Design help Musso ish Bowie

[JG Custom Metal Works]

This isn’t exactly a Musso Bowie, but similar. There won’t be a brass spine guard and it will be a full tang knife. But the blade shape is similar. As far as the designs go, the only real difference is in the tip location, relative to the centerline of the blade.

Any ideas as to which design “works” better? Are there any flaws in these designs I should be aware of?

Please share your thoughts. I would greatly appreciate it.

Number 3 looked washed out at the tip, so I darkened it up and took another pic.

 

[LARRYZ10]

I like number 5 and also number1 but you should make the one that you like...you are one in control and probably shouldn't care what everyone else thinks. Larry

 

[Ken H>]

Larry says it so well - what YOU want. Now, "IF" you're wanting it to really look like the Musso Bowie, why not print out the drawing that's available to the size you want, anywhere from half scale to full size and use that shape? If you don't have access to the drawing, just holler, I've got a really good PDF file somebody made from the actual Musso Bowie.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

#5.

 

[olymon]

# 5 first choice, but... Grind #1 first, see how it looks and feels and then do #5 on the same blade.

 

[john april]

i chop stuff in the woods. #5 with #1 coming in second. 3 and 4 have too fragile of a tip. they would be good if they were used for nothing but fighting, but i view the bowie as a general purpose tool. nice designs.

 

[JG Custom Metal Works]

Thanks a bunch for the feedback guys, I really appreciate it. I’m gonna try and use something like 1 or 5. The problem is the customer liked #3. Another thing to consider is that he was wanting a sharpened swedge and with the acuity of the tip, I’m thinking it would just be too weak. That being said it won’t be a utility/user knife and will be more of a defensive/fighter knife. I suppose I could use the tip strength to make a case for the other designs. I think I’ll try and hybrid something as a middle ground maybe and see if he likes it.

 

[JG Custom Metal Works]

Larry says it so well - what YOU want. Now, "IF" you're wanting it to really look like the Musso Bowie, why not print out the drawing that's available to the size you want, anywhere from half scale to full size and use that shape? If you don't have access to the drawing, just holler, I've got a really good PDF file somebody made from the actual Musso Bowie.

That would be awesome, I’d really appreciate that. You could send it to:

jgordon83@hotmail.com

Thanks a bunch!

 

[Ken H>]

It's sent. Happy to help.

 

[Busto]

#5 with a sharpened swedge will still provide plenty of material for tip strength for a fighter.

 

[sgmtino]

# 5 then # 1 would be my choices as well

 

[bikerector]

I like number 4 if the idea is to be a slicer. The upsweep, relative to the clipped portion, seems to make clip points really slicey. This is based on my experience with buck knives, all of which are hollow ground. I would not recommend that for a dedicated chopper but it should penetrate well if using it to stab things.

Number 1 if the idea is to be more of a chopper/hard use the shortened clip should leave some more weight towards this tip.

I think a combination of 4 and 3 could look really nice, thinking of the comments I made for number 4 above. Keep the tip height the same or a little below 4 but drop grind depth to what is in 3.