Cutting experiments

[Any Cal.]

Hi all. Just sharing a couple short experiments we just did. The other day a friend had a birch tree dropped, so we decided to bring out some edged tools to judge effectiveness. I was trying to judge the effectiveness of various tools on cutting softer woods to build a shelter w/ a tarp and to keep a fire going with smaller wood (2-3"). Weight of tool and overall utility are also a concern. Here are my completely biased opinions after all was said and done.

1. A 15" corn knife with a good edge is an amazing tool. Effortless swing, fairly light weight, easy to pack. Cut down a beetle kill 4.5" spruce in @2 min.

2. In my inexperienced hands, the CS Gurkha? kukri did nearly as well. It seemed to offer a much thicker blade that would be better for prying, but seemed to require more effort to get the blade up to speed.

3. The advantage of the small 12oz. total weight Vaughn hatchet is its light weight and the fact that it's use is effortless. In my inexperienced hands it took 80 strokes and 60 seconds or so to go through a 2" birch limb. The action was all in the wrist and nearly effortless. It also fits in a pocket or under your belt.

4. My 1 1/4 lb head Craftsman hatchet went through the same branch in 24 strokes, and was a lot of work. It also weighed 3 times what the small Vaughan did, and is a big heavy thing in a pack.

We used a sharp bow saw, a CS trailmaster, a HB 3/4 axe, and a 4" voyager clip point. The bow saw works well, but does not seem to offer too many advantages on smaller limbs. The Hudson bay axe is great on the bigger stuff, but not a pack item for me. I did some batonning with the voyager, and it did well, but the lock did loosen a little. Still completely safe though.

Currently love the Corn knife and or the little hatchet. Still trying to get the weight of the corn knife. Sorry for the long post, but interested in any comments.

 

[sodak]

I have an old corn knife that I bought at a farm auction 30 years ago. The only markings it has is "Village Blacksmith" stamped in, with *lots* of edge damage. I'll have to put a file to it, thanks for the post!

 

[RedEdge77]

Could you post a picture of the corn knife? This is the first time i've heard of this type of knife and you have peeked my interest in it

 

[Codger_64]

I have an old corn knife that I bought at a farm auction 30 years ago. The only markings it has is "Village Blacksmith" stamped in, with *lots* of edge damage. I'll have to put a file to it, thanks for the post!

Washington Cutlery Company (W. C. Co.), which was incorporated in 1906 in Milwaukee, Wisc. (and then moved to Watertown) manufactured the "Village Blacksmith" brand of butcher knives, cleavers, tools, corn knives, sickles, cold chisels, screw drivers, punches, etc., and their products are sold principally in the United States. Prior to the 1940s the Village Blacksmith name was incised or stamped directly into the blades of cleavers. Afterwards it was stamped on the handles.

Codger

 

[sodak]

Nice pics, Codger! I'll try and post one of mine a little later. Mine doesn't have the edge drop that your picture shows, but is otherwise pretty similar. I'm sure there were lots of different variations...

 

[Cliff Stamp]

In my inexperienced hands, the CS Gurkha? kukri did nearly as well. It seemed to offer a much thicker blade that would be better for prying, but seemed to require more effort to get the blade up to speed.

The larger blades, especially with much more weight forward require a very differnent swing technique than lighter blades. Essentially you have to use more of the larger muscle groups of your shoulder, back and hips and your whole body is in motion.

The advantage of the small 12oz. total weight Vaughn hatchet is its light weight and the fact that it's use is effortless. In my inexperienced hands it took 80 strokes and 60 seconds or so to go through a 2" birch limb.

That is the second reference I have seen to extremely high chop counts for that hatchet on small woods. I don't cut much birch as it is rare wood locally, but a two inch live branch is cut in about 4-6 hits with the Bruks Wildlife hatchet. Is there anyway you could shoot a small video. I'd really like to see this in action as I don't understand the magnitude of the chop counts.

The bow saw works well, but does not seem to offer too many advantages on smaller limbs.

Felling and bucking mainly, the teeth are not well suited for limbing and the size of the frame is awkward. A small pruning saw works well on sparce and heavy limbs, for close growth a longer blade is generally more effective. A heavy machete pattern like the 1/8" Barteaux works well.

-Cliff

 

[RokJok]

Prompted by the comments on the corn knives, I've included below an edited cut 'n paste of my impressions of another lightweight, medium length blade, thin-stock chopper -- the Gerber brush hook.

I got one of these Gerber Brush Thinners (bill hook) from Sportsman's Warehouse. Its relatively easy handling length/weight/balance let it work surprisingly well chopping up some alder and applewood branches. Its relatively thin edge did a good job on the supple flexible (but tough) tips. But its length provided enough leverage to punch into the thicker branches surprisingly well. The downside being that its blade cross-section is like most machetes (short bevel grind and lots of flat stock above it). This inclines it to sticking in the wood, making extraction for the next stroke sometimes a problem.

I recall someone posting that this Gerber was the chopper most borrowed from them by local indigenous people (Costa Rica IIRC). Given its performance, I'm sort of surprised by the billhook's lack of attention from the knife knuts here on the forums. Guess the folks who like curves are too busy over in the Khukri section.

The Gerber came with a funky plastic carry sheath/case that was too big to wear on your belt and had no provision for transport other than a hand-carry handle on top. The modifications I see for this lightweight chopper are some kind of workable sheath for belt carry and maybe some grip tape.

Overall Length: 19.75''
Length of Blade: 8.75''
Blade thickness at spine: 0.11" (just under 1/8")
Blade width - spine to edge at ricasso: 2.2"
Blade width - spine to tip of hook: about 4.5"
Height of grind: 0.28" (about 5/32")
Weight: 15.1 oz.

The handle is hollow, so if you don't mind messing with the balance of the knife, you could stash some emergency goodies in there. The hollow space inside the handle is approximately 1" high, 3/4" wide, and 8" long. The lanyard hole is just over 5/16" wide and the hole in the blade for hanging is 0.4" across.

Picture of Gerber billhook at: http://www.gerbertools.com/Img_L/2773.jpg

While it isn't as lightweight as a corn knife, the Nick Wheeler chopper in W2 steel pictured at the link below is the easy favorite square-nosed knife in my collection.

http://www.oz.net/~malinski/INFIcoot-Wheeler.jpg

 

[Any Cal.]

Hi. The corn knife can be seen here:

http://www.uniontools.com/product.asp?Cid=13&Cat=51&Brand=&Query=&Page=2

The high chop count for the little hatchet could be due to a few reasons.
The contour is the original one, which is quite thick compared to the GB.
Due to the small poll, I baby this thing. I use it like a tack hammer. All wrist action with nothing from your elbow/shoulder.
The birch was felled 6 months ago and so was seasoned to an extent and fairly tough. Between all of the above, penetration was something like 1/8".

I think that if I was hurt/tired, the small hatchet would be much safer and easier. It also packs much nicer. I would not try to keep a winter fire going in the cold with it, but it would pair nicely with a small knife in the summer. Using the hatchet does make me wish I could try the GB though.

The gerber pruner looks interesting, but I have not seen one in a store yet. I will probably try one as availability improves.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

You can always regrind the bit and thin it out to make it more suitable to local woods types, can you show a top down shot of the bit? Seasoned birch can get fairly hard so the number of impacts can climb several times over fresh woods, plus swinging with the wrist is only a small fraction of the power from the shoulder, with all of that combined the count makes sense to me now, thanks for the details. To clarify is 2" wood the radius or diameter?

-Cliff

 

[North61]

I have that teensy Vaughan and the newest versions have a very thin grind. Not much of a splitter anymore but 2" birch would take about 8-12 good shots with accurate chopping.

The New Vaughan Mini....much thinner than the older version. Not a bad hatchet but 25% behind the Gransfors mini. I reground mine after this shot was taken to create a .35 bevel that allows for a bit better splitting. Shaves hair and has a temper line.

If you have an old one regrind it thicker than this and put on a 5/8 bevel (also keep an edge to microbevel. According to Old Jimbo the long bevel allows it to split like a bugger.

 

[Any Cal.]

Yes, that is definitely thinner than the grind on mine. 2" is the diameter of the wood I was chopping. If mine was thinner like that I would feel more comfortable putting more power into it. As it is, there seems to be very little point for the additional stress on the tool. Also, my accuracy stinks! I waste quite a few chops. Any how, thanks for the advice.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

That is a really nice hardwood profile, they should put a top down shot in the promotional information.

-Cliff

 

[North61]

As for the Vaughan:

I wish they'd make it a tad thicker so that it could be ground to the users preference. Also the grind has some divots in it that I don't want to straighten out as there is so little material as is. Still pretty good for a 20.00 item and usable with a minimum of work.

better out of the box than it once was but not so useful for user modifications.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

That is the first time I have very heard anyone say they wanted an axe with more material so they could grind it off, though head waves and scallops are always a problem. For splitting on an axe of that size I generally do shingles and wedges. Even the Wildlife hatchet has little splitting ability on local woods, at best you can just slab split even small wood 3-5 inches. Even the full size maul doesn't have enough chop splitting ability on even moderate rounds. Interesting profile in any case and rare for a modern axe. I'll definately have to pick one of them up for that price if I can find a sensible shipping rate.

-Cliff

 

[North61]

The divots are bit of an issue and I can't quite make a long enough bevel to split like this little axe is rumoured to be capable of.

Took it to the woods today and the little guy really does cut down small trees with authority. It's in the same league as the Gransfors mini and at 20.00 quite a deal.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

The edge bevel can be thickened if desired by simply directly grinding the face of the edge back.

-Cliff

 

[North61]

Not much face to work with on the little bugger.

I'll send comparison shots with the BRKT mini if it ever arrives.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

I would be interesting. The Bruks axes are nice but too thick for harder local woods, they are more of a soft wood axe.

-Cliff

 

[North61]

I would be interesting. The Bruks axes are nice but too thick for harder local woods, they are more of a soft wood axe.

-Cliff

The GB mini is nice but it's just too heavy after getting use to the 2-3oz lighter Vaughan

 

[North61]

Cliff..it pains me to admit it seeing I was a bit hard on you in a post about Scandi Grinds but you might be right. The Vaughan did pretty well next to it's reprofiled and buffed BRKT version.

The BRKT took the grind even thinner and has a slightly wider bevel than I managed by reducing the metal at the eye and sure enough cutting the face back a bit.

Cutting and splitting improvements were minor and the two ounces extra or so in the Vaughan make it pretty competitive.

Anyway for 20.00 and an hour on the file and stones the Vaughan is in pretty good company.... I'd put it at 80% of cutting ability of the GB and 80% of the weight and 30% of the cost and 90-100% of the cutting ability of the BRKT and 110% of the weight and 40% of the cost.

As for splitting ability I can't call it yet. All these little axes tend to sink past their heads without splitting the wood. The Vaughan and BRKT have such thin handles that if you needed to pry them out the handle would be broken in no time.

The ugly flesh colored thing is my fat finger,,shows how small these heads are. The BRKT is the smaller, thinner shinier one.