Jungle parang

I had been busy for a couple of weeks working on fabricating some tooling to hopefully make certain forging more efficient with my hydraulic forging press. To help get back into the swing of hammering sharp-and-pointies, I forged out this parang. I really like this; it wants to take off limbs, from trees or otherwise. :D

The steel is 5160, forged from 1/4" stock and retaining much of its thickness in the spine. It's been given my typical triple normalization, triple hardening, triple tempering cycle that I use on 5160. The handle is an integral socket with olive drab paracord for the main wrap and black for the two-strand Turk's head knots, impregnated with Minwax Wood Hardener. The blade length, including the choil, is 13" and the overall length is 19 1/2".

It shaves hair right nicely. :D

Hunters in 1084 and mesquite

Here's a little batch I forged out recently. The steel on these is 3/16" 1084 plain high carbon steel, with mesquite for the handles and brass pins and lanyard tubes. The blades are triple normalized, single hardened in canola, and triple tempered. The leather is by a local sheathmaker.

The three little ones have 5 1/4" blades. Their sheaths are ambidextrous:

The big one has a 6 1/4" blade. The sheath is a also ambidextrous, with tri-weave stamping.

Trio of knives, last of 2012

This was the last batch of blades to get mailed in 2012. All three are forged from 5160.

The little one has a spray-on truck bedliner handle and a 4" blade. I built the Kydex sheath with a Teklok.

The others have 6" blades. The one is wrapped in black and olive drab paracord impregnated with Minwax Wood Hardener, and the other is mesquite with brass pins and flared lanyard tube. The leather sheaths are by a local sheathmaker.

This customer was very patient. When he found out that his order had gotten bumped back for orders from a Marine, a soldier, and a SEAL, he not only donated $150 toward each of their orders (a total of $450), he also donated $200 for the materials on the half dozen knives I made and donated to the Marines deploying to Afghanistan in the spring. There are a lot of folks out here who are appreciative of our military. :)