Speaking of pumpkin... and SAR5 design

alaskanativeson

alaskanativeson

Joined
May 2, 2007
Messages
312
I had no desire to have a pumpkin. Never been a big orange fan, unless, of course, it's on a Denver Broncos uniform. However, a deal came along I fell into. A guy wanted a couple of Beckers I had laying around doing nothing and he offered me a straight trade for a pumkin handled SAR5. I know that discontinued Beckers are bringing in $ on ebay now, but as far as I'm concerned, trading two Beckers for one Busse is still enough to make me happy. I suppose financially the other guy may have come out a little bit ahead, but I'm fine with that. He's a good honest guy to deal with (texastonydobbs) and he made me a fair deal that made us both happy.

So here I fall into a deal for a knife I never really wanted (at least not in pumpkin) and today it shows up in the mail. All I can say is: Tony, steaks and pumpkin pie are on me next time I'm in TX. The SAR5 handle feels great in my hand, the blade shape and size are what I think an all-around utility outdoors knife should be, and I can't wait to take this thing out and open up some critter with it. Oh, and the pumpkin is much better looking than I expected. I didn't get the really bright pumpkin (which I probably wouldn't have liked) and it's a really sharp looking knife to me.

Pumpkin.jpg
 
Now I have a few questions for the Busse Elite among you:

1. Is this handle the typical thickness for a SAR5 or is it specifically done with the pumpkin G10?

2. It doesn't show up hery well, but that blade coating is brown, not black like i was expecting. Is this the case with all the pumpkin knives or do I have something weird?

3. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallw?

Last, I'm already planning on getting another SAR5. The one criticism I have of the SAR5 is the lack of a hilt. Do you think it would be possible to have a custom maker (Busse, preferably) to design and attach a hilt to this knife?
 
All the handles are roughly the same size on the SARs,
and that is the jungle green coating:thumbup:
 
alaskanativeson said:
Brown, green, whatever. Did I mention that I'm partially colorblind? :-)
Click to expand...

ROTFL! Me too! Mostly color blind actually.

Green/Black-orange G10 is my fav SAR5 combo. The only one I kept. The color on the orange is true pumpkin, not that blaze orange that came on the AD's. I LOVE it.
 
alaskanativeson said:
3. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallw?
Click to expand...

To begin with, you need the basic kinematic data on African and European swallow species. As a base line and for compairsion purposes. :D

But given studies will we use their data - ergo

U ≈ 3fA
f ≈ 15 (beats per second)
A ≈ 0.22 (meters per beat)
U ≈ 3*15*0.22 ≈ 9.9

... to estimate that the airspeed velocity of an unladen European Swallow is 10 meters per second.

Next question : How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?

:thumbup::D:D:thumbup:


,
 
alaskanativeson said:
Now I have a few questions for the Busse Elite among you:

1. Is this handle the typical thickness for a SAR5 or is it specifically done with the pumpkin G10?

2. It doesn't show up hery well, but that blade coating is brown, not black like i was expecting. Is this the case with all the pumpkin knives or do I have something weird?

3. What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallw?

Last, I'm already planning on getting another SAR5. The one criticism I have of the SAR5 is the lack of a hilt. Do you think it would be possible to have a custom maker (Busse, preferably) to design and attach a hilt to this knife?
Click to expand...

I'm assuming you mean gaurd instead of hilt -

This was done by the busse custom shop, but I personally cut off part of the pommel and switched out the handles for lignum vitae. I'm going to be redoing them in green canvas micarta with standoffs and Allen screws shortly.

zzzIMG_5776.jpg



swamp rat did the rat guard, which was the battle rat with a chunk of metal pushed against the reciprene c. that shouldn't be to hard to commission if that's all your looking for.

Picture006.jpg
 
That Rat Guard looks great, I imagine it can be done with a smaller top section. I'm not going to mess up my beautiful pumpkin, but I'm going to get another SAR5 and see if they can put a single Rat Guard on and add a ResC handle.

This addiction isn't so bad when you just give yourself over to it and allow it to control you.
 
alaskanativeson said:
That Rat Guard looks great, I imagine it can be done with a smaller top section. I'm not going to mess up my beautiful pumpkin, but I'm going to get another SAR5 and see if they can put a single Rat Guard on and add a ResC handle.
Click to expand...

I am not Eric, but I am pretty sure Swamp Rat does not take custom orders. And Res C only can be used on a stick tang, and a very specific shaped stick tang at that, so your chances of getting Res C on that knife are basically nil.

You could send it to a custom maker that could fashion a guard and new scales or modify the ones on there to work with the guard. Of course, there is already a guard of sorts built into the design with the dropped edge, but hey, it's your knife. :thumbup:
 
Rat Finkenstein said:
I am not Eric, but I am pretty sure Swamp Rat does not take custom orders. And Res C only can be used on a stick tang, and a very specific shaped stick tang at that, so your chances of getting Res C on that knife are basically nil.

You could send it to a custom maker that could fashion a guard and new scales or modify the ones on there to work with the guard. Of course, there is already a guard of sorts built into the design with the dropped edge, but hey, it's your knife. :thumbup:
Click to expand...

not necessarily. If the old situation is still in place then swamp rat is still in the busse compound. It may be the case that all res-c has moved over to scrap yard, which resides elsewhere.

The stick tang is a fairly generic shape (straight sides, rounded bottom), and I'm positive that it could be carved out of the existing sar5's handle. the 3rd tube fastener is in a perfect position to terminate the handle with the res-c's tube fastener. I don't know if the existing pre-fab'd res-c handles would fit, because there are only really 4 that were made, the basic series large and small, and the sr old school plain large and small.

All that said, you never know until you ask garth. shoot him an email with some designs and see what he says, or call him up and ask.
 
if you got one of the dumpster mutts or a cheaper scrap yard, you might be able to send it to a custom maker and have them trade out the handles.
 
Seems to me that grinding the knife down into a stick tang would compromise its strength. Guess it couldn't hurt to ask.
 
You could:
1) Remove handle slabs,
2) Grind the tang down a bit maybe 3 or 4mm top and bottom,
3) Fabricate a crossguard from some metal, maybe titanium to keep the weight down, you would need to have it hard up against where you finished grinding but have it deep enough to come back to the first tube hole for fastening. (make sense?)
4) Attach slim but very textured handle slabs on, or texture the tang with say a dremel,
5) Use Tooldip to coat handle until required thickness.

I reckon that would work and not cost much.

Or just buy a Swamp Rat with the guard and have it modded down by a professional. Lots of grinding but doable.
 
the "stick" tangs on the basic series weren't that small. and, if it weren't for the additional holes, the knife would have the same strength as the basic series with the same tang.

unfortunately you would have the additional holes to deal with, so you would have a lost of handle strength. structurally it would be as strong or stronger then the cultellus, which is equally as thin from spine to belly at the handle, and has 3 holes drilled through it.
 
there are a couple of busse handles with giant chunks of brass attached to them on the handles, one mammoth (all brass?) one comes to mind, something along the lines of the ruger bowie. Can't quite place when/what that one was though...

anyways, a brass gaurd with a taper at the blade portion could be fabricated and fastened at the center with the already present holes without a huge amount of trouble, it's just finding someone who wants to take the project on.

one of the lighter examples:
oe26_1984_vasco_wear_fighte.jpg
 
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