- Joined
- Nov 18, 2010
- Messages
- 6,118
Alrighty folks, as you may or may not have seen on here, Murph had himself a custom that, while it had the handles of a Becker, had the blade of a Tom Brown Tracker. Now, we all have seen 'em, and we all have our opinions fairly well determined, but since I have never held one, I decided that I needed to test one out before I could really say what I thought about the design. Murphnuge was gracious enough to loan me his frankenknife, and I took it for a spin yesterday. Here are my thoughts on how it performed.
First, here are a couple of pics of this beast so you can see what I was working with:
Yes, they are more glamor shot than anything, but I only got the two hands, and no one to take pictures of me whist I was using the thing.
This knife is built like a tank. Quarter of an inch thick, possibly thicker. The fit and finish of this thing is, despite the dirt and grit, very nice. Made by T.M. Hunt, whom I take it is a friend of Murph's, I wouldn't hesitate to order a knife from this guy based on this knife here. Solid, durable, and you can see attention was paid to detail. The handle is more along the lines of the older Camillus Beckers, and for someone with big hands I think it would be a great fit. I am not sure if this is just a super patina or cold bluing, but either way, it is a dark blade, and looks all the better for it. If memory serves, it is O1 tool steel in construction, with a hollow grind.
Upon receiving this knife, the edge wasn't the sharpest I have ever used. I quick run across a porcelain rod fixed that, and it got sharp very quickly. From there, I took it out back, and we went to work. First order of business was to try out this saw on the back of this thing. I have never used a knife with an actual saw back, so this was going to be a new experience for me. After running it across a stick about 2 inches in diameter, I have to say, it would work, but only if you had a lot of time to devote to it. My folding saw is however much thinner, and super aggresively designed, so that might bias my opinion, but I can say I wouldn't leave the saw at home if I had this knife.
Next up was chopping. They say the Tom Brown Tracker is a good chopper, part hatchet, and that the upper part of the blade is made for it. So that was the next order of business. In use, it does feel somewhat like a hatchet, but ultimately, I don't think it would be vastly different than a larger knife. It chopped very well, although I get the feeling that much of that was due to the increased weight of the knife from being huge and a quarter inch thick. Either way, if you had to rely on it for chopping, it wouldn't let you down there.
And then I went to baton the knife through some wood. Here, the combination of edges, saw back, and shape seemed to prevent it from excelling at this task. Nothing much more than that, although it did in the end do the job passably well.
Then I tried making some shavings with it. I tried all blade edges on this, to see if there was a huge difference between the hatchet edge, the hook like edge, and the straight edge closest to the handle. Now on this test, my wood was the factor here, as it was still very much green, and very much covered in bark. I was able to get some decent shavings out of it, and some incredibly thin ones as well, but the wood was too green to keep at it, and it seemed to bog down the blade, like the serrations in a steak knife can get clogged when cutting raw meat. Mostly the fault of the wood, I feel that if I was dealing with a continuous, single edged blade it wouldn't have bogged down like it did. The end did okay, but the part closer to the handle, where I would normally work my knife had the shavings sticking to the edge, and piling up in front of the hook curve part.
Thinking it was the still green bark causing the problem, I attempted something I had seen before that was specific to the TBT style of knife. The hook curve edge was said to be exceptional at the removal of bark from smallish sized branches and sticks. Turns out this was not an exaggeration. It peeled the bark from this stick like a carrot peeler, and it kept it rounded underneath due to the curve. If I had to make a bow in the woods, or arrows, this part of this knife would be a huge benefit to the process. It went very quickly, and was very intuitive in it's use. So, afterwards, going back to making shavings, I gripped the knife and attempted to use the lower blade as a draw knife. It worked well, but this was when I discovered that the still green wood was the problem here. If it was dry, I would have had some paper thin shavings, that easily would have taken a spark. Since it was green, it gooped up the blade, and prevented me making any real progress.
So, having done a good bit of the things I normally would, I took the stick I was fiddling with, went back to chopping the end, and finally ended up with something a few feet long. I then sharpened the end of the stick, and in a fit of trying something else, I used the knife like a hammer to pound it into the ground like and oversized stake. Since this knife ain't the daintiest belle at the ball, it performed well, and a few whacks later the stick was firmly embedded in the ground.
I then chopped the knife into the stick, and you have the point at which I took pics, and called it a day. (I had to leave shortly, so I didn't have a lot of time to come up with anything else to use on this thing.)
My initial thoughts of the knife were somewhat mixed, and at the end of it all, they were still very mixed. There are a few things it seemed to do well at, but nothing it really did great at. When I talk about my BK2 or read about other people's thoughts on it here, it is commonly called the jack of all trades, master of none in the Becker lineup. I feel that the BK2 does very many things great, but doesn't do any one thing amazingly. I feel that the TBT style of knife here is that but more so. It does a lot of things okay, maybe even great, but it doesn't seem to do any one thing exceptionally well aside from the hook curve peeling bark like a champ.
If this was your only tool, it would do the job, and you would definitely be able to get by with this in the woods. However, for me, I think I will stick to my BK2 as the go to knife of choice.
When I get home this evening I will try to get some more pictures of this thing, and maybe see if I can get it weighed as well. Murph, I would love to hear your thoughts on it, especially since you have had more experience using it. I will readily admit that my take on it's performance could greatly be limited by the fact that this is the first time I have ever used this style of knife.
First, here are a couple of pics of this beast so you can see what I was working with:
Yes, they are more glamor shot than anything, but I only got the two hands, and no one to take pictures of me whist I was using the thing.
This knife is built like a tank. Quarter of an inch thick, possibly thicker. The fit and finish of this thing is, despite the dirt and grit, very nice. Made by T.M. Hunt, whom I take it is a friend of Murph's, I wouldn't hesitate to order a knife from this guy based on this knife here. Solid, durable, and you can see attention was paid to detail. The handle is more along the lines of the older Camillus Beckers, and for someone with big hands I think it would be a great fit. I am not sure if this is just a super patina or cold bluing, but either way, it is a dark blade, and looks all the better for it. If memory serves, it is O1 tool steel in construction, with a hollow grind.
Upon receiving this knife, the edge wasn't the sharpest I have ever used. I quick run across a porcelain rod fixed that, and it got sharp very quickly. From there, I took it out back, and we went to work. First order of business was to try out this saw on the back of this thing. I have never used a knife with an actual saw back, so this was going to be a new experience for me. After running it across a stick about 2 inches in diameter, I have to say, it would work, but only if you had a lot of time to devote to it. My folding saw is however much thinner, and super aggresively designed, so that might bias my opinion, but I can say I wouldn't leave the saw at home if I had this knife.
Next up was chopping. They say the Tom Brown Tracker is a good chopper, part hatchet, and that the upper part of the blade is made for it. So that was the next order of business. In use, it does feel somewhat like a hatchet, but ultimately, I don't think it would be vastly different than a larger knife. It chopped very well, although I get the feeling that much of that was due to the increased weight of the knife from being huge and a quarter inch thick. Either way, if you had to rely on it for chopping, it wouldn't let you down there.
And then I went to baton the knife through some wood. Here, the combination of edges, saw back, and shape seemed to prevent it from excelling at this task. Nothing much more than that, although it did in the end do the job passably well.
Then I tried making some shavings with it. I tried all blade edges on this, to see if there was a huge difference between the hatchet edge, the hook like edge, and the straight edge closest to the handle. Now on this test, my wood was the factor here, as it was still very much green, and very much covered in bark. I was able to get some decent shavings out of it, and some incredibly thin ones as well, but the wood was too green to keep at it, and it seemed to bog down the blade, like the serrations in a steak knife can get clogged when cutting raw meat. Mostly the fault of the wood, I feel that if I was dealing with a continuous, single edged blade it wouldn't have bogged down like it did. The end did okay, but the part closer to the handle, where I would normally work my knife had the shavings sticking to the edge, and piling up in front of the hook curve part.
Thinking it was the still green bark causing the problem, I attempted something I had seen before that was specific to the TBT style of knife. The hook curve edge was said to be exceptional at the removal of bark from smallish sized branches and sticks. Turns out this was not an exaggeration. It peeled the bark from this stick like a carrot peeler, and it kept it rounded underneath due to the curve. If I had to make a bow in the woods, or arrows, this part of this knife would be a huge benefit to the process. It went very quickly, and was very intuitive in it's use. So, afterwards, going back to making shavings, I gripped the knife and attempted to use the lower blade as a draw knife. It worked well, but this was when I discovered that the still green wood was the problem here. If it was dry, I would have had some paper thin shavings, that easily would have taken a spark. Since it was green, it gooped up the blade, and prevented me making any real progress.
So, having done a good bit of the things I normally would, I took the stick I was fiddling with, went back to chopping the end, and finally ended up with something a few feet long. I then sharpened the end of the stick, and in a fit of trying something else, I used the knife like a hammer to pound it into the ground like and oversized stake. Since this knife ain't the daintiest belle at the ball, it performed well, and a few whacks later the stick was firmly embedded in the ground.
I then chopped the knife into the stick, and you have the point at which I took pics, and called it a day. (I had to leave shortly, so I didn't have a lot of time to come up with anything else to use on this thing.)
My initial thoughts of the knife were somewhat mixed, and at the end of it all, they were still very mixed. There are a few things it seemed to do well at, but nothing it really did great at. When I talk about my BK2 or read about other people's thoughts on it here, it is commonly called the jack of all trades, master of none in the Becker lineup. I feel that the BK2 does very many things great, but doesn't do any one thing amazingly. I feel that the TBT style of knife here is that but more so. It does a lot of things okay, maybe even great, but it doesn't seem to do any one thing exceptionally well aside from the hook curve peeling bark like a champ.
If this was your only tool, it would do the job, and you would definitely be able to get by with this in the woods. However, for me, I think I will stick to my BK2 as the go to knife of choice.
When I get home this evening I will try to get some more pictures of this thing, and maybe see if I can get it weighed as well. Murph, I would love to hear your thoughts on it, especially since you have had more experience using it. I will readily admit that my take on it's performance could greatly be limited by the fact that this is the first time I have ever used this style of knife.
:thumbup: