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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
18 in use
- Thread starter Sufler
- Start date
Sufler
Gold Member
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2005
- Messages
- 1,881
I did it with my first RMK years back, a #1-8 with sawteeth, fully knowing that RMK sawteeth were not designed for sawing through wood. It was a lot of effort.
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I think the "proper" way to use those teeth, that is in a way that would approximate something "functional", would be as a "finishing off" step on the opposite side of an almost done chopping job. Or just creating wood dust for fire starting...
The blade is thin at the edge, which is great, but the stock on the blade itself is nowhere near 1/4" as it actually is at the tang on a Model 14 with an 18 blade. From 6.3 mm at the tang it goes to around 5.5 mm at the base of the blade, to 4.5 mm at the front of the saw: There is no way this is correct blade design, one that SHOULD maximizes the chopping potential of such a big spear point blade: The flats should be 6.3 mm all the way to the end of the flat surface of the blade... There is no way in my opinion to argue that the thickness is better the way it is... The chopping performance is just thrown out of the window compared to a similar size BK-7 or one-piece CR or Schrade, which already are marginal in themselves... You lose a huge amount of blade heft for no real gain, and both my 18, and 18 blade Model 14, were the exact same, so at least they are consistent in the "no blade heft" blade thickness.
I still like them as slicers, given their unusually fine edge thinness, but the thinning blade stock itself is a waste of the design's potential. (And the edge could be just as thin with a blade of the proper heft)
Too bad as they are very nicely hollow ground, and easy to sharpen at the edge, being quite unique in that way with 0.5 or 0.65 mm thick edges (Even CR is 1.0 mm on similar knives)... The rough, slightly uneven blade finish feels cheap though, and they sometimes try to hide out of true surface mistakes with a final buffing... Not exactly what you'd expect at these prices...
Worse of all is the dull rounded off points on most of the 18s: A lot of work to fix: Pray any stabber coming up to you is armed with a stock 18 blade, in which case you'll be all right...
Gaston
The blade is thin at the edge, which is great, but the stock on the blade itself is nowhere near 1/4" as it actually is at the tang on a Model 14 with an 18 blade. From 6.3 mm at the tang it goes to around 5.5 mm at the base of the blade, to 4.5 mm at the front of the saw: There is no way this is correct blade design, one that SHOULD maximizes the chopping potential of such a big spear point blade: The flats should be 6.3 mm all the way to the end of the flat surface of the blade... There is no way in my opinion to argue that the thickness is better the way it is... The chopping performance is just thrown out of the window compared to a similar size BK-7 or one-piece CR or Schrade, which already are marginal in themselves... You lose a huge amount of blade heft for no real gain, and both my 18, and 18 blade Model 14, were the exact same, so at least they are consistent in the "no blade heft" blade thickness.
I still like them as slicers, given their unusually fine edge thinness, but the thinning blade stock itself is a waste of the design's potential. (And the edge could be just as thin with a blade of the proper heft)
Too bad as they are very nicely hollow ground, and easy to sharpen at the edge, being quite unique in that way with 0.5 or 0.65 mm thick edges (Even CR is 1.0 mm on similar knives)... The rough, slightly uneven blade finish feels cheap though, and they sometimes try to hide out of true surface mistakes with a final buffing... Not exactly what you'd expect at these prices...
Worse of all is the dull rounded off points on most of the 18s: A lot of work to fix: Pray any stabber coming up to you is armed with a stock 18 blade, in which case you'll be all right...
Gaston
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