A central place to talk about weapons and armour, as it relates to your kit. This is where you show it of or talk about making it. Discussing the relative merits of types of weapons goes in the WMA section.
I'll get around to introducing myself at some point as this is my first post. I know there are plenty of threads on this already (I've been here reading posts for quite awhile) but some are from awhile back so I've got a question.
I just bought a coldsteel latin machete to rehilt and convert, it was longer than I expected so I actually cut it down into a small dagger and short sword/large dagger. (I'll post pictures as the project progresses) Now reading back it seems that the handles used to be rubber, but now they've moved on to mostly plastic handles. Does anybody have advice for easily getting them off? Boiling doesn't really do anything at this point since it is plastic and while I eventually cut it of with a grinder, it melts the plastic in the process. I suppose since it melted I might be able to just torch it all off.
Try to stay away from a torch, the burning plastic will release carcinogens . I'd suggest using a dremel tool with a saw blade and cut at the edge. Unlike older rubber handle models, these don't appear to have holes through the tang, so just cutting around the edge should do it fairly quickly.
If I were to torch them, I've got proper venting and respiratory protection so that wouldn't be as big of a concern for me. I got them cut off with the grinder alright, a dremel may be the new way to go. The Machete did still have holes cut in the tang, they are visible on the smaller blade. The new plastic handle also was attached through those holes, either by plastic pegs that were fused or just by the nature of forming plastic over the holes. So I'm not sure exactly how it is assembled by them but its secure through there which is what the difficult part was.
I had hoped that the boiling would work and tried that initially but with those pegs through there it didn't seem to have any affect on the plastic other than heating things up a bit, not enough to loosen its hold.
That is a wonderful idea Josh I would make a double sheath for those so it acts like a by-knife! They would look great as a matched pair.
Oh and BTW I always boil the rubber handles and slice them right down the tang. the rubber of course cuts like butter, However I would go with the dremel idea and a good sized cylender bit. once you see the metal tang all around it should not take much to seperate them.
PS~ Can anyone use about thirty rubber machete handles?
I am Ringulf the Dwarven Woodsman, I craft leather, wood, metal, and clay,
I throw axes, seaxes, and pointy sticks, And I fire my bow through the day.
Come be my ally, lift up your mead! We'll search out our foes and the Eagles we'll feed!
I guess thats my real question, are you still finding this with the handles made out of rubber? and if so, from where? this one was plastic and most of the descriptions now say the handles are polypropylene rather than the rubber they used to be made out of.
Started out with the small blade as a test for the larger one. Its still pretty rough but its coming along. I was going to use internal metal pins but ran into a problem. I figured on a small blade like this wooden dowel pins should hold fine and went with exposed and sanded off pegs. You can't see it here, but in thinning the slabs I ran one through the table saw to slice in half but had it backwards so the blade is offset to one side. I decided it wasn't worth doing another since this is the prototype for the larger blade anyway. It's starting to have a real nice fit in the hand though, and while I may still sand down some of that top hump its a nice fit. Still need to get the whole thing a little less blocky.
