Review Crooked Fairbairn Sykes British Commando knife from Sheffield / J. Nowill

Darxus

Darxus

Joined
Feb 26, 2002
Messages
7
I wanted one of these for years, finally ordered one. Sheffield in the UK seemed like a decent option. I read sometimes they were good, but their quality control was not great. Now I can provide some evidence of that.

The blade is really noticeably crooked, relative to the guard, 25 second video:

The edge bevels are asymmetrical, looks like because of the blade being crooked, which makes the tip look... disappointing.

"We will refund your postage when we receive the knife back." So I guess I can't be too mad. Still disappointed. About to take it to the post office.
 
I couldn't tell from the clip, but if the guard is canted, you can loosen the nut at the end and try to adjust the guard / blade. They really aren't precision made, I have the same one.
 
JPD1998 said:
I couldn't tell from the clip, but if the guard is canted, you can loosen the nut at the end and try to adjust the guard / blade. They really aren't precision made, I have the same one.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I wondered if that was true. Tempting to try, and I'm sure I could re-grind the edges to even them out, but the combination doesn't seem worthwhile.
 
So by "crooked", I take it you meant to say that the blade wasn't set in a centrally set position, which by all accounts should have been parallel in relation to the guard piece?
If that's the case, it's a matter of loosening the pommel tang nut for a minor repositioning job.
I understand the disappointment,
but it's not as disheartening as receiving daggers which are not symmetrically ground...
Nothing beats the horror of seeing crooked off centered blade spines...
That would be a completely unacceptable standard to live with.
I hope you get your full satisfaction of a refund.
 
Yes, that is unfortunate, the grinds on my Nowill are good.
I have an older one ( 1980's vintage) that is made much better than the Nowill, the blade will actually ring if you tap it with your finger, but i don't remember the brand and I'm at work now. I'll check tonight.
 
GIRLYmann said:
So by "crooked", I take it you meant to say that the blade wasn't set in a centrally set position....
Click to expand...
The blade is twisted relative to the guard. It does look like I could loosen the pommel nut, and twist the blade, to line it up. It looks like the spines would be fine if I did that. But then I'd still have to re-grind the edges symmetrical.
 
My Randall Clinton Special was similarly "oriented" to its large guard, and certainly could not be adjusted... My Randall Model 18 was also the same, but even worse:

1s8Gn7B.jpg


In addition, this 18 had the blade base slightly offset towards one side of the handle, and the blade was not parallel to the handle looking down on the spine...

On the Clinton, the center grind was commendably straight and symmetrical, and the edges thin, so I did not consider the "canted" edge "orientation" to the guard to be a huge deal beaker. The handle being a one-way deep finger grooved type, the downward cutting edge did slant towards the back of my right hand, which would be the wrong way to help whittling... I did discover I did not like broad blade daggers anyway: It felt like a large "leaf" made of metal.

Almost all daggers I have seen had symmetry issues: My first Al Mar Shadow IV (a numbered pre-prod) had terribly off-center grinds that spun off near the tip on one side, plus an awful needle-like fragile point. My second (also pre-prod) Shadow IV was much better, but is slightly "canted" to its plastic handle, like the early Mark IIs: The difference is, I don't think the 3 degree canting was here intentional! But it is good enough to keep.

A typical dagger grind flaw on one of my two Guardians IIs was that the "losange" frontal view of the blade was "flatter" on one side, making the center grind spine line "taller" on one side than the other. This led to an off-centre point that was kind of made "centered" by curving the edges near the tip(!): That still left the tip asymmetrically "flat" on one side...: I got rid of that after getting a much better Guardian II later.

The dagger is the most difficult pattern to get perfect, and virtually none of them are, or at least not while being thin-edged, since adding inherent sharpness to the mix compounds the grinding difficulty many times over... Just imagine that a dagger tip requires four separate broad surfaces to pitch inward at the same time and in perfect unison... Get this wrong on one surface, and the tip is asymmetrical viewed edge-on, often overly thin as a result. Only my second Guardian II got this edge-on "swelled" point taper (the slight "swelling" allowing for better tip strength compared to a straight sided point taper) seemingly perfect, yet its center grind straightness is only marginal.

Your edge grinds looked thin, so that is good, but I understand your disappointment. If it is thin-edged sharp, with straight and symmetrical center grinds, it could still be unusually well made compared to most... Be careful to over focus on one issue, only to get a new one that is worse elsewhere!

Gaston
 
It's back in the mail. Cost $23 without a tracking number. Would have been $50 with a tracking number. They guessed roughly two weeks, which is about how long it took to get here (without a tracking number).
 
Mt Gerber Mark II that I got in college in the late 60's also disappointed me. It was my first gerber, and I noticed that the blade was canted, so when the knife was held horizontally by the handle with the blade pointing away, you could see that the blade was canted to the left if held in the correct position. Well, being a brilliant college student I knew that was a defect, and sold it to my wise professor for $25.00. I have kicked myself soo many times for not doing my homework on that one. Of
course, he loved the knife, always pulled it pulled it our when I came by as he kept it in his office and it disappeared over the years.
 
Twisted relative to the guard is no bueno but a blade canted slightly to the left is not uncommon with military fighting daggers. Theoretically the blade rides closer to the leg (or arm) when carried. That's the story I was given anyway. The Nowill blades were fine in their day but a bit too easy to snap, hence the somewhat wider blade designs of today.🗡️
 
Yes, many were the Axis sentries whose last thought, as the blade pierced a kidney or the larynx, was "Wait a minute, that grind is not symmetrical and the blade is canted by a few degrees." They could've died a happy soldier's death, but no, sloppy manufacturing ruined it all.
 
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