I need to apologize if the tone of my post was crabby.
Pain will do that.
Howard,
Many years ago, I can remember when TAI was writing articles, and had a huge shop full of every tool imaginable.
I can remember reading some of the articles he had written, and thinking that he was on the way to becoming one of the top makers on the planet.
Then , at least to me, it seemed like Tai just sort of faded away. Next thing I knew he was smithing in his outdoor shop in Arizona and had returned to "the CIRCLE". Gone were all the tools and fancy whizz-bangs. All he was using was fire,hammers and his creative mind. The last of the three, had somehow, "broken free of its moorings" and set a TAI on a new course.
At first I thought..."What the?" Then I realized TAI had evolved so far in his craft that he arrived at the same place he began. Then he discovered he did not need tools to express his craft any longer.
Yes, TAI is one of my top ten modern knife making heroes, along with Ray Richard, Larry Harley, Bill Burke and so on....
Having said that I am happy that HI is finding ways to expand it's product line. Stagnation in this business is the same thing as gangrene in a healthy body. Eventually the organism ceases to exhibit life signs.
IMO ~ HI and it's NEPALI tradition are too special to be looking to CS for design ideas. I will not say that the idea behind the CS Bushman came from TAI and his knife making tradition. Especially since Lynn T. is a life long student of edged tools of every kind. He may have just seen this and said, "HEY! I can DO that!"
http://www.vikingsword.com/ethsword/ifugao/index.html
Shane