Hand-Forged Kukri, Narrow Deep Fuller

Because the weight has been taken out of the middle of the blade rather than off its back. There are two ways to make a blade lighter. The crude way is to grind the spine thinner, which lightens the blade and weakens it at the same time, since the spine is one of the two surfaces carrying the load when you chop. The better way is to remove material from the middle band of the blade's width, where bending stress is lowest and the steel is doing least work. That is what a fuller does, and it is what the cutwork does here. The result is 720 grams over 13 inches, or 55.4 grams per inch, with the spine still measuring a full 7 millimetres. For comparison, our traditional 13 inch build runs 56.9 grams per inch and our bhojpure 57.0.

Not worse, different, and which one suits you depends on how long you are swinging it. A heavier blade does more work per stroke because momentum does the cutting for you, which is why our bhojpure carries mass forward on purpose. A lighter blade of the same length asks a bit more of each stroke and gives back stamina: you can keep going considerably longer before your forearm is the limiting factor. For clearing a trail, processing a day's firewood or any job measured in hundreds of strokes rather than dozens, the lighter blade usually wins on total work done. For splitting a few thick rounds and stopping, take the heavier one.

They are part of the design, and they take a little weight out while they are there. The panel sits in the middle band of the blade's width, which is the same reasoning that puts a fuller there: bending stress peaks at the spine and the edge and falls away toward the centre, so material in that band carries the least load. Being straight with you about the size of the effect — the cutwork accounts for a small share of this blade's lightness, and the fuller and the grind do most of it. A hole does concentrate stress at its edges, which is why the panel is short, confined to one area and surrounded by 7 millimetres of stock. If you want the strongest version of this blade, order it plain and we will make it that way at no extra cost.

A chirra, in the sense our other kukris use the word, is a broad shallow fuller ground across a wide band of the flat, leaving a flat panel bounded by ridges on either side. This blade takes the opposite approach to the same end: a narrow groove cut deep. Both remove roughly comparable material, but they do it with different footprints and they look completely different. The narrow version leaves the polished flats intact on both sides, so the blade reads as a mirror surface with a single dark line running through it. The broad version creates a large flat panel, which is why it is the one we use when a blade is going to be decorated. Neither is better than the other. They are different design decisions with different results.

Reach and leverage, mostly. A longer blade puts the sweet spot of the belly further from your hand, which means more speed at the point of contact for the same effort at the grip, and it lets you take a limb without stepping in as close. It also clears a wider arc, which matters when you are cutting brush rather than a single stem. What you give up is control in tight work and convenience in carry: 19 inches overall is a lot of knife to have on a belt, and for close jobs like preparing kindling or notching a stake a 10 inch blade is genuinely easier to steer. Most people who own several end up reaching for a 13 inch when there is real cutting to do and something shorter the rest of the time.

Same length, different intent. Our traditional 13 inch chirra is the heavier of the two at 740 grams, with a broad chirra ground down the flat, a turned black horn grip, a fitted bolster and a sharpened section of back edge, carried in a laced sheath on a shoulder harness. It is the traditional article, and the back edge brings legal considerations with it in some jurisdictions. This one is lighter at 720 grams, with a narrow deep fuller, a sculpted rosewood grip and a tooled belt sheath, and a plain spine with the simpler legal position that comes with it. Choose the chirra if you want tradition and a working point. Choose this if you want the same reach carried more easily.

That is the cho, sometimes written kaudi, and it is the diagnostic mark of a genuine kukri. It terminates the edge in a rounded cut rather than letting the edge run straight into the bolster, so a crack starting at the edge has somewhere to stop instead of running back toward the tang. It also carries religious meaning that different communities in Nepal read in different ways. Ours are cut by hand on every blade, which is why no two are exactly alike. We apply the test in both directions: a curved knife with no cho did not come from this tradition whatever a listing calls it, and we have declined to call our own pieces kukris on that basis.

5160 high-carbon spring steel, oil-quenched and tempered. It is the family of steel used for vehicle leaf springs, which is the origin of the Nepali practice of forging kukris from them, and it is chosen for toughness rather than for maximum hardness. A chopper that is too hard chips at the edge when it meets a knot; 5160 at a working temper rolls slightly instead, and a rolled edge can be steeled or stoned back in a few minutes. The trade-off is that it needs sharpening a little more often than a harder, more brittle steel would, which is the right trade for a tool you swing. It is not stainless and it will rust if neglected.

The bolster is a steel collar fitted between the blade and the grip, with a dark spacer sitting behind it. Its main job is sealing: it closes the joint where the tang enters the handle, which is the one place on a knife where water and debris can get in behind the scales and sit against steel you cannot see. It also stiffens the front of the assembly and takes some of the shock of a hard downstroke before it reaches the wood. Not every kukri needs one — our kukri machete is built deliberately without, and that page explains the case for leaving it off. On a piece like this, with sculpted wood scales and a long blade, it earns its place.

A working kukri that has been designed to be looked at. It carries the same 5160 steel, the same 7 millimetre spine and the same full-tang construction as our plain blades, so it will chop, and being the lightest 13 inch we make it will chop for longer than most. What it will not do is stay looking like these photographs while you use it: the polish scuffs, carbon steel patinates, and the fuller and cutwork collect marks. None of that is damage. But if you want it pristine in five years, it needs to be the piece on the wall rather than the one in the pack.

Get into the recesses, because a cloth drawn along the flat will not. Wiping a blade like this cleans everything you can see and misses two things entirely: the bottom of the fuller and the inside walls of the cutwork. Both are enclosed surfaces where water and residue collect and sit, and on carbon steel that is where rust starts. After cleaning, run an oiled cotton bud or the corner of an oiled cloth along the fuller and through the cut panel, then wipe the flats. It takes an extra minute. Be particularly careful after cutting anything green, since plant sap is acidic and lodges in exactly those places, and after any use near salt water.

Both, yes. A plain blade with no cut panel costs nothing extra and is marginally the stronger of the two — just tell us at the point of order, since cutwork is done before the blade is hardened and cannot be added to a finished blade. On size, we forge this profile from belt-sized blades up to two-handed choppers. One caution: the cut panel needs blade width to sit in, and below about 10 inches there is not enough room between the fuller and the edge to place it without crowding both, so on a short blade we will usually suggest leaving it plain. Grip material, finish, sheath, carry and engraving can all be specified at the same time.