Byrd Pelican abuse

[Pete1977]

Since I lost my Cara Cara Rescue I have been taking this Byrd Pelican PE lobstering. Here is the review I did on it a while back:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=637455&highlight=pelican

I have not cleaned it in about a week. The only maintenance I do is sharpen it on the sharpmaker with the flat side of the diamond hones to give it a nice toothy edge. The blade is pretty rusty and I can barely open it one handed. I have cut, scraped and pried with this knife over the last couple of weeks and it still locks up tight as a bank vault with no play whatsoever. I will try to get some pics up as soon as I can upload them.

 

[v8r]

The Pelican is my favorite Byrd knife.It seems like all the Ss lock back knives in the Byrd line that I own lock ip like a vault.Sal we need a updated version maybe even a Wharnie

 

[Pete1977]

I preferred the length of the Cara Cara Rescue's blade but lean more towards a knife without a choil. The Pelican is surprisingly ergonomic for a steel handled knife. I worried about the knife being pulled out of my hands when the handle was wet, which was a big concern with the Harpy I used to carry but so far even with slimy hands I have not had trouble retaining the Pelican. The pocket clip isn't as secure as on the Cara Cara Rescue due to the smooth steel of the handle and the knife is an overall heavier package which may be off-putting to some people. I don't mind it and with a toothy coarse edge have not had too much trouble cutting even poly rope with one or two strokes. The nice thing with the plain edge is that I can touch it up in the field on the whetstone I keep on the boat if need be.

I put a finer edge on the knife this morning to see if it cuts better or worse against poly and old poly-dacron rope that have sand impregnated in them. I am curious to see if a highly polished edge lasts longer or cuts better through this media than a coarser, toothier edge. I will continue to update here with my findings.

Hopefully the pelican will hold me over until I can buy a more suitable knife for work.

 

[Pete1977]

Well, the pelican is starting to really grow on me. I like the modified sheepsfoot/wharncliffe blade and have not had much trouble rope cutting with the plain edge. A finer edge did not last as long as an extremely coarse one and with the 30 degree inclusive angle I find that there is a lot of chipping along the edge, most likely from sand or other debris in the rope strands. I sharpened it and polished the edge and then used the corners of the white stones to put a 40 degree microbevel on. It is razor sharp now.

I am more and more impressed with the handle ergonomics of this knife. I have used several SS handled spyderco's before but did not feel as secure as when using the pelican. Even with wet hands and a wet knife, I have a pretty positive grip on the handle.

I have used the knife this week to pry one of the wood runners from one of the traps to free up a rope caught between them, pry open a can of buoy paint, dig thick clumps of seaweed from between the plates of my hydraulic hauler, and cut more rope than I can keep track of. I oiled the pivot at the beginning of the week and sharpened the blade twice since the last update to this thread. Other than that I washed the knife once by just taking it in the shower, blowing out some of the water with compressed air and just letting it dry open.

No blade play and solid lockup still. The scratches and rust spots give it some character.

 

[Pete1977]

I have used my Pelican exclusively on my lobster boat. The edge has taken some abuse from a lot of cutting of line. It has very small chips in several places and the edge retention diminishes over the course of the day. I make 20 or 30 cuts per day of 3/8-5/8 inch rope, often covered in seaweed or impregnated with sand. I brought the edge down to 25 degrees inclusive with an extra coarse diamond hone on my Lansky guide.

The knife is constantly exposed to salt water. In fact, there were several times yesterday when I put it on the rail of the boat in a puddle of seawater. It was fully submerged for several minutes at a time. The opening and closing of the knife was tight and it would not lock up fully without pressing on the lock bar. I am guessing that this is from rust between the lock bar and liner. It was impossible to open with one hand and needed two hands to open and lock it securely. After yesterday's exposure to salt water I was only able to open the knife two handed and it failed to lock up every time. Closing the knife was also difficult as was unlocking the blade. There was about 50% coverage of rust on the blade.

With Hurricane Earl in the forcast for this weekend I took today off and soaked the knife in a half CLR half warm water solution for 20 or so minutes and used a cotton swab to get most of the rust off of the blade and handle. I opened and closed the knife several times, dipping it in the CLR periodically. It now opens smoothly and easily with one hand and locks up tight. There is very little up and down play and the lock bar is almost completely flush with the handle scales again. The knife is sharp and ready to go back to work on monday.

 

[Ping Pong]

It's nice to hear from someone who REALLY uses their knives. Thanks.

 

[Pete1977]

Another update-

I was having problems getting the chips in the edge out and getting the knife to take and hold a useable sharp edge for a while but I continued to cut everything with the pelican. Neat cuts are not an issue for me but fast successful ones are. I tried to sharpen it on the sharpmaker but since I was using a 30 degree inclusive edge and don't trust my freehand skills to take the back bevel down without a jig of some sort I went to the Lansky and the diamonds. I brought the back bevel down to 20 degrees and put a microbevel of 25 degrees. I achieved better performance with this edge configuration than by putting a microbevel of 40 degrees onto the existing 30 degree edge. I also managed to get the chips out successfully. I purposefully kept the edge coarse because I find that it cuts rope more efficiently with the "microserrations" formed by the extra-coarse diamond stones.

Rusting is still an issue. Even after handling the knife with wet gloves or just leaving it on the helm exposed to spray, etc opening and closing becomes difficult. I usually open it in the morning, use it as necessary, and close it at the end of the day. The amount of rusting affects the successful lockup of the blade but once it is securely locked, it remains locked up solidly. A spray of break-free, wd-40 or a bath in CLR fixes the problem, but it is such a short term solution to a repetitive problem that I have gotten lazy and again not really maintained the knife aside from sharpening.

I continue to use the knife for certain things that it was not meant for. I have tightened and loosened screws with it, pried the lid off of paint cans, scraped and dug, and cut against steel wire.

Most people who use a knife at work will probably not put much more effort into maintaining their knife as I have with this one. Stainless handles and a highly rust prone steel are probably not the best combination for a commercial fisherman, but aside from the rusting issue, exacerbated by the salt water environment that the pelican usually finds itself in, I have found this to be a solid workhorse of a knife.

I am too lazy to clean the knife properly so I have continued to be too lazy to take pix. sorry. eventually I will get some up before the pelican is lost or broken.