For my first post, let me introduce my Boker Plus Bushcraft. This knife has received some good and a lot of bad press, but I ended up buying one anyway. I am very impressed by Ray Maers and he must have designed a good woodcraft knife, proof being its too many clones. There is no way I will ever fit "the" woodlore knife in my budget, so a clone it had to be. Also, I am just fine with stainless as long as it's decent and 440C should be at least decent.
The knife comes in a beautiful box with magnet-held lid and a very good looking ferro rod in an aluminum tube fitted with a small compass at one end. Both nice things people could do without. I carry a swedish ferro rod with me and the box ends up in recycling sooner or later anyway. Some reviewers rightly said before that those costs could have been directed somwhere else.
The sheath is good thick leather stitched and riveted and is designed to hold the knife by friction. Stitching is okay if a bit roughly executed but looks solid and that's what actually matters. To the touch it felt like hard dry cardboard when I first picked it up but after two sessions of rich waxing it is just fine.
They made the mistake of riveting the belt loop (it is also stitched anyway) and the two rivet heads can be felt inside the sheath. Eventually they will meet the handle and mark it. Not a problem for a beater knife, but one German reviewer on youtube managed to chip the edge of the handle pretty bad by forcing the knife into the new sheat. I bought a strip of round self-adhesive velcro patches and used two of the felt parts to cover the rivet heads inside the sheath. In and out went the knife numerous times for two months now but the patches did not move a bit. They even survived a heating in the oven before the second waxing.
The knife itself is built like a little tank, narrow, short and thick. The handle is micarta with two loveless rivets and a tubular rivet in the lanyard hole. The latter is somewhat sharp on the inside edge, I personally rounded it up a bit with a diamond sharpener for serations and there is no fraying on the paracord lanyard sofar. Some people complain about sharp edges on the scales, my hand fits well on it (maybe my palm is sqarish) and I get no hot spots.
The tip makes a mediocre piercer but for drilling into wood at that steep angle, it will go forever and drill though a whole forest. Also, the spine is rounded so it will not throw sparks but then I always cary a striker for my ferro rod. I am actually happy for the rounded spine because for fine work I like to push with my left thumb and a sharp spine becomes very uncomfortable very quickly.
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The blade has some issues. By just comparing pictures, they did a good job copying the woodlore knife so there should be no problem, but the Boker may be thicker resulting in a steeper angle of the grind and is also not a zero scandi. The edge is not symetrical but this is not really an issue in usage. The issue is the very steep relief edge that makes for a blunt knife. I decided to change the angle and worked the edge on a diamond benchstone at a much lower angle, I did not measure it but I kept the knife just shy of having the "scandi" flat on the stone. From diamond I went to ceramic rod and then to an old leather belt. The steel burred nicely and after about 3 hours of grinding my new relief edge is about three times higher than the initial one with a much more acute angle than the initial one. I could have done a more apealing job without random scratches but it works and after all it's my knife and not for sale. Probably I should add that I am not by far as careful as I should be when working on my blades. Sharpened like this the Boker cuts really well if you find the right angle and the edge holds fairly well. Since my initial sharpening and after three outings trying to do all I could to dull the edge (rather less chopping though), I still don't feel the need to sharpen it again. Control of the blade is wonderful due to the shape of the knife (thank you Ray), deep cuts and fine work are both easy. Chopping is less because the knife is too light for that. Splitting is easy due to the thick blade but I would rather use an axe for that, if I plan to split I will take one with me.
Shavings curl nicely
Chopping is limited by the light weight
All in all, I like my Boker Bushcraft. I even has a serial number on it! I put some work in the knife and there may be some more but at some point we all end up grinding and waxing anyway, don't we?
The knife comes in a beautiful box with magnet-held lid and a very good looking ferro rod in an aluminum tube fitted with a small compass at one end. Both nice things people could do without. I carry a swedish ferro rod with me and the box ends up in recycling sooner or later anyway. Some reviewers rightly said before that those costs could have been directed somwhere else.
The sheath is good thick leather stitched and riveted and is designed to hold the knife by friction. Stitching is okay if a bit roughly executed but looks solid and that's what actually matters. To the touch it felt like hard dry cardboard when I first picked it up but after two sessions of rich waxing it is just fine.
They made the mistake of riveting the belt loop (it is also stitched anyway) and the two rivet heads can be felt inside the sheath. Eventually they will meet the handle and mark it. Not a problem for a beater knife, but one German reviewer on youtube managed to chip the edge of the handle pretty bad by forcing the knife into the new sheat. I bought a strip of round self-adhesive velcro patches and used two of the felt parts to cover the rivet heads inside the sheath. In and out went the knife numerous times for two months now but the patches did not move a bit. They even survived a heating in the oven before the second waxing.
The knife itself is built like a little tank, narrow, short and thick. The handle is micarta with two loveless rivets and a tubular rivet in the lanyard hole. The latter is somewhat sharp on the inside edge, I personally rounded it up a bit with a diamond sharpener for serations and there is no fraying on the paracord lanyard sofar. Some people complain about sharp edges on the scales, my hand fits well on it (maybe my palm is sqarish) and I get no hot spots.
The tip makes a mediocre piercer but for drilling into wood at that steep angle, it will go forever and drill though a whole forest. Also, the spine is rounded so it will not throw sparks but then I always cary a striker for my ferro rod. I am actually happy for the rounded spine because for fine work I like to push with my left thumb and a sharp spine becomes very uncomfortable very quickly.
The blade has some issues. By just comparing pictures, they did a good job copying the woodlore knife so there should be no problem, but the Boker may be thicker resulting in a steeper angle of the grind and is also not a zero scandi. The edge is not symetrical but this is not really an issue in usage. The issue is the very steep relief edge that makes for a blunt knife. I decided to change the angle and worked the edge on a diamond benchstone at a much lower angle, I did not measure it but I kept the knife just shy of having the "scandi" flat on the stone. From diamond I went to ceramic rod and then to an old leather belt. The steel burred nicely and after about 3 hours of grinding my new relief edge is about three times higher than the initial one with a much more acute angle than the initial one. I could have done a more apealing job without random scratches but it works and after all it's my knife and not for sale. Probably I should add that I am not by far as careful as I should be when working on my blades. Sharpened like this the Boker cuts really well if you find the right angle and the edge holds fairly well. Since my initial sharpening and after three outings trying to do all I could to dull the edge (rather less chopping though), I still don't feel the need to sharpen it again. Control of the blade is wonderful due to the shape of the knife (thank you Ray), deep cuts and fine work are both easy. Chopping is less because the knife is too light for that. Splitting is easy due to the thick blade but I would rather use an axe for that, if I plan to split I will take one with me.
Shavings curl nicely
Chopping is limited by the light weight
All in all, I like my Boker Bushcraft. I even has a serial number on it! I put some work in the knife and there may be some more but at some point we all end up grinding and waxing anyway, don't we?
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