Bark river Knife and Tool Wolf River knife

[amosfella]

I've been conflicted about writing a review for this knife, and have decided to write this simply as a 'part one, to be continued...' review. The hesitation has little to do with the knife itself, so much as the medium I had available for testing. A week ago monday, one of my yearling bulls died from bloating. As I had little time to do anything with the carcass at the time, I just took it out to the back of the field and left it. Some days after were warm, and some cold. On a freezing cold day, I went back out with a tractor and a chainsaw to see if meat could be salvaged for dog food. This was 10 days later.

The knife itself, I wasn't sure if I would be using it or not, but had brought it with me. I had bought it used sight unseen off of a forum. After receiving it, I had to spend time sharpening it, as the previous owner had put a few small dings into the blade, and probably hadn't sharpened it since he got it.

So, I set off to the field the have a look at this carcass. When I got out there, the carcass hadn't been eaten on by predators. So, I picked it up and had a look at it. It seemed ok, so, I took the chainsaw and cut the head off and cut it in half. It was rather disgusting as I managed to puncture the stomach and intestines in a few places. Carcass looked ok when I opened it up, so I cut the diaphragm with the knife. First thing I noticed was how easily the knife went through the diaphragm... It was like a hot knife through soft butter. No resistance whatsoever.

After having a look at the meat that was opened up, I decided that I could skin out one half, and see what it looked like. So, I opened up the leg. Not an easy task considering that it was frozen... But as I got into the upper loin area, it became easier to skin. Part of the ease was due to the fat deteriorating, and that the carcass was still a touch warm in that area. Throughout the carcass, some areas were frozen on tight, and others just peeled away easily with the lightest of knife strokes due to slight decomposition of the fat.

I won't really talk about technique as it was mostly a hack and slash type of job. Cut whatever needed to be cut, including meat to get the hide off. Due to parts of the hide being frozen, at times, the knife was closer to being used as a pry bar than a knife, and other times it was used as a knife.

That being said, the knife performed admirably throughout the job, and was able to cut paper at the end of it with a bit of difficulty. It did everything I asked it to do, and did it well. I asked it to do a hard, nasty (and smelly) job, and without a whimper, it did all the jobs a knife would be asked to do, as well as those of a prybar...

Soon, I will have a few other animals to do with it, and will write a better review then. But, from this job, I'd say that it's the best skinning knife that I have used to date.

And now, to be continued....

 

[amosfella]

Previously on Bark Rive Knife and Tool Wolf River knife review... I talked about using the knife on a partially frozen carcass that was kinda gross... The clothes I was wearing that day still smell after 3 washings...

And now, the continuation of the review on freshly killed carcasses.

I've done 3 freshly killed animals with this knife since the lase episode. While I won't get into skinning techniques as deeply this time as I did in the review on the Montana Guide knife, I will discuss a few that I use. Most of the techniques are the same as was stated in that article.

First off though, this knife did respond to use on a fine steel as long as I wasn't trying to 'bring the knife edge back from the dead'. I didn't try to bring it back from the dead, and I didn't let it get to that point. If the knife was starting to show any slight resistance to cutting, I would run the edge over the fine steel a few times to reform the edge, and it would cut beautifully again.

With most skinning knives that I use, most of the skinning is done with about an inch to inch and a half of the blade from the tip. The Wolf River doesn't seem to respond to that method of use. This is very much a 'belly of the blade' use knife. Because of that, it was easy to skin using a sawing motion going back and forth without changing directions of the blade. When skinning using the tip, one can only cut in one direction (no, not the silly boy band), lift the knife up, and start your cut again by either changing direction of the blade, or going back to the top of the cut and cutting the same direction. This is most true on the body of the animal. The legs are a bit of a different story...

To make a clearer example, on the boy of the animal, with a sheep skinner, or regular drop point knife, one might start at the spine, and make a cut in the membrane to the center of the ribs, about 1/4 of the circumference of the animal. In that cut, you'd be able to drop the hide about an inch. Then you'd remove the knife from the cut, move it back to the spine to begin your cut again. With that pattern of motion, you have only dropped one inch of hide.

 

[amosfella]

With the wolf river's much more upswept design, you could make the same cut on the hide, but rather than removing the knife from the cut, you simply push the knife back up the next cut path. This is almost the same motion as before, but instead of only one inch of hide dropping, I have dropped 2 inches...

While this difference hasn't cut my skinning time in half, it has sped the process up, and time is money. Especially when you're paid based on piecework.

The wolf river also excelled at what I call 'flat blade opening cuts' on the animal. To explain what I mean by a flat blade opening cut is kind of hard, but I will do my best.

I start on an animal that has no opening cuts to begin the skinning process. Then I make a small cut about 6 inches long on a rear leg along the tendon on the lower part of the leg. Making the cut into the tendon is safe if you don't cut too deep so as not to run the blade into bone. once that cut is made, I will pull the hide back, usually to the outside of the leg, and slide the knife into the membrane that holds the hide to the leg. Then I start cutting downwards towards the butt. I find that on most animals, I have to keep changing where I pull on the hide at. Depending on the animal, I might get 5-8 inches of cut before having to stop the cut, and start pulling hard right behind the knife again. If I don't make the change to where I'm pulling on the hide, the knife will usually break the whole blade length through the hide, and I have to get back under the skin and start cutting again. During the cut, the position of the blade will change from towards the front to towards the outside of the animal based on the position of the blade about one third of the way into opening the upper leg. This has opened up about 4-5 inches of hide for me to grab onto with little more effort than it takes to make just an opening slit. I can, on some animals, make the cut in such a way that it starts on one leg, makes the circle all the way to the cut off point of the other leg without breaking the cut.

 

[amosfella]

The front legs are quite similar, except I've skinned out the elbow on the carcass. I cut the hide from the brisket to the elbow, then lay the knife flat on the back of the leg at the elbow and cut down the leg towards the ankle. While I am cutting, I have a fist full of hide right behind the elbow, and pull up hard. I break the knife through the hide about 4 inches below the knee by twisting the blade upwards while pulling the knife out of the cut. With that one cut, I've skinned about 1/4 of the leg.

Opening the belly is based on the same principle but a bit different in a few small ways. I find for it to work most effectively, I have to have skinned past the udder, balls, or in the region. The hide is slit from where the skinning was opened on the backs of the legs to where the skinning stopped. The knife is laid flat on the belly, the hide is pulled tight near the cut, and the knife is pushed downwards... I generally have to stop the cut to get a new handhold on the hide just behind the knife about every foot on cattle. Pigs about every 6 inches. If if hit the belly button or the exit for the sheath for the penis straight on, I will have to pull the knife out, and make a straight cut through it as it doesn't seem to like to cut at an angle. Also, that area is where the rose meat begins on a beef. So, the edge of the knife has to be turned outwards just slightly so as not to cut that meat. Once past the beginning of that meat, the cut can continue as it started till you hit the front part of the sternum.

In the flat blade opening cuts on the rear legs and the belly, if you want the cut to move in the direction of the tip, the tip goes up, and if you want to go in the direction of the handle, the handle end of the blade goes up... On any of these cuts, the wolf river preformed excellently. The knife has to be very sharp for those cuts to go smoothly. Even after doing almost 2 beef with only one or two touch ups on the steel, the knife make them very well. If the blade is even somewhat dulled, those cuts will be messy, hard to do, not go smoothly, and just generally be a PITA...
On the second animal, the knife was sharp enough to easily remove the hide just behind the head. On that animal, the hide was 3/4" thick. Being able to do that with a knife after all the work with just a few touches to a steel is quite a feat. Impossible for most knives I've used.

I wasn't impressed with the shape for cutting out the windpipe, and the other connecting tubes at the throat. That I found the shape of the blade to be somewhat of a hindrance. The shape just didn't allow me to get into some of the places quickly and easily.

But all in all, I'm quite impressed with this knife. It's easily the nicest I've used for skinning. I would very highly recommend it.

Any questions or comments are welcome.

 

[supertac916]

Thanks for the review. I've been looking at the Wolf River to add to my collection. It would be awesome if you could include some pics because I'd be interested in seeing the techniques in action. Appreciate the detailed review and I will probably pick one up or add it to the long list of knives that I "need"

 

[amosfella]

Thanks for the review. I've been looking at the Wolf River to add to my collection. It would be awesome if you could include some pics because I'd be interested in seeing the techniques in action. Appreciate the detailed review and I will probably pick one up or add it to the long list of knives that I "need"

I would show some of them if I had a third hand for a camera... lol... I tried holding it in my teeth once... didn't work to well... good a good shot of the inside of my nose...