- Joined
- Jun 11, 2008
- Messages
- 1,409
I got one of Dylan's BOXL's and got a little chance to play with it today.
I love the handle. Its so well designed and ergonomic that I used it all day without any blisters. The sheath has great retention and will not come out without some real tugging (perfect or a survival knife).
Here's the knife:
I went hiking and decided to make a quicky bow to try to shoot some blue gill at the edge of the pond. I choose a branch of Hornbeam (Ironwood) because its strong enough to use green for a light bow. My goal was to make a 42in bow that pulled 30-35# at 27in. For me, that's a nice comfortable weight for the pin point accuracy needed to shoot small moving targets.
I chopped down the branch
Then I stripped the belly of the bow down to the edge of the heartwood.
NOOOOOO!!!!!!
That little bugger went 3/4 through my branch. I could have scrapped the branch but decided instead to make a lighter bow for the kids to play with, maybe shoot a bullfrog or two. The only way to use that branch was to cut all the way past the bug damage and just accept whatever weight bow would be left. Besides, the whole point was to get some quality time in with my new Fletcher knife.
The bow had a bad hinge but I couldn't fix it because there just wasn't enough wood left to tiller after getting rid of all the damage from the bugs. Anyway, we strung it up and it pulled about 15# at 27in and despite the nasty hinge still shot plenty hard enough to take bullfrogs any any reasonable range.
[youtube]vt9DYSYjOII[/youtube]
So what do I think....? After many hours of use, including that little bow, it was "grippy" but not rough, and had a stout enough blade to pry the split shards of the branch apart without any flex at all. I think for a "survival" knife this design is a real winner. It has an acute point for drilling, a nice thin grind for fine slicing but a thick spine for lateral strength. I think this is just about as well executed hard use knife as I have ever had the pleasure to use.
Props to Dylan, awesome knife man.
I love the handle. Its so well designed and ergonomic that I used it all day without any blisters. The sheath has great retention and will not come out without some real tugging (perfect or a survival knife).
Here's the knife:
I went hiking and decided to make a quicky bow to try to shoot some blue gill at the edge of the pond. I choose a branch of Hornbeam (Ironwood) because its strong enough to use green for a light bow. My goal was to make a 42in bow that pulled 30-35# at 27in. For me, that's a nice comfortable weight for the pin point accuracy needed to shoot small moving targets.
I chopped down the branch
Then I stripped the belly of the bow down to the edge of the heartwood.
NOOOOOO!!!!!!
That little bugger went 3/4 through my branch. I could have scrapped the branch but decided instead to make a lighter bow for the kids to play with, maybe shoot a bullfrog or two. The only way to use that branch was to cut all the way past the bug damage and just accept whatever weight bow would be left. Besides, the whole point was to get some quality time in with my new Fletcher knife.
The bow had a bad hinge but I couldn't fix it because there just wasn't enough wood left to tiller after getting rid of all the damage from the bugs. Anyway, we strung it up and it pulled about 15# at 27in and despite the nasty hinge still shot plenty hard enough to take bullfrogs any any reasonable range.
[youtube]vt9DYSYjOII[/youtube]
So what do I think....? After many hours of use, including that little bow, it was "grippy" but not rough, and had a stout enough blade to pry the split shards of the branch apart without any flex at all. I think for a "survival" knife this design is a real winner. It has an acute point for drilling, a nice thin grind for fine slicing but a thick spine for lateral strength. I think this is just about as well executed hard use knife as I have ever had the pleasure to use.
Props to Dylan, awesome knife man.
