Crossover: a different "chopper"

[Shorttime]

There's nothing new about the idea of a knife that can fill the role of knife and hatchet.

The problem is that the hatchet gets it's job done by concentrating a lot of weight behind a relatively short blade, and places it out at the end of a lever, for a substantial increase in speed.

To do the same job, a knife needs a long blade to have the weight, and even then it doesn't work as well, because the hatchet has more mass behind the point of impact.

More so, such a long-bladed knife has trouble fulfilling its traditional role, because the point is so far from your fingers.

Now, I know there are ways to get the job done, with a heavy baton to add weight to the impact, or a large number of small cuts, and there is always "carry the right tool for the job".

Humor me for a moment.

The idea I had was to move some of the weight into a very long handle, so that a knife-like object with a four-inch blade could take up some of the role of a hatchet, and still clean game, chop vegetables, and the other routine knife chores that might go with a wood-processing scenario.

I'm sure this has been tried before. I think it has even been called a "Knax".

Can anybody point me to pictures of the attempts? Links would be good, too.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Noswad0208]

and still clean game, chop vegetables, and the other routine knife chores that might go with a wood-processing scenario.

A well kept hatchet, axe, or hawk can do those things. Just gotta get used to using one for all that.

Not exactly what you're talking about, but a Becker Machax is somewhat similar.

 

[jdk1]

The WSK was designed to do what you're speaking of. The various models have longer than 4" blades, but the design allows holding the blade (not the handle) for close in and delicate work. The long handle offers different amounts of leverage. Even the beastly TOPS Tracker 1 can filet perch and carve wood (some edge profiling may be required) A lot of khukuri type blades will easily fill the hatchet role also, but most don't excel at delicate tasks. I love khukuri and I've tried many, many types. I'm reprofiling my already stripped Becker Machax to see how it'll work.