- Joined
- Apr 3, 2015
- Messages
- 1,048
If you get the Junglas I recommend going to the Knife Connection and get some of Dale's scales. They are perfect for that knife.
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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Which 9" to 10" Big Chopper from Ontario, Scrap Yard, TOPS, ESEE, or EnTrek, ?
- Thread starter mastiffhound
- Start date
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2013
- Messages
- 397
I had an RTAK II also and it was ok but I have to recommend the Bark River Golok, original model is a monster chopper. There is a good video on youtube with a comparison against one of the blades your looking at in a chopping video. Its design is for chopping since there is no point, a slight curve for draw cut\chop.
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2013
- Messages
- 345
Well, I did the work and reshaped the handle on my RTAK II. It turned out pretty well for a first try. It fits my hand much better, it's not perfect but it's so close I'll stop where I'm at. I've learned when I get mediocre to good results then I should just stop while I'm ahead. Any further and I screw something up, usually beyond what's fixable.
Here's a couple pics-
The color splotches on the micarta is from oiling the screws and bare steel after I blued the ground off coating.
It felt pretty good when I was done so I did a quick chop test on a pressure treated pine block I had laying around. After I was done while looking it over I noticed some chips at the end of the blade? It couldn't have messed the heat treat all the way at the tip as I made sure to go slow enough that it never heated beyond what was tolerable to the touch and that was at the handle. It spent time in water as I dunked it regularly to keep the dust down from the micarta also. To make sure I wasn't losing it I took a couple of hard swings and hit right at the edge near the handle were I had ground, no chipping what so ever.
My guess is the original heat treat near the tip, being the thinnest and quickest to heat, went too far. The RTAK II will work and it could just be the edge closer to the tip, the chips mostly sharpened out but I can still see some very small remnants of where they were. It might just be the initial edge was ground too hot and got brittle, but behind that edge it's fine? Time will tell I guess.
Either way I'll beat on it till it self destructs. This just means that I was right and I still need a new chopper.
Here's a couple pics-
The color splotches on the micarta is from oiling the screws and bare steel after I blued the ground off coating.
It felt pretty good when I was done so I did a quick chop test on a pressure treated pine block I had laying around. After I was done while looking it over I noticed some chips at the end of the blade? It couldn't have messed the heat treat all the way at the tip as I made sure to go slow enough that it never heated beyond what was tolerable to the touch and that was at the handle. It spent time in water as I dunked it regularly to keep the dust down from the micarta also. To make sure I wasn't losing it I took a couple of hard swings and hit right at the edge near the handle were I had ground, no chipping what so ever.
My guess is the original heat treat near the tip, being the thinnest and quickest to heat, went too far. The RTAK II will work and it could just be the edge closer to the tip, the chips mostly sharpened out but I can still see some very small remnants of where they were. It might just be the initial edge was ground too hot and got brittle, but behind that edge it's fine? Time will tell I guess.
Either way I'll beat on it till it self destructs. This just means that I was right and I still need a new chopper.
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