Mistwalker
Gold Member
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2007
- Messages
- 19,017
Some of you may remember that back in 2012 I did a series of field tests and a review of one of the first hand made versions of the Fiddleback Forge interpretation of the Kephart design. I know it deviated greatly from what many considered the traditional Kephart design, but it really didn't for me personally other than I was more drawn to this interpretation than I had been previous ones. It just checked boxes on my bushcraft-knife needs / wants / likes list that other versions of the design, and other bushcrafting knife designs in general had not. In a very short period of time I fell in love with this model. The handle contours and blade profile simply came together in a magical combination for me personally and it was very intuitive to use. It just flowed like an extension of my own arm. The only real drawback for came from the fact that I had just spent a few months working in south Florida, where every hi carbon steel knife I had kept needing maintenance to avoid serious rust issues. Though two knives I had with me and used on a regular basis stayed rust free the entire time. Both of those knives were made of cryo-quenched CPM S35VN, but were from two different knife companies. One I had been sent for tests and evaluation almost two years prior to the Florida trip, and being marketed as a knife for soldiers, had been put through the wringer already in some very hard uses. The other was a smaller, lighter, thinner, skeletonized neck knife I had picked up for more discrete carry. Later in 2012, I picked up another knife in between those two designs size wise, made of the same steel and treated the same way, but from yet another maker. I soon learned that I really like this particular steel very much overall for my uses and needs. It is great for the environment I live in, a temperate rain forest where the humidity is almost always high, and in the gulf coast area I like to visit every chance I get. It wasn't just the corrosion resistance I liked, but also the edge taking and edge retention abilities, and the toughness it had shown in hard uses.
So, then wait for the knife I have today first began about four years ago when Andy first started doing a few knives in CPM S35VN to see how it would go. But then those hopes faded when I learned that CPM S35VN is such a hard steel that it is very challenging for Andy to produce the nearly flat convex grind he does on his knives, and that making them that way would make them somewhat cost prohibitive. There are only a few hand made Fiddleback models floating around in this steel. Then hope was rekindled when Andy mentioned doing some Fiddleback models in mid-tech form in different steels. One of which was CPM S35VN. Back in February I finally got my favorite bushcrafting knife model to date, in my favorite knife steel to date.
The knife comes stock with a good quality leather sheath made by JRE Industries. It has a firesteel loop, in which I keep a ferro rod and carbide striker from Suffolk Metal Works (Swonut here on the forums), held in place via para cord and a cord lock.
It is a full-sized and hand-filling knife, but not overly large or unwieldy. I like its size for long term use in whittling and carving.
The Specs:
Overall Length................8.6 inches / 23 cm
Blade Length..................3.75 inches / 9.5 cm
Blade thickness...............0.125 inches / 3 mm
Blade Steel.....................CPM S35VN RC-60/61 high, flat saber grind
Handle material..............Crenelated Canvas Micarta. natural or black
Sheath...........................Brown leather pouch belt sheath with ferro rod loop
The bullseye lanyard holes of the handmade knives are one of the features I really like about the hand made knives. I really like the aesthetic of them. However, if this one can't have the bullseye then the hidden lanyard hole it has is just fine with me. I really like how it keeps the lanyard out from under my hand in use. I am a water person who lives on a mountain and hikes along bluffs. I much prefer to have lanyards on my field knives in use in some places.
It does well at feather sticks as I expected...but more on that later.
What I really like about this knife is how it handles in carving and detail work.
L-7 trap triggers
These are the parts for a type of dead fall trap trigger called a Paiute dead fall. Making the parts for it involved doing what I call ring-and-break to get good clean ends on the parts with no splits. Plus some splitting, carving, and notching.
When the trap falls it crushes things into the ground. If I were actually using the trap, I would have saved some of the smoked oysters for bait, but as it was I ate them all
End Part 1 of 3
So, then wait for the knife I have today first began about four years ago when Andy first started doing a few knives in CPM S35VN to see how it would go. But then those hopes faded when I learned that CPM S35VN is such a hard steel that it is very challenging for Andy to produce the nearly flat convex grind he does on his knives, and that making them that way would make them somewhat cost prohibitive. There are only a few hand made Fiddleback models floating around in this steel. Then hope was rekindled when Andy mentioned doing some Fiddleback models in mid-tech form in different steels. One of which was CPM S35VN. Back in February I finally got my favorite bushcrafting knife model to date, in my favorite knife steel to date.
The knife comes stock with a good quality leather sheath made by JRE Industries. It has a firesteel loop, in which I keep a ferro rod and carbide striker from Suffolk Metal Works (Swonut here on the forums), held in place via para cord and a cord lock.
It is a full-sized and hand-filling knife, but not overly large or unwieldy. I like its size for long term use in whittling and carving.
The Specs:
Overall Length................8.6 inches / 23 cm
Blade Length..................3.75 inches / 9.5 cm
Blade thickness...............0.125 inches / 3 mm
Blade Steel.....................CPM S35VN RC-60/61 high, flat saber grind
Handle material..............Crenelated Canvas Micarta. natural or black
Sheath...........................Brown leather pouch belt sheath with ferro rod loop
The bullseye lanyard holes of the handmade knives are one of the features I really like about the hand made knives. I really like the aesthetic of them. However, if this one can't have the bullseye then the hidden lanyard hole it has is just fine with me. I really like how it keeps the lanyard out from under my hand in use. I am a water person who lives on a mountain and hikes along bluffs. I much prefer to have lanyards on my field knives in use in some places.
It does well at feather sticks as I expected...but more on that later.
What I really like about this knife is how it handles in carving and detail work.
L-7 trap triggers
These are the parts for a type of dead fall trap trigger called a Paiute dead fall. Making the parts for it involved doing what I call ring-and-break to get good clean ends on the parts with no splits. Plus some splitting, carving, and notching.
When the trap falls it crushes things into the ground. If I were actually using the trap, I would have saved some of the smoked oysters for bait, but as it was I ate them all
End Part 1 of 3
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