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Kanabo finished, now with pix!
- Thread starter Hawgsnawt
- Start date
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2003
- Messages
- 3,734
that looks great! I'm curious how the paracord would leave your hands after a day of whacking heads. Also I imagine getting the hair, dried blood and brain matter out from under the bolt heads would be a chore. Maybe a brass wire brush. You know, this is the kind of stuff no one thinks about a warrior's life. Very tedious. 🤓
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2003
- Messages
- 3,734
Seriously though, I imagine this kind of weapon predates the yamato incursion into Japan. It totally looks Like what a lot of pacific islanders created with shark and other animal teeth.
the paracord wrap is actually part of what I'm disappointed with....the wrap pattern I used looks good with the turks head knots on the end but it was clearly never designed to span a 24 inch distance.....the tutorial I saw on it used it to span 4 inches and it covered quite well, however the knot pattern does not allow for full coverage of the handle on a span so long.....there is just no way to make it work, and god knows I tried for 12 hours to make it so....I tried offsetting every other knot to one side to buy room and every other trick I could think of..... no dice.
I'll VERY likely in the VERY near future take it off and go in with a leather wrap like I've done on my Viking axes.... as long as I dye the leather black it should actually look better, then do a brass or copper wire wrap at the very top and bottom inch to inch and a half to replicate the turks head knots and add some color to offset the black and red some.....it should make everything pop
On top of that, when I sanded down the handles, I stopped where it felt " right " in the grip....but then the paracord added back almost all the width I sanded off in the first place so it actually feels a slight bit too large in the hand.... switching over to leather wrap will cut the width of the added material by about half and put me back much closer to where I wanted to be. It would have worked better all the way around if I had gutted the paracord and used it more like a flat ribbon wrap.... but that's 125 feet of paracord in a single strand and I know of no way to gut a length that long.
as far as cleaning goes.... I'm thinking probably just " butter churn " it in some water.....it probably won't get it all off, but it'll make a nice soup!
I'll VERY likely in the VERY near future take it off and go in with a leather wrap like I've done on my Viking axes.... as long as I dye the leather black it should actually look better, then do a brass or copper wire wrap at the very top and bottom inch to inch and a half to replicate the turks head knots and add some color to offset the black and red some.....it should make everything pop
On top of that, when I sanded down the handles, I stopped where it felt " right " in the grip....but then the paracord added back almost all the width I sanded off in the first place so it actually feels a slight bit too large in the hand.... switching over to leather wrap will cut the width of the added material by about half and put me back much closer to where I wanted to be. It would have worked better all the way around if I had gutted the paracord and used it more like a flat ribbon wrap.... but that's 125 feet of paracord in a single strand and I know of no way to gut a length that long.
as far as cleaning goes.... I'm thinking probably just " butter churn " it in some water.....it probably won't get it all off, but it'll make a nice soup!
I have a Gerber axe with a paracord wrapped handle (not a haft because it's fiberglass) that has been used many times when processing beef and it cleans up like the day it was first put on, so no worries with that.
Also I would not ride around with it as it would be hard to explain it away.