- Joined
- Mar 1, 2009
- Messages
- 8,154
I think a lot of people have seen this knife. I think quite a few have seen the failure video where it was snapped in half in a log on a cold day. I wanted to see for myself how bad it was in person, so I ordered one.
I like the knife. The handle is a classic copy of the well known Ka-Bar. The blade is all together different though with it's full flat grind. The 1080 steel is not that bad. The HT on the one I received was awesome, a ton of flexibility in the blade, and not a single sign of it setting. I really thinned the grind down in the process of this WIP, and I am not the least bit unhappy with it.
The well known failure; I found the likely reason for the failure. The tangs are horrifically finished, and there are nothing but stress risers and slag the length of the tang. I was going to put on a bigger guard, and a stacked leather handle so I had the opportunity to remedy this undesirable flaw.
For those of you interested in doing something like this, I learned another lesson while working on this. The pin in the tang is 4mm, and runs all the way through the butt cap, almost to the other side. and is held in place with some kind of sticky goo, not full blown adhesive. I had a hell of a time with the pin when I didn't know what was holding it in. If I had to do it again I would undersize a drilled hole about 3/8's depth into the opposite side of the butt and punch out the pin, unless they change the assembly it should just pop on out. I had to destroy the butt because I snapped a drill bit on both ends
so I ended up slicing the metal 90° out from the pin, and cold chisel splitting it.
Anyhow enough bla bla bla. Here are the pic's. Starting with the factory knife stripped down to just the blade.
I disliked the balance with a solid steel butt, so I made another and trimmed it down a lot on a mill I borrowed from a machinist who owed me some cash.
I wanted to get the guard centered, while keeping the butt on the same centerline, while removing the stress risers in the metal. So I ended up angling the tangs approach to the ricasso
Test fitting the leather washer stack. I purchased manufactured leather washers, which required me to open up the hole a bit, if I had to do it again, I would do like member Richard J said elsewhere, and cut my own. Likely from a piece of 7-9 oz. leather.
I chose to epoxy the washers together, to also give the guts of the leather stack some rigidity, but that mostly due to my inconsistent cuts to adjust the hole in the washers.
These are the rough cuts to the dried leather stack. I used a small hobby coping saw to do this part, with a roughly marked outline of the tang on the leather as a guide
The handle is huge, as it should be, it is a fighting type of knife and should be easy to keep in your hand
In the end, I learned a lot about making stacked leather handles. Maybe just enough that I feel comfortable moving on to re-handle a more expensive knife that I own. I sent this knife on in a Bladeforums Give-a-Way that I did for the holidays, and it was about that time for a post count celebration too.
I hope everyone enjoyed the pictures.
Regards,
Ron_m80
I like the knife. The handle is a classic copy of the well known Ka-Bar. The blade is all together different though with it's full flat grind. The 1080 steel is not that bad. The HT on the one I received was awesome, a ton of flexibility in the blade, and not a single sign of it setting. I really thinned the grind down in the process of this WIP, and I am not the least bit unhappy with it.
The well known failure; I found the likely reason for the failure. The tangs are horrifically finished, and there are nothing but stress risers and slag the length of the tang. I was going to put on a bigger guard, and a stacked leather handle so I had the opportunity to remedy this undesirable flaw.
For those of you interested in doing something like this, I learned another lesson while working on this. The pin in the tang is 4mm, and runs all the way through the butt cap, almost to the other side. and is held in place with some kind of sticky goo, not full blown adhesive. I had a hell of a time with the pin when I didn't know what was holding it in. If I had to do it again I would undersize a drilled hole about 3/8's depth into the opposite side of the butt and punch out the pin, unless they change the assembly it should just pop on out. I had to destroy the butt because I snapped a drill bit on both ends
so I ended up slicing the metal 90° out from the pin, and cold chisel splitting it.Anyhow enough bla bla bla. Here are the pic's. Starting with the factory knife stripped down to just the blade.
I disliked the balance with a solid steel butt, so I made another and trimmed it down a lot on a mill I borrowed from a machinist who owed me some cash.
I wanted to get the guard centered, while keeping the butt on the same centerline, while removing the stress risers in the metal. So I ended up angling the tangs approach to the ricasso
Test fitting the leather washer stack. I purchased manufactured leather washers, which required me to open up the hole a bit, if I had to do it again, I would do like member Richard J said elsewhere, and cut my own. Likely from a piece of 7-9 oz. leather.
I chose to epoxy the washers together, to also give the guts of the leather stack some rigidity, but that mostly due to my inconsistent cuts to adjust the hole in the washers.
These are the rough cuts to the dried leather stack. I used a small hobby coping saw to do this part, with a roughly marked outline of the tang on the leather as a guide
The handle is huge, as it should be, it is a fighting type of knife and should be easy to keep in your hand
In the end, I learned a lot about making stacked leather handles. Maybe just enough that I feel comfortable moving on to re-handle a more expensive knife that I own. I sent this knife on in a Bladeforums Give-a-Way that I did for the holidays, and it was about that time for a post count celebration too.
I hope everyone enjoyed the pictures.
Regards,
Ron_m80
thanks either way .. have a good one