- Joined
- Apr 13, 2007
- Messages
- 12,294
A while back I came up with the design below which I intended to be used as a Knife/Ulu and Hatchet. I designed it so that a stick could be lashed to the handle to give more leverage when chopping.
Anyhow I'd forgot all about the design till yesterday when someone posted this that he'd had made by Bryan Breedan, very similar in application although different in looks.
Total length is 10.5 " Blade width is nearly 2.75" Actual blade length is about 3.75" made out of 0-1 .25" Stock.
This caused me to go back to the drawing board and I came up with this hybrid,should enable quite reasonable chopping power but still can be choked up and used for finer knife work or as an Ulu....
It's very similar to a larger version of the TOPS Trail Maker.
I think we have been looking at the idea of a chopping knife all wrong. In order for a knife to get anywhere close to a hatchet in performance we have been thinking that they need a 7",8" or even larger blade but all this does is spread the weight evenly down the knife rather than increase it at the head end where we want it. Take a look at a Tomahawk, they often only have a small 3" blade but chop pretty good due to the length of the handle. Therefore to increase our knifes chopping power we need to either increase the weight of the blade right at the front or increase the length of the handle to increase the leverage.My design might be even better with the handle an extra 1" longer but I wanted to keep as something that would be easy to carry rather than a big lump of steel that gets left behind at the campsite.
What do ya think ?
Anyhow I'd forgot all about the design till yesterday when someone posted this that he'd had made by Bryan Breedan, very similar in application although different in looks.
Total length is 10.5 " Blade width is nearly 2.75" Actual blade length is about 3.75" made out of 0-1 .25" Stock.
This caused me to go back to the drawing board and I came up with this hybrid,should enable quite reasonable chopping power but still can be choked up and used for finer knife work or as an Ulu....
It's very similar to a larger version of the TOPS Trail Maker.
I think we have been looking at the idea of a chopping knife all wrong. In order for a knife to get anywhere close to a hatchet in performance we have been thinking that they need a 7",8" or even larger blade but all this does is spread the weight evenly down the knife rather than increase it at the head end where we want it. Take a look at a Tomahawk, they often only have a small 3" blade but chop pretty good due to the length of the handle. Therefore to increase our knifes chopping power we need to either increase the weight of the blade right at the front or increase the length of the handle to increase the leverage.My design might be even better with the handle an extra 1" longer but I wanted to keep as something that would be easy to carry rather than a big lump of steel that gets left behind at the campsite.
What do ya think ?
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