Putting a wooden handle for my jungle parang blade

The parang blade I got from Johor

My jungle Parang is probably the second most important thing I carry whenever I head into the jungle (besides my Mora fixed blade). I recently bought a Parang blade from a maker in the southern state of Johor. I immediately fell for the blade because of its shape. It reminded me of the Parang Ray Mears used in his book ‘Bushcraft’. Though I doubt the quality of the blade, I decided that it would be a good piece to try my hands on putting a handle in.

This is my first time re-handling a blade (of any type) and not having the luxury of tools (my only electrical tool I had was a drill) added to the challenge. I don’t even have a work table! Anway, I am determined. My main tools are as below:

Mora Viking (Carbon Steel)
Leatherman Wave (saw)
Electric drill
2 pcs of nails
Epoxy

I used the dried wood of the Guava tree. The piece of wood has been sitting at home for months now. I needed a parang handle that is both comfortable to hold and more importantly secure. The last thing I need is for the blade to fly off during use.

I started by carving out the shape of the handle. I decided to keep a ‘knot’ on the piece of wood as the butt of my handle.

Shaping my wooden parang handle

Thank God for the Mora. Nothing I have used comes close to it’s edge. Love them. My Viking made the carving so much easier. At the end of it, despite my best effort, I ended with the below. Not exactly Ray Mears material but it’ll have to do.

My parang blade and the carved handle compared to Mr Mear’s version.

Next, I used the electric drill to drill the hole o insert the tang of the parang. This is probably the hardest part of all. I tied the handle to a post to help the drilling process.

The hole I made using the electric drill to insert the parang’s tang

I plan to use epoxy to fill hole and the parang tang together. But I needed an ‘insurance’ that the blade will not fly out during use. With a steel bit at the end of my electric drill, I made two holes through the handle for steel pins to keep the blade in. The steel pins I fashion from pieces of nails using my Leaterman wave. It took me like forever to make them holes.

I decided to have two pins in place to ensure that the parang blade and handle stays together

I fashioned them pins for the parang handle from nails

I know have everything in place. The only thing left is to tidy the wooden handle to make it look more presentable. Cosmetics are important but I was just an impatient worker. I decided to mix the epoxy together and get the pieces stuck together as soon as I can.

Epoxy in, followed by the tang and finally the pins.

It took the epoxy approximately 13 hours to cure. After the long wait, I finally sat down and looked into the finer details of the cosmetics of my newly re-handled parang. All in, it too me about 3 hours to make the handle, 13 hours to wait for the epoxy to cure and half hour to sand paper it.

Not the most good looking parang handle but I reckon it will do the job. Below are pictures of the completed handle.

The parang today

The wooden parang handle today

The two 'nail' pins in the handle