This HI Sirupati had a 16-17″ blade and was about 21″ overall when it arrived to us with a busted handle so the first step was to boil it and a few others with bad handles and then pry it off:

I made two new handles by gluing assembled blocks around the tangs of the two Sirupatis.  I didn’t mention it before, but they are twins – both about 21″ long so you can see a before and after shot.  The trick was to form a block made of black paper micarta and black glass reinforced Acraglas epoxy.  I then used my new Esteem grinder to remove the parts of the micarta that didn’t feel like a handle:

The following photos are of the first completed Sirupati that has an acid etched blade and its custom sheath made from 0.093″ thick Kydex:

The intent of posting this is to show how a very traditional looking khukuri can look after some modernizing.