping. Handles, sheaths and chos are given fine detailing to remove any small imperfections and ensure nice surface finishes. Final QC checks are done to ensure blades are to spec, aligned and finished well before shipping.

“3-4 days from now your order will be packed and head to cargo. We’ll be in touch a few days after this with a final shipping confirmation and tracking number.”

19 August 2025

“Thanks for waiting! Your order is finished and on the way out to you.”

26 August 2025

Delivery in good order after a mere 7 days from Kathmandu.

Happy endings do happen, and we’ll close today with a peek into the shenanigans and goings on at Quality Control (QC) in their relentless pursuit of weeding out any weakness, however small, before releasing any Kailash Blade into the Wild.