Important Info! Fiddleback Friday 3/27/20

[JRTufts]

Happy to say that the hiking buddy is mine! I really like my production hb and I've been waiting for a few months for the right 3/32 TT hb to come along. This one is it.

Congrats! That is a really nice HB, it looks really classy.

 

[Mistwalker]

Happy to say that the hiking buddy is mine! I really like my production hb and I've been waiting for a few months for the right 3/32 TT hb to come along. This one is it.

I personally prefer them a little thicker due to my habit of suddenly conducting wilderness studies with whatever knife I am carrying, or suddenly teaching an impromptu class in a parking lot which happens at least once a week, and puts my personal knives under more than normal stress and strain on a regular basis. Teaching an impromptu bow drill class to a few of my friends on our local police dept using a beautiful recluse with a full-height grind on a 3/32 thick blade with a thin tip was a bit stressful for me once. That said, that Hiking Buddy is gorgeous! I think it's a stellar example of that model.

 

[Random Dan]

I personally prefer them a little thicker due to my habit of suddenly conducting wilderness studies with whatever knife I am carrying, or suddenly teaching an impromptu class in a parking lot which happens at least once a week, and puts my personal knives under more than normal stress and strain on a regular basis. Teaching an impromptu bow drill class to a few of my friends on our local police dept using a beautiful recluse with a full-height grind on a 3/32 thick blade with a thin tip was a bit stressful for me once. That said, that Hiking Buddy is gorgeous! I think it's a stellar example of that model.

Well don't be too concerned. I still have the pro hb at 1/8 and bushcrafter jr at 5/32 so I think I'll be ok. Excited for thin and slicey.

 

[Mistwalker]

LOLOLOL that wasn't some dig at you or your stunning Hiking Buddy man. It's gorgeous, but I couldn't care less if you use it for a throwing knif or any other use. I have absolutely zero concerns of what anyone does with their knives, ever, regardless of who made them of what or their prices. I'm friends with people like Bmurray , have you seen some of his exploits lol? It's just that I've tried them all in all thicknesses and just personally feel more comfortable doing finer tasks with slightly thicker blades in the field, or even my kitchen, than I feel doing rougher tasks with a thinner one in any environment and taking it beyond reasonable expectations of the composition. And being a lifelong wilderness skills and urban survival student and studying a lot of techniques in both environments, and teaching those things professionally for the last couple of decades in classes and workshops, as well as being an author who has written many articles and co-authored a few books on both of those subjects, that's just where I've landed personally trying to keep things within reason. I use my knives in a lot of illustration images and I'd rather not promote unreasonable uses, and common sense isn't common everywhere anymore. As far as what the rest of the world does, for all I care people can harvest mushrooms with a 3/8 thick blade if it suits their fancy and baton maple crotches with 1/16 blades, or whatever else floats their boats. I've seen some of all things knife related good and bad here on Blade Forums in the last 15 years (I lurked a couple before joining), and unless I see someone voicing an unfair complaint with unreasonable expectation of a tool's performance I don't even pay attention to it anymore. It's not my place to judge what others do, and I have neither the time nor inclination to do so at any rate

 

[Mistwalker]

Wow, with that spectacular spalting and that awesome looking Katalox, I'm really surprised the Karda is still available.

 

[Bmurray]

I'm really liking the paring knife, just wish I could afford it right now. Maybe later this year I'll be back on my feet, (if not in the grave first) and get myself a paring knife and a loaner. The paring knife looks like a nice EDC and or B&T.

 

[JRTufts]

I agree the paring knife looks like a great edc but my hiking buddy would be jealous.

 

[Mistwalker]

I'm really liking the paring knife, just wish I could afford it right now. Maybe later this year I'll be back on my feet, (if not in the grave first) and get myself a paring knife and a loaner. The paring knife looks like a nice EDC and or B&T.

I dig the paring knife. I'd love a matching set of Gaucho, Fillet, Boning, and Paring knives for the kitchen. That handle looks really comfortable in long term use for a working knife. You can see the Nordic influences popping out here and there. But one of the Nordic influences in it has always messed with me personally for some reason based on early experiences some where that I can't quite put my finger on remembering but was obviously formative for me. I've been working on it for over a decade now, and hanging out with Andy has been helpful with it, but I still have issues in the handle to blade ratio dept. The greater the amount by which the handle of a knife is longer than its blade, though they be good working knives in crafts, the less I am drawn to them for use as belt knife and in some cases even as an EDC carry. Before I met Andy I wouldn't even carry a knife that had a blade that was noticeably shorter than it's handle, and to this day still favor the Woodsman most partially because of that element. And that goes back to the mid 70s at least and the earliest days of my dad teaching me knife and survival skills, and something really formative must have happened back then. When I bought the Camillus Pilot's Knife that I have (that still lives in a get home kit in my truck) at Jack's Army Store in Chattanooga in 1979, I was 14 and in the 9th grade and in ROTC. My group of friends and I had all grown up in military families during the cold war and were training in our own time in preparation for a deployment we all expected to experience by the time we were 18. So every weekend, Saturday afternoons after we had done whatever chores or jobs we did to make the money, we would hike into the city as a group and buy supplies from Jack. Early on each of us bought a pilot survival knife. I still remember being hesitant because of the dimensions and the very handle-heavy balance. Jack had to pull out a measuring tape and show me that the blade was actually a little bit longer than the handle before I could be okay with buying it, but as soon as I saw the blade was a slight bit longer than the handle I was immediately fine with it. It's funny how life can instill odd quirks in us and we don't remember how.

 

[RayseM]

Mistwalker - are you saying that a 2-3/4" blade is best handled with a 2-3/4" - 3" handle?

I have what I call a small large hand that fits real well with a 4" min. handle, including bolster and cap, almost regardless of the blade length. This preference, typically for fixed and folders (with much more latitude to smaller handles with small folders). That 4" is my happy spot +/- 1/4" for handles. Absolutely OK with me if a handle ends up being an 1" longer than the blade, especially with 2-3/4" to 3-1/4" blade lengths. Don't like more handle length than 4.5" though, almost no matter the blade length.

Funny how are preference evolve but there you go - to each his own.

Note that ALMOST qualifier - twice.

 

[Mistwalker]

Mistwalker - are you saying that a 2-3/4" blade is best handled with a 2-3/4" - 3" handle?

LOL, I'm not saying anything is better than anything else for anyone else other than myself. I had to go measure to see the exact dimensions, but I suppose with the only sub 3 inch blade fixed blade knife that has really become endeared to me as an EDC being a Babyboot, which has a 2-5/8 blade mated to a 3-1/8 inch handle, I suppose I am pretty close to being in that camp. I can say for sure I prefer 3 finger handles for blades that short versus a four finger handle. For a full 4 inch or so handle I need at least a 3 inch blade and prefer a 4 inch blade. My ideal field knife has a 5 inch blade and a 4-1/2 inch handle. Which the pilot knife and the Fiddleback Woodsman both do. But some of that goes back to the traumatic circumstances I lived through for five years with the pilot knife as my only field knife.