LanCay Shallow Fuller? What's the verdict?
 

Hello Folks,

Here is a side by side comparison of two LanCay M9s. Both are early contract (right after the Gen Cut blades. Both are hollow ground blades. Both, of course, have fullers.
The M9 in question is the lower one in the picture. It’s fuller is narrower than the one on the top and has a depth of .07 inches. The top M9 has a fuller depth of .10 inches. The books and internet say the depths should be .12 for the deep fuller and .06 for the shallow fuller.
I would suspect that an argument could be made either way as to the rarity of this particular “shallow fuller” M9.

If it is NOT the rare shallow fuller M9, it’s because the margin for error in fuller depth is +/- .06 inches. Since this “shallow fuller” is .07 inches, it falls within the margin of error for the regular issue fuller depth.

If it IS the shallow fuller, it’s because the fuller measures 1/100th of an inch off the mark for the required shallow fuller depth. Literally close enough for government work. Not to mention that my measurement could be a hundredth off as well.

You be the judge. What's the verdict? Thanks in advance.
Marv

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...5/IMG_0004.jpg

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...IMG_0003-2.jpg

I think this is more likley the extreme range of the tolerence on the full depth fuller rahter than the shallow fuller. After all the shallow fuller was put forward because th elower tolerence for it was no fuller at all.

When I saw the auction that Mr. Moon posted, I asked the seller for more pictures.
These were then added to the auction.
I had a look at them, and came to the conclusion that this was a standard fullered variation.
Assuming that the bayonet from this topic is the same of the auction, I'm not so sure anymore, but please consider that I (unfortunately) do NOT have a shallow fuller to compare directly.

Have a look at the following topics

http://www.quarterbore.net/forums/showthread.php?t=5555

http://www.quarterbore.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1928

My personal rule here is, looking at the pictures, to look at the "space" between the fuller and the "profile" in the middle of the blade (sorry, don't know the correct english word for it).
I'm borrowing the image from this topic to explain this

http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/4756/img0004pse.jpg

Definately worth to wait for the opinion from someone more expert than me.

I've looked at these pictures for a very long time. I didn't respond at first because it wasn't very obvious to me, but after a considerable amount of time and comparing with other photos, I think this is more than likely a shallow fuller LanCay.

I do have some concerns about the standard fuller LanCay you picture. The blade appears to me to be a very bad factory second. Compare the back point of the cutting edge on the two bayonets you show. The one on the standard fuller is non-existant. Also, look at the area of the blade where the ricasso meets the cross guard. The shallow fuller shows what both of these areas should look like.

Having the advantage of seeing the bayonet up close, I measured the area of Carlo's red lines. The long line is .259 inches ("shallow fuller")and the short line is .213. The actual width of the wide fuller is .40 inches and the width of the narrow fuller is .34 inches, .06 inches difference.

One thing that would indicate that this is a regular fuller is this. If you notice what looks like a gritty line of grease along one side of the fuller; that is actually where the milling bur chattered along path. It would be entirely possible that this blade was either unfinished and needed another pass of the milling bur to complete the fuller, or it was rejected outright and assembled some years later just for me.

As I am writing this, I noticed that Porterkids has weighed in.
I am quite aware of the deficiencies of the regular fullered bayonet. I figured that is was resharpened to remove some deep gouges on the edge, but a factory reject is a good suspicion.

Please comment on the milling process used on narrow fuller bayonet. Most do not looked milled, but rather forged and bead blasted. Thanks
Please comment again.

Marv

Here's a very close up picture of the "unfinished" nature of the fuller. Almost doesn't look like the same bayonet. On the second picture, you can see where the bur dropped into the fuller and smeared metal. Now I'm not so sure that the bur ever passed through the fuller. Both ends of the fuller show this circular pattern.
Marv

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...5/IMG_0011.jpg

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/m...IMG_0014-1.jpg

Marv,
it would had been too difficult to "create" a shallow fuller LanCay from a standard first contract one (without fuller), plus I don't see how it could be possibile to modify a standard fuller blade into a shallow fuller one.
As far as I know there were never reports of rejected shallow fullered blades, (re)assembled later (as it happened with the General Cutlery variation).

As " souvenir " from the Lan-Cay Cie, for see, understand, that make an M9 BAYONET it's not make a Super High Quality product as a " diamond "... See the machine-tools in these videos, and the environement.. It's not a " Laboratory " as at the GLOCK guns maker in Austria or at the FERRARI cars maker in Italia,... as example
HERE some guys who was in the Lan-Cay Cie : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ti52ZIne18&feature=plcp

The model 1992 that u have Misfit45 had a good end price : 360 $.
I bought these 92 model 375 $ in 2008 and 310 $ in 2009.
With the Fastex clip code 92.

http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/...2LanCay003.jpg

http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/...2LanCay004.jpg