What to look for in a Parang?

[Lush]

Hi all,

I have a roughly forged parang. It's beautiful already, but it's only the beginning. I can still go any direction with it as the dimensions leaf me enough room for almost any type of parang. I am inspired by the parang in the picture below. I have no experience with chopping blades at all and like to discuss the possibilities, do's and dont's of this type of knife. I have some input myself already:

Most parangs have a quite steep angle (just after the handle) which leads to the sharp part of the blade. I noticed that this angle, where the steel is not sharp yet, allows me to hold the blade and use the beginning of it (the blade) as a knife. Do you think it is important to have such a feature in a survival/bushcraft parang? Is this steep angle actually meant for holding the blade as a regular knife?

I have a dilemma which has to do with the handle:
The handle of the parang I am inspired by looks very, very nice in my opinion. It makes very nice lines. The corners are a bit too sharp for my likings though and I don't think it's very safe for chopping. So I was thinking of making a handle like in the lower picture. That handle is safer because the rear end widens and prevents the knive from slipping out of my hands when chopping. Only..., I don't like the looks of that handle, which is my dilemma, arggg. I want something that looks good to me AND has "the right" ergonomics. Any suggestions for another type of handle? (no traditional bent handle; I do not have enough steel for that in the handle area) I am going for a full tang solution btw.

thanks in advance!
Lush
------------

The picture below shows the design I am inspired by. It has a full tang handle:


Handle that's more save and gives a bit more control:

 

[C_Claycomb]

I know that I have seen some good handle shapes that might do what you want, but can't lay hand to on-line images just yet

You definitely want more flare at the back of the handle. Drop at the butt is good. If I were in your position I would be trying to think how to make a handle with drop with the steel that you have, rather than discounting one of the best working handle shapes because you don't think you have enough steel for it. There isn't anything that says that your full tang has to go all the way around the handle, or that a sufficiently strong chopping knife must be full tang. You could go for mostly full tang, and used a spacer where you run out of steel. When done neatly this wouldn't look bad and wouldn't cost you any strength.

 

[Lush]

Hmm, you are actually right. I never thought of making it partially "full tang" and using a spacer. It could look nice too. Besides..., like I said, the dimensions of the blank I have now are huge! Even in the handle area. I do have some steel to make a nice drop at the butt end of the handle. Maybe I can make a spacer from greenheart to extend it a bit. I was thinking of using birdseye maple for the rest of the handle. Both nice and strong.

A very good advice I recon . Thank you! I will probably do it that way. You are right; traditional parangs are almost never full tang.

The blade (when finished) will be tapering from 5 or 6 mm to 3 mm. What is the most usual/usefull grind for a parang? Convex from ricasso till tip?? Wikipedia sais: "A parang has three different edges, the front is very sharp and used for skining, the middle is wider and used for chopping, and the back is very fine and used for carving."

Anybody with a suggestion for the grind type of the blade?

thanks again Claycomb!
Lush

 

[C_Claycomb]

Well, the Penan parang that I have doen't follow that edge grind pattern. The taper is about right, over an 18" blade, but it has been forged to be convex on the right side (looking down on the spine from handle end) and concave on the left. That makes it a superb cutter when swining from right to left, but not good in the other direction.

I am working on getting a parang made to the same pattern, but with a symetrical grind and am going to go for a flat grind with a convex edge, max full distal taper and max thickness 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up the blade with the spine being ground a little thinner to improve the flow of things I cut. The idea of having it as a fine edge near the handle sounds good, although I am not so sure about a really thin tip. I use the tip of my parang for cutting close to the ground and for snap-cutting light vegetation. I wouldn't want it to be too thin. Of course, that is on an 18" blade.

On a shorter blade you are fighting much harder to get weight out the front. Things like the Martindale Jungle Knife have a steep distal taper, but get weight forward by making the blade deeper towards the tip. If you aren't playing games with blade profile, and have a shorter design, a varying convex grind will give a bit more mass than a flat will. I just find doing convex grinds on wider blades a little more tricky.

 

[TheGreenMan]

An interesting and complex question, Lush.

The first consideration, and probably the most important, is what you intend to use the knife for, and in what environment. I think that many other far more experienced blade users than me would agree with this as a starting point.

For instance, are you intending to use the knife in an environment that has woody vegetation, or on soft, fresh, green growth? Is the blade meant for multi-purpose use or for a specific use? Meaning, will it be used for several tasks, or for mainly a single task?

Here is a ‘real world’ example. I am having a Parang commissioned, and my stated intended purposes for the knife were - ‘chopping woody vegetation’ (in the European environment, not jungle), ‘preparing firewood’ (splitting wood for kindling etc) and ‘preparing food’ (vegetable and animal). This was my first design:

After much thought, effort, and advice, this is the final design I came up with:

Now, the first thing to say is that I’m not totally happy with the handle as illustrated in the above drawing. Mainly because having recently received and used a Parang Bandol from Valiant, I now appreciate the dropped shape of the handle at the butt, or pommel end of the handle. It’s more comfortable, because it doesn’t dig into the soft flesh of the base of the palm of the hand. So I recon that the handle you illustrate in the image ‘parangai5_th’ pretty much ‘on the money’ in terms of safety and ergonomics, and this is how I would like my handle to look.

That said, the design in image file ‘short_iban_parang_bcuk’ was shown to a Malay blade smith of more than seventy years of age, and he thought it was a good design for my intended purposes. Which, came, to a person who has been interested in blades for a little over two years, as something as a surprise and delight, and made me think that my instincts weren’t all that wrong (swelled head, and all of that).

OK, so now on to the blade itself. This is how I see the various sections of the blade functioning for my purposes:

For me, I see the section ‘A’ as the part of the blade for cutting tender green growth of various plants, it’s thin at the tip (due to the distal taper) and will penetrate deeply due to the thin cross-section. Section ‘B’ is somewhat thicker and more robust at the edge and might be regarded as the ‘sweet spot’ for heavy chopping of woody stuff. And section’C’ is the thickest part of the blade and more suited, in my opinion, for spitting firewood and chopping through bone. The raised position of the handle (‘cranked’ handle) keeps the knuckles of the hand grasping the knife, away from the wood to be split, or when chopping material on a flat surface.

Contrary to the idea of using the section of the blade closest to the handle (Ricasso end – ‘C&#8217 as a knife for fine work, with a ‘choke grip’ on the Ricasso, I prefer to use this part of the blade for splitting and very heavy work, due to the fact that the blade will be thickest at this point and will have a greater wedging action, something like a hatchet. Of course, if the edge at that portion of the blade is kept very sharp (finely honed) there is no reason to suppose it won’t function as a knife, just not one with a fine, thin cross-section. Don’t expect to do your finest carving with this part of the blade, and for that matter, any other part.

This of course is a personal opinion, base on my usage of the short Parang/Golok type of knife. Your needs and experience may produce an entirely different set of needs, and design.

On the matter of handle material, a full tang design makes the choice of handle material much simpler, much strength is gained from a full tang, and so the choice of wood is not so important. But with a hidden tang the choice of wood is much more important. A hard wood (heartwood) can apparently result in an injury similar to ‘tennis elbow’ due to much of the shocks from hard blows being fully transmitted to the bones and tendons of the arm. A softer wood (sapwood) will absorb much of the shock from hard blows, I’m guessing like that of the springy sapwood of Ash or Hickory used in axe helves.

I won’t address the matter of type of grind, be it full height flat, full height convex, flat with a convex edge, flat with a bevel at the edge etc, etc, This kind of territory is way too controversial for me to take an interest in.

I think Chris has covered pretty much the same ground as me and more, and he has a good deal more experience than me!

Blades are great fun, don’t you think? Such sweet torture!

Best regards,
Paul.

PS: facetted handles are worth consideration, as the very first thing I noticed about Parangs/Goloks, are their tendency to rotate in the hand during heavy, chopping, blows.

 

[Lush]

Wow, such nice response! Very helpful.

My parang will have a 12" blade. Making it full convex will be quite a hard thing to do indeed, I guess. As long as it's convex it's good enough for me. It's meant for chopping mainly. As multi purpose as possible (I might take an occasional head, now and then, hahaha). It's my first parang, so multi purpose seems to be the right choice. It's mainly for fun of making. If it proves itself (doesn't break ect.) I will probably use it in Europe first. After.., I might take it to a jungle [if I can get it there, hehehe.] Oops, I am getting ahead of myself hehehe.

Weight is a big issue to me. It weighs more then 1,5 kilo like it is now! Like I said it is roughly fordged (for me, not by me) to the dimensions I asked for. I have been a bit too generous with the dimensions. Now I have to just grind and see what weight I end up with. I lay-out the final design firstly of course.
Full tang is definitely going to add to the weight. I plan on drilling holes in the tang. I was even considering a tapering tang, but that might just be what makes it weaker at the pommel/butt end (with such high forces during chopping.)

Very nice design GreenMan! Pheww, it doesn't make it easier for me to make the final decisions about my own design! Mine is going to be a relatively short one like yours. So I can go two way's I guess (learned something new here.) I can make a broad blade to get the weight out the front, like Claybomb mentioned. Or I can make a longer, more slender neck to move the point of gravity towards the sweet spot (which I would want to have in the middle of the blade naturally.) Your comments about handle ergonomics make it even harder on me.

quite a torture (but a sweet one!), to give birth to a parang indeed... I think the actual grinding and sanding will be almost easier to carry out then making of the design, lol.

Please keep posting if you have any more input, there are not too many substantial threads that discuss parang making...

 

[TheGreenMan]

...Making it full convex will be quite a hard thing to do indeed, I guess...

I imagine that you’d find a full height convex a lot easier to do with a belt sander. I don’t have any power tools so, I do all my regrinding of blades with hand files and flat stones.

The work proceeds pretty slowly, but I find this works better for me as a beginner, as I can remove some metal, test the blade with a little chopping or whatever, remove a little more metal, test again and so forth. I find that in this way I can discover what works and what doesn’t. The slow pace of work also helps to avoid making really big mistakes (like removing too much metal – once it’s gone you can’t put it back!) that might happen if using various types of powered grinders that can remove metal very quickly, this is particularly important for someone like me with little experience.

Hand tools also prevent the danger of messing up the tempering of the blade due to the heat generated by power tools.

...It's mainly for fun...

That's what it all about, dude, at least for me

...Weight is a big issue to me. It weighs more then 1,5 kilo like it is now!..

Weight is another important consideration. A short Parang or Golok is meant to be a fairly heavy blade, as I’m guessing this is what gives it much of its chopping power. The Parang Bandol that I have is pretty chunky at around 600g. Even the tip of the Bandol blade is very, very strong, and will chop through seasoned pinewood with ease. And would substitute for a hatchet very well, and I’m guessing would even fell a good sized tree without too much inconvenience. But I’ve got to say that 1.5kg seems like one ‘big muther’, unless you’re built like Mr Schwarzenegger.

By the way, the Bandol is similar in style to the drawings above, but with a more rounded ‘sheepsfoot’ than mine, which adds just a fraction more weight at the front end, this is probably why it chops so well in the first 10cm back from the tip.

...Full tang is definitely going to add to the weight. I plan on drilling holes in the tang. I was even considering a tapering tang...but that might just be what makes it weaker at the pommel/butt end (with such high forces during chopping.)...[/

Yeah, it’s interesting about the full tang. We in the West, seem very preoccupied with the full tang, and indestructible strength. Yet the people with hundreds of years of experience with making this type of knife, don’t seem to be at all. But I’m not in any way trying to get you to change your mind about using a full tang, the full tang does have its place in the scheme of things.

...So I can go two way's I guess (learned something new here.) I can make a broad blade to get the weight out the front, like Claybomb mentioned...

Chris is absolutely right about this, definately throw the weight forward, it reduces the amount of force you need to put into each chopping blow. An axe or hatchet has all it weight and force delivered from the end of the helve (think of the axe/hatchet head as the tip of the Parang), this is why an axe or hatchet penetrates so well, the force is concentrated into the small area of its cutting edge.

...Or I can make a longer, more slender neck to move the point of gravity towards the sweet spot (which I would want to have in the middle of the blade naturally.) ...

Based on my experience so far, I'd recomend making the Ricasso more slender, in addition to adding weight at the tip end.

There’s a member here known as BOD, and he is very, very experienced with Parangs of many kinds and uses them on a daily basis, and is very familiar with jungle country, he’s a guy you really need to speak to about this kind of knife, he could advise you far better than I ever could. Some of the Moderators on these forums have a lot of experience of this larger type of knife too. And if I remember correctly, the member CanRanger made a very fine looking full tang Parang a while back, so it might be worth having a look for that thread.

Old Jimbo’s site is well worth a read, if you don’t know of it already. He has a serious amount of experience and knowledge of big knives:
http://www.oldjimbo.com/survival/


Best regards,
Paul.

 

[TheGreenMan]

Just to make things a little clearer, Lush, this is the Bandol:
http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t179/B3xIq7/bandol_bcuk.jpg

And forgot to mention earlier that there is quite a bit of very nice info about big blades here, and a lot of other interesting stuff (some of which is duplicated on Old Jimbo’s site): http://outdoors-magazine.com/s_topic.php?id_rubrique=21

Best regards,
Paul.

 

[Templar]

Hi Guys,
It seems that we have come back to one of my favourite topics the Parang and Golok.

A well made and designed Parang is easy to use and with a bit of practice it can be used for any task you can think of around the camp.

Now as for the design, the grip / tang should be at such an angle that the cutting edge impacts long before the knuckles will, grind is a personal choice so I will leave that one up to you, in a traditional Parang / Golok the tang is not a full one rather it is more of a partial (read half) one that tapers down to almost a rats tail, this is because the momentum of the swing dose all the work not your arm also this is the reason for them being a very sharp tool, the weight should be well forward in the blade for this reason.

The design Greenman has put forward is an excelent example, my only mod would be to lower the angle of the grip by a few degrees to make it more user friendly and less fatiguing to use for an extended time.
The grip should have a hook or balled end on it so you dont throw it away when your hands are wet or covered in sweat, and consider puttind a lanyard on it too.

For my own part I use a couple of different weed wackers out in the bush, an army issued Golok (Australian), a Valiant Golok Potong (http://www.valiantco.com/java/GolokPotong.JPG) a Valiant Klewang Bugis (http://www.valiantco.com/celebes/KlewangBugis.JPG) an Indian Army Khukri and a smaller UK issued Khukri, each one has its good points and bad and I would be hard pressed to pick just one blade to do everything but the two best cutters I own would be the Valiants.

I hope this is useful to you...

Cheers, Karl

 

[Lush]

Thanks Templar,

So that's why traditional parangs usualy have a partial tang? It makes sense. It also tells me not to use my arm too much at the moment of impact. It will only cause injury more easy. Especialy with a full tang that runs through to my hands.

@GreenMan: I think the Parang Bandal is the one that R. M*ars (not to bore ppl. hehe) uses in some of his episodes. I like to round off the corner on mine too, for safety. I book marked outdoors-magazine, cool.

This thread has become a real good one, I think. One that I will refer to in the proces of making my final design

thanks a lot,
Lush

 

[Templar]

No worries Lush...

The final design will be quite good when you are finished!

Now a little bit on the use of the Parang to help you understand it better for your design.

The Parang is an every day carry item in SE Asia, the size and shape is based on the cultural background of the people who made it.

For example, the Timorese Banada is small and light it looks a lot like a butcher’s knife and is no more than 30 cm long in the blade, it has a slight upward curve to it, and is quite thin in cross section of only about 3-4 mm, and a width at its widest point of only 4 cm's. It is used for every thing around the home and out in the forest from collecting light timber for the fire to butchering animals and preparing vegetables. (It also can inflict some of the most vicious wounds I have ever seen on a human being)

Now take the Golok from Malaysia it is fairly long about 40 cm and quite heavy it has for the most part a straight blade and a slight downward angle to the grip it is about 6mm thick and about 6-8 cm wide. It is used to cut some fairly dense tropical timbers and to clear light brush on the jungle floor to make shelters, traps etc, they do use it to prepare foods but it is mostly a heavy chopper, remember these people are mostly farmers and the like so they need a tool that can clear a lot of bush with little effort.

Now for the Parang from Borneo / Sarawak there are two main types here, 1, the short straight chopper like the one Greenman has designed, it is good for general cutting and camp tasks and food prep. the other one is ,2, a long upward curving or some times straight blade that belongs to the Iban people and it has an entirely different back ground, that is because these people are head hunters and used the Parang to fell people as well as trees, the two pics you can see in my last post are examples of this, the Golok Potong is a short chopper for the camp, but the Klewang Bugis is of the second type it is used for taking heads, butchering people and animals for the pot and other jobs out in the forest when you are hunting.

I hope this is of use to you in working on your design, I would recomend looking at the Valiant site,(http://www.valiantco.com/) armed with the info I have put forward here and you can see the use that the blade is meant for then perhaps it will help you to choose a blade design that will wor for you, because in the end you are the one who will be using it, just try to keep the weight down to no more than 600gm max! or you will get really tired and thats when accidents happen also if it is too heavy then you wont want to carry it and that would be a shame after all your research and work on it...

Just so you know I'm not just talking through my hat here, I spent 9.5 years with the Australian Army teaching jungle warfare and survival skills, I have worked in East Timor, Malaysia, Thailand and Brunie, in that time I have worked with a lot of different cultures and their tools so I feel I can give you the benifit of my aquired knowlege here on this topic.

Again I hope this info is of use to you...

Cheers,

Karl

 

[stuart m]

Cheers Karl,

That is a great post... I thoroughly enjoyed it, thank you for sharing

 

[stuart m]

I imagine that you’d find a full height convex a lot easier to do with a belt sander. I don’t have any power tools so, I do all my regrinding of blades with hand files and flat stones.

The work proceeds pretty slowly, but I find this works better for me as a beginner, as I can remove some metal, test the blade with a little chopping or whatever, remove a little more metal, test again and so forth. I find that in this way I can discover what works and what doesn’t. The slow pace of work also helps to avoid making really big mistakes (like removing too much metal – once it’s gone you can’t put it back!) that might happen if using various types of powered grinders that can remove metal very quickly, this is particularly important for someone like me with little experience.

Hand tools also prevent the danger of messing up the tempering of the blade due to the heat generated by power tools.



That's what it all about, dude, at least for me



Weight is another important consideration. A short Parang or Golok is meant to be a fairly heavy blade, as I’m guessing this is what gives it much of its chopping power. The Parang Bandol that I have is pretty chunky at around 600g. Even the tip of the Bandol blade is very, very strong, and will chop through seasoned pinewood with ease. And would substitute for a hatchet very well, and I’m guessing would even fell a good sized tree without too much inconvenience. But I’ve got to say that 1.5kg seems like one ‘big muther’, unless you’re built like Mr Schwarzenegger.

By the way, the Bandol is similar in style to the drawings above, but with a more rounded ‘sheepsfoot’ than mine, which adds just a fraction more weight at the front end, this is probably why it chops so well in the first 10cm back from the tip.



Yeah, it’s interesting about the full tang. We in the West, seem very preoccupied with the full tang, and indestructible strength. Yet the people with hundreds of years of experience with making this type of knife, don’t seem to be at all. But I’m not in any way trying to get you to change your mind about using a full tang, the full tang does have its place in the scheme of things.



Chris is absolutely right about this, definately throw the weight forward, it reduces the amount of force you need to put into each chopping blow. An axe or hatchet has all it weight and force delivered from the end of the helve (think of the axe/hatchet head as the tip of the Parang), this is why an axe or hatchet penetrates so well, the force is concentrated into the small area of its cutting edge.



Based on my experience so far, I'd recomend making the Ricasso more slender, in addition to adding weight at the tip end.

There’s a member here known as BOD, and he is very, very experienced with Parangs of many kinds and uses them on a daily basis, and is very familiar with jungle country, he’s a guy you really need to speak to about this kind of knife, he could advise you far better than I ever could. Some of the Moderators on these forums have a lot of experience of this larger type of knife too. And if I remember correctly, the member CanRanger made a very fine looking full tang Parang a while back, so it might be worth having a look for that thread.

Old Jimbo’s site is well worth a read, if you don’t know of it already. He has a serious amount of experience and knowledge of big knives:
http://www.oldjimbo.com/survival/


Best regards,
Paul.

Better post... I don't think so! Thank you

 

[TheGreenMan]

...The design Greenman has put forward is an excelent example, my only mod would be to lower the angle of the grip by a few degrees to make it more user friendly and less fatiguing to use for an extended time...

The Bandol has this lower handle position, you mention, Karl, and was one of the main reasons I bought one. I did in fact, modify my design to have a lower handle position as you suggest (following advice from a very experienced blade maker), but when I was presented with an unexpected opportunity to buy a Bandol (they're quite hard to get hold of), I decided to revert to an earlier pattern in the design process just to learn how the higher handle position differed in terms of performance.

...This thread has become a real good one, I think. One that I will refer to in the proces of making my final design ...

Well, I’m certainly learning a great deal too, I’m soaking up Karl’s knowledge and experience, like I’m a sponge! Cracking posts, by the way, Karl. Cheers!

Lush, the profile in the top drawing is BOD’s EDC, and it’s an Iban blade of the longer type that Karl mentions. The second one down, is one of RM’s Parangs, at least as best as I can draw it from video captures. And the third one down is my first design that was based on RM’s. The two shorter Parangs, BOD tells me, are of the Chandong style. One can clearly see the cultural connections in these blade profiles:

Better post... I don't think so! Thank you

High praise indeed, maestro. Thank you

Best regards,
Paul.

 

[BOD]

:

Most parangs have a quite steep angle (just after the handle) which leads to the sharp part of the blade. I noticed that this angle, where the steel is not sharp yet, allows me to hold the blade and use the beginning of it (the blade) as a knife. Do you think it is important to have such a feature in a survival/bushcraft parang? Is this steep angle actually meant for holding the blade as a regular knife?

This chap seems to think so

The design Greenman has put forward is an excellent example, my only mod would be to lower the angle of the grip by a few degrees to make it more user friendly and less fatiguing to use for an extended time.
The grip should have a hook or balled end on it so you don’t throw it away when your hands are wet or covered in sweat, and consider putting a lanyard on it too.

This makes sense and you could end up with something like this which would probably be more comfortable for extended chopping.

[/IMG]

While Greenman’s chandong pattern may be better with a drop handle, I recently discovered why the duku style blades may not have a drop handle.

The duko is the top blade here in Greenman’s drawings.

It is a blade used for clearing land for swidden cultivation – vines, brush, small trees and sapling. This is the best pattern I have come across for a trail knife. It is light and versatile and, unlike the parang or chandong or golok style which is worn vertically, it is worn nearly horizontally at the waist like a Japanese sword and tends not to get caught in undergrowth. While most standard parang strokes are a chop, the duku permits a easier slash with more wrist movement. This, couple with the blade curve, permits it to slice easily through undergrowth and even quite sizeable branches or sapling up to wrist thickness. You can also hold it at the end of the handle which allows a flick action which can be used when you lack space for a backswing or just want to cut a particular object without bringing the rest of the foliage down as well.

I then asked a smith to make me a duku with a drop handle for comfort and he did. It is more comfortable but I found that when my hand is wet and I try to flick the handle slips slightly. With more force, or when the user is tired, the duku could fly away like a lethal throwing stick. This is made worse by the tendency for handles to be made to fit smaller Asian hands not larger Western hands.

I’m not saying that your parang should not have a drop handle. It is a chopper and probably too heavy to use with a flick action.


Karl, I’m not sure about a lanyard but have never used one. If the user let the parang slip out of his hand at the end of a stroke could it not swing down and back toward him and get him on the shin, knee, thigh or even his elbow?

 

[Templar]

Karl, I’m not sure about a lanyard but have never used one. If the user let the parang slip out of his hand at the end of a stroke could it not swing down and back toward him and get him on the shin, knee, thigh or even his elbow?

Hey BOD,
Great post mate, now as for the Lanyard issues you raised, yes all of these things are possible, and for my own part I only have a lanyard on my Army Golok, and I only use the lanyard when I'm in dense vegitation or over water where I could lose it. But when I first started to use one we had to have one until we got used to the tool, ie: fatigue, build forearm / grip strength etc. most people just grip the tool and use it without one after they are deemed safe in its use, also, we hook the lanyard thgough our belt and back over the pomel when it is in the sheath so we dont loose it, the Golok stays on a seperate belt which we dont take off for anything along with our map and compass...

Anyway, for those who dont use a large chopper or are interested in learning to use one in the near future here are some general rules to follow:

1. always carry a first aid kit, include some adheasive sutures and some super glue as well.
2. never cut toward your own body.
3. never put anything you dont want to bleed or lose in the cutting arc.
4. learn to draw cut, the easiest way is to learn to cut by putting the pommel first. eg. you are cutting a sapling in front of you, cutting right to left you swing, and your hand passes the target a little before the cutting edge impacts with the target. This is almost a slashing motion but more controled. This can be a very efficent way of cutting once you learn it.
5. plan every cut, as any carpenter will tell you messure twice cut once, same goes for large cutting tools.
6. limit what you cut to things no thicker than your own forearm at most, but wrist is the normal rule of thumb.
7. keep it sharp and clean
8. if you are tired or cant see the target clearly then dont cut it.

The basic rules are the same as the use of the Axe, but this tool has a lot more risk involved, it will bite you if you dont pay attention to it, the best way to think of it is like nice wife, she looks good, can do anything in the camp you want her to, but as soon as you treat her poorly or stop thinking about her she will take her vengence on you... and she will leave you with more than just some harsh words when she argues with you.

In the end, the most important thing is to not be affraid of the tool, respect it yes, but dont ever become complicent with it. a good Parang is a dream to use, but with one small lapse in thought she will be your worst nightmare too, I know, I've got a nice scar in my left thumb to prove it, it was just a nick but I learned my lesson well...

I hope I havent put any one off this great tool, but remember.... RESPECT her.

Cheers for now,

Karl

 

[TheGreenMan]

While there has been some very useful discussion of handle position and the angle of the tang in relation to the cutting edge on various type of Parang, but how important are considerations like the circumference, and diameter of the handle cross-section, BOD?

Best regards,
Paul.

 

[Lush]

Wow, this topic is taken to extreme heights!

Regarding to the diameter of the handle; I think it is important for your fingers not to dig into the palm of your hand. So It would really depend on the size of your fingers, I guess.

I have been told to compare a parang handle to that of an axe (more or less.) So, round or oval, without too many finger grooves (or not at all.) Fairly uniform in size/diameter as well. It's all I can contribute

regards,
a very happy Lush!

 

[BOD]

---Regarding to the diameter of the handle; I think it is important for your fingers not to dig into the palm of your hand. So It would really depend on the size of your fingers, I guess.

I have been told to compare a parang handle to that of an axe (more or less.) So, round or oval, without too many finger grooves (or not at all.) Fairly uniform in size/diameter as well. It's all I can contribute

I think that is the essence of it. A parang and other big knives are swung and develop momentum, unlike smaller knives.

In the case of a tennis racquet, the key is that the ring finger does not meet the palm and that there is a small gap about 1/4" , the ring finger being important to stabilise the racquet and to prevent twist from an off centre ball strike.

While the swing action differs of course the comparison is still relevant. Too small and your hand works harder to keep the grip and you become tired sooner. Too big and you cannot maintain a firm grip without holding tighter with the same results.

I tried out this theory by asking a couple of big knife smiths who had actually used their blades for day after day of heavy work to hold their creations and the gap was there in each case.

It would be interesting to discover what is the ideal diameter heavy fencing swords like sabres.

Anyone know?

 

[TheGreenMan]

...Regarding to the diameter of the handle; I think it is important for your fingers not to dig into the palm of your hand...It's all I can contribute ...

A very important contribution, as was BOD's reply! Thank you both.

Best regards,
Paul.

EDIT:
PS: By the way, BOD, do you have any thoughts about handles with facets (think something like an octagonal cross-section), to help with preventing rotational twist? Instinct suggests it would, but would such a handle cross-section be likely to cause blistering with the swinging action involved?