Vintage Kienel & Piel XXL Scout knife

[kwakster]

This is one of several projects i'm currently working on, a vintage XXL Fahrtenmesser/Scout knife manufactured by Kienel & Piel in Solingen, Germany.
In Germany knives this size were often used by hunters for clearing shooting stands etc, but basically by anyone in need of a good quality heavy chopper with a classic design.

Once used in the jungles of Suriname by Dutch soldiers of Third Suriname Company in the early 1960's, this knife was recently found sheathed in an attic during a house clearing after the owner had passed away.
It's blade was corroded black, somewhere in time it had been "sharpened" on a bench grinder, and all handle parts were loosened and dried out.
But as the blade was still structurally sound and i have a soft spot for vintage German knives it became another project.

I chose to regrind the originally saber ground blade to convex by hand using a Chinese 300 grit diamond file, which removed most of the corrosion & edge damage, while at the same time giving the knife a much more effective blade geometry for chopping.
Also did a few refining steps using waterproof SiC paper on a semi-hard rubber backing with WD40 as a lubricant, but just enough so i can do a bit of test chopping when time permits.
The new edge measures somewhere between 25 and 30 degrees inclusive, and i still have to remove the burr.
The original stag handle was way too thick & lumpy for my hand, so after glueing all parts together i gave it a bit more ergonomic & functional shape.
Especially the thinning of the handle just behind the guard while leaving a thicker midsection makes for a very comfortable hold with much less hand fatigue.

How i received the knife:









How it currently looks:











Specs:

Overall length: 17.4 inches (44,2 cm)
Blade length: 12.3 inches (31,3 cm)
Blade thickness: 4,0 mm
Steel: hot drop-forged carbon steel
Weight: 476 grams

[SteveC]

Wow, that's a big one     Great job ! 

[RF52]

Sent fra min FRD-L09 via Tapatalk

[Ray S]

Great work! I've never seen one that big;the biggest one I have has an 8 inch(200mm)long blade by Olsen and I thought that one was big.They probably weren't made for export.Thanks for posting it.

[sak60]

  Impressive piece of bladeware.

[n4vgm]

Nice restoration! I recently started looking at 7"+ fixed blades as a "mini-machete" and there are not too many out there other than  by Scharade (under $60 US).

Not that I really need one in suburbia and I already own a short machete and a short Kukri which both came in handy after the last hurricane hit SE Florida back in '04/'05. I do not a a proper yard, only "common area" around which is landscaped. After those storms I was effectively trapped by fallen trees on the sidewalk to the parking lot. At least I could clear enough to get by.

Machetes are a required tool in tropical climes.