Honestly, I was surprised Breeden's Lord Greystoke was the better chopper. No offense Bryan, but I expected the Golok and Foxy Folly to do a little better than the Greystoke, if nothing else as a result of greater weight and a larger arch generating greater momentum. Bryan, I tip my hat to you sir. You do make one heck of a knife, not just a good looking one.
Well, I couldn't do this and not do some batoning.
It is difficult to describe batoning with this knife, but I'll try. Usually when I baton I have to compensate with my left hand for the movement and torque effect batoning has on the knife. I have to keep the knife straight since the tip tends to go deeper than the handle. That was not the case with the Geystoke. I can only guess it is a result of the knife's edge, but with each impact the knife went in deeper with much less resistance that I expected. There was almost no torque effect to compensate. When taking about the edge, Bryan had explain that he does a modified convex edge. He tried to explain, but to this day I have no idea what that means. That is no fault to Bryan's ability as a teacher, but my own inability to grasp the geometry of the edge he was describing. Whatever a modified convex edge is, IT WORKS.
After batoning the branch into quarters, I took a section to do a firestick. Bryan had warn me that the knife's edge would not do "pretty" firestick sections. I wanted to try anyway. Been a 10" blade I tried the two hand technique I use with longer blades.
It didn't work very well. I had problems controlling the knife or getting the cuts I wanted. The sections were way too thick or not deep enough to carve a "slice."
I switched to a one hand position, chocking up on the knife. That gave me much better control and better "feathers." They were still thicker than I wanted, but Bryan had warned me about this. I need to practice making more feather sticks with the Greystoke. I may still find a way to get them closer to the way I want them. What I got today would not be good enough to use as tinder, but good enough to use with some other tinder. For the record, I have to admit my feather stick technique leaves a lot to be desired, but I'm learning. Part of the issue may lay on my faulty technique. Some more practice may fix that, we'll see.
Well, what can I say? I'm really very impressed with the Lord Greystoke. I was expecting it to be a good chopper, but not SUCH a good chopper. Is not every day that you see a 10" blade outperform a Condor Golok or a HI chopper. Before testing the Greystoke, the Golok was my go to chopper. Not any more. This is one outstanding chopper. Is this a One-Knife-Does-It-All blade? I'm not sure. I need to use it more and get a better feel for really fine tasks, like feather sticks. It may be good enough to get the job done, but I need to get better used to it to know. In the meanwhile, Lord Greystoke will be taking a smaller companion when going to the field; just in case.
I'm not going to have anything saved up for retirement 