- Joined
- Jul 6, 1999
- Messages
- 1,151
Dear Uncle Bill, and forumites,
Here are pix recently sent from one of my pal, Akio.He's done a great job of modifying his AK Bowie. He has always praised the knife as a successful mixture between Nepali sturdy khukuri tradition and American bowie knife.
Only he saw some points to make it perfect.
1. Handle was a tad too far from the edge because of the cho
2. Handle should be thicker for better manipulation
3. Concealed tang structure is preferred to keep it from rust
So he took out an old oak stock of 50mm diameter, dried out through 20 years. Japanese oak has been the most popular handle material for Nata / hatchets. The handle is ground out so that that tha handle could fully cover the tang. The tang is tied to the scales with a 5 mm
diameter brass pin, and a stainless hilt ground out of 12mm barstock.
The Cho was ground off to neat the handle to the edge.
Finally, OAL length became 360mm (14"), blade length 210mm (8"), and the weight became 705g (25 ounce).
It was not intentionally done, but the knife now looks like a hybrid between Nepal, US, and Japan. For me it looks like a great user / collector blade anyways.
Hope you enjoy,
"Before"
"Disassembled"
"Cho was groung off"
"New parts he's made"
"To be assembled like this"
"Reassembled"
"The handle view from spine"
"Handguard 1"
"Handguard 1"
Here are pix recently sent from one of my pal, Akio.He's done a great job of modifying his AK Bowie. He has always praised the knife as a successful mixture between Nepali sturdy khukuri tradition and American bowie knife.
Only he saw some points to make it perfect.
1. Handle was a tad too far from the edge because of the cho
2. Handle should be thicker for better manipulation
3. Concealed tang structure is preferred to keep it from rust
So he took out an old oak stock of 50mm diameter, dried out through 20 years. Japanese oak has been the most popular handle material for Nata / hatchets. The handle is ground out so that that tha handle could fully cover the tang. The tang is tied to the scales with a 5 mm
diameter brass pin, and a stainless hilt ground out of 12mm barstock.
The Cho was ground off to neat the handle to the edge.
Finally, OAL length became 360mm (14"), blade length 210mm (8"), and the weight became 705g (25 ounce).
It was not intentionally done, but the knife now looks like a hybrid between Nepal, US, and Japan. For me it looks like a great user / collector blade anyways.
Hope you enjoy,
"Before"
"Disassembled"
"Cho was groung off"
"New parts he's made"
"To be assembled like this"
"Reassembled"
"The handle view from spine"
"Handguard 1"
"Handguard 1"
Wow! Great work!
