GB940Rookie
Gold Member
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2016
- Messages
- 3,844
This has been my favorite folder for the last few camp outs. Lightweight, good slicer.
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The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is available! Price is $250 ea (shipped within CONUS).
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/
Good EDC/Wilderness folder knife
- Thread starter Tomoplll
- Start date
I would suggest you first try to learn about blade grind geometry, how it affects performance, and how relates to the type of use you want to help narrow the mass of options available.
Otherwise, it will be a long expensive journey. Not because any one knife may be expensive, but because many fall prey to the crow syndrome; of always looking for a new shinny object to chase/acquire (searching for something new without an understanding of where you have come from or where you should be headed - from a performance perspective).
You should be able to satisfy your initial references with a quality performance based knife for well under $50, perhaps under $25 even. In this way you could for example buy/try two knives with significantly differing blade-grind geometry and learn how they can affect performance of various tasks.
Spend/budget out of your investment for a sharpening system that will allow for repeatable results and learn how to sharpen and also to adjust the cutting edge bevels.
Here is a pic. illustrating a few common blade grind geometry as reference example. Additionally, the Saber grind is very common (somewhat of a Scandi as illustrated below, plus a Secondary bevel applied to the cutting edge similar to how the Flat grind is shown).
Truth be told ..., I will admit the first knife that came to mind for me, based on what you mentioned in your OP, I the Cold Steel Finn Wolf. It is however a Scandi grind, and my guess would be that many do not appreciate what a Scandi brings in terms of performance. I come from a history of working with wood (chisels, etc.) and sharpening all my tools personally (includes worm drive saw blades and carpentry saws) on a daily basis (jobsites with files & stones).
Regards,
Thank you for the commant,
the Cold Steel Finn Wolf looks awsome too, what do you recommand to me, Recon 1, Cold Steel Finn Wolf, HK Axis or Manix 2? I really don't know which one will work the best, I want to buy one knife that will hold for a year or two so I don't care about spending more money than the Cold Steel Finn Wolf, I prefer to spend 100$ on a good knife than to spend 50$ on a "good knife for the price.
You should consider re-asking your question in the Wilderness or Outdoor sub-forums on this site.
Here's how I would recommend spending the $100
$15 - The Backpacker's Handbook, by Chris Townsend. IMO, the best intro book by far.
$15 - Bushcraft, by Mors Kochanski. This is the book that revived the term.
$17 - Gerber Dime. Mini multitool. If you want something bigger, go cheap for now.
$13 - DMT Course Credit Card Sharpener.
$15 - Mora Companion. Fixed blade. Cheap way to learn about Scandi grinds and fixed blades.
$25 - Any one of the following folders to try different locks and grinds:
Ontario Rat 2 (flat grind, liner lock)
Buck Bantam 285 (hollow grind, lock back)
Opinel #10 Inox (convex grind, ring lock)
My reasoning....
+ Knowledge is more valuable than a knife.
+ If you want to go the bushcraft route, you will need a fixed blade, not a folder, to handle regular batonning of wood.
+ If you want to go the more common stove-based approach, you don't need a fixed blade and you can consider folders.
+ Either way, a stone and small multi-tool are good additions to you knife.
Here's how I would recommend spending the $100
$15 - The Backpacker's Handbook, by Chris Townsend. IMO, the best intro book by far.
$15 - Bushcraft, by Mors Kochanski. This is the book that revived the term.
$17 - Gerber Dime. Mini multitool. If you want something bigger, go cheap for now.
$13 - DMT Course Credit Card Sharpener.
$15 - Mora Companion. Fixed blade. Cheap way to learn about Scandi grinds and fixed blades.
$25 - Any one of the following folders to try different locks and grinds:
Ontario Rat 2 (flat grind, liner lock)
Buck Bantam 285 (hollow grind, lock back)
Opinel #10 Inox (convex grind, ring lock)
My reasoning....
+ Knowledge is more valuable than a knife.
+ If you want to go the bushcraft route, you will need a fixed blade, not a folder, to handle regular batonning of wood.
+ If you want to go the more common stove-based approach, you don't need a fixed blade and you can consider folders.
+ Either way, a stone and small multi-tool are good additions to you knife.
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2012
- Messages
- 1,104
Hmmm ..., those four knives are all pretty different in my mind (two tacticool blades, one bushcraft blade, and a flat-grind leaf blade with distal taper - very different). As far as blade-grind geometry; one is Hollow-grind, one is Saber-grind, one is Scandi-grind, one is Flat-grind. Interestingly you have chosen four very different knives, that have little in common (from a performance comparison standpoint).
I would have to say I have previously already answered your questions. Figure out what kind of blade grind would suit your usage intentions, then choose a handle configuration that fits your hand (provided you plan to spend any amount of time using the knife), otherwise just start with the one that looks or feels best in your mind.
I also already went out on a limb and made a knife reference to what sounded appropriate to me based on your original post (something I rarely do, because I have found many peep's will still choose to buy based on appearance with no consideration for blade geometry and intended usage).
RE: your comment "I prefer to spend 100$ on a good knife than to spend 50$ on a good knife for the price."
Every knife you referenced is a "good knife" that will last you for a long time, provided you learn to properly care for it. Simply spending more money does not automatically get you a "better" knife. For the useage you specified in your original post a $12 - $15 Mora would probably actually be your best investment in learning what you want like (again, attention paid to learn how to sharpen and adjust the edge geometry - while learning the effects), or a folding Opinel (but at this point the whole looks factor probably overrides the performance factor for most peep's).
I would again defer to what I already wrote in my first reply:
"You should be able to satisfy your initial references with a quality performance based knife for well under $50, perhaps under $25 even.
In this way you could for example buy/try two knives with significantly differing blade-grind geometry and learn how they can affect performance of various tasks.
Spend/budget out of your investment for a sharpening system that will allow for repeatable results and learn how to sharpen and also to adjust the cutting edge bevels."
At this point, I would almost feel amiss if I did not at least mention what I believe to be the best overall performing production knife, for $100 - The Spyderco PM-2, as it seems you are dead set on spending $100 on one knife regardless. It took me a bit to warm to the fugly, but it is a knife that comes out, does it's job, and then disappears before you can even think about it. The only reason I was hesitant to even mention a PM2 is that you mentioned camp-wood-work, and to me this naturally involves rotational drilling of wood with the tip and the PM2 tip is a bit acute to be pressed hard in this type of work (I have drilled many a fire-board with a PM2 but done so with careful attention to what I was doing soas not to damage the tip. These same thoughts would apply to the Manix flat ground leaf-blade as well, because of it's distal taper up spine to tip. Other than that I would have no issue my PM2 being my only knife. The Finn Wolf, on the other-hand was designed for this type of work.
Question:
I would like to take my wife out to dinner. Can someone recommend a nice restaurant for less than $100?
Answer:
You obviously don't understand eating out or have the matured pallet I do. I would recommend you:
$15 on cook book to understand what makes good ingredients
$30 on new shirt
$5 on a razor to shave
$8 on gas to get to restaurant
$9 on flowers for your wife
Then you can pick between any of these cheap restaurants I enjoy for the leftover $35
Burger King
Applebees
Chilis
I can appreciate these restaurants due to my extensive knowledge of food which you obviously lack. I know you lack this because even though I never asked you what you know, you simply just can't know as much as me.
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2005
- Messages
- 19,385
On the subject of grinds..... they appear simple in shape, but it's hard to discriminate between them if you aren't somewhat familiar. My advice is go with full flat grind because it's an easier design to sharpen. Overall the convex grind may be the best for a durable sharp edge, but it is harder to sharpen and for the unknowing (like me at times), you end up making it into a high flat ground knife. If you use the stropping method, it's easy to maintain the convex edge. If you hand sharpen on stones, I feel in most cases you are slowly re-grinding the blade geometry into a high flat and eventually a full flat grind especially in thinner blade stocks. I would not choose a hollow ground knife first unless it is for hunting purposes where the thin edge is really useful for cutting through meat and hide. That said, I think you can live with any of these and be quite satisfied overall in terms of cutting. Knife nuts are always trying to discriminate between tiny differences in cutting on grinds, but the reality is that the sharpness makes a big difference too and your knife may not always be at it's sharpest.
All that said, if you're interested, buying knives with the various grinds and using them is a good exercise in gaining knowledge.
All that said, if you're interested, buying knives with the various grinds and using them is a good exercise in gaining knowledge.
- Joined
- Feb 6, 2010
- Messages
- 3,622
Hahah. Yes.
To chime in for the OP, I'll add my name to the list of those recommending the HK Axis -great folder!
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- Joined
- Apr 9, 2006
- Messages
- 666
It's a brick. There are better, lighter choices. No offence intended.
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