Indian L1A1 Scabbards

[Flying10uk]

Is any-one able to confirm if the Indian army ever used cut down 1907 leather scabbards with it's wood gripped L1A1 long bladed bayonets, please? I have an Indian L1A1 long blade bayonet but with-out the scabbard. A simple solution would be to cut down a 1907 scabbard but I would like to keep the combination historically accurate. The other option I may try is to look for a longer steel scabbard from another bayonet maker, shorten it and then graft it onto a No5 mouth-piece. Many thanks for any info.

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[Peter Laidler]

Since we know that the Indians did in fact use a longer steel scabbard for their longer L1A1 bayonet, it'd be unlikely that they'd use cut down SMLE scabbards when they already had the facility to make the real McCoy. You could just make an extended scabbard from two knackered L1A1 scabbards. I'm sure someone will give you the exact length, cut to suit square on mechanical saw, top of one, bottom of the other neat tig weld under the where the frog sits and Bobs your uncle.........

Exactly 10" long excluding the mouthpiece

[browningautorifle]

IMA has standard length for $24 ea. I'd buy two and do what Peter suggests, the originals don't seem to surface.

[Flying10uk]

I hadn't thought of joining 2 No5 scabbards together but did wonder about extending a No5 scabbard. Being made of such light gauge steel about the only form of welding that is likely to work would be Tig but I may see if the join could be made using silver solder as I don't have a Tig welder in my home workshop.

[browningautorifle]

You could try a car body shop, they have huge experience at joining thin metal like that.

[Peter Laidler]

Car body shop.... thin material......... Especially if they're used to fixing the last of the Rover cars that seem to be made from bean can material! To be honest, the No5 scabbards are not particularly light gauge. We used to dolly the dings and dents out on a mandrill

I am thinking tig weld because you get a strong butt joint but not so with silver solder unless it's an overlapped joint. There will be specialist welders/fabricators on a little industrial estate near you!

OR....... just unbraze the button and fabricate an extension to form the longer top section. Tig that on, braze button back on, drill mouthpiece retaining screw hole and that's it. That's what I'd do. Cheap or what?

Added a bit later.... If these long scabbards aren't easy to obtain, what about doing a short pictorial/photographic essay about how you went about converting a shortie to a long one. I'm sure it'd be useful. Just like the Mk5 Sten gun butt from a No4! Mind you, from the feedback, I think that was a bit beyond the ability of the average forumer!

[Flying10uk]

I've got my thinking cap on and will consider the options and it may even be simpler to make a new longer scabbard body from scratch rather than join 2 together. All I would need to do is to produce a former of the correct shape out of steel or hardwood first. When I get started I'll see about taking a few pictures but it may have to be with a film camera unless I learn how to use my digital camera which I haven't so far. We do have Tig welders at work but if I was to take a gun or weapon part into work all hell would be let loose- literally.

[Peter Laidler]

Making from scratch eh! They were originally made from tube, the circumference of which was the same as the circumference of the scabbard. The last couple of " at the end of the tube was rolled down between 3 sets of rollers which reduced its diameter. The now 'pointed' tube .....not really pointed but formed into a shallow closure - was then rolled through a couple of rubber lined roller presses until it ended up as the scabbard we see but in white metal, bare and in need of finishing.

I had a few in these production stage examples that I kept meaning to add to a bayonet display that we had showing the various stages of bayonet manufacture titled 'THE ANATOMY OF A BAYONET. Not as simple as you think'

Re your last sentence. With colleagues like that......... I better say no more

[Flying10uk]

I have/had a couple of spare No5 scabbards in stock although both probably repros I did decide to have a go at mig welding them together this afternoon. The operation was slightly complicated by the fact that there was a slight size difference between the 2 scabbards and so the lower one needed slits cut in the sides to reduce the width slightly. The 2 were then mig welded together and the slits also welded up followed by sanding/dressing of the welds.

I have taken pictures but I am having problems uploading them as their file size seems too large.

[Peter Laidler]

I'm sure that a lot of people will thank you for that, especially as they're more scarce than the bayonets.