- Joined
- May 16, 2006
- Messages
- 2,724
Around 3 years ago I bought a Ranger RD7 because of good reports I had heard about these knives on Bladeforums. Before coming here, I never knew that people used knives to chop wood, I thought that that was the sole domain of an axe. Justin was a cool guy and gladly made me one that was 3/16ths thick, as opposed to his usual 1/4 inch. While I wanted to try chopping I also wanted the blade to be a somewhat reasonable slicer and figured 3/16ths with a full flat grind wouldn't be too bad. When the knife arrived it was the closest thing I've ever seen to an un-sharpened edge. Took me a crap load of time to even out and sharpen the edge but I did it. I was a mediocre sharpener back then and probably had the edge around 15 - 20 degrees per side but nicely shaving sharp. I took it on a hike and chopped through a recently knocked over maple tree. I had no knife chopping experience, so my technique I'm sure was terrible but I remember thinking this is sort of silly the amount of time and energy it's taking, give me a saw or an axe please. So that was pretty much it, for the last few years its broken down some boxes and chopped some bones in the kitchen, not much else.
Fast forward to more recent times... Of late I've become interested in checking out a one knife scenario, just one edged object and nothing else. Something about the simplicity has been calling to me. For quite awhile now I've been carrying a folding Silky Saw with an 8 inch blade, an Aurora and a Vic Farmer, on most hikes and camping trips. It's really a great trio and only weighs 18 ounces. One obvious possibility for the do-all one blade scenario is a 6 - 8 inch sturdy fixed blade, so out came the RD-7 from the closet.
I hear people on BF constantly say that a chopper should have at least a 40 degree inclusive edge angle. Everything I've learned and experienced about knives the last few years tells me otherwise. A thinner edge always cuts deeper and easier. Thin your blade as far as it will go before the edge starts to deform easily during regular work, has been my philosophy for awhile. With that in mind, over the last week I began thinning the edge on the RD7 to between 9 and 10 degrees per side and on Friday polished it to literally a hair splitting edge. Saturday was showtime. I had no idea how this edge would perform during rough chopping. On my day hike I did around 20 - 30 minutes of all out hard as I could hit chopping, almost all of it on very hard, very old seasoned oak, maple and locust. My technique has gotten better but still sucks, wedge too narrow for the diameter, wasted sloppy strikes, not consistently using the optimal part of the edge. While my technique definitely started to improve, I was more interested in wailing as hard as I could on that thin edge, at times I even intentionally made sloppy strikes. While an axe or a saw would have been more efficient, I was able to cut through 4 - 6 inch diameter rounds in 2 - 5 minutes. It was also surprisingly not that fatiguing to pound away with this knife. I believe the 1/4 inch thick RD7's weigh about a pound, so at 3/16ths I'd guess at least an ounce or two has been shed, so perhaps its a 14 ounce knife. I'll weigh it on the postal scale at the office when I get a chance. So how did the edge hold up? In a word, perfectly. No rolls, no dents, no dings, no nothing. It had lost some of its sharpness. When I got home and washed it off, it would still shave but not a clean patch type of shave, would push cut printer paper but not smoothly and with some finesse to start the cut. The tip and base of the blade which hadn't seen extensive chopping would still pop hairs off my arm as would be expected. About 20 strokes per side on a DMT extra-fine hone brought the edge back to hair-popping sharp.
So what did I learn this weekend? With a good steel, 10 degrees per side is fine for a chopper. With excellent technique and a very thin edge, a "lightweight" 8 inch blade is a low fatigue and reasonably efficient chopping implement. I could well imagine being quite happy with just this one blade on a winter camping trip.
Fast forward to more recent times... Of late I've become interested in checking out a one knife scenario, just one edged object and nothing else. Something about the simplicity has been calling to me. For quite awhile now I've been carrying a folding Silky Saw with an 8 inch blade, an Aurora and a Vic Farmer, on most hikes and camping trips. It's really a great trio and only weighs 18 ounces. One obvious possibility for the do-all one blade scenario is a 6 - 8 inch sturdy fixed blade, so out came the RD-7 from the closet.
I hear people on BF constantly say that a chopper should have at least a 40 degree inclusive edge angle. Everything I've learned and experienced about knives the last few years tells me otherwise. A thinner edge always cuts deeper and easier. Thin your blade as far as it will go before the edge starts to deform easily during regular work, has been my philosophy for awhile. With that in mind, over the last week I began thinning the edge on the RD7 to between 9 and 10 degrees per side and on Friday polished it to literally a hair splitting edge. Saturday was showtime. I had no idea how this edge would perform during rough chopping. On my day hike I did around 20 - 30 minutes of all out hard as I could hit chopping, almost all of it on very hard, very old seasoned oak, maple and locust. My technique has gotten better but still sucks, wedge too narrow for the diameter, wasted sloppy strikes, not consistently using the optimal part of the edge. While my technique definitely started to improve, I was more interested in wailing as hard as I could on that thin edge, at times I even intentionally made sloppy strikes. While an axe or a saw would have been more efficient, I was able to cut through 4 - 6 inch diameter rounds in 2 - 5 minutes. It was also surprisingly not that fatiguing to pound away with this knife. I believe the 1/4 inch thick RD7's weigh about a pound, so at 3/16ths I'd guess at least an ounce or two has been shed, so perhaps its a 14 ounce knife. I'll weigh it on the postal scale at the office when I get a chance. So how did the edge hold up? In a word, perfectly. No rolls, no dents, no dings, no nothing. It had lost some of its sharpness. When I got home and washed it off, it would still shave but not a clean patch type of shave, would push cut printer paper but not smoothly and with some finesse to start the cut. The tip and base of the blade which hadn't seen extensive chopping would still pop hairs off my arm as would be expected. About 20 strokes per side on a DMT extra-fine hone brought the edge back to hair-popping sharp.
So what did I learn this weekend? With a good steel, 10 degrees per side is fine for a chopper. With excellent technique and a very thin edge, a "lightweight" 8 inch blade is a low fatigue and reasonably efficient chopping implement. I could well imagine being quite happy with just this one blade on a winter camping trip.
I am still looking forward to getting one of the carbon steel machetes from Condor and I'm hoping its performance will be better.