Went up to the Victorian (Southern Australia) High country for a few days this week. I used to live here and have continued to return to visit my friend and ex neighbour, Ron.
Thought I'd take up a Badger and see how it went and see what Ron thought. I was mainly interested in edge holding but I have decided to leave the knife with Ron for an ongoing performance assessment, doing all sorts of normal farm tasks.
I was hoping to hunt some deer and I did see a good stag but couldn't get a shot of quickly enough. Because of the recent drought in Australia, most of my time was spent hand feeding cattle.
This didn't leave much time for hunting.
The old girl we are skinning with the Badger, had some sort of bone injury. She couldn't feed real well and so did not have much condition on here.
She is not good enough for the house and will be used as dog meat.
Despite this, we wanted to remove her hide and use it as nothing is wasted up here.
Ron is a very smart farmer and a terrific bushman. He is a farrier and self taught blacksmith who makes his own work knives as well as leather gear and a host of other things. He is over 70 now but is very fit and likes to stay in touch with what is going on. This is not always so easy as the mountains are very remote.
Overall Ron was extremely impressed with the Badger. He considered its price to be very fair and as good value. This is a man who has no time for inferiority in any measure.
He liked the mimimal grips as they are, and so do I. We both found the knife very well balanced and considered edge holding to be excellent.
Ron made one small criticism but it is a good one. When skinning a large animal like a cow, it is easy to lose concentration and inadvertantly damage the hide.
For this reason, and strange as it may sound, a blade a little less than razor sharp can make it easier to do long blows without risk of damage. Ron thought the Badger was, if anything, a little too sharp. We both agreed this was hardly a fault and we were not about to blunten it to suit.
Instead we just concentrated on our work so as to leave the hide unmarred.
Ron working the hide off the beast. This hide will be salted and become greenhide.
It will probably be used for stockwhips. Ron makes a lot of these during the winter nights.
For us Busse folk, it is easy to think of the Badger as a small knife, but it is not. It is a great size and weight and the full, slow curve makes it a very useful skinner and all round farm knife.
The Fat Glossy Mistress has stepped up here and the old girl is coming apart. We did some post mortem
stuff with the Badger to see what was going on with her bones. Looked like some kind of bovine osteoporosis and very severe it was too.
Using Miss Fatso, I removed these limbs with a bit of wrist work only. No need to chop at all with the weight of the knife enough for good clean slicing cuts, even through the shoulder blades. The FFBM was just amazing.
You can't see them in the pics, but we are being watched by some very happy dogs.
To see more of life in the High Country please click the link below.
http://www.freewebs.com/watom/highcountry.htm
Thought I'd take up a Badger and see how it went and see what Ron thought. I was mainly interested in edge holding but I have decided to leave the knife with Ron for an ongoing performance assessment, doing all sorts of normal farm tasks.
I was hoping to hunt some deer and I did see a good stag but couldn't get a shot of quickly enough. Because of the recent drought in Australia, most of my time was spent hand feeding cattle.
This didn't leave much time for hunting.
The old girl we are skinning with the Badger, had some sort of bone injury. She couldn't feed real well and so did not have much condition on here.
She is not good enough for the house and will be used as dog meat.
Despite this, we wanted to remove her hide and use it as nothing is wasted up here.
Ron is a very smart farmer and a terrific bushman. He is a farrier and self taught blacksmith who makes his own work knives as well as leather gear and a host of other things. He is over 70 now but is very fit and likes to stay in touch with what is going on. This is not always so easy as the mountains are very remote.
Overall Ron was extremely impressed with the Badger. He considered its price to be very fair and as good value. This is a man who has no time for inferiority in any measure.
He liked the mimimal grips as they are, and so do I. We both found the knife very well balanced and considered edge holding to be excellent.
Ron made one small criticism but it is a good one. When skinning a large animal like a cow, it is easy to lose concentration and inadvertantly damage the hide.
For this reason, and strange as it may sound, a blade a little less than razor sharp can make it easier to do long blows without risk of damage. Ron thought the Badger was, if anything, a little too sharp. We both agreed this was hardly a fault and we were not about to blunten it to suit.
Instead we just concentrated on our work so as to leave the hide unmarred.
Ron working the hide off the beast. This hide will be salted and become greenhide.
It will probably be used for stockwhips. Ron makes a lot of these during the winter nights.
For us Busse folk, it is easy to think of the Badger as a small knife, but it is not. It is a great size and weight and the full, slow curve makes it a very useful skinner and all round farm knife.
The Fat Glossy Mistress has stepped up here and the old girl is coming apart. We did some post mortem
stuff with the Badger to see what was going on with her bones. Looked like some kind of bovine osteoporosis and very severe it was too.
Using Miss Fatso, I removed these limbs with a bit of wrist work only. No need to chop at all with the weight of the knife enough for good clean slicing cuts, even through the shoulder blades. The FFBM was just amazing.
You can't see them in the pics, but we are being watched by some very happy dogs.
To see more of life in the High Country please click the link below.
http://www.freewebs.com/watom/highcountry.htm
Regards, ss. (I like those working whips too)
