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- Sep 28, 2005
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So last year was one of the most mentally trying years of my life, and around my birthday I felt like treating myself, needing to show myself some appreciation after a long stressful year. So with the help of my wife's cousin, and a wonderful gesture from Knifeswapper (to allow me to purchase from him and get it delivered to my cousin), I had a new group of knives headed my way. Because I deserved it!
The knives I ordered were
Schatt and Morgan:
1) File and Wire Toothpick (worm groove bone)
2) File and Wire Granddaddy Barlow (worm groove bone)
3) Improved Muskrat (red bone)
GEC:
4) Montana Workhouse Whittler (abalone looking glass)
5) Eureka (ebony)
6) Powderhorn (White Lip MOP Looking Glass-EDC/second although I don't know why)
7) Wrangler (stag- EDC/second although I don't know why)
8) Outlaw (red bone)
Case:
9) Medium stockman with punch (burnt bone?)
So "yay, Kris got knives- So what?!?" Well don't be so impatient, I'm getting there, this isn't just to show off!
Although look at how velvety and deep these colors are!!!
To start out- fit and finish.
All of these knives had fit and finish levels that were acceptable to me. Now I don't gripe over an occasional gap in a liner, spring slightly proud at half stop etc. I use knives, and don't plan on ever selling any, so a bit of character isn't bad.
The only issue I really had was with the File and Wire duo. Both the toothpick, and to a greater degree the Barlow, had a large amount of metal filings stuck between scale:liner, between bolster and liner, and between spring and liner. Some of these filings were sticking out so that I got stuck when first handling the knife (toothpick made me bleed a bit once- not much, but a new knife shouldn't have the handle cut you!!). The filings between scale and liner were lifting the scale so it seemed like more gaps were there than actually were! Many cycles of opening and closing, combined with fishing filings out with a business card fit between the scale and liner. Yep- some of the gaps could easily fit a card! Once most of the metal shards were removed the scales were flat. The Barlow would have been by far the best deal of the bunch had it not been for the sloppy attention to detail cleaning the metal out of the scales.
Cleanliness of these new knives is my next point. All of the knives were pretty gritty upon initial opening. So out came the baby oil and hot water. This "experiment" cleaning 18 blades and two punches led me to re-confirm one thing- I prefer half stops. Not only was I more comfortable opening the half stop blades when wet/oily, but they cleaned much, MUCH faster than the cam actioned knives. I'm sure this leads to less wear on the spring/tang junction due to less grit becoming stuck and having to be worked out. Because all walk and talk were similar, and the knives were from a wide variety of models/makers I feel that this is a function of tang types more so than my bias coming through. I also learned that I prefer same side nail nicks- something I had not found of myself before!
So fit and finish were touched on, what is next??? Oh ya! How do they cut?!?
Not nicely.
Okay, that isn't quite a fair statement, which I will elaborate on. I used newspaper and my arm hair as my new knife cutting medium, and while not surprised at the result, I wasn't exactly happy with the results. Of nine knives, with 18 blades- only 8 blades I found to have decent edges. None would shave hair off of my arm, and only one knife had more than one blade in the acceptable pile (Montana Workhorse Whittler). But none of the knives had all blades in the unacceptable column either.
I tested main blade:main blade, and secondary:secondary, then the Wharncliffe of the Whittler.
I ranked them as such, from best edge to worst. The gap shows the line where I deemed acceptable:blunt is crossed, and was a clear difference in quality at each gap.
Improved muskrat clip
Powderhorn clip
Eureka Spear
Montana Workhorse spear
Granddaddy Barlow Spear
Case California clip
Toothpick clip
Outlaw clip
Wrangler clip.
For the secondary blades the selection from best to worst is:
Wrangler spey
Case sheepsfoot
Montana Workhorse clip
Granddaddy Barlow clip
Outlaw Spey
Eureka coping
Powderhorn pen
Improved Muskrat wharncliffe.
The Montana Workhorse Wharncliffe would have been in the similar league as it's clip blade- lower end of sharpened. I was surprised to see three levels to the secondary blades- sharp, passable, and butter knife. The Wrangler's punch was actually able to cut paper better than the Muskrat!
I must add that I felt the Case knife had a falsely inflated rank. Both of the blades came with a pretty aggressive burr that I am sure was responsible for the cutting more so than the actual sharpened edge, but as I wanted to test how useable these nine knives were straight from the box I had to leave the data as it was. I guess the winner of these knives was the Workhorse Whittler, as all three blades were able to be pressed into service from new. Dissapointing was the fact that the other knives had one passable blade and one failure for sharpening. Upon second thought I guess the factory workers are the winners as not requiring sharpened blades cuts down on their work needed per knife and quality testing of the same.
When the topic of sharp blades in Slipjoints is broached it seems like there are two immediate camps. The "Victorinox, Rough Rider, Spyderco.... all send SHARP knives from all price points, why can't traditional knifemakers do the same?" Vs "I sharpen my knives anyways- it's no big deal to sharpen a full blade".
I've always fallen into the first camp. Being from Canada I tend to make fewer, yet larger purchases to make my shipping/customs fees more worth it. Getting an Eureka in the mail with a good spear but dull coping blade, well that might only take 10-15 min to make good. But with a purchase like mine, with 10 dull blades- that makes it more like 150 minutes, more likely with the large ATS34 Barlow/Toothpick blades, the obtuse Wharncliffe on the Muskrat, and then there are touch ups on the "sharp" blades so they can at least cut hair. So my new knives take 3-4 hours to get into working condition once sharpened, de-gunked, metal filings removed from between metal bolster and metal liner..... I love knives so I don't mind, but if I was buying the Barlow to put to work as a stucco labourer later this morning....
I have to add that I found much the same blade finishing with my 2013 Forum knife as well (received around the same time) . The Sheepsfoot was passable, but my pen blade was actually blunt in the belly- no edge whatsoever in most of the belly, much more than 15 min to fix that one!
Well that is the technical side of things, now for some more rambling.
I am biased against new Case knives. I bought five when I first wanted to get serious about slip joints as I had none from this maker and wished to change that. . All came with what I thought were bad deficiencies (some of which are passable to me now, some still shouldn't have left the factory IMO), and I got nowhere trying to contact them through email twice. So I gave up on them, if you have contact information that you ignore I can take my business elsewhere. I have actually gotten few used Case knives as a result. I thought that I would give them a chance, as well as looking at a California clip in a bigger Stockman as most clips of this type that I've seen were either in cheap fisherman Texas Toothpicks or small slipjpints. And it had a punch, okay I'm in! I actually am warming up to this knife. It is comfortable in hand, the clip is kind of like a reverse wharncliffe (thin profile wise), and the punch is passable. I am actually wishing I picked up the large stockman like I wanted to as well, but I guess there will still be models extant in the future!
I was pretty sure I wouldn't care that much for the Workhouse Whittler, and so far am fairly correct in my initial assessment. I love the abalone scales, and like the blade selection, but similar to the Outlaw/Muskrat, I'm just not as big of a fan of slip joints with same length blades. Shrink the clip down to 1/2 its size and maybe 3/4 length the wharncliffe and it would suit my tastes better. Not that I dislike the knife, and it would work very well if it was my only knife, but some if the others suited me much nicer. But those scales.....
Speaking of the Muskrat and Outlaw, such beautiful scales to me! I love the diversity in blades, and find the Spey to be quite possibly my favourite Spey profile ever- I love the angles on this one for some reason.
I also took a chance on the Wrangler. I wanted to, but never warmed up to my Case Seahorse whittler. It seemed fairly small, and I wasn't sure how I would like the broad front and narrow end. It is small, but darned if it doesn't keep showing up in my pocket. It is small, but just crosses my line into big enough for work. Great stag, great blade combo (Spey over Pen ALWAYS!!), hides well in scrubs but substantial enough to easily hide! And when it decided that I need to carry a friend, the Eureka is a fine match- spear master to compliment the a Wrangler clip master, coping to compliment the Spey. My first Ebony to compliment Stag (plant and animal kingdoms, good for a biologist at heart I think), and Tiduoute vs Northfield. Yin and Yang are happy!
The Barlow is huge!!
A good first Barlow for me, most others I've seen are cheap feeling and much smaller obviously. I am a fan of clip secondary blades and this one is quite substantial but looks smaller because of the very large master. While it is huge as well, the shape of the toothpick (and by association the Powderhorn) make it seem less sizeable in pocket yet substantial in hand- I can't wait to try it in outdoors settings.
Both the Wrangler and the Powderhorn were seconds but I would have been happy with either as regular stock, but the discount allowed for the Case so I'm not complaining. I've never balked at seconds (I have some great custom knives that just aren't perfect and were discounted but great users), and in this case it led me to try three designs I might not have at full price. I find this to be a winning situation.
With the exception of the Barlow and toothpick they are all seeing pocket time (Eureka in scrubs right now), and I am learning their feel and personalities as we go. Some blades have gotten a second or third sharpening so I am still tweaking how I want them but they seem to be performing well so far, patinas and bolster scratches making sure they aren't new any more!!
Overall I'm pretty happy with my set of new toys, am enjoying looking at them, using them and keeping them as part of the family! They may not have moved the Executive Whittler from my favourite knife, but with selections like the Eureka, Wrangler and more they sure are trying!!
(And certainly won't be my last purchase!!!)
Thoughts/criticisms/questions??
The knives I ordered were
Schatt and Morgan:
1) File and Wire Toothpick (worm groove bone)
2) File and Wire Granddaddy Barlow (worm groove bone)
3) Improved Muskrat (red bone)
GEC:
4) Montana Workhouse Whittler (abalone looking glass)
5) Eureka (ebony)
6) Powderhorn (White Lip MOP Looking Glass-EDC/second although I don't know why)
7) Wrangler (stag- EDC/second although I don't know why)
8) Outlaw (red bone)
Case:
9) Medium stockman with punch (burnt bone?)
So "yay, Kris got knives- So what?!?" Well don't be so impatient, I'm getting there, this isn't just to show off!
Although look at how velvety and deep these colors are!!!
To start out- fit and finish.
All of these knives had fit and finish levels that were acceptable to me. Now I don't gripe over an occasional gap in a liner, spring slightly proud at half stop etc. I use knives, and don't plan on ever selling any, so a bit of character isn't bad.
The only issue I really had was with the File and Wire duo. Both the toothpick, and to a greater degree the Barlow, had a large amount of metal filings stuck between scale:liner, between bolster and liner, and between spring and liner. Some of these filings were sticking out so that I got stuck when first handling the knife (toothpick made me bleed a bit once- not much, but a new knife shouldn't have the handle cut you!!). The filings between scale and liner were lifting the scale so it seemed like more gaps were there than actually were! Many cycles of opening and closing, combined with fishing filings out with a business card fit between the scale and liner. Yep- some of the gaps could easily fit a card! Once most of the metal shards were removed the scales were flat. The Barlow would have been by far the best deal of the bunch had it not been for the sloppy attention to detail cleaning the metal out of the scales.
Cleanliness of these new knives is my next point. All of the knives were pretty gritty upon initial opening. So out came the baby oil and hot water. This "experiment" cleaning 18 blades and two punches led me to re-confirm one thing- I prefer half stops. Not only was I more comfortable opening the half stop blades when wet/oily, but they cleaned much, MUCH faster than the cam actioned knives. I'm sure this leads to less wear on the spring/tang junction due to less grit becoming stuck and having to be worked out. Because all walk and talk were similar, and the knives were from a wide variety of models/makers I feel that this is a function of tang types more so than my bias coming through. I also learned that I prefer same side nail nicks- something I had not found of myself before!
So fit and finish were touched on, what is next??? Oh ya! How do they cut?!?
Not nicely.
Okay, that isn't quite a fair statement, which I will elaborate on. I used newspaper and my arm hair as my new knife cutting medium, and while not surprised at the result, I wasn't exactly happy with the results. Of nine knives, with 18 blades- only 8 blades I found to have decent edges. None would shave hair off of my arm, and only one knife had more than one blade in the acceptable pile (Montana Workhorse Whittler). But none of the knives had all blades in the unacceptable column either.
I tested main blade:main blade, and secondary:secondary, then the Wharncliffe of the Whittler.
I ranked them as such, from best edge to worst. The gap shows the line where I deemed acceptable:blunt is crossed, and was a clear difference in quality at each gap.
Improved muskrat clip
Powderhorn clip
Eureka Spear
Montana Workhorse spear
Granddaddy Barlow Spear
Case California clip
Toothpick clip
Outlaw clip
Wrangler clip.
For the secondary blades the selection from best to worst is:
Wrangler spey
Case sheepsfoot
Montana Workhorse clip
Granddaddy Barlow clip
Outlaw Spey
Eureka coping
Powderhorn pen
Improved Muskrat wharncliffe.
The Montana Workhorse Wharncliffe would have been in the similar league as it's clip blade- lower end of sharpened. I was surprised to see three levels to the secondary blades- sharp, passable, and butter knife. The Wrangler's punch was actually able to cut paper better than the Muskrat!
I must add that I felt the Case knife had a falsely inflated rank. Both of the blades came with a pretty aggressive burr that I am sure was responsible for the cutting more so than the actual sharpened edge, but as I wanted to test how useable these nine knives were straight from the box I had to leave the data as it was. I guess the winner of these knives was the Workhorse Whittler, as all three blades were able to be pressed into service from new. Dissapointing was the fact that the other knives had one passable blade and one failure for sharpening. Upon second thought I guess the factory workers are the winners as not requiring sharpened blades cuts down on their work needed per knife and quality testing of the same.
When the topic of sharp blades in Slipjoints is broached it seems like there are two immediate camps. The "Victorinox, Rough Rider, Spyderco.... all send SHARP knives from all price points, why can't traditional knifemakers do the same?" Vs "I sharpen my knives anyways- it's no big deal to sharpen a full blade".
I've always fallen into the first camp. Being from Canada I tend to make fewer, yet larger purchases to make my shipping/customs fees more worth it. Getting an Eureka in the mail with a good spear but dull coping blade, well that might only take 10-15 min to make good. But with a purchase like mine, with 10 dull blades- that makes it more like 150 minutes, more likely with the large ATS34 Barlow/Toothpick blades, the obtuse Wharncliffe on the Muskrat, and then there are touch ups on the "sharp" blades so they can at least cut hair. So my new knives take 3-4 hours to get into working condition once sharpened, de-gunked, metal filings removed from between metal bolster and metal liner..... I love knives so I don't mind, but if I was buying the Barlow to put to work as a stucco labourer later this morning....
I have to add that I found much the same blade finishing with my 2013 Forum knife as well (received around the same time) . The Sheepsfoot was passable, but my pen blade was actually blunt in the belly- no edge whatsoever in most of the belly, much more than 15 min to fix that one!
Well that is the technical side of things, now for some more rambling.
I am biased against new Case knives. I bought five when I first wanted to get serious about slip joints as I had none from this maker and wished to change that. . All came with what I thought were bad deficiencies (some of which are passable to me now, some still shouldn't have left the factory IMO), and I got nowhere trying to contact them through email twice. So I gave up on them, if you have contact information that you ignore I can take my business elsewhere. I have actually gotten few used Case knives as a result. I thought that I would give them a chance, as well as looking at a California clip in a bigger Stockman as most clips of this type that I've seen were either in cheap fisherman Texas Toothpicks or small slipjpints. And it had a punch, okay I'm in! I actually am warming up to this knife. It is comfortable in hand, the clip is kind of like a reverse wharncliffe (thin profile wise), and the punch is passable. I am actually wishing I picked up the large stockman like I wanted to as well, but I guess there will still be models extant in the future!
I was pretty sure I wouldn't care that much for the Workhouse Whittler, and so far am fairly correct in my initial assessment. I love the abalone scales, and like the blade selection, but similar to the Outlaw/Muskrat, I'm just not as big of a fan of slip joints with same length blades. Shrink the clip down to 1/2 its size and maybe 3/4 length the wharncliffe and it would suit my tastes better. Not that I dislike the knife, and it would work very well if it was my only knife, but some if the others suited me much nicer. But those scales.....
Speaking of the Muskrat and Outlaw, such beautiful scales to me! I love the diversity in blades, and find the Spey to be quite possibly my favourite Spey profile ever- I love the angles on this one for some reason.
I also took a chance on the Wrangler. I wanted to, but never warmed up to my Case Seahorse whittler. It seemed fairly small, and I wasn't sure how I would like the broad front and narrow end. It is small, but darned if it doesn't keep showing up in my pocket. It is small, but just crosses my line into big enough for work. Great stag, great blade combo (Spey over Pen ALWAYS!!), hides well in scrubs but substantial enough to easily hide! And when it decided that I need to carry a friend, the Eureka is a fine match- spear master to compliment the a Wrangler clip master, coping to compliment the Spey. My first Ebony to compliment Stag (plant and animal kingdoms, good for a biologist at heart I think), and Tiduoute vs Northfield. Yin and Yang are happy!
The Barlow is huge!!
A good first Barlow for me, most others I've seen are cheap feeling and much smaller obviously. I am a fan of clip secondary blades and this one is quite substantial but looks smaller because of the very large master. While it is huge as well, the shape of the toothpick (and by association the Powderhorn) make it seem less sizeable in pocket yet substantial in hand- I can't wait to try it in outdoors settings.
Both the Wrangler and the Powderhorn were seconds but I would have been happy with either as regular stock, but the discount allowed for the Case so I'm not complaining. I've never balked at seconds (I have some great custom knives that just aren't perfect and were discounted but great users), and in this case it led me to try three designs I might not have at full price. I find this to be a winning situation.
With the exception of the Barlow and toothpick they are all seeing pocket time (Eureka in scrubs right now), and I am learning their feel and personalities as we go. Some blades have gotten a second or third sharpening so I am still tweaking how I want them but they seem to be performing well so far, patinas and bolster scratches making sure they aren't new any more!!
Overall I'm pretty happy with my set of new toys, am enjoying looking at them, using them and keeping them as part of the family! They may not have moved the Executive Whittler from my favourite knife, but with selections like the Eureka, Wrangler and more they sure are trying!!
(And certainly won't be my last purchase!!!)
Thoughts/criticisms/questions??
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