Kabar USN Mark 1 mod

I recently bought a new but damaged Kabar USN Mark 1 knife at a sale. Thought it would be nice to modify this knife and upgrade it a bit. I'll take you along step by step.

The blade is 5" , which in my opinion is very suited as a general purpose blade, the steel is 1095 CroVan, which holds an edge pretty long and can be easily resharpened in the field on the proverbial rooftile.

Here it is. The damage to the handle is clearly visible.





So: first step is to disassemble the knife. A wood chisel works wonders.

I always enjoy following along with your projects.

And so we get to see the innards of this knife.

The handle is removed.

As the pommel is pinned through the tang, but not all the way through, the thing to do now is drill out the pin. That's a question of carefully centerpunching and then drilling carefully with a n 1/8" drill bit.

This is the result. Sorry for the fuzzy photo.



Blade, guard and pommel are coated with a black substance. I think Kabar calls it Teflon. I will try to strip this off. The idea is to blue all the steel parts to give the knife a more WW 2 look.

Good looking project. Ka-Bar made the early WWII Mark 1 with Red/black spacers and hot blued blade. They then went to all black spacers. Here are 3 such examples.

Thanks for the informative photo, Eric! I'm still undecided about the handle material I'm going to use.

Stripped the blade, guard and pommel and got all the handle materials together. I will use birch bark, and two reindeerhorn spacers.

All steel parts blued. From the blueing it is clear that all parts are made of a different kind of steel. The blade is a pleasant surprise. Different hues of blue, brown, green. Very pretty. Much nicer than the flat coating.

Everything glued up. And the retaining pin in the pommel re-installed. I've been able to make a construction improvement in that area, as normally the pin goes half way through the pommel, then through the tang and stops there. I drilled the hole further into the other half of the pommel, so the pin has more support during hammering with the knife.

Apologies for the bad photo.

Started shaping the handle.

Coming along nicely...
You can see the 1/8" stainless retaining pin still sticking out of the pommel. It will come off later.

The end result. Very different from the original.
I have made a construction improvement. In the original the retaining pin of the pommel is only going through half of the pommel and the tang. Then it stops. I have drilled the 1/8" hole about 1/4" further into the other side of the pommel and used a longer and stainless pin, so there is more support during hammering with the pommel.

Handling this knife is pure pleasure. Birchbark must be one of the best handle materials around. Anti allergenic, water repellent, incredibly soft and warm to the touch, even in cold weather.

Very Nice!!!

I bet you are extremely proud of it. I would be.

Keep it up. You have a talent!

...+++++...It looks like "leather"! I want one!
Merry Christmas Gert. Thanks for the "photo tour"!
Stay sharp, Capt. Chris

nice work!

Thank you all for your nice comments!

@Capt. Chris: Yes Capt., it looks a bit like leather, but the layers are much thinner, 1/16" max. Wouldn't it be mega cool to have a Randall with this handle material! I just might rip one of my Randalls apart to put a birchbark handle on it.

This material has another great aspect: you don't have to glue the layers, just stack them on the tang, put a bit of pressure on them so that they are snug, then pop the knife in the oven for an hour or two at 70 degrees C, and the layers glue themselves with the natural resin present in the layers! Mother nature at her best.

And a very Merry Christmas to you too, Capt.!

Bert,
Thanks for the added information. Excellent work for sure.
Walker

The knife came with a plastic sheath.



which is a good sheath in itself, but won't do for this project, so I made a new proper one.
Double stitched, with Kydex layers between leather front and back, which makes it very stiff and safe.

....repeat: I WANT ONE!!
Nice rig,
Capt. Chris

Beautiful job!

Absolutely Gorgeous!!!!!

Well done!!!

Great job on the set for sure.
Walker

Gert,

Where did you buy the birch bark? I googled a bit but did not see the blocks like in your photo.

Tune,

I didn't buy it (tried, but it's pretty hard to find) but harvested it myself last spring. Then made blocks from it so it is a bit easier to put on the tang.

You have to harvest when the tree sap is running in the tree. Here in The Netherlands that's about the first week of June. It comes off the tree very easily, and harvesting does not affect the health of the tree. The bark grows back in about 6-7 years.

Hope you can do something with this info.

Stabilized Osage Orange, a native tree species, is very hard to find and is a beautiful wood handle material.

Pap

Yep, I know that wood. Made a medieval longbow from it once. Man, that thing shot 200 yards easily! Your arm was dislocated afterwards, though!

Also made some knife handles from it long ago.