- Joined
- Jul 10, 2009
- Messages
- 3,094
My buddy ordered two of these because "for 10 bucks, why not?". He brought me one last week and told me to do what I wanted with it. I hadn't had a chance to play with it until this morning.
Initial Impressions:
Sharpness - Non existent, probably the dullest factory blade besides a machete that i've ever owned. Granted if you pulled it across your skin hard it would cut you, but it truly had a horrible edge.
Finish - Uneven at points with a few tiny spots missing some.
Construction - Seemed sturdy, thick stock. 440 stainless, but honestly who knows what kind of quality it truly is?
Handle - Had a pretty positive grip to it, felt like the handle could be a weak point durability wise.
I took it to my paper wheels and put a very sharp edge on it in no time at all and I proceeded outside to attempt to beat on it.
I chopped up a lot of brush for my fire pit wood pile for a fire this weekend, this knife with this edge was a lousy chopper. Smaller pieces were taking for what seemed forever to get through, it was almost frustrating. I batoned through several pieces of wood, from birch to oak and it did quite well at most points. Since this was a 10 dollar knife that was free to me, I batoned with a good sized rock. The spine lost coating from it and it managed to put a few small dents in it as well. The coating on the edge held up pretty well.
Not knowing what else I could do I decided to hammer at a piece of concrete
until it was broken to pieces. I took a look at the edge and sure enough, it looked like a jagged hacksaw blade.
I took the knife inside and took it to my belt sander from an 80 grit all the way up to a loaded power strop. With the edge now convexed and polished I took it back outside. It's chopping capabilities were VASTLY improved. We're not talking a Battle Mistress here, but I'd say with a full convex edge it was chopping about 100% more efficiently than with a vgrind. I then decided to baton with it and got the knife wedged pretty badly in a log against a knot. I could NOT pull the blade out. I ended up having to whack the handle against a tree a couple times (not very hard mind you) and when the blade was free, the handle at a wobble and a rattle to it which is the only true damaged the blade suffered. Had I not beaten the knife against the tree I feel there in all likelihood would have been no other problems for a while. My original assumption was correct however, the handle is certainly a weak point, atleast in the blade I have. I was going to continue playing around with it but i'm uneasy about swinging a blade with a wobbly handle. I will say this though, while not much of a chopper, it batoned well, sliced EXCELLENT with a good vgrind I put on it and even better with my stropped convexed edge, it held both edges very well and barring any whacking the handle against the tree, would probably last quite some time.
I didn't forget to mention the sheath unitentionally, It's a useless piece of nylon with an insert in it. It does the job I suppose, but it's nothing to write home about. Who am I to complain about a 10 dollar blade I got for free though? Here it is after I got done convexing it and beating it a little more.
Be easy on my belt sanding job, it's my first time convexing a blade with one.
Initial Impressions:
Sharpness - Non existent, probably the dullest factory blade besides a machete that i've ever owned. Granted if you pulled it across your skin hard it would cut you, but it truly had a horrible edge.
Finish - Uneven at points with a few tiny spots missing some.
Construction - Seemed sturdy, thick stock. 440 stainless, but honestly who knows what kind of quality it truly is?
Handle - Had a pretty positive grip to it, felt like the handle could be a weak point durability wise.
I took it to my paper wheels and put a very sharp edge on it in no time at all and I proceeded outside to attempt to beat on it.
I chopped up a lot of brush for my fire pit wood pile for a fire this weekend, this knife with this edge was a lousy chopper. Smaller pieces were taking for what seemed forever to get through, it was almost frustrating. I batoned through several pieces of wood, from birch to oak and it did quite well at most points. Since this was a 10 dollar knife that was free to me, I batoned with a good sized rock. The spine lost coating from it and it managed to put a few small dents in it as well. The coating on the edge held up pretty well.
Not knowing what else I could do I decided to hammer at a piece of concrete
until it was broken to pieces. I took a look at the edge and sure enough, it looked like a jagged hacksaw blade.
I took the knife inside and took it to my belt sander from an 80 grit all the way up to a loaded power strop. With the edge now convexed and polished I took it back outside. It's chopping capabilities were VASTLY improved. We're not talking a Battle Mistress here, but I'd say with a full convex edge it was chopping about 100% more efficiently than with a vgrind. I then decided to baton with it and got the knife wedged pretty badly in a log against a knot. I could NOT pull the blade out. I ended up having to whack the handle against a tree a couple times (not very hard mind you) and when the blade was free, the handle at a wobble and a rattle to it which is the only true damaged the blade suffered. Had I not beaten the knife against the tree I feel there in all likelihood would have been no other problems for a while. My original assumption was correct however, the handle is certainly a weak point, atleast in the blade I have. I was going to continue playing around with it but i'm uneasy about swinging a blade with a wobbly handle. I will say this though, while not much of a chopper, it batoned well, sliced EXCELLENT with a good vgrind I put on it and even better with my stropped convexed edge, it held both edges very well and barring any whacking the handle against the tree, would probably last quite some time.
I didn't forget to mention the sheath unitentionally, It's a useless piece of nylon with an insert in it. It does the job I suppose, but it's nothing to write home about. Who am I to complain about a 10 dollar blade I got for free though? Here it is after I got done convexing it and beating it a little more.
Be easy on my belt sanding job, it's my first time convexing a blade with one.