are bushcraft knives over built?

[SouthernCross]

G'day PR

The Lapps lived and died by Carribou, Reindeer and other arctic animals. In my personal opinion, traditional scandi blades differ much from modern bushcraft blades in that skinning small and large game were among the main roles of their knives-versus today, in which a vast majority of what I see bushcraft knives used for is solely menial carving tasks-spoons, traps, etc. (at least how they are represented on these forums...) .....

I agree that the modern concept of a "Bushcraft knife" only seems to focus on wood working ability :thumbup:

However, there are still some here that think of a "bushcraft knife" in a more traditional sense http://www.knifeforums.com/forums/showtopic.php?tid/882060/

And besides, I'm not the only one. Have a look at the task lists for the upcomming Custom knife makers Woodcraft / utility Field knife contest....

.....Task performance[/B]
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)

Whilst there are still wood oriented tasks being evaluated, the inclusion of food & game prep is an indication that others also see a bushcraft knife as needing to be good at more than just working wood




Kind regards
Mick

 

[Geneh2001]

I'm thinking, at least from a North American perspective, we are having a split in "high-tech rapid upgrade replace" and "low-tech use it foreever" mentality. Cell phones and other electronic gear is fragile and out of date anyway in a couple of years, but a good knife is prized and used for many years.

Also, our scope is wider - I would never have though of beating the back of my knife to split a small log, and now I'm sold on the idea as one method of getting small dry firewood. From the little experience I have, stronger thicker blades are required. Every softer, or thinner blade I've tried had been damaged by small craggy dry oak knots.

As a side - I am begining to think batoning can be safer (for unskilled or careless folks) than using a hatchet. Never yet heard of someone "chopping" a thumb off splitting by batoning.

But then, what do I know? I've been carrying cheap blades since I was a kid in the seventies, and only the last couple years began to even comprehend what good steel is.

 

[x39]

As a side - I am begining to think batoning can be safer (for unskilled or careless folks) than using a hatchet. Never yet heard of someone "chopping" a thumb off splitting by batoning.

As a Scout in the late sixties we were instructed to baton our hatchets when splitting wood.

 

[Fiddleback]

I learned to like thinner blades from Hollowdweller, and the Nessmuk. I still like an 1/8" blade. And I still baton with it. My opinion of 'why' we've moved to thick stuff, is twofold.

One, they look cool. That tiny little Game Warden with the .311" chunk of steel wasn't a slicer, but it looked cool. Every time a Runt will fit onto the end of a bar of thick steel, I put one there. Cool looking combo, a tiny knife and a thick chunk of steel. The weight of it in your hand is cool too. They're 'cool'.

The other is the user himself. Y'all saw that video of the guy in the tyvec suit and full face mask and gloves beating the hell out of that Bravo-1. Whoa, it had edge damage. What a shit knife. Are you kidding me? Do y'all bring this kind of safety equipment bushcrafting, or do you baton a bit more carefully? I can tell you that I've batonned 3/32" thick knives with great success. But, I didn't wear my spacesafety suit from the home shopping network and beat the knife senseless with all my might in my moms basement. And certainly, it would have failed if I had. I also tend to watch for knots. I don't want to ruin my knife you see. I'm not all stiff to complain about a failure on the frickin net after clearly not using common sense.

With the full height convex on my Bushcraft Jr., 1/8" was just right.:thumbup:

Had it been a Scandi, maybe 3/32" would have been the ticket.

I made a 3/32" thick scandi'd guardless Ladyfinger for Barberfobic out of 01 steel. He did a sweet video. It was hard to send out that knife. It was a cutting tool. Believe it! You can see in the video that he batons with it. But where is the tyvec, face shield and gloves? No need. He did it responsibly, and that 3/32" thick 01 with a zero ground Scandi held up fine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFKn36kzGSc

Are todays blades overbuilt, yes I think so. Even in survival situations, non combat or urban environment , I can't think of anything that would stress a knife to the point of breaking. What would you do with your knife that might break it, any knife, regardless of thickness.

Batonning? I have batonned lots of thin machetes and kitchen knives and never broken one, not to mention lots of ways to skin cats without batonning.

Prying? What exactly do you pry in the woods?

Chopping? Again I don't see this as absolutely vital, most down wood can be broken over a rock or between two trees and in shelter building you really don't need logs.

Digging? As has been said I will carve a digging stick or just pick one up off the ground.

Man survived in the harshest of invironments for thousands of years with nothing more than a flake of rock. I think there is a HUGE gap between what we need and what we want. Chris

This is a great post. I haven't broken a knife since I was a child. It was a Kabar, and I was batonning it with a hammer. My grandad tought me not to pry with knives. (Slapped the back of my head and said, "Don't ever let me see you pry with a knife again, boy.") I make a prying stick instead. I don't dig with my knife. This just dulls the edge horribly.

I chop if necessary, I don't find it fun and rewarding, but if I needed shelter poles, or a good walking stick (I like carving walking sticks) I chop with my knife. And batonning is something a knife should do. It should be done responsibly, and carefully. Youu should be able to process game, and cut your steak with a bushcrafting knife IMO. Did you see Ruth Hawke trying to delimb that animal in Africa with that huge tac knife. She'd have had that leg off with no trouble using a 4" bladed Bushcrafter. That knife was silly. Whats the likelyhood of surviving a lion attack by defending yourself with a fricking tac knife anyway?

I think they're overbuilt nowadays. But there are folks that can make you a cutter still to this day. Brian Goode's work for example is nice and thin ground. They cut!

 

[Geneh2001]

X39 & Fiddleback: you're experience justifies a mini hatchet instead of a large knife. I never learned to baton a hatchet - but had to last time in BWCA. We had wood hard enough that a 2 handed rock was used on the hatchet to split small pieces off the side.

 

[TLM]

If the blade angle is the same a thicker blade back does not really affect the strength of the edge, the blade as whole is stronger true but not the edge.

Personally I prefer 2.5-3mm thick blades on puukkos but I often use a Mora with 2mm blade. Admittedly I am from the northern tradition of knife usage (but that does include light battoning) and I haven't broken a properly made blade in 20 years (a few cheaps have been scrapped.) So I have learned to have a hatchet with me when heavier firewood is needed.

The Lapps lived and died by Carribou, Reindeer and other arctic animals.

This is really nit picking but reindeer is a half tame subspecies of caribou. The fjell caribou and reindeer are practically indistinguishable, the local woodland subspecies is slightly larger and has longer legs.

TLM

 

[Ravaillac]

If the blade angle is the same a thicker blade back does not really affect the strength of the edge, the blade as whole is stronger true but not the edge.

Good point.

There are too different sorts of toughness failure:
* chipping
* gross cracking

Those are different but both are important (and you can attain one while missing the other)

 

[Cpl Punishment]

Prying? What exactly do you pry in the woods?

I figure I'd address this.

Prying is a seldom used thing in the woods, honestly. However, I do have a use for it.

Fallen logs. I'm not talking a fallen sapling, but LOGS, the kind you aren't going to drag anywhere and burn in half.

(Little dig coming here, just warning you) I think it's funny that some of the same people that lecture about using all of nature's resources will turn around and tell me they'd rather break low branches off a tree than break up a dead log to make fire if there's no smaller deadfall (i.e. it's been used up).

That said, yes, you can make wedges and wedge it apart -- if you're LIVING there. However, it's faster to ram something in and pry, go a little further and repeat until you can pop off a good sized chunk. One or two of those big chunks and you have firewood, and a little work put in, tinder, for the weekend.

I prefer to use an axe and pry with the handle for this, but a stout knife, for those mentioned earlier who simply WILL NOT carry larger tools, would work well. And it really doesn't need to be a battlecruiser knife, either. Something like a BRKT Bravo-1 is fine.

Sometimes you may want to dislodge a plant, and it'd be easier and do less damage to the edge to pry them out of the ground than hack at the roots, again, if a knife is all you will carry.

Now, another VERY RARE occurrence where a pryable knife would be real nice to have is if you're in the situation of the feller who had a rock trap his arm and he had to cut it off with his SAK (I think there was more than one of these stories). If you have a knife that is long and pryable (I know, bushcraft knife, well, You cna use a 10+ inch knife for such despite the naysayers), you MAY have enough leverage to get the rock, depending how big, off of you.

Please note that ALL of these scenarios require you be one of those guys that refuses to take anything but his bushcraft knife. If you take other tools with you for the hard tasks, then a super thin puukko style knife like a Mora is fine.

 

[hollowdweller]

I like 1/8 or below. My Skookum seems to be slightly under 1/8" that's fine.

Thinner would be even better for me but I think more than some demand for thicker blades that maybe it is easier for a knifemaker to grind a blade if the spine is thicker??

All I know is it is VERY hard to get a knifemaker to make anything under 1/8" thick.

 

[BlackKnight86]

On a completely different track, do you think there has been a change in mentality from, "I must not break my knife" to "My knife must not break?" If so, this may be part of the increased structural integrity of blades.

I think that's an excellent insight; and a very good question.

I can understand the desire to have a very sturdy knife if it's your only tool and your life depends on it. But only to the point where it doesn't appreciably hamper the basic functions of the knife. If you have an "unbreakable" knife, but it's too obtuse to do fine work; then you may find yourself in trouble in a survival situation anyway.

I think the learning the skills to use your knife to make tools to do other things is more important than having an uberknife.

 

[Ravaillac]

On a completely different track, do you think there has been a change in mentality from, "I must not break my knife" to "My knife must not break?" If so, this may be part of the increased structural integrity of blades.

That also have impact on maker:
they fear people break their knives, then blame the knife and trash them online (deserved or not), so they build the knives so people can't break them.

 

[PayetteRucker]

This is really nit picking but reindeer is a half tame subspecies of caribou. The fjell caribou and reindeer are practically indistinguishable, the local woodland subspecies is slightly larger and has longer legs.

TLM

I say Reindeer, referring to herded domestic animals, and Caribou meaning the wild migratory variant. I know they are extremely close genetically, but Reindeer generally implies the domesticated version.

As for the mini-hatchet suggestion, I have a hatchet with a 1 pound head and a 10 inch haft, and I have to say I have 5 inch knives that chop more efficiently. They are unwieldy, imprecise, and don't have nearly enough leverage to be effective tools. One more reason why batoning is a practical technique...

 

[SouthernCross]

G'day Andy

I made a 3/32" thick scandi'd guardless Ladyfinger for Barberfobic out of 01 steel. He did a sweet video. It was hard to send out that knife. It was a cutting tool. Believe it! You can see in the video that he batons with it. But where is the tyvec, face shield and gloves? No need. He did it responsibly, and that 3/32" thick 01 with a zero ground Scandi held up fine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFKn36kzGSc

Thanks for the link to the Video. That guardless version of the bushfinger looks sweet :thumbup:

I would hope the zero ground scandi edge held up fine, 'cause the wood that he's working looked to me to be fairly soft with a nice straight grain.

BTW, what type of wood was it?

If you like, send me one the same (I'll pay for it) and I'll take a video to show how it would stand up to some seasoned Aussie hardwood

Edited to add: I promise to not wear a hockey mask


Kind regards
Mick

 

[Moosez45]

Nope, I like a larger knife that can take the work. It would be nice if we could put everything inside a nice little box that our knives are supposed to do. Point of fact, we can't. We don't know what we are going to want our knives to do in the field. Bushcrafting is a group of skills and an attitude towards outdoor living, not a survival situation. Hell, I have neve been in a survival situation before, so, I don't know what a knife should do there. I do know that my knives are REQUIRED to cut, slice, carve, chop, pry, used as a step, used as an anchor, drive stakes in tough dirt, split wood, pick splinters. I only have 1 bushcraft style of knife, and would I drive it in the ground to dig with? If its the only knife I have at the time, hell yeah.

See, the rub is we all want a knife that will do everything. It doesn't exist. Bushcraft style of knives have a set group of skills it is required to perform. But, like the word tactical and extreme, the term bushcraft has moved into the BUZZ WORD category. Me and my friends used to call it playing in the woods.

My BK2 does all the work that I don't want to put my Hunter through. Could I baton my Hunter through seasoned hardwood? I did it within the first hour after I got it. Will it do it all the time? Probably not, I have a Becker BK2 for that kind of work. But I know it CAN do it, just like it carves wood like crazy. I don't bushcraft, I play in the woods. My knives are there to serve my whims and desires.

So, to answer the OP's question, no, bushcrafter knives are not overbuilt, but they are being built to reach up to hard use side of the spectrum, because we WANT to use them a little harder, if not, we'd all have moras. Wait, I do have moras, lol. Moose

 

[stanley_white]

On a completely different track, do you think there has been a change in mentality from, "I must not break my knife" to "My knife must not break?" If so, this may be part of the increased structural integrity of blades.

This.

-Stan

 

[TLM]

As for the mini-hatchet suggestion, I have a hatchet with a 1 pound head and a 10 inch haft, and I have to say I have 5 inch knives that chop more efficiently. They are unwieldy, imprecise, and don't have nearly enough leverage to be effective tools. One more reason why batoning is a practical technique...

LOL, I have been using hatchets for 40 years without problems. If you really can outchop a hatchet with a 5 inch knife I suggest some sharpening on the axe or changing to a proper one. By the way a 10 inch handle is too short.

I say Reindeer, referring to herded domestic animals, and Caribou meaning the wild migratory variant.

Reindeer are hearded but not really domesticated, except a few house pets. Not all Rangifer Tarandus are migratory, depends on the locality.

TLM

 

[kgd]

As a Scout in the late sixties we were instructed to baton our hatchets when splitting wood.

Maybe you got that confused with 'batten the hatches'

 

[kgd]

I think somebody already mentioned that axes/hatchets are sort of going out of favour. Under the LNT auspice people are packing stoves rather cooking over fires, they bring their shelters rather than making them, all their food is packed in. When engaged in the modern practice of backpacking, where you basically have an RV-camper of stuff on your back. Not really much need for a knife, other than a SAK to open up that can of tuna and a blade to perhaps trim your tie down ropes a bit.

Between this extreme and going out gearless, sit many other members that sort of straddle both worlds. They ask their knife to do a bit more duty but still forgo an axe because while they might make a fire on the trail, they aren't making a big fire, but its nice to have a tool that can give you what you need under unexpected circumstances. I think 1/8" is a pretty good compromise between thin enough to get sharp enough and thick enough to take moderate punishment with confidence. I think if you are fully enamoured in 3/32", you can make that work for almost all your needs as well.

 

[PayetteRucker]

By the way a 10 inch handle is too short.


TLM

PLEASE read what I'm trying to say next time... that was my entire point. For the weight, a 12-14 inch tramontina is more effective and precise. Not nearly enough leverage. I favor a 19 inch hawk...

 

[Cpl Punishment]

LOL, I have been using hatchets for 40 years without problems. If you really can outchop a hatchet with a 5 inch knife I suggest some sharpening on the axe or changing to a proper one. By the way a 10 inch handle is too short.

Mmm, he said mini hatchet. He's talking about those tiny little things that some like to carry. They are little more than a grip for your hand with the head right above it, just about no haft at all, and to make matters worse, they are usually cut by a waterjet and flat. I agree with him, they suck.

Now a true hatchet or axe -- different story.

I think somebody already mentioned that axes/hatchets are sort of going out of favour. Under the LNT auspice people are packing stoves rather cooking over fires, they bring their shelters rather than making them, all their food is packed in. When engaged in the modern practice of backpacking, where you basically have an RV-camper of stuff on your back. Not really much need for a knife, other than a SAK to open up that can of tuna and a blade to perhaps trim your tie down ropes a bit.

I'm not calling you out, it's just that you bring up a good point. What I don't understand, is, OK, these guys like to bring everything with them, LNT and all that (seems most ultralighters do the same). But where is the logical disconnect where they don't understand that someone equipping themselves forf bushcrafting is, by definition, going to bring tools to make things out of what's found in nature, rather than just carry everything in. It's simply a different sport with a different goal.