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#190650 - 11/08/20 04:25 AM Kabar USN Mark 1 mod
Gert Offline
Knife Enthusiast

Registered: 12/19/13
Posts: 280
Loc: The Netherlands
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.


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#190668 - 11/09/20 10:27 AM Re: Kabar USN Mark 1 mod [Re: Gert]
Sidney_Redford Offline
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Registered: 10/20/05
Posts: 1621
Loc: Blue Ridge Mtns. Va.
I always enjoy following along with your projects.
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Sidney Redford
NRA Endowment Member
RKS #84 NRA Life. Shag # 11

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#190694 - 11/10/20 03:37 PM Re: Kabar USN Mark 1 mod [Re: Sidney_Redford]
Gert Offline
Knife Enthusiast

Registered: 12/19/13
Posts: 280
Loc: The Netherlands
And so we get to see the innards of this knife.


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#190695 - 11/10/20 03:38 PM Re: Kabar USN Mark 1 mod [Re: Gert]
Gert Offline
Knife Enthusiast

Registered: 12/19/13
Posts: 280
Loc: The Netherlands
The handle is removed.


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#190785 - 11/14/20 08:54 AM Re: Kabar USN Mark 1 mod [Re: Gert]
Gert Offline
Knife Enthusiast

Registered: 12/19/13
Posts: 280
Loc: The Netherlands
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.


Edited by Gert (11/14/20 08:55 AM)

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#190786 - 11/14/20 12:19 PM Re: Kabar USN Mark 1 mod [Re: Gert]
Eric Offline
Knife Enthusiast

Registered: 11/18/15
Posts: 1668
Loc: Michigan
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.


Attachments
------eric7.jpg




Edited by Eric (11/14/20 12:31 PM)
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#190790 - 11/14/20 03:36 PM Re: Kabar USN Mark 1 mod [Re: Eric]
Gert Offline
Knife Enthusiast

Registered: 12/19/13
Posts: 280
Loc: The Netherlands
Thanks for the informative photo, Eric! I'm still undecided about the handle material I'm going to use.

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#190867 - 11/19/20 01:50 AM Re: Kabar USN Mark 1 mod [Re: Gert]
Gert Offline
Knife Enthusiast

Registered: 12/19/13
Posts: 280
Loc: The Netherlands
Stripped the blade, guard and pommel and got all the handle materials together. I will use birch bark, and two reindeerhorn spacers.


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#190891 - 11/21/20 05:48 AM Re: Kabar USN Mark 1 mod [Re: Gert]
Gert Offline
Knife Enthusiast

Registered: 12/19/13
Posts: 280
Loc: The Netherlands
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.


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#190971 - 11/28/20 01:34 PM Re: Kabar USN Mark 1 mod [Re: Gert]
Gert Offline
Knife Enthusiast

Registered: 12/19/13
Posts: 280
Loc: The Netherlands
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.


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