What makes a fighting knife

Man that is fifteen inches of beauty right there! Is that the Fairbane(sp?) Kobra sikes...something like that? I say Yikes! I fell in love with the one he made a while back. That is awesome Jens:thumbup:
That might be the same one :D

I like JWB's blade better than the pics of the original. He nailed the golden ratio of curvature to length perfectly. It looks better and feels more practical to me. I calculated the shape for fun though I bet JWB just did it based on experience and feeling.
Laying the blade on top of a sabre tooth matches surprisingly well.
My little 6 year old girl calls it the fang blade. :p
Now enough details. Leave me some things for the review.
That there is a Fairbairn Cobra, yes. Now I have to resist the urge to drive to CA and steal it from Jens. I've had my eye on JW's Fairbairn Cobra before, especially after seeing the comments my mentor has made about the Cobra. JW is one of only two makers that I have seen that make them, and the other is expensive to ship from because they're over in Scotland.
Bring it on. Since you don't have a Super Cobra and I do we both know how it will end. ;)
 
That might be the same one :D

I like JWB's blade better than the pics of the original. He nailed the golden ratio of curvature to length perfectly. It looks better and feels more practical to me. I calculated the shape for fun though I bet JWB just did it based on experience and feeling.
Laying the blade on top of a sabre tooth matches surprisingly well.
My little 6 year old girl calls it the fang blade. :p
Now enough details. Leave me some things for the review.

Bring it on. Since you don't have a Super Cobra and I do we both know how it will end. ;)

I just had a look at another reproduction and the curve seems roughly the same. The Cobra is one of those great designs that's hard to duplicate because if memory serves all that remains of the original are two pictures. Even the original diagrams of how best to use it have been lost.

I've sometimes wondered if there's some Kurdish Jamb DNA in the Cobra. The blade shape is similar, and the handle looks like the 'I' shape cut down the middle. I won't try and claim it's nothing but the Kurdish Jamb, but it wouldn't surprise me if Fairbairn had taken a good hard look at it before.
 
If i would have to fight and need to use a knife,i would have the Hall' Nightmare dagger in my hand!this to me is the best designed fighting knife i have ever seen,bar none!
 
I just had a look at another reproduction and the curve seems roughly the same. The Cobra is one of those great designs that's hard to duplicate because if memory serves all that remains of the original are two pictures. Even the original diagrams of how best to use it have been lost.

I've sometimes wondered if there's some Kurdish Jamb DNA in the Cobra. The blade shape is similar, and the handle looks like the 'I' shape cut down the middle. I won't try and claim it's nothing but the Kurdish Jamb, but it wouldn't surprise me if Fairbairn had taken a good hard look at it before.

The cobras Ive seen seemed too curved for my taste.
I had the same thought regarding the Jamb that's why seeing the pictures here caused me to post the JWB cobra.
 
The cobras Ive seen seemed too curved for my taste.
I had the same thought regarding the Jamb that's why seeing the pictures here caused me to post the JWB cobra.

Interesting when you consider that a few people knowledgeable in the subject believe that the original Cobra was probably made from a bayonet that was reforged to curve and then reground a bit. I've only ever seen two different makes of the Cobra, the MacDonald Armoury one Kronckew posted and the JW Bensinger, and both seem to have similar curves.

And I've wanted one ever since I read these:
http://whiteshadowdojo.blogspot.com/2010/05/fairbairn-cobra.html
http://whiteshadowdojo.blogspot.com/2010/05/cobra-part-ii.html
 
filipino marines use a ginunting. another recurved blade, slightly longer than the Cobra ;)

mine:

ginunting002_DCE.jpg

the marines use one with a horn or wood grip & a brass guard. kydex scabbard.
not mine

2814257468_7f1df3c0a9_o.jpg

i heard that a marine patrol and a group of muslim insurgents accidentally bumped into each other in thick jungle,
no room to swing a rifle without hitting brush, so they pulled out their ginuntings. no more insurgents. no live ones anyway.
apparently one had been cut in half at the waist.
 
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Interesting when you consider that a few people knowledgeable in the subject believe that the original Cobra was probably made from a bayonet that was reforged to curve and then reground a bit. I've only ever seen two different makes of the Cobra, the MacDonald Armoury one Kronckew posted and the JW Bensinger, and both seem to have similar curves.

And I've wanted one ever since I read these:
http://whiteshadowdojo.blogspot.com/2010/05/fairbairn-cobra.html
http://whiteshadowdojo.blogspot.com/2010/05/cobra-part-ii.html
The second picture on your link shows the blade bending down a lot right after the handle. Maybe it is an illusion caused by some wide angle lens on the camera?

I also read about the bent bayonet. All the ones I have are spear point and if you bend them and then grind away half to get back a spine that wouldn't work at all. Maybe he started with some other type of one edged or only swedged bayonet but even that doesn't mean that what he wasn't aiming for something already in existence. Only because I repurpose some Katana segment as a Kiridashi doesn't mean that I ivented a new blade. It's still a Kiridashi. I bet Fairbairn knew the knives common in that area and was aiming for something very similar.
 
The second picture on your link shows the blade bending down a lot right after the handle. Maybe it is an illusion caused by some wide angle lens on the camera?

I also read about the bent bayonet. All the ones I have are spear point and if you bend them and then grind away half to get back a spine that wouldn't work at all. Maybe he started with some other type of one edged or only swedged bayonet but even that doesn't mean that what he wasn't aiming for something already in existence. Only because I repurpose some Katana segment as a Kiridashi doesn't mean that I ivented a new blade. It's still a Kiridashi. I bet Fairbairn knew the knives common in that area and was aiming for something very similar.

I think the speculation I saw was that the prototype may have been a bayonet. In fact the second link explains the speculation as to why the prototype but not the finished product may have been a bayonet.

The bend in the picture, well I don't know. Photography can be remarkably complicated. I still remember a book I got when I was sixteen. It was a bunch of paintings of modern military aircraft, and in the introduction it explained how the paintings were all based on photos, but they had to get really good artists who knew how to correct for the distortions of angle and all that caused by photography, or else they wouldn't have accurate paintings, they would be slightly off because the photos were slightly distorted and because this would be more obvious still because the paintings were just of the aircraft and removed the context that would ordinarily have hidden the distortion.

I know Fairbairn had seen and gotten to know a wide variety of knives in his lifetime. Unfortunately he didn't do a lot of documentation of what went into his thought process, and he wasn't a talkative person, so we don't know everything that went into his designs. All I can say is that of the knives I've seen, the Cobra most closely resembles the Kurdish Jamb. Though we do know that Iraq was under British control for much of the first half of the 20th Century.
 
what scara said.

the reflections on the blade make it look differently than it really is.
 
WOW. This is the only thread, and I mean the ONLY thread, on this forum of blades that is about fighting knives and isn't cluttered with sniping remarks about firearms and how knives are the worst weapons ever made in the history of humanity.

Kudos to all of you, and thank you for the excellent photos and thought-provoking content.
 
WOW. This is the only thread, and I mean the ONLY thread, on this forum of blades that is about fighting knives and isn't cluttered with sniping remarks about firearms and how knives are the worst weapons ever made in the history of humanity.

Kudos to all of you, and thank you for the excellent photos and thought-provoking content.

Welcome to our brotherhood of the blade (almost typed balde there, and that's the Portuguese word for bucket). I suspect the difference is that we all really love blades. I think most of us love or at least really like firearms as well, but we love blades. I think we're all also mature enough to realize that blades have their place as weapons, even if we'd prefer to deal with threats from a greater distance.

One of the things I've enjoyed about this thread has been that there have been so many different ideas and perspectives. When I created it I didn't expect to get one unanimous answer, I hoped for discussion and gotten it in spades.
 
I just realized that in this entire thread, there has only been two mentions of karambits, and they haven't really been discussed at all. Kind of funny since we have a few Silat people here.
 
My take on the Cobra is that it came from observinging the ginunting and the Archipelago equivalent, the sewar.
As forthe kerambit, they're excellent last ditch/CQB rigs...if one has the body mechanics hammered in already. not my first choice for dueling...
The ginunting/sewar/cobra, on te other hand is pretty instinctive...
 
I just realized that in this entire thread, there has only been two mentions of karambits, and they haven't really been discussed at all. Kind of funny since we have a few Silat people here.
I was just dreaming about something in between a Kerambit and that Cobra but in a locking folder:cool:
 
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