Ever failed ?

pitdog

pitdog

Joined
Apr 13, 2007
Messages
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Have you ever failed with a task in the outdoors because your knife wasn't sharp enough, or even struggled due to this ?

I got to thinking about this the other day when I'd touched up a couple of my knives.
Let me first say that all my knives are sharp enough to remove hair albeit some barely scrape it off and others scare it off as they get close.
I tried the two knives I'd touched up at push cutting paper, one did fine but the other failed miserably. Many of you are probably like me and stress a little over such findings, how can I take a knife out that doesn't push cut paper !!!!

Now to reality, during a recent test of my knives making feather sticks etc, I was very suprised at how close in performance all my knives were, small flat grinds, medium Scandi's and large Saber grinds, they all gave a great performance on the wood with very little between them.

So just how important is this super degree of sharpness when it comes to tasks in the wilds ?
I often hear people say a sharp knife is much safer than a blunt knife, well perhaps I'm going a little off tangent here but I've cut myself far more often with steak knives and carving knives than I have with butter knives !

Sure I know a knife should be sharp but do we worry a little too much about them being scary sharp ?

Ps. When the topic of battoning crops up ya always get someone say carry an axe, well maybe they should add if ya want ya blade to shave carry a razor !!!
 
I like a good working edge, too super scary sharp and I start worrying about chipping, rolling, etc......
 
I keep them all as sharp as a Sharpmaker can get them.

I value comfort and ergonomics slightly above sharpness but have never had a failure due to lack of sharpness.

But like most of you--I'm anal about checking each knife BEFORE I take it out to play(In my Backyard or out in the Woods)
 
For me, it goes it cycles. I go to the scary sharp to thumb it, yeah it'll work. For the most part, I keep all my knives hair raizing sharp. If I pull it outta tha sheath, and can't bald up a spot on my arm, I go to the strop. I reality, I been afield for days before my knives usually need a touch up.

My folders get the worst of it, they can go weeks between sharpenings. All my fixed blades, stay in condition 1, ready to head out. My ESKABAR is a new exception. Its a go everywhere knife, that I have had either in my hand, on my side, or on my nightstand. I'm still trying to see how long it can go between sharpenings.

I took it to Cali last week, and ABSOLUTELY ABUSED it. I pommel drove it through TBar (ceiling grid) cut accoustical tiles, jabbed holes in sheet rock, jabbed holes in hardwood paneling, cut wire, and other tough stuff. It was dull, 'cause I didn't take any sharpeners. I still had it on my side, though.

Scary sharp, ready for the field is the way I like'em. The ESKABAR is sporting a new polished edge that makes the hair lean away as I'm coming in to crop.

Moose
 
I think it depends a lot on what you are doing in the wilds. Your right, most simple woodwork does not require surgical sharpness. Most of what I do in the woods is closely related to hunting and fishing, tasks like fileting fish and cleaning game animals require a knife as sharp as you can get it. Chris
 
I typically resharpen my knives once they reluctantly shave hair, BUT in all honesty the only time it really makes a difference is when Im cleaning critters.
 
i like the ease of using a polished edge, it also lasts longer between sharpening. however on some of my ranch knives i may polish out the bevels some but leave the edge less than hair whittlin sharp. on animals if you hit a bone hard the razor thin edge may ding.
dennis
 
August West said:
I think it depends a lot on what you are doing in the wilds. Your right, most simple woodwork does not require surgical sharpness. Most of what I do in the woods is closely related to hunting and fishing, tasks like fileting fish and cleaning game animals require a knife as sharp as you can get it. Chris
Click to expand...

I agree! My Charlie May Skifa-Scandi was super-scary sharp, but failed when I was carving on hard hood (partially because I think the temp was a tad too hard); it actually chipped and took some time to fix. The edge can be sharp, but if you don't use a micro bevel or have some type of convex edge, hard impacts can damage it quicker.

I think you should get your knives as sharp as possible, but the task will determine what is best. Chopping and battoning are less important as long as you have a decent working edge...grind, design and technique are more important. When you start doing controlled cutting and chores like August West described, you really need to make sure you blade is as sharp as possible. I would include wood carving as the duller you blade gets, the more force you need...usually resulting in injury.

ROCK6
 
Edge geometry has a lot more to do with how efficiently (how much or how little your knife makes you work to achieve a task) a tool cuts, but it is easier for me to maintain an edge that will make your butt pucker, with just some light stropping occasionally, as opposed to going from full-blown dull back to a decent edge. A polished edge is going to last longer than a raggedy edge as well and the final polish is what I am talking about maintaining periodically during use. This is how I have always maintained my "cordless" wood-working tools as well and the philosophy has not let me down.
 
Jeff H said:
Edge geometry has a lot more to do with how efficiently (how much or how little your knife makes you work to achieve a task) a tool cuts, but it is easier for me to maintain an edge that will make your butt pucker, with just some light stropping occasionally, as opposed to going from full-blown dull back to a decent edge. A polished edge is going to last longer than a raggedy edge as well and the final polish is what I am talking about maintaining periodically during use. This is how I have always maintained my "cordless" wood-working tools as well and the philosophy has not let me down.
Click to expand...

Good points but I'm not talking about letting ya knife get really dull or having one with a ' raggedy ' edge, just sharp as opposed to whittling hairs sharp !;)
 
I keep all my knives hair popping sharp. If it takes any pressure at all to jump hair, then the knife gets the strop!

I don't like letting my knives get dull. I just give them a few passes per side after the day is over.

I did, just the other day, have a machete do horrible out in the woods. I was trying to trim some evergreen branches away from my vehicle (parking on our family lot up in the mountains).

I normally keep my Magnum Khukri machete hair popping sharp, and it just flicks through branches.

My father in law used it to chop down some monster weeds the other day (stalks thicker than my wrist!). He managed to find some rocks, and I hit it with the belt sander real quick, but I never finished the edge off with a crock stick or strop.

It would not chop at all. It was unbelievable how bad it was doing. Then I realized, I never finished the edge.

So my answer is yes, I have had a knife fail in use in the field because it was not sharp enough.

A couple of winters ago, I helped a friend butcher his elk. I had to stop occasionally to strop the edges of my knives, because they were not slicing as cleanly.
 
pitdog said:
Good points but I'm not talking about letting ya knife get really dull or having one with a ' raggedy ' edge, just sharp as opposed to whittling hairs sharp !;)
Click to expand...

I gotcha, Pit'.
I can see LETTING it get less than puckery sharp - I thought you were questioning why bother making it shaving sharp to begin with. "Ragedy" to me is anything less than a mirror polish, (just a tool habit) so I am talking "microscopic ragedy." Not that one needs to be that particular, but my intent there is that it will get "slightly less than really sharp" somewhat less quickly.

If none of that made sense, I will sumarize with "I think I am agreeing with you.":D

Not to split hairs or anything...;)
 
pitdog said:
Have you ever failed with a task in the outdoors because your knife wasn't sharp enough, or even struggled due to this ?

I got to thinking about this the other day when I'd touched up a couple of my knives.
Let me first say that all my knives are sharp enough to remove hair albeit some barely scrape it off and others scare it off as they get close.
I tried the two knives I'd touched up at push cutting paper, one did fine but the other failed miserably. Many of you are probably like me and stress a little over such findings, how can I take a knife out that doesn't push cut paper !!!!

Now to reality, during a recent test of my knives making feather sticks etc, I was very suprised at how close in performance all my knives were, small flat grinds, medium Scandi's and large Saber grinds, they all gave a great performance on the wood with very little between them.

So just how important is this super degree of sharpness when it comes to tasks in the wilds ?
I often hear people say a sharp knife is much safer than a blunt knife, well perhaps I'm going a little off tangent here but I've cut myself far more often with steak knives and carving knives than I have with butter knives !

Sure I know a knife should be sharp but do we worry a little too much about them being scary sharp ?

Ps. When the topic of battoning crops up ya always get someone say carry an axe, well maybe they should add if ya want ya blade to shave carry a razor !!!
Click to expand...

It is an interesting point you make .... I don't think I have ever deliberately compared a knife which was "fair to middling" sharp with one that was "razor" sharp. I have taken a fair selection of knives out where all of them were sharp and done a number of cutting tasks to see how they held an edge.

Here is the link for those interested to the write up ....

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=759584&highlight=infi+the+rest

That taught me the geometry of the grind and the Rc hardness of the blade helped considerably in performance ....

This translated to a knife with a good thin profile being able to cut easier when dulled through use ....

However nothing "failed" in a task and it was nuance stuff some of it ..... trying to tell a difference from other blades .... but doing cuts back to back with the knives meant it could be done ....

The blade geometry has made a difference though on certain tasks when all the knives were razor sharp .... an example of this is when I was limbing a tree I had taken down with my GFB SFA and having gone through a branch the haft connected with another and put a dink in the haft ... I wanted to tidy it up and found that a higher scandi grind with thinner 3mm stock was more effective at trimming the dink out than a 4mm scandi blade with a lower grind .... the lower grind knife wanted to bite into the wood more .... the higher one could be used more like a scalpel ....it did a cracking job on the repair ....

So I suppose in that instance the other knife did fail but not from the sharpness .... more from the geometry ....

I have also used a number of my knives in a Deer Larder skinning and butchering carcasses and found that the best steel/knife for these tasks were also the ones that lasted the longest/did the best in the edge testing article above.

None however "failed" in doing the job .... it just took more of an effort when the edge dulled on some ....so I guess the point you make is true in that razor sharp is not always needed for some tasks and rarely results in failure in others.
 
Yep, shot a beaver on my parents farm not long ago, pulled out my RC-3 to skin it ( my intention was take it home and roast it just to say I did) and I could not cut the hide. I guess at some point I'd used it and rolled the edge, would have worked for battoning or something like that, but not cutting hide. couple swipes of my ceramic pocket stone, and back in business. didn't finish the job as it appeared that my shot may have entered the gut cavity, so I stopped. I used a 30/30 125jhp, and the damage that thing causes would have made it more of a mess than I wanted to deal with.
So, not sure how I dulled it, not a survival situation, but yeah, dull knife. granted I also had an Izula, vic huntsman and Giptillian that could have taken over, if I needed to!
 
I dunno. If it can't push cut paper, it isn't sharp. But then I tend to think my axe is dull if it won't push cut paper. This may be skewed thinking, but sharp is sharp. Everything else isn't. Not that my axe can always push cut paper, but when it can't I always think it needs to be sharpened.
 
I haven't bothered making anything b ut my razors razor sharp for quite some time now, as it isn't necessary -- not even for cleaning and skinning.

I get the edge so that I can hold it in the sunlight, and not see any shiny spots on the edge -- which would be dull or rolled areas, then make it nice and polished. It won't shave hair or push cut paper, but I have no problem whittling super thin wood shavings or skinning game with it.
 
I never let my knives deteriorate to the point where they don't cut reasonably well. I'm constantly touching them up before and after I use them , even for just a couple of minutes , so they are ready for the next task. In the field , I carry a DC4 and a Lansky diamond sportsman's rod , and those take care of any type of blade or steel that I carry. Some stuff is very hard to impossible to cut through ,like knots or very hard wood. I guess you could call those a "fail" , but I wouldn't necessarily blame that on the knife. Sometimes it's the media you're cutting through that's the problem.
 
I dare to bet there are some on here that sharpen their knives before a trip and even if they don't use them they sharpen them again before the next....admit it !:D
 
G'day Pit


pitdog said:
....So just how important is this super degree of sharpness when it comes to tasks in the wilds ?
Click to expand...

At the risk of offending some, I'll ask a couple of honest questions that will hint at my thoughts on this :D

What is the correlation between those who obsess about a "scary sharp edge" & their posts that show verification that they spend an extended amount of time outdoors ( i.e 5 days plus at a time).

How many then provide further verification that whilst they are out & about for this length of time that they actually put their knives to the types of extended use that actually tests the edge retention of their blades?

If your prepared to honestly answer these two questions, I reckon you'll have my answer to your question :D




Kind regards
Mick
 
Bigfattyt said:
...It would not chop at all. It was unbelievable how bad it was doing. Then I realized, I never finished the edge.

So my answer is yes, I have had a knife fail in use in the field because it was not sharp enough.
Click to expand...

This falls in with what I've experienced, namely that it's a lot more important for the choppers to be fine-edged sharp in order to work well. A folder or smaller sheath knife still needs to be maintained, but I've had very good luck using some rather coarse grinds. I have a simple rule of thumb, if it chops or push cuts (hatchet, machete), get it as fine as possible - if it's for draw cuts (pocket knife), leave some tooth to it. As long as I don't let other folks use any of my cutters they can go three or four outings before needing touch ups. If it's somewhere in between, say a larger belt knife, than I tend to lean toward the fine edge. A polished edge will still draw cut a little, but not very well - a coarse edge won't push cut worth a turd.
 
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