With all due respect, I don't think you should rule out thicker stock. Like 1/4" or more. From there you distal taper the blade so it's thinner where it counts. And once the blade tapers are in place, you can add cutting power back in by using a properly weighted pommel rather than a thin butt cap. By centering the mass closer to your hand via the tapers and pommel, you add weight where it's easy for you to move. But it's farther away from the tip, making that mass harder for whatever you hit to move it back. Thus you get the best of both worlds- a blade that is easy to swing and fast to manuever, yet hits much harder than you'd expect, and often even harder than much slower, heavier, blades. I can explain further or link to articles if anyone's interested...
thanks,
i've given similar advice though to other people, about
Ballast Effects.
thickness of the buttcaps does not necessarily indicate that they are more massive though, as you realize - alloys come in greatly-varying masses - i would use blade profile on a long knife, over useless weight addition, as in a thicker butt cap - the cap on my design would be
simply for impact durability, primarily - my ideal bowie would be a bit serpentine, to increase turning speed, using rotational and inertial qualities instead of dead ballast in the butt - if i was stuck with a
perfectly straight-axis'd blade, as with my
Gen 1 Mk V Composite hawk handles -
sure, i'd
weight the butt -
but that isn't a bowie IMHO -
good bowies had sweep to them.
good bowies are like a muted scymitar design IMHO.
thanks though, brother.
i think we are on similar pages, just getting to the same place by different means, which is okay by me, i wouldn't feel naked with your set-up of choice,
i just like mine better, from my experience all over the world with both.
........
these are more reasons why i prefer the design characteristics that i do.
keep in mind, this is
just my personal tastes for something i would count on, do what ya like, and
good luck.
i don't like tapers in blades when the blades are not forged to at least
90% of their final shape (i have forged tapered bowie-like blades myself, so this isn't theory, this is experience talking), because of weaknesses that can occur in some steels from interrupting grain structures, etc. -
best just not to worry about it IMHO, plus if you send a design to
mass production,
it can be done without worry over complex QC practices.
instead of
tapering on fat flat stock, i prefer to
morph grinds on thin stock, to control weight displacement and increase strength and performance
(to my tastes at least). - this measure gets you camparable effects in handling to what you have described, plus there is
less resistance in cutting on a
thin-stocked knife with a partial grind, over the
same profile as a thick stocked knife with a
full grind - add profile improvements to the thin-stocked bowie, like a swept-back spine and a curved and longish handle, and there is no way a heavier bowie can keep up in anything i have done -
not fighting, not chopping, not stabbing, not surviving.
- maybe the fattie can do better in
breaking one's foot when it gets dropped.
just kidding ...but do
cross-sectional and friction analysis on any knife or chopper, and you will see on the graphs
(and in actual performance) that if you correlate the variations in stock thickness choices and grinds of
the same profile - there are
"sweet spots" in the data that show certain thinner stock thicknesses to be better choices with varying grinds, to a thicker stock; this is why my ceiling was 3/16" - which should be noted is just a little thinner than your choice of 1/4" - i can make a better performing Bowie, that is stronger even for prying, with 3/16", than i can in the same alloy and profile in 1/4" stock
when the mass of the knife is kept the same.
1/4 inch thick blades were developed by a
more-is-better mindset.
sometimes less is more.
i'd consider 1/4" stock in a short sword, defineitely - but the total length would have to be much longer than a bowie, to suit me, and you'd have to really be careful how you designed the handle and pommel, the shorter that you made the sword,
for best effect.
whoever did the first fattie blade, wasn't big on mathematical analysis, unless he was designing boat anchors and decided to put an edge on them IMHO. - and i doubt he was a Marine Infantryman that had to
actually carry the thing....
....these
fat white man blades would be the
butt of jokes among native people that i have lived with in the jungle.
the original bowies were thin for a performance reason, near as i can tell.
that's
a lot of weight this
on foot nomad would not like to pack,
especially when fighting is involved, especially when the weight savings can go to more mass on my hawk, the long blade's partner, in my case.
i want a bowie that i can see winning fights with, and running with and swimming with - as i have done with my choices in blades already.
i can get more of that out of a thinner-stocked bowie than i can from a thicker-stocked one
(of the same weight).
wedge-shaped, thick-stock designs suffer in a lot of field tasks - anyone who has watched a
batonned machete sing though resinous wood, compared to a slow or fully-stuck khukri or overweight bowie can attest to that fact.
i wouldn't want a bowie as thin as most machetes, no matter what the grind, but 3/16" is about as thick as i can still imagine going, and still love the knife.
but do what your tastes suit you to do -
i have no real objection to 1/4 inch stock, but i prefer a thnner refined bowie blade, myself.
1/4 inch stock belongs on a hawk or khukri or a longer sword, where its mass coeffiecients can be
leveraged at maximum advantage, not on a
straight-axis'd blade; even
Busse Knives had to finally admit that, with their newer
thinner-stocked introductions.
yes, you can distal taper and fuller, etc. - and do all sorts of things to thicker stock - we took advantage of that already on our Daisy Cutter hawk, but it works differently than abowie, in respect to its physics - but those things diminish most aspects of a what makes a good knife of the same profile on thinner stock. - we've proven it. - the aprtds of the world that use knives to stay alive and can forege any shape or size that they want, for battle and foir survival, from the Equator to both poles, from my brethren the Isnag headhunters, to the Inuit,
...all use thinner stock blades. - otherwise they use an axe-like tool.
sorry to be a little short,
but i am roped right now, and didn't want this to go unaddressed -
this is all meant with respect.
good luck selling your knives.
good thread.
vec
I don't have to worry about mass production. Several sword workshops handle all the tapering without forging, though these aren't really mass production places either. 
