Recently we have come across some posts in certain knife forums asking why there is such a price difference between the MY Parang – parangs , compared to the previous Bidor made parangs. To answer that question, we will take two simillar parangs – the MY Parang Duku Chandong and the Budget Chandong parang and compare them side to side.
Outdoor Dynamics has been selling the Bidor parang for quite a few years now, and they have had so many requests for wooden – handled parang. Hence, after many years of planning and thoughts, the brand ” MY Parang” was borne . All the goodness of the Bidor parang blades, but with a wooden handle.
Yes, the blades / blanks are sourced from the same blacksmith in Bidor , but for the case of MY Parang , we take a few more steps to clean the blade up. What we mean by clean the blade is to remove the protective shellac and black coating left after the forging and hardening process. With the black coating removed, we can now see the beauty of a hand forged blade. The forge marks are left intact and not ground smooth . We believe it gives a natural and unique look to the parang. One of the signs of authenticity .
We also clean up the spine, which comes from the factory all black and wobbly. We smoothen it down and give it a sharper shoulder so our users can use a fire steel on the spine. As you can see from the picture above, the polished spine looks much better and takes away the roughness from the factory.
Now to the handle . The budget Chandong parang has a plastic handle which comes from the factory. These plastic handles are not the best, but they are cheap and they do work. Some feedback we have received is that they are slippery or feel like holding a candle. We believe the plastic used to make the handle is not virgin material but consists of quite a large percentage of recycled plastics, hence the waxy feeling. The plastic handle of the budget chandong parang is fixed by heating the tang of the blade and sticking it in the handle while it is still hot. Once the plastic has hardened, the tang is pinned using a small wire / pin.
The MY Parang handle is made from Beech – eco wood sourced from Croatia. What we mean by eco wood is that the wood comes from a farm ( planted and renewable ), and not taken off the wild , like many local hardwoods are. Being an imported wood, it does cost a huge amount more to import, cut and shape to a handle, compared to a locally made plastic handle. While the plastic handle comes out the mold ready to be used, the wooden handle still needs work. We still need to do some minor adjustments such as – to fit the collar , install the tang and to dye it a darker colour. We also add in in a much thicker 3.5mm brass pin under the collar to give the parang additional security.
The MY Parang wooden handle also has a slightly different shape to it. The Budget Chandong parang handle is slightly shorter and the butt curves down more abruptly. This makes it slightly less comfortable if you are holding the butt of the handle for power cuts. The MY parang wooden handle has a gentler curve and is much more comfortable to hold , either choking up or extended for power cuts. You can see this clearly from the pictures above.
Above shows some measurements for the wooden MY parang handles. They were made slightly larger to accommodate larger hands, but they work very well even for those with smaller hands.
There is quite a huge difference in the Budget Chandong parang compared to the MY parang . As you can see, the Budget chandong parang is basically sold as it arrives from the factory. The only extra work we do is stick a price tag on it. With MY Parang , it goes through a much longer process and is made with using higher quality material – Copper collar, brass pin, dyed wooden handled and industrial strength epoxy to hold it all together. MY parang products are also packed in a presentable box .
We hope this post will enlighten those who have asked.
