When Laura broke the handle on her favorite garden tool -- Grampa's Weeder -- it fell to me to fix it. Rather than buy a new handle, I decided to re-taper the end of the existing handle. This involved turning it slowly while evenly removing fine shavings all the way around.
Of course, I immediately saw this as an opportunity to develop new skills with my favorite khukuri. I shaved the the handle with the inner curve, the sharpest part of the blade -- the forward portion is for chopping. It surprised me how much fine control is possible with such a large blade. I used my Swiss Army Knife for smooth and dress the work.
Here is how it looked when about 3/4 done:
The project proceeded slowly and painstakingly, but it pleased me to see how straight and uniform the taper turned out.
Now, the time I spent to do that was way out of proportion to the cost of a new handle, and I have a backlog of projects I need to work on, but the payoff came in the time I got to spend with a favorite blade, testing its limits, and developing a new skill. Here, I follow the Nepalese who for centuries have used the khukuri as an all-around tool, and because its use became second nature, they naturally carried it with them to war.
In the next post, you will see young Gurkha soldiers training to use a familiar tool as a weapon of war.
Of course, I immediately saw this as an opportunity to develop new skills with my favorite khukuri. I shaved the the handle with the inner curve, the sharpest part of the blade -- the forward portion is for chopping. It surprised me how much fine control is possible with such a large blade. I used my Swiss Army Knife for smooth and dress the work.
Here is how it looked when about 3/4 done:
Now, the time I spent to do that was way out of proportion to the cost of a new handle, and I have a backlog of projects I need to work on, but the payoff came in the time I got to spend with a favorite blade, testing its limits, and developing a new skill. Here, I follow the Nepalese who for centuries have used the khukuri as an all-around tool, and because its use became second nature, they naturally carried it with them to war.
In the next post, you will see young Gurkha soldiers training to use a familiar tool as a weapon of war.
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