No5 bayonet/knife "conversion"

[Flying10uk]

I recently purchased this No5 bayonet at a good price because it has a good blade but unfortunately it is also missing it's catch button and has a broken muzzle ring. It was sold to me as a knife "converted" from a No5 bayonet and I thought that a good No5 bayonet could be made from it.

I don't think that there is any great historical interest value in keeping this knife/bayonet "conversion" in it's present state but I thought that I'd better just check before doing anything to it first???

Information

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[skiprat]

There are some new cross pieces on eBay!!UK

[CINDERS]

Looks at an attempt to make up a trench fighting knife isn't there a book on trench knives might be worth finding out a bit more F10 prior to re modeling it it may just be worth something besides you won't get a good price for a repaired No.5 knife as an unmodified one

[old-smithy]

I'm selling a complete No5 missing grips on ebay (oldsmithytwo) combine the two and you have a very nice No5

[browningautorifle]

There was a story about a knuckle bow available for the #5 bayonet to turn it into a "Trench knife" but I'm pretty sure that tiddly wire isn't it...the story was a piece of heavy wire though... I think that was just a fantasy piece. I share the idea of repair if possible...if you can do it correctly. Then you'll eventually get your money back. After all, Peter would have repaired them and they would still be correct...?

[Peter Laidler]

Another bast of the sensible from BAR. It's just a figment of someones vivid imagination. Not an easy fix as such and we'd just scrap it but it is a good doable and definately economic fix. X-pieces are available and a step by step lesson has been given by our pal, Big Duke. The catch and nut are simplicity itself to make on your little Myford - as are the BA grip nuts and bolts. New set of grips will take an hour at the most. Take it to a local steel finishers and have it bead blasted and chemically blackened and it'll be like new.

Why not make 10 sets of grip screws, nuts, catch bolts and nut and sell on the extras

Or sell it to me cheap.......

Cant find yours Old Smithy. item number please! I think it has blocked the US bayonets bit of the US Ebay. We're not allowed to see dangerous stuff like sharp knives and scissors, felt pens and crayons in case we do some harm.

[Flying10uk]

Thanks for your thoughts Jim, I've seen the new cross pieces on eBay priced at £8 but these are no better than I could make myself and they don't appear to be NOS items. It's not too much of a problem for me to repair/refurbish but I didn't wan't to inadvertently destroy a historical artefact in the process of putting it back into a bayonet. I do have another example with a much poorer blade which I may use as a donor for parts. I will then use the blade from this 2nd No5 bayonet to help put together a display of the various No5 style of blades from the No5 until the last L1A4 blade. I thought that it would be interesting to see just the bare blades for comparison purposes.

[Flying10uk]

Here are some pictures of the other No5 bayo which I mentioned in my last Post. As can be seen it has a blade in much poorer condition but it is a less common maker of N187 than Wilkinson.

[Peter Laidler]

Are you sure that the X-pieces on Ebay didn't come from Hopkinson? MUST be worth that as opposed to making a new one from scratch surely.......!

I had a No5 bayonet salvaged from the Sir Galahad that'd been in sea water for a couple of years and recovered before it was towed out to sea and scuttled. It was in better condition that the one you show in thread 8! Is that a bent or loose X-piece or just the camera angle? I would just make new parts for the thread 1 example and be done with it!

[Flying10uk]

The cross piece is slightly distorted on the example in Post 8, as is the blade slightly. I am planning to strip this example down in order to recover the blade blank, in any case and I think that some parts can be salvaged for the example in Post 1. I will clean up the blade blank and phosphate it to remove the corrosion.