Do large butcher knives make good woods choppers?

J

Jester60

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I recently picked up a rough Foster Bros butcher knife. It's about 16" overall with a 11" blade (approx) that's abt 3/16" thick. It's got the traditional style butcher knife blade profile where the blade widens towards the point.

Would this hold up for woods work? I'm thinking if it'll cut through bone it should handle oak limbs and such with no problem.

Anyone ever used these for woods choppers?
 
Well considering they are made to cut through bone and sinew, they should do ok. However, a hatchet would be the more logical bet. Then again, you can always try batoning with a friction folder.
 
K.O.D. said:
Well considering they are made to cut through bone and sinew, they should do ok. However, a hatchet would be the more logical bet.
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Ah yes, this again. :D
I've found that my big choppers, like the Junglas or the last huge blade I made, work better than any hatchet I have tried.
Once again though, that is my experience; yours may vary.
Perhaps the choppers you have tried suck, or maybe the hatchets you have used are way more awesome than what I have.
 
Should work. I think a weight forward blade allows you to apply a bit more force on the "chop" on wood. Butcher knives are generally more of a slicer vs a chopper.
 
What 22-rimfire said. My dad used to use an old Dexter 12" carbon steel chef knife as a small machete & light chopper. It worked ok for light clearing but sucked as a chopper due to not having enough forward weight as well as other issues. It was 1/8th at most though and chef knives tend to be less weight forward than butcher patterns.

How about trying it out and sharing the photos with us?
 
The butcher knives I use, or rather kitchen knives, have always been too thin to be a really good chopper: for very long. And the camp knives/choppers are too thick for for much food. That's why i always ( where possible) take a good chopper and a thinner kitchen/butcher knife. I like a big kitchen knife. For anything substantial, an axe and/ or saw is best or you may lose feeling in your hand for a while using the wrong tool for the job, like me.
 
HJK said:
The butcher knives I use, or rather kitchen knives, have always been too thin to be a really good chopper: for very long.
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But the butcher knife in the original post is 3/16" thick, with 11 inches of blade.
I think that'll be thick and long enough to chop relatively well.
 
stabman said:
But the butcher knife in the original post is 3/16" thick, with 11 inches of blade.
I think that'll be thick and long enough to chop relatively well.
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No doubt. But it would be too thick for me to use in the kitchen for much. Might as well use a big old Busse instead for everything.
 
HJK said:
No doubt. But it would be too thick for me to use in the kitchen for much. Might as well use a big old Busse instead for everything.
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Heh, yeah.
Whenever I get dragged into doing stuff in the kitchen, I just use one of my other duty knives, be it the Junglas, or a folder like the ZT 0561 or some such thing.
The Cold Steel Espada XL slices peppers surprisingly well. :D

Some say "why don't you get better kitchen knives?"
Answer: because my wife does most of the stuff in the kitchen, and she prefers them dull. Yep, when I sharpen them, she can't wait till they're dull again.

But she likes her pocket knives razor sharp...go figure.
 
stabman said:
But the butcher knife in the original post is 3/16" thick, with 11 inches of blade.
I think that'll be thick and long enough to chop relatively well.
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Exactly what I thought. That should be plenty stout enough for chopping.
 
Yeah, that 3/16" got my attention when I first read it. It might not make a ideal chopper but based on the description it sounds like it might make better chopper than it did a butcher knife. I just bought another custom chopper that is 5/32" stock.
 
Brisket said:
Yeah, that 3/16" got my attention when I first read it. It might not make a ideal chopper but based on the description it sounds like it might make better chopper than it did a butcher knife.
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Some of those big kitchen choppers are meant to split pigs, chickens or whatever else you have with bones in them with great ease.
Think of a pointy cleaver. :)

Probably not the best knife for making fine presentation grade food displays. :D
 
Yeah I love the old vintage butcher tools. Most of the cow & pig splitters I have seen are the long handled cleaver shaped variety and are of significant heft. The guy that processes our steers has a nice vintage collection.
 
Sounds like you have a lamb splitter rather than a conventional butcher knife. Those are made for chopping bone but normal butcher knives are too light for serious chopping. They are also often too hard for this use and will chip. Learned that the hard way.
 
I would also add that how the edge is ground will have a big effect. If it is ground to thin (the way I would like my edge for meat cutting) I would worry about it chipping our if you tried any serious chopping.
 
The guy I got it from called it a lamb splitter but, never having actually split a lamb, I have no clue what would be proper to use. This one I have (actually two, plus a long handled clever type about 30" long 《measurements are guesstimates, I'm not home now to measure them), would do a wonderful job on a whitetail I bet.

I'll be home in 2 weeks, maybe I can get some pics of them to post.

Tks
 
You own it, so sharpen it up and give it a try on some limbs and small trees. You can make your own mind up after you use it a bit.
 
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