Let me first say, what a great knife the BK&T Campanion is. Here the points is like
- The handle fits my XL size hand perfectly
- the blade has an excellent form for utility purposes
- the edge was razor sharp right out of the box
- the balance of the knife is right on the index finger
- the carbon steel is easily to sharpen
- the handle slabs can be removed for cleaning
- the sheath alone is worth the price of admission (I got my Campanion for around $60.- incl. shipping)!
There were only two things I found in need of improvement.
The first one was the coating. I'm not a fan of black coated blades, I like the look, feel and smell of bare steel
and can't get used to this baked on stuff, no matter what it is. It might prevent the blade from rusting, but it looks like ... and decreases performance, since it doesn't slide well through the material you are cutting. The solution is easy: away with the coating. I used a chisel for the rough cleaning and Sandflex http://www.sandflex.com/ for the final touch. What I noticed is that the coating Camillus is using is quite tough and should stay well on the blade under normal use.
I was positively surprised about the finish of the bare blade. The sides seem to be the unfinished bar stock, which looks a kind of cool in my view. (I personally like the look of some Japanese blades, which are not finished on the sides and show the forging marks). The ground parts show very fine parallel grooves and seem to stem from some kind of automatic grinder, since they are so regular. In short, the black coating didn't hide any (surface-) flaws of the blade. Great job here!
To test the rust resistance of the blade, I covered it with a mixture of vinegar and salt, which I left on for aprox. 5 min. After that time the blade was slightly brown and entirely covered with tiny darker spots. A good rust preventer seems therefore appropriate for this type of steel, but I could easily clean and restore the blade to the original finish with the medium Sandflex.
The second thing which bothered me after using the knife for a while was the big holes in the handle for the screws. Especially the middle one on the right side caused a hot spot in my palm and would have lead to a blister had I used the knife after that. So I thought about filling the holes with epoxy. This of course would have made the handle non-removable, a fact I didn't like. The solution I came up with was simple. I left the screws in place and put a small ball of wax on each nut before I filled the holes on the right side of the handle with epoxy. This way the nut is embedded in epoxy, but the place where the screw comes out is uncovered by the glue. It worked great. To give the epoxy the dark black color as the handle, I mixed the glue with the fine ground coal of three burned matches. I of course didn't fill in the holes of the left side, since those didn't cause any discomfort and that's the side where the screws are.
Now I like my Campanion even more and it comes very close to my ideal for the perfect heavy duty utility knife.
- The handle fits my XL size hand perfectly
- the blade has an excellent form for utility purposes
- the edge was razor sharp right out of the box
- the balance of the knife is right on the index finger
- the carbon steel is easily to sharpen
- the handle slabs can be removed for cleaning
- the sheath alone is worth the price of admission (I got my Campanion for around $60.- incl. shipping)!
There were only two things I found in need of improvement.
The first one was the coating. I'm not a fan of black coated blades, I like the look, feel and smell of bare steel
I was positively surprised about the finish of the bare blade. The sides seem to be the unfinished bar stock, which looks a kind of cool in my view. (I personally like the look of some Japanese blades, which are not finished on the sides and show the forging marks). The ground parts show very fine parallel grooves and seem to stem from some kind of automatic grinder, since they are so regular. In short, the black coating didn't hide any (surface-) flaws of the blade. Great job here!
To test the rust resistance of the blade, I covered it with a mixture of vinegar and salt, which I left on for aprox. 5 min. After that time the blade was slightly brown and entirely covered with tiny darker spots. A good rust preventer seems therefore appropriate for this type of steel, but I could easily clean and restore the blade to the original finish with the medium Sandflex.
The second thing which bothered me after using the knife for a while was the big holes in the handle for the screws. Especially the middle one on the right side caused a hot spot in my palm and would have lead to a blister had I used the knife after that. So I thought about filling the holes with epoxy. This of course would have made the handle non-removable, a fact I didn't like. The solution I came up with was simple. I left the screws in place and put a small ball of wax on each nut before I filled the holes on the right side of the handle with epoxy. This way the nut is embedded in epoxy, but the place where the screw comes out is uncovered by the glue. It worked great. To give the epoxy the dark black color as the handle, I mixed the glue with the fine ground coal of three burned matches. I of course didn't fill in the holes of the left side, since those didn't cause any discomfort and that's the side where the screws are.
Now I like my Campanion even more and it comes very close to my ideal for the perfect heavy duty utility knife.
