Mini-review: Spyderco Phil Wilson Southfork in S90V

[xavierdoc]

I received my Spyderco Phil Wilson Southfork a little over a week ago and I've been enjoying it since. I've lowered the edge-angle a little and put on a 30deg micro-bevel.

(Poor phone-pics as that was all I had on me at the time.)




As you would expect, it's cutting well and the edge-holding is excellent.

The knife is typical of Phil Wilson- optimised for cutting, not chopping/prying nor batonning. To this end, the flat grind is quite fine but nothing like as thin as his customs. Similarly, the full tang construction gives it a lot more heft than the partial-tang Phil often uses on his customs. Personally, I quite like this extra feel of solidity (even if it makes no difference to the practical strength of the knife.)


The weather has been pretty wet here but the forecast this morning was OK, so I decided to roast a chicken for Sunday lunch:

The Raw (pun intended) materials:



Wood, whole chicken, knife, onion, lemon, bay leaves, garlic, herbs, seasonings. At this point the dutch oven was still in the garage.


Prepared some feather-sticks and kindling: the Southfork handled this minor task with aplomb...




...and tried to light the kindling with a ferrocium rod. Ironically, the kindling didn't catch the spark but the neighbouring feather stick did! I'm not complaining:




Built the fire up with more feathersticks and and logs- need a good ember bed:




With the fire going, I turned my attention to preparing the chicken:




It has a half a lemon and onion in the cavity and it is sitting on a bed of stainless steel forks and boiling water (to keep it off the bottom and stop it drying out, respectively). The Southfork performed well dicing the veg and slicing the garlic:




On it goes:




About 80 mins later:




Are the juices running clear...?



Yup!




The chicken was left to rest while I got the rest of the meal ready.

Time to carve and see what we've got. Again, the Southfork excelled in this role:




Just about perfect! The breast is moist but not as good as the legs.



The verdict on the chicken:

Thumbs up all round (the pasta is "Pinocchio Pasta" from the Shrek Cookbook):




I'm impressed with the Southfork so far. The fit and finish are superb and the design is intelligent. I like the "guard"/choil arrangement; works well for choking up on the blade when needed. The knife feels great in my hand (I'm 6ft and have medium size hands). The handle feels like it would fit a range of hand sizes. The sheath needed some minor tweaking (chamferring the edge of the boltaron at the mouth) but it works well.

My enthusiasm for using the knife helped get me off the "Olympic couch" and do something a little different for sunday lunch. No doubt there is an element of "new-knife=favourite knife" but I look forward to using this one. Hopefully I'll get to try it out on game later this year.


Verdict on the knife:

A streamlined, sophisticated and stylish tool. Highly recommended if you can justify the price and need a knife optimised for slicing, not batonning/prying etc.

[Ankerson]

Excellent review.

That chicken looks good.

[GrinderMcgee]

Nice initial thanks for sharing.

After using mine for everything in the kitchen the past weeks I wish it was thinner as I had expected it to be initially. Not flexible as a filet knife would be, just a hair thinner for slicing veggies. Apart from that, this is the finest Spydie fixed blade ever! (Bushcrafter takes a distant second.)

[capid1]

Great review! It does everything really well but as stated by GrinderMcGee I wish it was a hair thinner. I may have someone do that for me

[prime77]

I always look forward to your reviews. This one didn't disappoint. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

[sodak]

What is that tile/pad you built that fire on? Looks interesting, great review!

[xavierdoc]

What is that tile/pad you built that fire on? Looks interesting, great review!

It's just a concrete paving slab.

[RWT]

Now I am hungry and I want a new knife..............

[rpn]

Now I am hungry and I want a new knife..............

lol! I feel your pain!

Great review and pics!

[Geode]

Really nice review and pics, thanks. I see this knife as more in the boning knife category, so I won't mind the thickness relative to a custom Phil Wilson. Seems like it would be a good all round outdoor knife for cutting tasks.