Field report:
Well went to clear some shooting lanes and set up a blind today for late season archery hunt.
Took the CS Katana Machete.
Initially I was a little concerned, many of my blows seem to glancing and the handle felt awkward seemed like my wrist was getting tired quickly. On one of my strokes against a 1 inch sapling, I looked down and saw my paracord unwrapped and thought crappers. Well it was not the paracord it was this.
The handle had snapped at the end of the tang. I thought this really sucks cause I was only half way through my job, I had a folding saw but that would take forever.
After I got all my cord off, I got to looking and I could still get one hand on it. So I went back to work and to my surprise the glancing blows stop my cutting power seem to increase, and my wrist was not getting tired like before. A blessing in disguise!!
To be fair to CS, I narrowed the handle were it snapped to make everything even from one end of the handle to the other, but I probably did not take more the 1/4 inch off it. Oh well.
I am thinking if I was constantly in a Katana battle with other sword swingers maybe a 2 handed handle would be a benefit in theory. But most of my machete work is done with 1 hand, and that length of handle was not comfortable for 1 handed use at all.
On another note, the metal and tempering seems to be spot on, I hit several rocks cutting saplings close to ground, after examining the blade no dents or dings the 1055 was done right.
And even though I made a belt loop on the sheath when I was fashioning it, I found much easier to carry as the traditional Katana is carried sheath slipped through my belt on the left side very comfortable carry.
So now my next project. I am going to finish removing all the synthetic handle material down to the tang, slowly remove about 2 inches of the blade around the hilt to match the size of the tang, find me some good hardwood, (Anyone got a good piece of seasoned Osage Orange?) Epoxy, Corby bolt, and re-wrap. Will give some updates as the project continues.
Looks great. The wrap looks especially nice. Well done!
It looks like the handle is hollow in that pic. I was under the impression it was solid plastic all the way through. 
