For various reasons, I decided to play about a little with my King Kobra.
My plans centred on the tang. Having removed the handle, I cut off the tang extension and adjusted the angle so that, instead of continuing the angle of the spine from the elbow to the bolster, the tang sat parallel with the line of the spine from elbow to point. In other words, instead of looking like a circumflex -
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- it looked like a squashed Z
________
\
\___
(ASCII art isn't my thing. You can tell can't you?)
Next stage was to anneal an old file of approximately the same thickness as the tang and saw out a V-shaped slot into which the tang stub fitted snugly, with the edges of the ricasso butted against the insert.
Next stage was to cook up some borax and ask my blacksmitn friend, very politely indeed, if he'd do me a favor.
He agreed, and forge-welded the tang to the file. He's one of the finest practitioners of the black art of forge-welding in the UK, and achieved a pretty amazing join. A modern weld (arc, mig or tig) would always be suspect. Forge-welding is forever.
Next step was to anneal the completed tang and repair the damage done to the heat-treatment of the lower half of the blade. Rather than risk zone-hardening (too clever for us poor Westerners) we hardened the blade to within 2 inches of the elbow, quenched in transmission oil and drew a dark blue temper to the cho, leaving the tang soft. Heat seepage was contained by wrapping the rest of the blade in damp cloth and ladling water onto it at regular intervals while the tang end was in the fire.
An hour or so on the buffing wheel restored most of the finish, and the next step was a new handle. I fancied a katana style, so the handle was made of 2 pieces of cherry, with a single retaining pin (unhardened drill rod). I used Chemical Metal to bed the tang into the handle, and when set and shaped, I served it full length with Dacron B50, glued and varnished. Finally, I made a glove-leather wrap, for maximum grip.
The result is a full-tang King Kobra with a radically altered profile and balance. The point is now on the same level as the bottom of the cho. This means
(a) the Kobra thrusts in a straight line
(b) the balance and feel in the hand is dramatically improved; the centre of balance is back to just behind the elbow, and setting back the tang angle has relieved the unwieldiness caused by the exaggerated (IMHO) drop of the original. The Kobra now handles rather like a katana, but with a certain characteristic khukuri aggression and impetus that really gets the job done, together with an extremely efficient concave cutting profile around the center of percussion.
So far, testing has been brutal and extensive, including a lot of two-handed chopping into hardwood in an attempt to break or bend the tang, or split the handle. Conclusions; I don't think it's going to break or bend, ever; and it's light, fast and a dream of a cutter. Vibration and handshock are negligible.
I'd like to respectfully offer this design modification to Kumar and see what he thinks of the idea. I think the full tang would greatly reinforce a weak spot in the current design, and the altered angle/profile is a substantial improvement in ergonomics.
My plans centred on the tang. Having removed the handle, I cut off the tang extension and adjusted the angle so that, instead of continuing the angle of the spine from the elbow to the bolster, the tang sat parallel with the line of the spine from elbow to point. In other words, instead of looking like a circumflex -
____
/
/
- it looked like a squashed Z
________
\
\___
(ASCII art isn't my thing. You can tell can't you?)
Next stage was to anneal an old file of approximately the same thickness as the tang and saw out a V-shaped slot into which the tang stub fitted snugly, with the edges of the ricasso butted against the insert.
Next stage was to cook up some borax and ask my blacksmitn friend, very politely indeed, if he'd do me a favor.
He agreed, and forge-welded the tang to the file. He's one of the finest practitioners of the black art of forge-welding in the UK, and achieved a pretty amazing join. A modern weld (arc, mig or tig) would always be suspect. Forge-welding is forever.
Next step was to anneal the completed tang and repair the damage done to the heat-treatment of the lower half of the blade. Rather than risk zone-hardening (too clever for us poor Westerners) we hardened the blade to within 2 inches of the elbow, quenched in transmission oil and drew a dark blue temper to the cho, leaving the tang soft. Heat seepage was contained by wrapping the rest of the blade in damp cloth and ladling water onto it at regular intervals while the tang end was in the fire.
An hour or so on the buffing wheel restored most of the finish, and the next step was a new handle. I fancied a katana style, so the handle was made of 2 pieces of cherry, with a single retaining pin (unhardened drill rod). I used Chemical Metal to bed the tang into the handle, and when set and shaped, I served it full length with Dacron B50, glued and varnished. Finally, I made a glove-leather wrap, for maximum grip.
The result is a full-tang King Kobra with a radically altered profile and balance. The point is now on the same level as the bottom of the cho. This means
(a) the Kobra thrusts in a straight line
(b) the balance and feel in the hand is dramatically improved; the centre of balance is back to just behind the elbow, and setting back the tang angle has relieved the unwieldiness caused by the exaggerated (IMHO) drop of the original. The Kobra now handles rather like a katana, but with a certain characteristic khukuri aggression and impetus that really gets the job done, together with an extremely efficient concave cutting profile around the center of percussion.
So far, testing has been brutal and extensive, including a lot of two-handed chopping into hardwood in an attempt to break or bend the tang, or split the handle. Conclusions; I don't think it's going to break or bend, ever; and it's light, fast and a dream of a cutter. Vibration and handshock are negligible.
I'd like to respectfully offer this design modification to Kumar and see what he thinks of the idea. I think the full tang would greatly reinforce a weak spot in the current design, and the altered angle/profile is a substantial improvement in ergonomics.
