A.K. BOWIE

Cobalt

Cobalt

Platinum Member
Joined
Dec 23, 1998
Messages
17,721
I have been meaning to get out and do some work with this massive hunk of steel, but have not had the chance, so I will do a quick impression first and hopefully get out to do some testing in a few weeks. Here goes:

The knife is a hair under 15 inches long with approximately 8.5 inches of cutting edge. The buffalo horn handles have three 3/8 inch head rivets. The tang is exposed and the handle slightly bent down for a slight khukuri feel(barely noticeable). The handle is actually very comfortable in the hand.

Blade thickness at the spine is 9/16"( that's right! over 1/2 inch thick) and is this full thickness to within 3.25 inches of the tip. This last 3.25 inches gradually reduces in thickness to 5/32 inch thick within 1/2 inch of the tip. I say reduces because it is not a taper due to the forging which creates a slight valley in the midle of the blade. Blade width varies from 1and 13/16 inches to 2 and 7/16 inches at it's widest.

There is no doubt that this is an all but indestructible knife. Even if the buffalo horn slabs were to break off, the handle's steel thickness would allow the knife to easily be used without slabs.

I'm not sure about the hardness at this time but I will get out and do some work with it soon, hopefully. It will be interesting to see how the vibration in this full tang blade differ from my 15 inch A.K. Vibration was never a problem with chopping with the AK and even when I got out and whacked the spine of the AK on concrete cinder blocks, there was no noticeable vibration. I have several blocks left, so I will try this on the Bowie. I don't think I need to mention that impact on hard objects can accelerate(and propagate) fractures from imperfections within a steel rather quickly. Forged or high quality steel knives usually need not fear this, but for those using cheap steel knives beware of flying parts. I have broken more than 10 pakistani(yes I have owned cheapo knives too) blades in chopping and spine wacking, yet have never broken a quality blade doing this.
Oh, by the way Cold Steel does this with the Trailmaster in their proof video and it did it without a problem. I would not recommend this, however, with a brittle steel knife or a hard chromed knife.

Oh, and I have been having problems with the system, but I think they are more with my computer than this forum.
 
A year and 12 days ago, Cobalt, on April first last year you first brought up the AK Bowie and I thought it was an April Fool's joke.

It's been quite a year, for you, Uncle Bill ( looking back it's easy to see why the heart attack ), and the forum.

You, I, and Jim March were turning the forum upside down with our humor, and you and I were at around a half dozen HI's each in a race we thought would culminate with one of us reaching a dozen within the year.

About the time you designed the bowie ( to my recollection ) HI had waited and waited for shop one to get going ( after the headman's operation ) and finally after a long wait with nothing to sell had regretfully begun shop 2. I was up and talked to Bill face to face and could see the sorrow on his face over the rift that opening shop 2 had caused between him and shop 2's headman.

That, due to bureaucratic requirements, had to be named, and became Birgorkha. Then a lot of things happened. Too much for one post. But a lot of headaches for all, getting things going.

Cobalt, for your information ( and this is just to my understanding - nothing verified ) an American based purveyor of knives has asked Nepal's largest source of khukuris of all kinds to have made under the American distributor's label a "Nepali bowie".

I'd better leave it at that - but it doesn't make me happy that you don't even get to give your own design a good workout before... - grit your teeth Rusty!
 
Becareful with the cement blocks. The AK spine is fairly soft and may be mared by the block. My spine was impacted in one spot when I accidently hit the jaws of a vise with it. Cold Steel is the same hardness all the way through.

Will
 
Rusty, yes, it's been over a year since I designed the AK Bowie, and yes we did have good times back then. However, I do not know what happened during the time that I was gone. Is shop 1 now defunct. If so, to bad, because the quality of the blades was incredible. I hope shop 2 can keep up the quality standards.

As for another nepalese bowie, history will tell what works and what doesn't.

Will, you are correct, my AK did suffer denting along the spine, but I consider these as character building, nothing more.
 
Thanks for input. Will Kwan has a comprehensive review of his AK Bowie just about ready for publication. Stay tuned.

Shop 2, BirGorkha, is putting out higher quality work than any shop in Nepal.

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Blessings from the computer shack in Reno.

Uncle Bill
Himalayan Imports Website
Khukuri FAQ

[This message has been edited by Bill Martino (edited 04-13-2000).]
 
Hey guys! Well i'm on the computer at the library and finally into the forum. The AK Bowie I have is a brute of a knife.
 
Thanks uncle Bill. --- I sure did have a comptuer glich with the forum changing up it's stance. ---By the way, my AK Bowie was made by Kumar and the new 15" Rhino AK was made by Sanu. Complete with super frog. This khukuri has a weight forward feel to it.--- The chakma handle needs to be touched up a little with epoxy. No problem. I have plenty of them anyhow.
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Jay, I've got some superfrogs for you, too, if I can just get them sorted out. They sent a bunch with no tags or measurements so I've got to try to figure out who gets what.

------------------
Blessings from the computer shack in Reno.

Uncle Bill
Himalayan Imports Website
Khukuri FAQ

[This message has been edited by Bill Martino (edited 04-16-2000).]
 
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