These are my latest completed projects, victorinox gardener customs. Very classy:
The top knife is African Rosewood, the bottom is Red linen micarta.
The African rosewood knife is sanded to various grits, then tung oiled. The red linen micarta knife was sanded to a rough grit, polished with a coarse compound, and then a very fine one to produce a nice finish.
Perhaps the camera is picking up a little dirt on the knives, but they are spotless. The brass hardware is mirror polished after having been sanded to 1200 on the wooden knife and 220 on the red micarta knife, the results were the same due to the fact that they were buffed with the same compounds.
Now the pictures my friend took!
His skill with a camera and his camera itself is far superior to what I’ve got going on. ^_^
you can really see the grain in the materials just pop, it doesn’t have the depth that the Quina wood had, but these are still exceptional pieces.
I am starting to produce my own custom knives that suit not only my individual tastes, but the tastes of others, really. I find that there is in fact a demand for custom victorinox knives, though no supply whatsoever. Simply no money in it unless you do them in bulk, but doing something totally unique really does apply to me, so let’s have at it:
I replaced the boring as *Hell* pins with new ones. As opposed to just rounded brass, the center pins which are 1/8″ round stock, are polished brass and the others are 3/16″ 303 alloy round stock.
Ignore the metal under my nail in the top pick, but if you want you could probably zoom in on my scars, such nice quality.
In the second pic you see the knife displayed on the decrepit work bench, the reason is simple, it shows that something so ugly can help in the process of making something beautiful.
The pic is also displayed with 2 other bits of wood. One scrap piece of Quina wood which is used for this knife and raw Quina. The scrap piece is finished in the exact same way my knife is, except it is sanded to 220 grit as opposed to the 1200 grit I meticulously sanded the knife to.
The Quina wood knife has been oiled not only for appeal but for practicality, the finish is easy to restore by simply taking a soft rag and wiping oil on the knife, but at the same time while it is smooth, moisture in your hands makes the wood tacky. It is very Ergonomic as a result of this and the rounded scales.
The knife isn’t 100% perfect in terms of FINISH, can’t stress that enough, but I don’t care. Know why? Well, it is very simple, if I made this knife absolutely 110% perfect and immaculate, no one would want to use it, which would be ashame. Really the only thing that is off are the pins in terms of finish, but if you wanted to you could buff ‘em out yourself and the blade has a couple of minor scratches, but I build and design user knives, not knives intended to sit on a shelf. Not that there is anything wrong with that, I’m also a collector, but I want this to be appreciated not just for presentation but function as well. I’d more describe this knife as 90 percent, really the stainless pins are not finished super highly, but again, that is okay.
Lastly, the scales overall shape is a nice bubbly convex, it feels great in the hands and functions well. Something to address, the scales I put on the knife are maybe 35-50% thicker. Maybe for aesthetics I could see someone wanting thinner scales, but I don’t care about form over function. Function comes first. I feel like the old victorinox gardener had no purchase whatsoever, and especially with the plastic scales it tended to slide all over the place and just didn’t feel good. By my bulking these scales up and applying that beautiful tung oil finish (4 coats, cuffed in between each coat, BTW), the scales have more traction than they used to and fill the hand better. Lock up and retention are fine those didn’t change at all, feels good, I didn’t modify the locking bar or liners in any way, those functioned fine, the sclaes were my problem, and now they look dang nice IMO. ^_^
I do hope you enjoyed this, I intend to do a BUNCH more of these, they are just so much fun to make (And I mean that, I thoroughly enjoy my work!!).
If you want something like this done, email me: Salvatore2(at)lavabit(dot)com
Replace the at and dot of course, this is for security! I work real cheap when it comes to customizing these buggers, as I enjoy it greatly. Just title your message appropriately. And if you want Immaculate I’ll do immaculate, too, can’t say I blame people for wanting perfection.
Thanks! If you want to comment or put in your $ 0.02, I’m down with that. Enjoy the rest of you day!
Wednesday, November 24th, 2010 | Author: salvatore
I’m currently in the process of updating every one of my old reviews. The reason for this is quite simple, I’ve learned quite a bit more regarding knives and have even begun the production of knives.
So as such, the blog will be going through some changes, hopefully soon. This entails more comprehensive posts, updates regarding old knives, modifications which have been made to better the cutting performance of knives, the ways in which I did those aforementioned modifications and the knives I myself am making.
So yeah.. thanks. ^_^
Though I haven’t been active, the reason for that is the betterment of my site as a whole. Bear with me!
This post will kind of be a double feature kinda post. I am going to explain why in my opinion stone sharpening is important and why you should learn it, and of course why it is a part of knife maintenance, i.e keeping the edge pristine.
Let’s begin.
I personally believe that everyone interested in knives, or rather everyone that uses their knives should learn how to stone sharpen.
I always bought sharpening systems because I wanted to get the sharpest knife, and there is nothing wrong with that, but I also wanted to get reliable stones because I wanted to learn a skill. If you swipe an accusharp over a blade to get it sharp, it is fool proof, but you learn nothing. Not only do you learn nothing, but you’ll become dependent on sharpening systems in order to achieve a good and serviceable edge. So I got the DMT aligner kit because I could use the aligner to learn not only how the edge works, but to get sharp edges on my blades if I were to fail at free-hand sharpening. Now the thing about that is, the aligner failed. It is a very weak design that needs reform. I sent an email to DMT and they sent me a new one free of charge, which was why I gave their customer service such a favorable review, because they deserve it. The second aligner has loosened up greatly, it holds the blades but doesn’t clamp onto them as well as it used to. So basically a month after I got the system, not even a month, I started to just do free-hand sharpening to try and perfect it. I actually became a better sharpener than the system, because you have to measure the broadness of the blade and choose the appropriate setting for the job, and this was pretty annoying because it can always be off, because the aligner clamps onto the blade in an indefinite way, meaning that you can clamp it in such a way that the same setting that gave you 20 degrees may later give you a 24 or 25 degree edge because you can clamp it further down to the edge or more towards the spine.
This became quite annoying, but hell the stones were perfect so I just used them alone. Now if you know how to stone sharpen, you can use many different sharpening tools. Normal stones, convex stones, ceramic rods, chef steels and alike. But if you just use an accusharp, you’d be lost!
I’m trying to say that learning to stone sharpen turns out to be a very useful and versatile skill if you use knives.
I’m not saying I’m the end-all expert on knife sharpening, but I can get my knives pretty sharp, even razor sharp if I take my time and I’m only improving. With a few instructional videos on youtube and patience, I taught myself how to stone sharpen. The videos give you an excellent idea of how to sharpen, but there are so many methods and mixed opinions that I eventually just did my own thing.
Basically they say to “Hold the knife at a 20 degree angle and swipe the blade over the stone in a slicing motion, raising it a little to sharpen the tip”. Now this is true of most knives, typically knives come out of the factory sharpened at a total of 40 degrees. This means 20 degrees on each side. Some companies will sharpen their knives at a lower angle, however. Sometimes manufacturers will tell you what angle they sharpen at right on their website. Such as KA-BAR, they will tell you exactly what angle they sharpen their blades at. So sometimes (Typically this is true of high quality knives, steels like VG-10 and S30-V because the knives can take a lower edge) you’ll see knives sharpened at total of 30 degrees, meaning 15 on each side. So sharpening at 20 degrees all the time isn’t a very good thing to do, as per instructions on almost all videos I’ve ever seen. Match the bevel, that is what I do. Think of it this way, you have a ‘V’ shape knife. Now as you can see, if you can imagine that basic shape, you have 2 faces, 2 flat sides that taper down into your edge.
Basically, when you stone sharpen on a flat stone (If your knife has recurve, that is a whole different story, I’ll explain in greater detail later…) you want the aforementioned ‘faces’ to be in contact with the stone. I will provide a video of a bushcraft knife with large bevels, or ‘faces’ in order to elaborate a bit better.
As you can see by the knife, you have those large bevels, or ‘faces’ as I have previously mentioned. As you can see in the video, he sets the knife flat, and slowly brings it down until the bevel matches with the surface of the stone, then from there perform a slicing motion, and lift when you get towards the tip in order to sharpen the blade evenly.
If you have a recurve blade, you may have that standard ‘V’ edge, but if the edge curves to the point where it will not sit on a flat stone, that is where you’d bring in a steel, a ceramic rod or a convex stone. Now a recurve blade is basically a crescent moon shaped blade. Now on a flat stone, that crescent shape will skip over the stone, and the bevels will not make contact. In this case, a convex stone has less surace area than a flat stone, but because it curls it is allowed to sharpen and match the bevels of a crescent-shaped knife. A ceramic rod, or steel is circular in nature, so it can easily sharpen any knife, aside from serrations.
Serrations are much trickier to sharpen, and I won’t really explain how to do it. I have gotten some practice at it, but sharpening serrations isn’t as easy as sharpening a plain edge because different manufacturers have different techniques for cutting serrations into their knives. But for me, what generally works in my DMT diamond rod. A rod that tapers to a relatively fine point (For what it is) and it allowed to enter inbetween the serrations and sharpen the teeth. Generally for most people, it is nearly impossible to gain the factory edge back with just rods. As they will eventually become radiused over time, but in my opinion, this makes them less agressive and can actually aid in cutting performance.
Sharpening steels are typically used for maintaining an edge, but you can, as opposed to honing steels, get abrasive steels meant for putting an edge onto a blade as opposed to strictly maintaining it.
A steel will De-burr and realign Feathers. After sharpening with a stone, especially intended for use after a coarse stone, the knife will have steel left on the cutting surface of the edge, which will make it drag and feel more like a serrated blade instead of a plain edge. A steel will Hone the blade, taking all that excess steel and shavings and what not off the cutting edge to increase the cutting ability. And once you have sharpened and steeled your blade, it is always important to maintain that edge. After use in the kitchen, the knife will dull, no matter what your cutting. You may not feel it, but as time goes on, cutting even vegetables will dull your knife. Microscopically speaking, the edge of a steel blade will have Micro-serrations. These essentially look like ‘Feathers’. Basically this is why Obsidian knives are preferred for surgeries that require Extra sharp blades. Obsidian narrows to an extremely fine edge, much sharper than steel. And micoscopically, the edge is straight, as opposed to steel which has feathers. That straight stone edge allows obsidian to seperate flesh rather than tear through it, which is generally what a steel blade would do (Microscopically speaking, of course). Now these feathers will bend or curl, and once a steel is used, it realigns the feathers so that they are straight again, this allows you to keep the edge and not have to worry about using a stone.
You will have to eventually sharpen the edge, as the chef steel greatly hinders the dulling by maintaining what edge you have.
Now, let’s talk about why I believe stone sharpening is important to knife users…
Stone sharpening is one of the most common forms of sharpening, and in my opinion, is the most versatile form of sharpening. You can re-profile edges, sharpen existing bevels, polish, grind or what have you with a stone. There are better methods, but a stone can do all of these things. Not only that, but stones are the most widely available sharpening tools out there, you can get them at dollar stores! I could achieve a razor sharp edge with just 16 dollars worth of stones, now if I wanted sharpening systems, it’d probably cost more, and carbide cutting tools (Such as the accusharp I mentioned earlier) can remove a lot of metal and over time, eat up your edge. A stone, so long as you know what you are doing, will never do that.
On top of being as versatile as they are and so widely abundant, the principle of keeping your edge at a certain angle and performing swiping motions applies to other sharpening tools. Such as steels or hones (Which I use like stones for smaller knives), so learning how to use a sharpening stone can also improve other aspects of your sharpening prowess. And when you’re in the bush, taking something like a DMT duofold (which consists of 2 stones you can use to achieve a razor sharp edge) will GREATLY save on weight over even the most basic of sharpening systems. Not only that, but they are quite slim, so they, on top of weighing nothing, can fit into a shorts pocket. So, if you are into hiking but need to keep blades maintained, weight usually IS an issue, so saving weight and space on something as vital as maintaining an edge. Speaking of being in the bush, you can pick stones up off the ground and use those to sharpen. If you had a really dull blade, I could easily go find some quartz and touch my edge up, then go off and attempt finding some limestone or other fine stones to finish the blade. Limestone can also be mashed up to make abrasive an abrasive slurry, like a homemade strop paste for refining the edge, or for even polishing the surface of a blade, in order to stave off rust, or to even remove rust.
As you can see, there are good reasons to learn stone sharpening. With that said, I would like to add a Caveat I feel is important. You need to practice these methods before attempting to aplly them, what with the sharpening. Sharpening takes some degree of skill, so I recommend getting practice at it. And do not feel disappointed if you do not grasp it at first.
Sharpening can be very difficult, and as I’ve said, I can get knives razor sharp if I take my time, but before I’d usually wind up dulling or hurting them. Don’t get discouraged, take a cheap knife and practice at it.
Thanks, if anyone feels the need to add something, go right ahead, all comments are welcome.
This is going in the knife reviews secion, as it is still a bladed tool.
Stats:
Weight- 19.1 oz
Blade thickness- 2 1/4″ (Primary edge)
Blade length- 6 1/2 (Hawk length)
Handle- American Hickory
I tested this tool in the outdoors, it didn’t work as well as I would have thought, to be honest. It seemed like it would have worked very well, but on harder woods it did nothing but disappoint.
The first test I did was extremely simple, use the hammer-head pole to pound the stakes in for my tent. It did this, very simple. Worked extremely well, and I have no doubt in my mind that this thing would smash whatever you put in front of it. However, the blade itself wasn’t very good. I tried to chop down a small tree with this tool, this is not a tough job when the tree you are trying to cut down is 4 inches in diameter. The thing wouldn’t bite into it, the blade wasn’t sharp enough at all to bite into the tree, it simply glanced off. It was sharp enough to split wood, but not hack into it, well harder wood anyways. Which was all we had up at camp.
Hacking- In the hacking department, the trail hawk fails. Hacking with this hawk doesn’t work very well at all, really. Glancing off almost all the harder woods that I put it to, and not biting deep enough when it did cut into the woods. This is not acceptable for a tool that is supposed to excel in Hacking over splitting, i.e the thinner profile. This tool wasn’t meant to split wood per se, but it does that better anyways. Tomahawks are general purpose tools, but the thinner profile is usually intended for CQC (Close quarters combat) and the balance, which is lighter than that of a hatchet, is meant for throwing as well. Basically, it excels in combat, in that it is two-fold. CQC and mid-range throwing weapon.
The edge was sharpened at maybe a 30-35 degree angle, which as some know, is VERY dull. It only bites when swung at an akward angle, If it were sharpened at a lower angle, it would bite into harder woods, even a 20 degree angle (Which is usually reserved for knives, as opposed to tomahawks) would benefit this tool greatly. So in layman’s terms, the tool doesn’t hack well, it needs re-profiling and generally needs a new bevel. Not just a lower bevel, but the convex bevel has a secondary bevel. 2 bevels are present on my Tomahawk, and this makes the edge really dull and inhibits cutting performance, because the secondary bevels face is small and has a very high angle.
Splitting- Despite the fact that this tool is better at splitting, it still doesn’t perform all that well. I found that logs over 5 inches are VERY difficult to split, basically if they span the length of the hawk’s head, it will have a hard time splitting the wood, otherwise, 3-3.5 inch logs are usually split easily, for the most part. Sometimes the aid of a baton is needed, because this isn’t exactly a precision working tool. That is really all that needs to be said, the splitting isn’t all that it is cracked up to be.
Hammer pole- The hammer head of this tool is wonderful, despite the fact that the blade sucks, the hammer head has good surface area to it and it very beefy. If you need to smash something, this is what I’d use. No doubt in my mind that you could use this as a complete replacement for a hammer, and if the edge is re-profiled, you’d have the versatility of a good hacking/splitting tool with a hammer head.
Sheath- Well what can I say about the sheath… nothing. It doesn’t come with one!! It comes with a plastic sleeve, and it is advertised to be carried inside the waistband of your pants having the head hang onto your belt. I can say with utmost certainty, that after carrying this tool, I am even more disappointed. It is extremely uncomfortable to carry it in this manner, and it is also extremely taxing and just generally gruelling to carry it in such a manner. It comes with a plastic sleeve, which is can easily cut through, and it is too bulky for the advertised carry method, so on top of all of its failings, it doesn’t even come with a sheath. *Sigh*. Try and carry a “Sharp”, bladed object in your pants and you tell me how it feels! I did this only because you don’t want to scare people, and I wanted to see if this advertised carry method was even comfortable. It isn’t, sorry cold steel.
Handle- The handle is okay, I suppose. A functional American Hickory handle. It came with some high spots and some split spots, which gave me a splinter. <.< Easily fixed with sandpaper, but a good Varnish will help with the Ergonomics and longevity of this tool (Not to mention aesthetics), perhaps a nice black lacquer, even. Either way, this tool is good for people who like to do customization work, as it comes completely bare.
My reprofiling of the hawk- I recently acquired a 40 dollar harbor freight belt sander, which is a wonderful tool if you are a knife-maker or sharpener.I attempted to sharpen out that goofy secondary bevel, and so with Tomahawk in-hand, I proceeded to use a 120 grit belt to sharpen that secondary bevel out. Sparks fly, and it is neat.
But don’t get distracted! I held it at about a 25 degree angle or so, and after having finished up the edge. noticed a significant difference in chopping performance. Going to a log after re-profiling, it chopped and bit better, and even split better because the edge was sharp enough to finally bite. I am still going to work it down when I have finer belt and better control of my shaky, nerve-damaged hand, so it’ll only improve. I do recommend that owners of this hawk do this.
I’ll definitely have more on it in the future.
All in all, not a very good tool, to be frank. Sorry.
Thanks
If you liked this review, or would like to add your 2 cents, go ahead, I won’t bite your head off so long as you are decent. And by decent, I don’t mean clothed, but that’d be nice, too. ^_^
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 | Author: salvatore
This is an Update on the Buck 110 Hunter.
I have had this knife for about 8 months, now, and it has been serving me extremely well. Cuts very well, easy enough to re-sharpen, fantastic edge retention for the price an alike.Nothing more I can say about the knife, no developments in that area. It is still as good as it was when I first opened the package. However, as I noted in my review 7 month ago, the sheath of the knife has an odd smell to it, very similar to that of Vinyl. 8 months later and the sheath still harbors that evil smell!
I have tried a few different methods, rather my own home remedies to try and rid the sheath of that foul nastiness, and by home remedies I mean tried random scented things to try and mask it.
I first let it sit outside to see if that’d work. It let some of the bad air out, a lot was still there. I then proceeded to wipe it down with a heavy scented soap, and seeing as the outside of the sheath is water proof I tried this because I knew it would have no ill effect. This actually masked it for a little bit, but in the end not very long. I then lit some Japanese Incense and just let the smoke enter the sheath and work its way around it, in every little nook and cranny including the belt loop and all. This did work, a lot of the foul air went away, some of it is still present, but it did work. I have it on my belt as I type this out, and it has greatly improved. However, it is still present. Improvment doesn’t necessarily mean that it is all well and good now. I can handle what smell is left, but the fact that I had to go through so much to improve the tolerability of the sheath even after 8 months is beyond me. I contacted buck and they say they don’t know why it smells like this, however, they did tell me about their nylon sheaths. I like the look and ruggedness of a leather sheath, but the nylon sheath is bound to have less problems I’d imagine.
Also when I first got this sheath, there was an Adhesive-like material inside the sheath that impeded to extraction and actual sheathing of the knife. This is also still present, but when I first got the knife it was probably 200% worse than it is now. I cleaned a lot of this gunk out the first time that I got it and extraction was tolerable.
At the end of the day, the knife is still fantastic and you just can’t go wrong with a 110, but regarding the leather sheath, I am still on the fence about that one. On one hand, Buck told me that this should no have occured, and on the other hand it DID occur. So maybe I just got a crappy sheath.
This steel seems to serve so many so well. Well… not me, it seems.
I’ve been tinkering with my Cold steel ti-lite recently, trying my very best to get a good edge on this knife with my diamond stones, but nothin’. I’m keeping a 20 degree angle, and I’ve had no problems getting a razor sharp edge on other knives in the past, so I just don’ know what it is.
The steel seems very soft on my Ti-lite, indeed too soft. The edge I get on it is a good working edge, and can pretty much take care of anything I put in front of it, however, I want RAZOR sharp. Many say that because the steel is so soft, you should be able to re-sharpen it to a razor edge easily, I just don’t know what to say, it seems to dislike me.
I’m going to attempt sharpening it again, perhaps things will turn out.
…
Well, no dice. Attempted sharpening again and got a decent edge, but not the razor sharp edge that I want. Perhaps the bevels are wacked or something, but that isn’t likely. The steel doesn’t seem to be very good. The knife came razor sharp to me, so it can absolutely take that edge, held the edge pretty nicely, too. But it doesn’t want to take it at all. This is to say that my experience with Cold steel’s AUS 8A has been poor, and I hope maybe I got a lemon of sorts or an error was made, but as of right now I don’t like the steel all that much on CS knives. Just wanted to give fair warning. To be honest, the steel on this knife wasn’t too bad at first, but after awhile it seemed to lose all of its good qualities. It served me really well at first, and did the tasks I needed it to flawlessly whilst maintaining a sharp (SHARP) edge. So I’ll try and get a good edge on it in the future, but as of right now it doesn’t want to take an edge despite my best efforts.
This is a revisit of the outstanding Mora craftsmen.
I went to camp and tested this knife heavily. I used it for many things, opening simple packages, cutting down small trees and de-limbing them, and whittling, and I even tried it on a Fish to see how it’d fair.
On the fish I attempted to scale it, didn’t work too well considering the toughness of the scales, they required a serrated knife for the job to be done. However, cutting him open was quite easy for myself, easier than the knives we used for the job prior. However, the knife has absolutely no resistance to corrosion. As soon as the fish was cut up, I sheathed my knife.
I went back to look at it some 15 minutes later to see rust marks and discolorations in the steel. Fish is quite slimy, that gunk that coated the fish coated my knife, as well as blood (Which is one of the worst things you could have on a blade) which was held in by that gunk, it was almost like an adhesive keeping the blood sticked in place. Wiping it off did nothing, so the only thing I could do was get it to a water source. I later took a shower to get that nasty fish smell off me, hilariously I just took my knife in the shower with me to clean it, killing two birds with one stone.
I got the fish smell off my knife, but the rust marks and discolorations were still present, so a scotch brite pad was used in order to clean them off as well as buff some of the many scratches off. The smell was also in the sheath, so I had to wash that out as well, but because the sheath has a drainage hole the water was able to flow out without problems, a nice addition to a carbon steel knife.
If you do decide to get a bushcraft knife, especially an uncoated one made of carbon steel, definitely look at my section of Patina.
In the whittling department it did exceptionally well. Shaving down the length of saplings and doing light hacking and prying were no problem. It was even sharp enough to cut through knots. I made a bow up at camp out of a sapling my friend cut down, it shoots pretty well for what it is, but the bow string needs to be tied better and the arrows need to be straighter. Otherwise it would fire fine, and I made it using just a leatherman wave and some knives. Basically I had to sharpen my Mora 5 times in one trip, it didn’t absolutely need the sharpenings, I just like my knives to be razor-freakin’ sharp. Otherwise it did not need the sharpenings at all. The edge held up extremely well, and took a ridiculous edge. The bevel is large on this knife, it seemed to have maybe an 8-10 degree angle total, which results in a super sharp knife.
There is a sharpness test that is only for the sharpest of knives. Cutting index cards is easy and is right above cutting paper. Cutting index cards is easier than notebook paper, and an even better test is being able to shave layers off the paper without cutting through it, making it translucent. If your knives can pass that test, move onto the hardest. Being able to take a human hair right off your head, and shaving the hair lengthwise. You can visibily halve the hair lengthwise if your knife is sharp enough. The mora has an edge so impressive that is can pass this test, I wasn’t shocked because I’ve done this before, but impressed regardless.
I delimbed a few trees with this knife, and it takes off the branches like butter. My friend’s dog got caught on the tree we felled, so I used my leather to sever the branch and free her, then I proceeded to de-limb it so she wouldn’t get caught again, and she didn’t. So my job was done well, I suppose.
I marked a number of trees that I never got around to felling, sadly. It rained a lot that trip, so working out without shelter in heavy rain is quite annoying.
The knife worked pretty well as a punch, as it has a VERY acute tip.
Touching up the edge of this knife is also very easy to do. It is not hard by any means. The steel has very good edge retention and impact resistance, but it touches up very easily. I had the knife in the tent when I went to sharpen it, all I did was 2 passes with my extra fine stones on each side and the edge was restored. Yet it holds the edge impressively long. I made probably 400 strokes on the bow when I was whittling it down, it was a thicker sapling and needed to be tillered a lot, so a lot of work had to be done. I stripped the bark using fast but light swiping motions, that worked incredibly well, took it off like there was no tomorrow. Had it stripped fast and then I worked on shaving it down to equal it out.
I used the blade towards the tip a lot for more controlled shaving. Seeing as the last inch of the blade or so has a pretty dramatic curve, it cuts into the wood and seperates it easily, using the back of the blade you can increase the shaving ability by going down the length of the knife while forcing it through. This way you can optimize slicing ability, but because the tip curves on its own, slicing comes naturally.
When we went fishing I had this knife by my side. It was my first time fishing, so I accidentally forgot to anchor the hook. Basically it got snagged on some nearby plants and I couldn’t for the life of me get the damn thing off! I took out my knife, and just took a swipe at the plants, severing all of them in one clean stroke whilst freeing my hook. I wish I could say this was the only time that it happened… Hehe, let’s just say I needed to use my knife again for some very familiar work.
All and all, the knife served me very well, the sharpness was incredibly impressive, and I’d recommend one of these as a bushcraft knife any day of the week. They are cheap but have great blades, and come in a variety of flavors, if you will. Colors and steel and different forging techniques and all those things. I was extremely happy with the knife and I’m happy to own it.
This falls under the category of good news. I will be away at camp for 10 days, and during this time, I will be testing 4 tools.
1. Cold steel trail hawk ( I have high expectations for this tool).
2. Cold steel Finn bear (Previously tested, going to use as a bushcraft knife).
3. Mora triflex craftsmen (W00, finally get to test it in the great out-of-doors!).
4. Leatherman Wave (For a few projects I need the saw [ Bushcraft based projects], and I will be in public so I intend to keep a tool on me that won’t scare the ever-living hell out of people).
I will be bringing paracord for bushcraft projects like I discussed and DMT stones for sharpening in the field, and I’ll further discuss how they hold up.
