Modern
Where Ancient Craft and Modern
Design Intersect
Kailash Blades hopes to be more than just a khukuri house.
While we have a strong traditional section that we're hugely proud of, the traditional handmade platform works for far more than just producing khukuris.
Our Blacksmiths are hugely talented craftsmen, who are capable of producing incredibly high quality blades of all sorts, with some even specialising in western blade styles for the international market.
Other khukuri houses have produced western designs in the past, but we hope to take it to a whole new level of excellence, with a dedicated Modern section that is packed with a huge range of exciting and highly refined designs that have all been executed with care, precision and heart by traditional nepalese blacksmiths.
Until now, other houses have mostly just produced poor imitations of the large manufacturer's or even of custom makers' knives, with any original designs conceived by one manufacturer being instantly copied by those around it due to the lack of Intellectual Property enforcement in Nepal.
This leads to an environment where any resources put into research, development and design are an immediate loss and leads to homogenisation and stagnation within the industry.
In the face of this, Kailash Blades blades promises to be different.
Kailash blades promises to be better.
Every modern knife we produce is a 100% original design from Australian industrial designer Andrew Lucas, who has been making and designing knives since he was in his mid teens and has been involved with nepalese traditional manufacturing since 2012.
As a result of his expertise, our knives have been designed not just to appeal to the current market but also designed specifically with the advantages of nepalese traditional blacksmithing processes in mind.
Unlike western methods of manufacturing, all nepalese knives come from super tough, sustainable recycled steel, primarily 5160 steel from truck leaf springs. These springs are quite thick and large, so the easiest knives for Blacksmiths to make are big, long and broad. It's for this reason that Nepalese Blacksmiths are so at home making knives that absolutely dwarf most western manufacturers' offerings.
As a result of this, we focus on large outdoors blades, ranging from big, mean bowies to massively powerful choppers and swords, where our Craftsmens' expertise can really shine. We also produce some smaller hard use knives, where our generous stock thicknesses and high quality, durable steel allow us to deliver uniquely durable blades with incredible value.
Kailash Blades hopes to be more than just a khukuri house.
While we have a strong traditional section that we're hugely proud of, the traditional handmade platform works for far more than just producing khukuris.
Our Blacksmiths are hugely talented craftsmen, who are capable of producing incredibly high quality blades of all sorts, with some even specialising in western blade styles for the international market.
Other khukuri houses have produced western designs in the past, but we hope to take it to a whole new level of excellence, with a dedicated Modern section that is packed with a huge range of exciting and highly refined designs that have all been executed with care, precision and heart by traditional nepalese blacksmiths.
Until now, other houses have mostly just produced poor imitations of the large manufacturer's or even of custom makers' knives, with any original designs conceived by one manufacturer being instantly copied by those around it due to the lack of Intellectual Property enforcement in Nepal. This leads to an environment where any resources put into research, development and design are an immediate loss and leads to homogenisation and stagnation within the industry.
In the face of this, Kailash Blades blades promises to be different.
Kailash blades promises to be better.
Every modern knife we produce is a 100% original design from Australian industrial designer Andrew Lucas, who has been making and designing knives since he was in his mid teens and has been involved with nepalese traditional manufacturing since 2012.
As a result of his expertise, our knives have been designed not just to appeal to the current market but also designed specifically with the advantages of nepalese traditional blacksmithing processes in mind.
Unlike western methods of manufacturing, all nepalese knives come from super tough, sustainable recycled steel, primarily 5160 steel from truck leaf springs. These springs are quite thick and large, so the easiest knives for Blacksmiths to make are big, long and broad. It's for this reason that Nepalese Blacksmiths are so at home making knives that absolutely dwarf most western manufacturers' offerings.
As a result of this, we focus on large outdoors blades, ranging from big, mean bowies to massively powerful choppers and swords, where our kCraftsmens' expertise can really shine. We also produce some smaller hard use knives, where our generous stock thicknesses and high quality, durable steel allow us to deliver uniquely durable blades with incredible value.
Andrew's design philosophy for outdoors blades means that a lot of our knives share common characteristics.
He's a strong believer in oversized handles, which allow for comfortable grip if the user has huge hands or is wearing gloves and also gives the normal-handed user the ability to slide up and down the handle for more varieties of grip. This reduced fatigue in long extended use and also allows for a lighter balance when choking up on the blade and massive chopping power when slid back all the way to the pommel of the knife.
He uses generous spine thicknesses to deliver a rigid, highly durable blade in conjunction with a wide blade and steep grind angles to make sure the knife has extremely low cutting resistance as well as lower overall weight.
While you'd imagine that these high performance grinds would be weaker than the thicker grinds of other houses, they actually end up stronger as a result of our heat treat, the best in Nepal by miles.
For more information on the traditional heat treats used by other houses, check out our Traditional design beliefs page.
Our heat treat involves three normalisation cycles prior to hardening, which relieves the internal stresses of the blade from forging and decreases grain size, all of which adds sharpenability and reduces likelihood of blade failure.
This is followed by an edge quench in an oil bath, with subtle hardening of the blade body and high hardening of the edge portion, the entire way through. The knife is then brought down from this high hardness by being brought up to 220c and left to soak for three hours.. The resulting knife only loses a small amount of overall hardness, but gains a huge amount of toughness and edge stability, which is the key to a high performance chopping edge. This compensates for our thinner grinds and gives us a blade superior in every way. Final rockwell on our blades sit at about 54-56 for our larger blades and 56-58 for smaller fixed blades.
Other houses roughly burr sharpen their knives with coarse files, which is quick and easy and gives a very toothy edge good for pull cutting, but leaves a weak edge at the apex which breaks off during chopping with rapid sharpness loss after a small amount of use.
Our blades are all given a finishing run on a flat riverstone, which gives a smooth, polished edge that not only gives far higher performance when push cutting or chopping wood, but it also lasts much longer. This is because most edge degradation in woodwork is from deformation (not abrasion) and polished edges have less imperfections for deformation to begin from.
Andrew's design philosophy for outdoors blades means that a lot of our knives share common characteristics.
He's a strong believer in oversized handles, which allow for comfortable grip if the user has huge hands or is wearing gloves and also gives the normal-handed user the ability to slide up and down the handle for more varieties of grip. This reduced fatigue in long extended use and also allows for a lighter balance when choking up on the blade and massive chopping power when slid back all the way to the pommel of the knife.
He uses generous spine thicknesses to deliver a rigid, highly durable blade in conjunction with a wide blade and steep grind angles to make sure the knife has extremely low cutting resistance as well as lower overall weight.
While you'd imagine that these high performance grinds would be weaker than the thicker grinds of other houses, they actually end up stronger as a result of our heat treat, the best in Nepal by miles.
For more information on the traditional heat treats used by other houses, check out our Traditional design beliefs page.
Our heat treat involves three normalisation cycles prior to hardening, which relieves the internal stresses of the blade from forging and decreases grain size, all of which adds sharpenability and reduces likelihood of blade failure.
This is followed by an edge quench in an oil bath, with subtle hardening of the blade body and high hardening of the edge portion, the entire way through. The knife is then brought down from this high hardness by being brought up to 220c and left to soak for three hours. The resulting knife only loses a small amount of overall hardness, but gains a huge amount of toughness and edge stability, which is the key to a high performance chopping edge. This compensates for our thinner grinds and gives us a blade superior in every way. Final rockwell on our blades sit at about 54-56 for our larger blades and 56-58 for smaller fixed blades.
Other houses roughly burr sharpen their knives with coarse files, which is quick and easy and gives a very toothy edge good for pull cutting, but leaves a weak edge at the apex which breaks off during chopping with rapid sharpness loss after a small amount of use.
Our blades are all given a finishing run on a flat riverstone, which gives a smooth, polished edge that not only gives far higher performance when push cutting or chopping wood, but it also lasts much longer. This is because most edge degradation in woodwork is from deformation (not abrasion) and polished edges have less imperfections for deformation to begin from.
