Couple questions on USMC knife.

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youknowwhatimsayin

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Jan 2, 2014
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I'm about to buy me a USMC Ka bar and wanted to ask the pros a few things. ;)

First off,

How good is the stock leather sheath? I'll be edc'ing it occasion and am going to get one with a leather sheath.

Can the leather handle withstand water of all sorts? I'm getting a leather handle for sure and want it to last awhile. I know leather handled kabars have been around forever but I'm very seldom clean my blades (except for my carbon steel blades they get a lil oil.)

Should I put sno seal on the handle & sheath? I figured it can't hurt right? Its mostly bees wax.

That's about all the questions I can think of right now but I'll update if I can think of any. Thanks guys for all your knowledge.
Chris.
 
I'll EDC it occasionally? That's like saying: "I work every weekday only on Tuesdays"

Anyway: I would agree to go with the classic version. They did just raise the grind on then (returning then to the Milspec WWII design) and the new ones should make awesome cutters. The leather handle and grip are both perfect: they served hundreds of thousands of solders during a few wars and if you're going to use one, I'd keep it original. IMHO the sheath works very well and to replace it before it wears out is wasting part of what you got.

The Sno-Seal is a good idea, but it will darken the leather a few shades. I have since switched to Obenhauf's Leather Protector but anything with wax in it makes leather last a lot longer. The leather handle will do fine with water, especially if it's waxed. I don't know if you should trust your grip on any round handle if you're wet and cold, but the Ka-bar won't care.
 
Yeah I should have worded that a little differently. I'll carry it as my go to blade on occasion. I love leather, and I love knives, put it together and its a win win! Lol. I don't mind if the leather gets darker, heck I might prefer it.
 
Where exactly can you edc a full size KABAR? I love mine, carry it always when camping or working in the woods, but to edc it would have me in a heap o trouble. Too long for most laws. If you can, more power to you!
My knife is a Camillus made version from 1942. The leather is a beautiful dark brown from years of handling. It got wet before I bought it, and the handle was covered in mold. I sanded it gently after drying it out, and used sno seal and it's been no problem since. That was about 18 yrs ago. You oils from your skin will absorb into the leather and it will be fine without the sealant, but if you wanna, go for it.
I bough a leather sheath for mine a couple years back. Mine has a hard shell scabbard originally, and sometimes it is a little annoying wearing it, being rigid and all, and I like the leather better. I haven't sealed it, and probably won't. I'll let it age on its own. But again, you could I guess.
 
I was just picking on you with the EDC comment. I would agree that if you like leather, then THE Kabar is for you.
If you don't mind a darkening then by all means soak that handle and sheath in a leather protector. Look up Obenhauf's if you want the best. Nothing wrong with Sno Seal, but Obenhauf's seems to be a more pure (no kerosene) and deluxe (smells like a rich old man) wax than Sno Seal. To protect the blade in leather sheaths, I always melt some of the potector and try to get it as far into the inside of the sheath as possible. This wax then slowly transfers to the blade and really seems to protect it.

Please report back after some use with the USMC knife, I've had a few and gifted a commemorative edition to my brother who was in the recent Iraq War (Operation Iraqi Freedom). Even the ones meant to be displayed are MADE to be used hard.
 
Jimh I'm in the good ole buckeye state. Knife laws here are it must be carried out in the open, and you can't carry it as a "weapon" which I'm not I just like big ole goodins. (Yup, still talking bout knives. ;) . and macchina , I'll certainly look up obenhauf, I wouldn't mind my knife smelling like a rich old man lol. Thanks for the help fellas.
 
Agreed that stack leather handles ought to be coated to improve water resistance.
I favour silicone based waterproofing.
Nothing worst than having a living organism thrive on leather
Which does nothing but sums up as being nothing but an added health hazard.
 
I read several comments in the past about the stacked-leather handles swelling if they got wet, but I wonder if those who had the swollen handles treated them like a Marine would. As a disclaimer, I live in Southern California which is presently experiencing drought conditions and so haven't put my treatment to the test, but I treated the handle as well as the sheath the same way we were taught to treat our leather in boot-camp (at least during the Korean war). I cleaned the leather and then treated it with Leather Dye. (I can't remember the brand of dye we used in 1952 but Fiebing's Mahogany seems equivalent). Then I coated it with Kiwi shoe polish. After buffing it I applied a second coat of leather dye and buffed that. If you leave the shoe polish as the final coat it will come off on your hand but the leather dye won't.

I actually have two Ka-Bars of this configuration. One is the USMC fighting knife with the sharpened back tip and the other is a miniature version with a 5 1/2 inch blade (both have the USMC stamp). I do a lot of hiking and have a lot of knives so if it ever does rain I may use some other knife, but I wouldn't be afraid to use either of these in the rain. I do have a bit of doubt about the grooves in the leather handles and might chicken out and add some Kiwi Mink Oil in such a way that these grooves are coated. Water never got through this sort of treatment on our dress shoes or boondockers; so I'd be very surprised if it managed to get through the same coating on these knives.

Lawrence
 
My father gave me a USMC KA BAR when I was 9 years old and I still have it 14 years later. I put that thing through hell and the sheath and handle are both still intact. It will stand up just fine to reasonable use, just don't go making a habit of dunking the thing in water or leaving it out in the rain.
 
I have a leather handle KA-BAR and have treated it with repeated applications (over weeks and months) of mink oil, both Kiwi's and another brand, Penguin. Ditto the leather sheath. Both mink oils darkened the leather (no problem).

Now a sequence question: if I now treat the leather with shoe polish and Fiebing's leather dye as noted above by Lawrence Helm (thanks!), will these react with the now embedded mink oil to produce a sticky, gummy surface?

My overall goal is to waterproof as well as give a good finish to the leather. But if the previous coats of mink oil are going to screw that up, I'll stop where I am. Advice?
 
First, I have never attempted to dye leather after it was oil treated. All my dye jobs have been before any oils/polishes were applied.

Fiebing's has both oil based and non-oil based dyes. I would suspect that an oil based dye would work better than a non-oil based dye.

What I would do in this case is get a couple of leather scraps, mink oil them like you did and then test one with an oil based dye and the other with a non-oil based dye and see how they turn out. Don't know where you are in the midwest, but a source of leather scraps could be at a Tandy Leather Store, the midwest equivalent of Tandy, or a local shoe repair store. I know Tandy Stores have scrap bins where you can get inexpensive experimentation odds and ends pretty cheap.
 
zzyzzogeton said:
....What I would do in this case is get a couple of leather scraps, mink oil them like you did and then test one with an oil based dye and the other with a non-oil based dye and see how they turn out.....
Click to expand...

Good advice — thanks. I'll try that. It may take a while, as there's a LOT of mink oil worked into the leather over the last year. I had been thinking that that was the best (or only) way to protect the leather, so I really gave it the works. Could be, this particular item is now too far along to shift course, but we'll see.

Thanks again.
 
AreBeeBee said:
I have a leather handle KA-BAR and have treated it with repeated applications (over weeks and months) of mink oil, both Kiwi's and another brand, Penguin. Ditto the leather sheath. Both mink oils darkened the leather (no problem).

Now a sequence question: if I now treat the leather with shoe polish and Fiebing's leather dye as noted above by Lawrence Helm (thanks!), will these react with the now embedded mink oil to produce a sticky, gummy surface?

My overall goal is to waterproof as well as give a good finish to the leather. But if the previous coats of mink oil are going to screw that up, I'll stop where I am. Advice?
Click to expand...

I was instructed in the care of leather by my Drill instructor eons ago. The initial purpose was to pass inspection. I should mention that the second coat of leather dye leaves a metallic look so we would use a very light coat of Kiwi polish and spit shine the final result. Actually we would spit shine the first application of Kiwi as well. As time went on and we scuffed our shoes & boondockers we would apply additional coats of Kiwi polish -- always spit-shined to establish its hardness. I don't know if Kiwi even made Mink Oil back then.

If you do the above you will give a good finish to the leather and I really think it takes two coats of leather dye to drown out any blemishes. Also, I've worked the dye into the rough underside of the strap and the belt loop. It took two coats to get the rough leather to accept it.

As to using the two coats without using Kiwi polish in between? I don't know. My impression is that it will gum up, but I'm not sure. I just stick to the way I was taught in boot camp.

As to the dye being compromised by the Kiwi Mink Oil, I don't know that either, but I suspect that if the leather is now dry the dye will manage to do its job.


Lawrence
 
Lawrence Helm said:
I read several comments in the past about the stacked-leather handles swelling if they got wet, but I wonder if those who had the swollen handles treated them like a Marine would. As a disclaimer, I live in Southern California which is presently experiencing drought conditions and so haven't put my treatment to the test, but I treated the handle as well as the sheath the same way we were taught to treat our leather in boot-camp (at least during the Korean war). I cleaned the leather and then treated it with Leather Dye. (I can't remember the brand of dye we used in 1952 but Fiebing's Mahogany seems equivalent). Then I coated it with Kiwi shoe polish. After buffing it I applied a second coat of leather dye and buffed that. If you leave the shoe polish as the final coat it will come off on your hand but the leather dye won't.

I actually have two Ka-Bars of this configuration. One is the USMC fighting knife with the sharpened back tip and the other is a miniature version with a 5 1/2 inch blade (both have the USMC stamp). I do a lot of hiking and have a lot of knives so if it ever does rain I may use some other knife, but I wouldn't be afraid to use either of these in the rain. I do have a bit of doubt about the grooves in the leather handles and might chicken out and add some Kiwi Mink Oil in such a way that these grooves are coated. Water never got through this sort of treatment on our dress shoes or boondockers; so I'd be very surprised if it managed to get through the same coating on these knives.

Lawrence
Click to expand...

Lawrence, I found this post intriguing in that I have several WW2/Korean war era 1219C2/Mk2s and your post may explain the condition of the handles of several of them. Some are in only fair to poor condition, some are in great condition and not very dark and the some are in really good condition but have very dark handles. 2 of the really dark, good condition ones can be attributed to being carried by Marines, and the 2 worst condition handles (kinda dried and cracking like old saddle leather) are traceable to Navy personnel. Others that I have are not directly traceable to a particular branch of service.

I have always kinda assumed that the worst condition handles were those subjected to the most extreme conditions in general (wartime and post wartime civilian usage. Your Korean war period training story may identify a reason that while handle condition is reflective of use/treatment/environmental exposure, this training may describe why some handles are in so much better condition than others after nearly 65 years (excluding safe queens and knives issued to Rear Echelon individuals).

Might be that Marines were trained how to properly prepare and maintain their leather equipment and Navy personnel just carried and used them "as was" right out of the shipping container and never performed this pre-use dyeing/polishing.
 
zzyzzogeton said:
Lawrence, I found this post intriguing in that I have several WW2/Korean war era 1219C2/Mk2s and your post may explain the condition of the handles of several of them. Some are in only fair to poor condition, some are in great condition and not very dark and the some are in really good condition but have very dark handles. 2 of the really dark, good condition ones can be attributed to being carried by Marines, and the 2 worst condition handles (kinda dried and cracking like old saddle leather) are traceable to Navy personnel. Others that I have are not directly traceable to a particular branch of service.

I have always kinda assumed that the worst condition handles were those subjected to the most extreme conditions in general (wartime and post wartime civilian usage. Your Korean war period training story may identify a reason that while handle condition is reflective of use/treatment/environmental exposure, this training may describe why some handles are in so much better condition than others after nearly 65 years (excluding safe queens and knives issued to Rear Echelon individuals).

Might be that Marines were trained how to properly prepare and maintain their leather equipment and Navy personnel just carried and used them "as was" right out of the shipping container and never performed this pre-use dyeing/polishing.
Click to expand...

A couple of additional disclaimers. When I was being readied to be shipped off to Korea by way of Japan I inquired about knives. I was told that knives would not be issued to us because we would have bayonets if we needed anything of that nature. If we wanted a knife we could feel free to buy one of our own. At the time I bought a Case hunting knife. I did actually use that knife one night when a couple of off-duty Roks tried to mug me -- that is, I used it along with a lot of USMC menace to frighten them off.

I knew about the USMC fighting knife but didn't have one until my son got one for me a few years back. When the leather started getting a bit scuffed I resorted to my Marine corps training and treated it the way I would have in Boot Camp. However, in regard to our shoes and boondockers, we would periodically spit-shine them. We would only redye them if they got scuffed really badly.

One other thing we used to do is to set fire to the dye once we had applied it to our boondockers or shoes. We'd only let it burn for a few seconds and then blow it out. I can't remember why we did that, but I haven't done that on my sheaths or handles -- too chicken. But perhaps the fire got rid of the metallic patina one can see on the leather after an application of the dye. But a very light application of polish spit-shined to get it dry (that sounds like an oxymoron but it really isn't) should do the same thing. I've worked on my USMC fighting knife handle and sheath as well as a Short USMC fighting and utility knife. (My other Short USMC utility knife has a handle of some other material and a sheath that has already been dyed black. Also, I just ordered another Short USMC Ka-bar, this one with a smooth blade. My current one has about an inch and a half of saw just ahead of the guard which I don't care for.)

Lawrence
 
The serrated portion is supposed to cut string/rope/twine/etc more easily. If the blade is dull, the serrations do make for easier small stuff cutting, but I've found a properly sharp plain blade does just as well.
 
Lawrence Helm said:
...As to using the two coats without using Kiwi polish in between? I don't know. My impression is that it will gum up, but I'm not sure... As to the dye being compromised by the Kiwi Mink Oil, I don't know that either, but I suspect that if the leather is now dry the dye will manage to do its job. Lawrence
Click to expand...

I put so much mink oil into the handle and sheath that the sheath is now floppy. And actually, it's a rich dark brown that I like OK as it is — and it doesn't have to pass inspection anyway.

I'm intrigued by the method in a more general sense, as I have numerous fixed blades (in addition to the KA-BAR) with sheaths that all need treatment from time to time. Thanks for the advice!
 
zzyzzogeton said:
Lawrence, I found this post intriguing in that I have several WW2/Korean war era 1219C2/Mk2s and your post may explain the condition of the handles of several of them. Some are in only fair to poor condition, some are in great condition and not very dark and the some are in really good condition but have very dark handles. 2 of the really dark, good condition ones can be attributed to being carried by Marines, and the 2 worst condition handles (kinda dried and cracking like old saddle leather) are traceable to Navy personnel. Others that I have are not directly traceable to a particular branch of service.

I have always kinda assumed that the worst condition handles were those subjected to the most extreme conditions in general (wartime and post wartime civilian usage. Your Korean war period training story may identify a reason that while handle condition is reflective of use/treatment/environmental exposure, this training may describe why some handles are in so much better condition than others after nearly 65 years (excluding safe queens and knives issued to Rear Echelon individuals).

Might be that Marines were trained how to properly prepare and maintain their leather equipment and Navy personnel just carried and used them "as was" right out of the shipping container and never performed this pre-use dyeing/polishing.
Click to expand...

I only recently began working on the sheaths of my 3/4 USMC Ka-Bars (Not sure about the numbers. How did you find them out?). I noticed that however much I spit shined them, when I later rubbed a napkin across them I got brown Kiwi shoe dye off of them. If I left just the dye as the last coat, I got evidence of that rubbed off on the napkin. So just tonight I rubbed Mink Oil on them. It doesn't change the look (which is very nice btw). I vaguely remember polish sometimes coming off on our trouser cuffs; so maybe that wasn't a perfect system, but it did preserve the leather and it did and still does make the leather look very nice.

Lawrence
 
Until you need to memorize them (or want to for some reason), the easiest way to figure out which one you already have, is to go to either tomarskabars.com (a BF sponsor here) or kabar.com and look them up and compare what you have with the pictures/descriptions on the sites.

There are 4 traditional leather stacked handle versions and 4 all black Kraton handled versions.

The leather (L) handle versions are clip point only, plain edge (P) or combo (partially serrated - S) and marked either USMC or USA (C or A)

LPC is 1250
LPA is 1251
LSC is 1252
LSA is 1261

The Kraton (K) handled versions are marked USA only, come with either a tanto (T) or clip (C) point, and either a P or an S edge.
KTP is 1254
KTS is 1255
KCP is 1256
KCS is 1257

All eight (8) of these model numbers come with leather sheaths, either tan for the Ls or black for the Ks.

By changing out the leather sheaths for the black plastic ones, the 4 K knives' model numbers change (as far as the factory inventory control procedures and box labels are concerned).

The 2 clip points become:
KCP is 1258
KCS is 1259

The 2 tanto points become:
KTP is 5054
KTS is 5055

On the sheaths, I really like the plastic sheath for these knives (at least when carrying for use in the barns and such around the farm). Some folks don't like the plastic sheaths, each for their own reason(s).

First, they are waterproof. No real maintenance required other than to let dry after getting wet or being washed.

Second, the sheath is ambidextrous in accepting the knives. If you put a lefty on the right, just pull out the knife and turn it around.

The sheath can be carried via
-a belt loop strap,
-a buckle-like fitting through which a 1" strap can be passed (say like a shoulder strap)
or
-by running straps/cords through the 4 slots (2 each side) and 8 para-cord sized holes (4 each side) along the edges of the sheath.

The sheaths also have 3 knife retention methods. If you loose a knife from one of these sheaths, you probably shouldn't be allowed to eat with anything sharper than a spoon.

The sheath has a "traditional" handle keeper strap, an ambidextrous, over-the-guard strap and a pair of little molded plastic "teeth" that engage over the guard when the knife is firmly seated in the sheath.

They look a kinda "tactical" or "tacti-lol" for city carry, so I usually use leather for going to town, but if I'm in a hurry, I just use which ever sheath they happen to be in. And around the farm under real working conditions? Who gives a rat's posterior about looks?
 
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