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SOLD - Barong/Seax Hybrid

David Mary

pass the mustard - after you cut it
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Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
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Asking SOLD, via PayPal G&S (I will provide my PayPal email address via private message), which includes expedited shipping, tracking and insurance. First "I'll take it" followed by prompt communication gets priority.

This large knife combines a seax style blade, having in fact a very slight hawkbillesque recurve, with a large barong style handle for a versatile and very secure grip.

The balance point of the knife is about 1 inch past the handle, and the long handle accommodates grip close to the cutting edge for speed and agility, gripping farther back, secured by the pinky hook, for increased chopping power, or anywhere in between for a balance between the two.

It comes in a white .08" Kydex Sheath with paracord set up to accommodate any type of belt carry. This can be modified by the user to attach to a pack, vehcile, or anything else.

I made the blank using 3/16" 1084 from New Jersey Steel Baron, and because my forge is only large enough to handle small blades, I hired celebrated local blacksmith Andy Pomorski, who to date has heat treated all my carbon steel blades larger than 20" overall, and with great results. I had him heat treat and temper this piece for 57-58 HRC.

19 3/4" overall
13" blade
26.5 oz, or 33.4 in the sheath
Coarse Peel Ply G10 handle, carbon fibre tube attachments, accommodates lanyard if desired (though handle design surely doesn't need one!)

This is a very strong, capable and confidence inspiring tool for any woods excursion.

Thanks for looking!

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Grip positions
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Underside
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Spine
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Fantastic handle ergos
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Knife with sheath
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I almost forgot to mention, despite the size of this knife, I also designed the handle and balance so it can actually carve quite comfortably, for example for feather sticking, carving tent pegs, etc, as this picture demonstrates:

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Note how much handle sticks out, to provide a counter balance so the blade feels much lighter than it is during such tasks, and also the handle scale design allows the thumb to wrap around the front of the scale, and rest on the ricasso, allowing very secure and comfortable grip to allow extended hard use.

I truly designed and built this knife to be able to do almost everything that needs to be done in the woods. I am extremely excited about it, and, God willing, you can be sure I'll make more versions of this as time goes on.
 
riversidedep riversidedep , thank you for the extremely generous compliment!

R rpn , you mean go outside and play? I can do that!


The only problem is that I did not get all the footage. I found a dead recently felled tree that was nice and hard, so I used it to do a bunch of hard tip slashes into it to show the tip strength. There were also some knots that were begging to be chopped off as well, from which task I did not shrink. The Barong Seax laughed it all off. I think I mispressed the button on my phone. Also, I did not upload all the footage I did get because the video would have ended up long and boring.

When I got home, I cleaned it with soap and water, and the blade was still easily slicing cardboard with no snags, except near the very tip where I smashed that old dead wood. Though it snags in that spot, good slicing technique overcomes it, and I cannot visibly see any damage. I will touch it up with ceramic rods. Aside from that the blade also picked up one small scratch on the blade, which I assumed came from the dirty 2 x 4 I carved on. Either way, it will be a small matter to remove the scratch with a few passes on the surface conditioning belts before I ship it out.

I am very happy with the performance of this design, and as always, with the results of Andy's heat treatment.

Thanks for the suggestion rpn.
 
Now I have to make a sheath for the new one, and finish hand sanding the handle chamfers. It's 1/8" sawmill blade material, also heat treated by Andy, and has a slightly different handle design to reflect the different balance characteristics of this one over it's thicker brother.

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very interesting, what do you find are the benefits of this tip in a blade this size vs a drop point/clip point etc?
 
Better chopper. Better for trail clearing, due to fewer strikes where the tip of the blade slips off the branch. Bellied tips can slip off, this tip won't. Better for slashing in the event one needed to ward off dragons. Better looking. All just my opinion. Think "Filipino Ginunting", the utility knife/short sword of the Filipino Marines.
 
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Nice looking blade and great video. I especially loved the ninja skills. I would have cut myself for sure. I can see this strapped on the back of someone’s hunting pack. It would be great for clearing shooting lanes.
 
I have one from David in AEB-L and more of a leaf shape though still pretty straight. It makes a nice trail maintenance size and the edge retention is much better than the Tramontina I have, which I often end sharpening a time or two in the field when doing a lot of trail cleanup. From the pictures, it looks like David has the same convex grind on this as mine has and it's been phenomenal for strength and slicing.

They work really well for this kind of stuff.
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Edit to add: this was found and cleared during a bicycle ride, where the shorter length makes it really nice to through is a medium-sized hydration pack.
 
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I especially loved the ninja skills.

More like pretend skills haha.

From the pictures, it looks like David has the same convex grind on this as mine has and it's been phenomenal for strength and slicing.

They work really well for this kind of stuff.

Yes, same grind, though a tad thicker than on yours, and yes they do!
 
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When I got into the shop to remove that scratch, I did notice a few other lighter ones that I did not see in the other light. Also, the tip was visibly blunted from the hard tip slashes (which did not get recorded unfortunately) into the dead hard log. I was not able to see it under other light conditions, so it was minimal and I would not call it "damage". These revelations do not sway my conviction of the good quality of the heat treatment or my execution of this piece.
 
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I don't think I've ever been so sad to see someone say "I'll take it"!


:D Okay seriously, though, thank you very much, and I am glad to send it to it's new home.
 
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