A few months ago I found myself searching for some items in a neighbour’s skip having been given permission to remove anything I could make use of. I didn’t find what I was originally looking for but whilst in there I spotted something tucked down the side with a crescent shape. I pulled it out and realized it was a very old and rusty looking Khukuri that had obviously been neglected and finally thrown away.
After a good inspection a plan started to form. The blade was very rusty and as blunt as…………..well a very blunt thing. The handle was very uncomfortable in the hand and the sheath pretty ropey but I could see potential. It has a maker’s mark on the blade and a date – 1916 so I imagine this may have been from the first world war.
As a little background the Khukuri (or Kukri) originated in the Indian subcontinent and is a kind of knife or short sword. It is used as a chopping or cutting tool (similar to an axe or machete) throughout Southern Asia and it became the national weapon of Nepal used by the Gurkhas.
In addition to the Khukuri being used by the military it is also used by farmers for cutting crops and clearing brush like the billhook might be in England. It is also used for cooking, woodworking and for skinning game by hunters so as a tool it is very useful indeed.
So how am I going to refurbish this rusty piece of history?
Let me start off with the handle. I need to make this into something a little more comfortable for prolonged use.
So that means knocking out the rivets and removing the old scales.
Once removed you can see the extent of the corrosion so it was a good point to set to with a wire brush and some coarse wet and dry paper taking it back to bare metal as much as I could.
After removing the worst of it I started to re-profiling the handle by removing as little material as is possible.
The lines were just a guide and I was constantly checking the shape in my hand as I slowly removed more metal.
After much filing I finally reached a shape I was happy with. You can see here how the handle profile has changed when next to the old scales.
Next came the replacement scales, roughly cut out to match the new profile from some bits of walnut. The brass fixings were homemade Loveless bolts from bits of brass I had laying around.
After a trial fit I cleaned down the tang one last time with fine wet and dry and the degreaser before gluing the scales in place with two part epoxy and then tightening up the bolts and adding a lanyard tube. The tang did not have particularly straight sides and tapered down to the butt so I had to profile the wood slightly and use more epoxy than anticipated to fill up the gaps.
That appeared to do the job thankfully and meant I could move on to profiling the handle after leaving it overnight to set. I started with a rasp to remove the bulk of material, then coarse sand paper and getting progressively finer as the shape approached what I was aiming for.
With the handle shaped I moved on to the blade, initially with a metal file to remove steel followed by wet and dry paper to give the edge a slightly convex grind. This was made more difficult due to the blade having a slight twist and not perfectly parallel sides but using a combination of feel and light reflection I managed to get pretty close to how I wanted it. I also soaked the blade in vinegar to try and remove as much of the rust that I could before a final sand with wet and dry paper followed by a good strop using Tormek honing paste.
Moving back to the handle I gave it a couple of coats of linseed oil with a light sand in between to flatten back the grain.
I wasn’t totally happy with the sides of the blade even after the vinegar treatment. There was still an amount of pitting but I figured it just added a bit of character. To make it a little more attractive I decided to protect it with some cold bluing liquid which I think works well against the sharpened edge.
So there you have it, made in 1916, over a hundred years of use and neglect before being discarded in 2025 and then reborn into its new form. In part 2 of this blog I will move onto the leather sheath so watch out for that one.