Woodcraft/Utility Knife Challenge

Ban

Ban

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I just pm'd Tonym and decided that I will enter a knife. Don't have a specific design in mind but I was thinking my choil-less BT4 from this thread would be ok. I can redesign from the ground up but I think the choil-less BT4 should be up to the task. What do you guys think? I have 2 weeks to get the knife in.

Ban
 
Ban said:
I just pm'd Tonym and decided that I will enter a knife. Don't have a specific design in mind but I was thinking my choil-less BT4 from this thread would be ok. I can redesign from the ground up but I think the choil-less BT4 should be up to the task. What do you guys think? I have 2 weeks to get the knife in.

Ban
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Sounds perfect. Convex grind and blaze OJ scales too.
 
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The knives will be judged on the following:

Fit and Finish

Comfort/ease of use

Edge retention

Ease of sharpening

Task performance
The knives will be rated from 1-5 (5 being an excellent score.)

The total score will be added at end of competition, and the knives then will be ranked.

Knife tasks

* Shelter Material procurement. (Push cuts through sapling, tree limb cuting, etc)
* Cordage Cutting (push cuts through various types of cordage)
* One stick Fire (light battoning, shaving with edge and spine, fire steel strike)
* Figure 4 Trap Carving (carving and knotching)
* Spoon carving (extended carving and whitling)
* Bow Drill Fire Construction (light battining, drilling, carving)
* Food Preperation (slicing meat, tamatos, Peeling potatos etc..)
* Small Game Processing (this all depends on what I can get my hands on.)
* Tent Pegs (whittling both soft and hard wood pegs. one side to a point, the other with a knotch)
* Long term whittling. (whittling a 3" diameter section of wood to nothing in the hammer grip with and with out a glove on)


I think your 1/8" 3V choiless BT4 would be an awesome choice, it just screams utility field knife. There's nothing on this list the choiless BT4 can't do. We all know your knives are extremely sharp, combined with 3V edge holding ability and the ergonomics of the knife, I think it'd make a fine contender.

Looking forward to the results. :thumbup:
 
The original BT4 was designed as a general utility knife in mind. Not exactly a woodcraft knife but it should do fairly well in those areas. The Choiless version would be more ideal because the woodcraft crowd seem to not like choils.

This would be a good opportunity to see how well or bad the BT4 stacks up and at the same time get some valuable feedback and constructive criticism to help evolve the design.

What I really want is to submit a 5/32 A2 Choiless BT4. But I wont make it in time because the steel wont ship until tuesday or wednesday.
 
My bad, I had some 5/32 A2 but gave it up to Dan for his F.P. Pikal, hahah.
 
right on Ban.. great idea man.. i should have let you know when it all started.. it looks like a lot of fun.. there are some really cool knives in there so far.. :)

the choil-less BT4 would be a perfect design to submit..:thumbup:
 
MRpink said:
Got any teaser pics for us yet??
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The knife edge was slightly warped during heat treat so I am gonna have to reject it. Man I just spent about 8hrs on the heat treat process and the friggin thing was warped!!!:mad: That does not include profiling and grinding time :mad:

I am gonna have to start from scratch again. Can't decide if I am gonna do a convex grind or do a flat grind again. What do you guys think?

I am gonna go and fill up on 30litres of liquid nitrogen tomorrow and start to integrate the deep freeze cryo into my heat treat regimen.

So the next BT4 will probably be the first to get the special treatment. :thumbup:
 
Damn that blows...

Not sure whether you should go convex or FG. Looking at the "knife tasks" list, I think both would work good, just not sure which would have the bigger advantage.
 
Ban said:
I am gonna have to start from scratch again. Can't decide if I am gonna do a convex grind or do a flat grind again. What do you guys think?
Click to expand...

Ahhh, sorry to hear about the heat treat complications Ban. I would go with a vex however as an edge. If the gentleman judging the knives is rating a knife on ease of sharpening...the convex might pull some more points! Either way man, I would imagine your BT-4 will kick some ass.
 
Ban's convex and flat grind blades both end with convex edges, so I don't he needs to worry about ease of sharpening.

I just don't know whether convex or flat grind would work with wood better. The toughest thing they would probably do to the blade is baton, and I think either would work fine. If you're going with a thin stock, convex; thicker stock, then FG.
 
Hmmmm....what to do? I will think it over tonight. The flat ground with a convex edge will have better/thinner edge geometry for deep cuts. But the full convex will have a stouter overall blade geometry that can take more abuse. I am all about cutting efficiency, especially in a smaller knife. Hence I am leaning towards the flat grind with convex edge. I really don't want or need my knives any stouter than they need to be in order to do the job. Just filled up my dewar today so I am good to go on the cryo. As a matter of fact... I have two mini bowies sitting in there right now.
 
My 30 Liter Dewar

5266745161_c0be16d085.jpg
 
I would say flat grind w a convex edge would be better for notching. It would closely mimic a scandi style blade that works well for that task. The full convex would probably batton better, but a full flat w a convex edge would be a good compromise. Either would sharpen well. Good luck Ban!
 
+1 What monk3yfist said. I was also thinking flat grind would be closes to scandi blade.

Nice tank!
 
Ban said:
The knife edge was slightly warped during heat treat so I am gonna have to reject it. Man I just spent about 8hrs on the heat treat process and the friggin thing was warped!!!:mad: That does not include profiling and grinding time :mad:

I am gonna have to start from scratch again. Can't decide if I am gonna do a convex grind or do a flat grind again. What do you guys think?

I am gonna go and fill up on 30litres of liquid nitrogen tomorrow and start to integrate the deep freeze cryo into my heat treat regimen.

So the next BT4 will probably be the first to get the special treatment. :thumbup:
Click to expand...



.
its always. A risk. Always. Heat treating your own knives is really unappreciated. Keep at it
 
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