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Old 14th April 2008, 12:30 AM   #3
A. G. Maisey
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Join Date: May 2006
Posts: 6,675
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I think most western collectors would call this a "buyo knife", which I suspect is a bit of a half-correct western generated name. This type of knife is pretty common in Jawa and Bali, in Jawa its called a pangot or pangruk, in Bali its a pemutik---with the classifier "pisau" or "piso" for "knife" in front; I reckon you'd probably find variations of this knife right across SE Asia. Carpenters, carvers and other wood workers use them , and they're also a sort of general purpose do everything knife---pretty much like I'd use a pocket knife. They're good for splitting rotan, and good for doing very delicate detail work. I've got 4 or 5 of them---not as flash as this one was--- that I use as bench knives or general purpose knives. I don't like chisel grind blades much, and since I never have to split rotan, I've got a couple that I had made using damascus blades that I made myself. The thing I find good about them is the long handle, the fact that you can get your hand down easily onto the blade, and the angle at which the blade is set. Its a very useful design.
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