- Joined
- Nov 17, 1999
- Messages
- 676
Hello folks,
(this is a partial copy from my thread in the busse forum, only the review part is here.. full article is there ).
A few days ago I recieved my first busse in this far away corner of Europe. After paying the mail dude the 25 bucks taxes the customs had put on, I opened up the package and saw a whole lot of plastic.. yep, Ken does pack his stuff good
.
After some digging I found a greenish codura thingy with two eyelets.. seemed like I found the lower part of the sheath of my Busse Steel Heart 2 E. I inspected it closely, found that the knife is absolutely wonderfull in the hand, great balance, great feel.. truly something I never felt before. The edge seemed like new, but wasn't razor sharp anymore. Not really a suprise, afterall, it is a secondhand busse.
Then I inspected the sheath.. someone had tried to glue the kydex insert to both sides so the blade couldn't be inserted beside the sheath - I suppose for fast drawing and resheathing, I alway look at the sheath when resheathing. Now technically that isn't such a bad idea, but the dude - NOT Ken, he bought it from someone else for me - used some glue that doesn't harden, kinda like epoxy, but then the resin only with a tad of harder. OK there was work to be done here.
But first.. INFI being known for it's working nature, I went out to the woods behind the house. Now this is where a busse shines.. wood.. chopping.. working.. I took a 5 meter oak tree apart - we were gonne build a pond there anyway - , about 6 inch diameter fresh hard wood to cut down. After the first swing, you immediately feel the power of a busse.. the penetration depth and the ease of chopping were nowhere near a comparable knife in the size class, even bigger knives were not even close. However.. I did the excact same thing with a khukri I made with a convex ground 5160 with a zero-edge, and that one chopped deeper, but then.. It's twice the blade size, 4 times as heavy and has a recurve. Needless to say I was impressed. After I chopped the tree to meter-long pieces to burn up, The busse wasn't shaving -it never was in my hands - but it would still cut paper easy. The khukri on the other hand still cut, but nowhere near as smooth as the busse.. the edge had a few dull spots especially where the sweet spot is to chop. You know.. it cuts paper for 2 inches, chokes for a few mm, cuts for 2 inch, chokes again..
Both responded well to steeling, and both got to about 90 % of their original sharpness. The sap had seriously discolored the khukri, enough for me to go to the buffer, while the steel heart had a few spots were the coating was coming off near the edge, almost the whole blade was flattened coating. Not excactly a pretty sight, so while buffing the khukri, I also buffed the coating of the blade of the steel heart - this coating is a LOT more resistant that other coatings.. I figured I would spend 15 minutes at the buffer.. I stood there for well over two hours - Now it's a satin finished blade, which I personally prefer since it doesn't seem to be any rust problem.. and it slices better too
OK, back inside I started working on the sheath.. Modified the kydex to a better fit, and used double sides tape to keep it in place.
The sheath, even when made from my least popular material (codura) still seems to be a pretty good sheath, and very comfy to carry.
Overall, I'm VERY impressed with the steel heart, and I would recommend it to anyone needing a hard-use knife for just about anything. I'll post more comments as I lend it to a hunter next week and take a survival trip in a month and a half.
greetz and take care, bart.
P.S. what do you think is the best sheath.. a leather one or a kydex one for this busse ?
(this is a partial copy from my thread in the busse forum, only the review part is here.. full article is there ).
A few days ago I recieved my first busse in this far away corner of Europe. After paying the mail dude the 25 bucks taxes the customs had put on, I opened up the package and saw a whole lot of plastic.. yep, Ken does pack his stuff good
.After some digging I found a greenish codura thingy with two eyelets.. seemed like I found the lower part of the sheath of my Busse Steel Heart 2 E. I inspected it closely, found that the knife is absolutely wonderfull in the hand, great balance, great feel.. truly something I never felt before. The edge seemed like new, but wasn't razor sharp anymore. Not really a suprise, afterall, it is a secondhand busse.
Then I inspected the sheath.. someone had tried to glue the kydex insert to both sides so the blade couldn't be inserted beside the sheath - I suppose for fast drawing and resheathing, I alway look at the sheath when resheathing. Now technically that isn't such a bad idea, but the dude - NOT Ken, he bought it from someone else for me - used some glue that doesn't harden, kinda like epoxy, but then the resin only with a tad of harder. OK there was work to be done here.
But first.. INFI being known for it's working nature, I went out to the woods behind the house. Now this is where a busse shines.. wood.. chopping.. working.. I took a 5 meter oak tree apart - we were gonne build a pond there anyway - , about 6 inch diameter fresh hard wood to cut down. After the first swing, you immediately feel the power of a busse.. the penetration depth and the ease of chopping were nowhere near a comparable knife in the size class, even bigger knives were not even close. However.. I did the excact same thing with a khukri I made with a convex ground 5160 with a zero-edge, and that one chopped deeper, but then.. It's twice the blade size, 4 times as heavy and has a recurve. Needless to say I was impressed. After I chopped the tree to meter-long pieces to burn up, The busse wasn't shaving -it never was in my hands - but it would still cut paper easy. The khukri on the other hand still cut, but nowhere near as smooth as the busse.. the edge had a few dull spots especially where the sweet spot is to chop. You know.. it cuts paper for 2 inches, chokes for a few mm, cuts for 2 inch, chokes again..
Both responded well to steeling, and both got to about 90 % of their original sharpness. The sap had seriously discolored the khukri, enough for me to go to the buffer, while the steel heart had a few spots were the coating was coming off near the edge, almost the whole blade was flattened coating. Not excactly a pretty sight, so while buffing the khukri, I also buffed the coating of the blade of the steel heart - this coating is a LOT more resistant that other coatings.. I figured I would spend 15 minutes at the buffer.. I stood there for well over two hours
- Now it's a satin finished blade, which I personally prefer since it doesn't seem to be any rust problem.. and it slices better too OK, back inside I started working on the sheath.. Modified the kydex to a better fit, and used double sides tape to keep it in place.
The sheath, even when made from my least popular material (codura) still seems to be a pretty good sheath, and very comfy to carry.
Overall, I'm VERY impressed with the steel heart, and I would recommend it to anyone needing a hard-use knife for just about anything. I'll post more comments as I lend it to a hunter next week and take a survival trip in a month and a half.
greetz and take care, bart.
P.S. what do you think is the best sheath.. a leather one or a kydex one for this busse ?
