- Village Parang
- cKc Voyager
- custom Takach Forge
This review consists of :
Knives :
This review consists of : |
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Basic specifications :
As shown in the image in the right the blade has no distal taper so the full thickness is retained from the handle to the tip. This has a few immediate concerns because this effects :
Now in general larger blades need to be forward weighted in order to get rotational chopping ability but care has to be taken to achieve that in the right ways or else the ability of the blade can be compromised.
The raw balance (center of mass) is decent for a blade of this size and as shown in the image at the right is a couple of inches in front of the handle. However the issue with the cutting ability or versatility compromise of the tip by the lack of distal taper is still an issue.
A quick web over view produces the following :
However while the video commentary is at times very positive, what is shown in the video's isn't. To be specific :
Now it isn't that simple to judge the performance of a knife from a video as the skill/experience of the user and the nature of the wood isn't always obvious. There is also generally a lack of reference points or comparison blades in most commentaries which means it is very difficult to judge what "good" ability means as there is no way to know what is actually impressive to the user in the video.
This knife appears to be designed from a picture of a parang rather than actually from experience as the design is in many ways contradictory.
From the pictures the primary grind appears to be high, just under an inch at 0.8" high. This if it was a full flat grind would be about 7 dps, decent for soft woods. However it is not a full flat grind it is a very heavy convex grind which is close to parallel for the top half and in the bottom it increases in curvature rapdily and is over 20 dps at the very edge. This type of grind is what is used for for very rough work ; splitting knots, root work and similar.
It is very heavy for its length and the handle is extremely wide and round. The weight is high because of the full tang construction and lack of distal taper which is going to vastly reduce the chopping efficiency (chopping ability as a function of weight) and the round handle is going to severely reduce grip security and increase grip fatigue. The thicker grind is going to require more force in use and this combined with the round and slick grip is a dangerous and nonproductive combination.
The handle is also squarish at the front and the steel in the choil area is not well rounded so it does not work well (is uncomfortable) in a forward grip which is commonly used for finer carving and light chopping.
The cutting ability is very low due to the very thick grind. Being specific, 50 lbs applied to push barely breaks the surface of 3/8" hemp and a 2" draw only cuts 1/4" into the rope. For comparison the cutting ability of the axes from Granfors Bruks is far higher and as just one example, a full sized forest axe could push cut 3/8" poly rope (much harder to cut than hemp) with just 36 lbs.
Using it compared to a #1260 Mora which is a decent standard for wood working for carving/slicing :
Now again it might seem that for a large blade this isn't that bad, however any decent large wood working blade will easily match the performance of a Mora if it is properly ground and can in fact exceed it. There is certainly no need to settle for performance which is lacking by 4 or 5 to 1.
In short for any kind of utility cutting the performance is going to be very low.
On some wood work it has similar performance to a Fiskar's Sportsman in regards to the number of chops. At first this seems like decent performance because the Fiskar's is a very decent performer for its size but the critical part is that the Fiskar's also performs very well for its weight.
The Village Parang is almost twice as heavy as the Fiskars which means it :
While the raw penetration is there, it comes from raw weight which means the effort is much higher than on the Fiskars and it has ergonomic issues as well. The handle is round and tens to roll in hand easily and also has a very fine and thus slick finish.
However while the very thick profile does tend to hamper performance, especially the very high angle edge, on rougher work it does allow the knife to be used with little care for technique and to apply mainly brute force.
It can be used to split woods for example by pounding through knots as there is so much steel in the edge it has little chance to roll or dent. Even on the most abusive cutting which is limbing dead woods it easily smashes through the wood without concerns.
The same heavy blade also makes a decent hammer for pounding in stakes, breaking wood apart and in general just smashing things.
On lighter brush work the Village Parang shows the limitation of versatility when the thick cross section is combined with the lack of distal taper. One of the main benefits of using a long blade vs an axe for wood work is that a long blade can be much more beneficial on lighter brush work and this is accomplished in critical part by varying the grind so as to achieve that.
An axe generally has a very small bit or edge length and all of that edge has to be optimized for the task at hand. However a long blade can easily be ground in the different sections which are used on the various tasks. In general this is achieved by :
However the Village Parang has none of this and thus it is very similar to trying to use an axe for brush work with the only advantage that the blade is longer so there is more reach. It can be done sure, but it is really outclassed by blades which are designed to do so and the performance is multiple to one in terms of efficiency and fatigue.
Ergonomics & Security : as the grip is round and rather smooth the ergonomics and security are fairly poor. There is little to hold the hand in place aside from raw force by the user which generally increases fatigue. This is compounded by the fact that the very heavy cross section requires very heavy force in use.
Durability : the grip held up initially to some spine impacts for some splitting as noted in the above. However on some difficult to split wood it later fractured badly due to it being very dry and also having less than ideal grain. Now to be clear it could have been treated with some oil (lindseed or tung) which may have prevented the fracture. However there have been reports of soaking the handles causing them to lose the bond to the tang which are a point of concern.
The village parang comes with a decent leather sheath, solid thickness, swivel clip, dual retention loops and for the most part decent stitching. However there are a couple of significant problems :
Because of this the loop quickly opened up once the glue let go and then this caused the rivet head to pop off which threated to make the entire loop come apart.
In short this has little going for it as a cutting tool :
Its size and weight do make it a decent brute force tool, however the handle broke readily during extended splitting. This and the overall low performance as a cutting tool limited the work to a low volume and hence there was not extended commentary on the steel, sharpening, and edge retention .
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and/or the YouTube Playlist for Condor.
Most of the pictures in the above are in the PhotoBucket
album.
| Last updated : | 27/12/2013 |
| Originally written: | 04/08/2013 |