Just got back from camping a little north of the Colorado River and had an excellent chance to use my new Green Beret 7" for the very first time. I put it through its paces by deciding to make a walking stick.
So, after our canoeing adventure on the river, we came back to camp and I was off to find a good tree to hack away at for my stick. I found a near by tree with a low hanging limb, about 1 1/2" in diameter. After searching a little more I decided to make the stick out of this particular limb as it was the best combination of shape and thickness that I could find within a reasonable distance from camp (was tired and not in the mood to walk miles for an "uber" branch).
So, I secured my grip on the knife by twisting the lanyard around my wrist and began chopping. I was afraid of damaging my knife but I realized that this is exactly what I had wanted a new knife for and if the knife couldn't withstand this type of use, I was willing to accept the idea that this knife was not right for me. So, I set my fears aside and simply used my knife.
In order to get to my branch, I had to hack through a smaller limb that was blocking it. The blocking limb was about 1" in diameter, and the Green Beret whacked through it fairly easily by creating V shaped chopping grooves in the branch. I have never used a knife for anything like this before, so chopping in general is totally new to me. I tried chopping straight down onto the branch and realized quickely that angled chops would be needed to make it through the branch.
With the smaller branch out of the way, I started into the main branch that I was after. I started of with gentle chops. Realizing this would take forever, I again set my fears of damaging the knife aside, and started using some good, fluid arm strength behind each chop. Chips started flying everywhere (wood chips, not s30v chips) and were landing in my hair and all over my arms. It was messy, but fun! My chops could be heard all over camp.
After increasing my chop strength, the Green Beret hacked through the 1 1/2" diameter tree branch fairly cleanly and in what I considered a reasonable ammount of time...maybe 5 minuts or so (not certain though as I wasn't timing myself).
I realized that this wood was actually quite dry inside and was really very hard; much harder than I had expected it to be. I took my downed branch to the fire pit and sat in my chair with a drink and started whittling. I decided to form the point at the bottom of the walking stick first, So I found a comfortable way of holding the knife and started to carve away at the branch. The knife chiseled away at the hard, dry wood with relative ease. The blade pushed through cleanly and sliced away small, clean wood chips.
After the tip was done, I decided to clean up the top of the stick where it had been connected to the tree. I chiseled away and rounded it off nicely. Then, I looked the stick over closely, smoothing out any knots or rough areas of the stick by gently shaving the stick with the blade. At this point I was pretty impressed with how sharp the edge seemed as shaving the stick was very easy to do.
Once all of the knots were flattened out and removed, I decided to shave the bark away between the cleaned up knots, creating a connect-the-dots style pattern in the bark. After looking the stick over, I decided it needed finger grooves for additional grip toward the top, so I carved them in.
I found a good way to hold and use the knife so that I had lots of control over it and was easily able to use the entire length of the blade to whittle with, not just the back of it. I gripped the handle firmly with my right hand and placed the edge on the stick. My left hand was gripped around the stick and I pushed the blade foreward with my left thumb, forcing the edge through the wood to form the chips.
After a lot of whittling, my hands bagan to fatigue and my left thumb was sore from pushing the back of the blade to form my cuts, especially when using the part of the edge that is close to the blade tip since the back of the blade is a "fake edge" and is painful to push on. The rest of the blade is quite comfortable to push on with the thumb as it is nicely rounded off and smooth to the touch.
After completing the walking stick, I passed it around to friends for their approval. As they inspected the walking stick, I decided to inspect my blade adge. I cleaned the edge off firmly with my t-shirt and carefully inspected the blade. To my delight, there was zero visible damage of any kind to the edge, or the flat part of the blade. The KG gun coat had scuff marks on it from rubbing hard on the stick during my whittling, and I was afraid it was permanently scuffed, however this cleaned off completely as it was only wood markings and the KG coating was totally intact.
Looking at the knife edge ever closer, I did in fact notice that the edge was reflecting light in several places. I then decided to run my fingernail along the edge to check for any notches or micro chipping, and I did in fact feel one or two tiny chips, or notches in the blade. I was a little bit disappointed by this discovery, but then got over it. I realized that I had put this knife to harder use than I had ever put any knife through before. I chopped hard through hard wood, a job I would normally use a saw for. When I look at a branch of a tree that is that thick, my mind doesn not naturally think of using a knife for cutting it down, it just doesn't seem like a natural use for a knife, especially one as small as the Green Beret.
So even with the chips, although invisible to the eye, I was quite pleased with the performance of the knife and realized that the edge would easily clean up with a quick sharpening session. I was also relieved that the blade did not break out with a large chip like I was afraid of it doing. Realizing that this is the hardest work I would ever do with this knife, I felt pretty comfortable with its ability to perform these sorts of tasks with a high probability of surviving them relatively undamaged. If I want to chop something larger, I will use an axe or hatchet or maybe even a machete.
For the remainder of the camping trip, people frequently asked to ue the Green Beret for various tasks like cutting small plastic strips, opening packages, and lots of food preperation and the knife excelled at all of these tasks. Not only that, but the knife looks so cool and is really fun to use! The food preperation went especially well, slicing apples very cleanly, cutting heads of lettuce for salads, slicing bananas and other fruits for parfaits and it was also used by people when I wasn't around for other common tasks that require a knife.
As far as edge holding goes, I have other knives to compare it to, but I have never even used these knives for anything so I am unable to compare. But I will describe what I saw it do in this regard. When I received the knife new in the mail, I performed a couple sharpness tests with it out of curiosety. I cut paper with it and shaved with it to test initial sharpness. The paper that was cut was regular notepad paper, about the thickness of a standard sticky note. It would only start cutting by slicing, and once in motion would puch cut the paper for a short distance and then would have to be sliced again. The knife would easily slice the paper consistently along the full length of the blade, minus serrations, as long as the knife was kept in a slicing motion.
The knife would shave hair on my arm fairly easily as long as the blade was being gently pressed against my skin and being pushed against the direction of hair growth. It was by no means "hair popping sharp" nor would it easily push cut paper as I have already described. However, I would not expect this type of knife to arrive new with such a high level of sharpness, but maybe this is only because I have not owned many knives to compare it to. I remember when I recieved my new KA-BAR USMC knife. It was shaving sharp in about the same way as the Green Beret was. So I did not expect initial razor sharpness from a combat knife anyway, based on my limited experience.
After my camping trip, I again tested the Green Beret's sharpness by using paper cutting and attempting shaving. For consistency I used the same kind of paper and the same kind of arm hair (my arm hair of course!). Again, the knife of course was not readily push cutting paper as it didn't even do this before. Paper would slice easily but would only push cut slightly after starting a slice. I don't even think this could be considered push cutting at all actually. But the cutting performance was very similar on paper as before, I am sure the blade has to be duller after all that use, but performance on paper seems nearly the same as before if not exactly the same.
When shaving, the Green Beret would not shave nearly as easily as before. Using the same pressure on my arm as before, the knife will not shave at all. Only when pressing rather hard will the knife shave a few hairs here and there, and even then its probably just tearing the hairs out with friction more then anything else. So the blade is less sharp than before.
By visually inspecting the edge of the blade again, I ralized that the areas that reflect light are mostly concentrated on the part of the blade that curves, while the invisible chip is located on the straight part of the blade (not that this means anything. Its just an observation). So...I suppose after the hard chopping and extensive whittling the blade has held up fairly well, but I have no other experience to compare this to.
Maybe someone can chime in here and tell me if this seems to be roughly poor, average or good performance for a knife of this design. My guess would be that this edge holding performance would be about average for an average grade stainless steel that has been properly heat treated and correctly ground for tasks such as these described here. As far as toughness goes, I would again only guess that this is about average or maybe even a little better for a properly heat treated and ground average grade stainless steel. Does this sound correct?
I have never sharpened a knife before and I have a Sharpmaker on the way. I will watch the DVD and practice on my other knives before touching up the Green Beret as I don't want to damage it or blunt the tip. I even bought the extra fine v-rods so I will be able to sharpen the edge to a great level of sharpness, provided I develop the skill required to do so.
All in all I feel pretty good about the Green Beret's performance. Again, I have no prior experience to compare it to, so I am hoping someone can give their opinion based on their own experience of how a knife should perform. I will end this small and very personal review with saying that I really enjoyed using this knife and it will be my new best camping buddy.
To preserve the edge longer, I believe I will bring a small saw or hatchet with me from now on to cut down my branches as I believe that these tools are much more appropriate for such a task, and I will enjoy whittling by the campfire and using the Green Beret for other enjoyable tasks that may arise and call for the use of a good, solid knife.
Links to pics:
http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w270/artilary6/knife006.jpg
http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w270/artilary6/knife003.jpg
http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w270/artilary6/knife001.jpg
So, after our canoeing adventure on the river, we came back to camp and I was off to find a good tree to hack away at for my stick. I found a near by tree with a low hanging limb, about 1 1/2" in diameter. After searching a little more I decided to make the stick out of this particular limb as it was the best combination of shape and thickness that I could find within a reasonable distance from camp (was tired and not in the mood to walk miles for an "uber" branch).
So, I secured my grip on the knife by twisting the lanyard around my wrist and began chopping. I was afraid of damaging my knife but I realized that this is exactly what I had wanted a new knife for and if the knife couldn't withstand this type of use, I was willing to accept the idea that this knife was not right for me. So, I set my fears aside and simply used my knife.
In order to get to my branch, I had to hack through a smaller limb that was blocking it. The blocking limb was about 1" in diameter, and the Green Beret whacked through it fairly easily by creating V shaped chopping grooves in the branch. I have never used a knife for anything like this before, so chopping in general is totally new to me. I tried chopping straight down onto the branch and realized quickely that angled chops would be needed to make it through the branch.
With the smaller branch out of the way, I started into the main branch that I was after. I started of with gentle chops. Realizing this would take forever, I again set my fears of damaging the knife aside, and started using some good, fluid arm strength behind each chop. Chips started flying everywhere (wood chips, not s30v chips) and were landing in my hair and all over my arms. It was messy, but fun! My chops could be heard all over camp.
After increasing my chop strength, the Green Beret hacked through the 1 1/2" diameter tree branch fairly cleanly and in what I considered a reasonable ammount of time...maybe 5 minuts or so (not certain though as I wasn't timing myself).
I realized that this wood was actually quite dry inside and was really very hard; much harder than I had expected it to be. I took my downed branch to the fire pit and sat in my chair with a drink and started whittling. I decided to form the point at the bottom of the walking stick first, So I found a comfortable way of holding the knife and started to carve away at the branch. The knife chiseled away at the hard, dry wood with relative ease. The blade pushed through cleanly and sliced away small, clean wood chips.
After the tip was done, I decided to clean up the top of the stick where it had been connected to the tree. I chiseled away and rounded it off nicely. Then, I looked the stick over closely, smoothing out any knots or rough areas of the stick by gently shaving the stick with the blade. At this point I was pretty impressed with how sharp the edge seemed as shaving the stick was very easy to do.
Once all of the knots were flattened out and removed, I decided to shave the bark away between the cleaned up knots, creating a connect-the-dots style pattern in the bark. After looking the stick over, I decided it needed finger grooves for additional grip toward the top, so I carved them in.
I found a good way to hold and use the knife so that I had lots of control over it and was easily able to use the entire length of the blade to whittle with, not just the back of it. I gripped the handle firmly with my right hand and placed the edge on the stick. My left hand was gripped around the stick and I pushed the blade foreward with my left thumb, forcing the edge through the wood to form the chips.
After a lot of whittling, my hands bagan to fatigue and my left thumb was sore from pushing the back of the blade to form my cuts, especially when using the part of the edge that is close to the blade tip since the back of the blade is a "fake edge" and is painful to push on. The rest of the blade is quite comfortable to push on with the thumb as it is nicely rounded off and smooth to the touch.
After completing the walking stick, I passed it around to friends for their approval. As they inspected the walking stick, I decided to inspect my blade adge. I cleaned the edge off firmly with my t-shirt and carefully inspected the blade. To my delight, there was zero visible damage of any kind to the edge, or the flat part of the blade. The KG gun coat had scuff marks on it from rubbing hard on the stick during my whittling, and I was afraid it was permanently scuffed, however this cleaned off completely as it was only wood markings and the KG coating was totally intact.
Looking at the knife edge ever closer, I did in fact notice that the edge was reflecting light in several places. I then decided to run my fingernail along the edge to check for any notches or micro chipping, and I did in fact feel one or two tiny chips, or notches in the blade. I was a little bit disappointed by this discovery, but then got over it. I realized that I had put this knife to harder use than I had ever put any knife through before. I chopped hard through hard wood, a job I would normally use a saw for. When I look at a branch of a tree that is that thick, my mind doesn not naturally think of using a knife for cutting it down, it just doesn't seem like a natural use for a knife, especially one as small as the Green Beret.
So even with the chips, although invisible to the eye, I was quite pleased with the performance of the knife and realized that the edge would easily clean up with a quick sharpening session. I was also relieved that the blade did not break out with a large chip like I was afraid of it doing. Realizing that this is the hardest work I would ever do with this knife, I felt pretty comfortable with its ability to perform these sorts of tasks with a high probability of surviving them relatively undamaged. If I want to chop something larger, I will use an axe or hatchet or maybe even a machete.
For the remainder of the camping trip, people frequently asked to ue the Green Beret for various tasks like cutting small plastic strips, opening packages, and lots of food preperation and the knife excelled at all of these tasks. Not only that, but the knife looks so cool and is really fun to use! The food preperation went especially well, slicing apples very cleanly, cutting heads of lettuce for salads, slicing bananas and other fruits for parfaits and it was also used by people when I wasn't around for other common tasks that require a knife.
As far as edge holding goes, I have other knives to compare it to, but I have never even used these knives for anything so I am unable to compare. But I will describe what I saw it do in this regard. When I received the knife new in the mail, I performed a couple sharpness tests with it out of curiosety. I cut paper with it and shaved with it to test initial sharpness. The paper that was cut was regular notepad paper, about the thickness of a standard sticky note. It would only start cutting by slicing, and once in motion would puch cut the paper for a short distance and then would have to be sliced again. The knife would easily slice the paper consistently along the full length of the blade, minus serrations, as long as the knife was kept in a slicing motion.
The knife would shave hair on my arm fairly easily as long as the blade was being gently pressed against my skin and being pushed against the direction of hair growth. It was by no means "hair popping sharp" nor would it easily push cut paper as I have already described. However, I would not expect this type of knife to arrive new with such a high level of sharpness, but maybe this is only because I have not owned many knives to compare it to. I remember when I recieved my new KA-BAR USMC knife. It was shaving sharp in about the same way as the Green Beret was. So I did not expect initial razor sharpness from a combat knife anyway, based on my limited experience.
After my camping trip, I again tested the Green Beret's sharpness by using paper cutting and attempting shaving. For consistency I used the same kind of paper and the same kind of arm hair (my arm hair of course!). Again, the knife of course was not readily push cutting paper as it didn't even do this before. Paper would slice easily but would only push cut slightly after starting a slice. I don't even think this could be considered push cutting at all actually. But the cutting performance was very similar on paper as before, I am sure the blade has to be duller after all that use, but performance on paper seems nearly the same as before if not exactly the same.
When shaving, the Green Beret would not shave nearly as easily as before. Using the same pressure on my arm as before, the knife will not shave at all. Only when pressing rather hard will the knife shave a few hairs here and there, and even then its probably just tearing the hairs out with friction more then anything else. So the blade is less sharp than before.
By visually inspecting the edge of the blade again, I ralized that the areas that reflect light are mostly concentrated on the part of the blade that curves, while the invisible chip is located on the straight part of the blade (not that this means anything. Its just an observation). So...I suppose after the hard chopping and extensive whittling the blade has held up fairly well, but I have no other experience to compare this to.
Maybe someone can chime in here and tell me if this seems to be roughly poor, average or good performance for a knife of this design. My guess would be that this edge holding performance would be about average for an average grade stainless steel that has been properly heat treated and correctly ground for tasks such as these described here. As far as toughness goes, I would again only guess that this is about average or maybe even a little better for a properly heat treated and ground average grade stainless steel. Does this sound correct?
I have never sharpened a knife before and I have a Sharpmaker on the way. I will watch the DVD and practice on my other knives before touching up the Green Beret as I don't want to damage it or blunt the tip. I even bought the extra fine v-rods so I will be able to sharpen the edge to a great level of sharpness, provided I develop the skill required to do so.
All in all I feel pretty good about the Green Beret's performance. Again, I have no prior experience to compare it to, so I am hoping someone can give their opinion based on their own experience of how a knife should perform. I will end this small and very personal review with saying that I really enjoyed using this knife and it will be my new best camping buddy.
To preserve the edge longer, I believe I will bring a small saw or hatchet with me from now on to cut down my branches as I believe that these tools are much more appropriate for such a task, and I will enjoy whittling by the campfire and using the Green Beret for other enjoyable tasks that may arise and call for the use of a good, solid knife.
Links to pics:
http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w270/artilary6/knife006.jpg
http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w270/artilary6/knife003.jpg
http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w270/artilary6/knife001.jpg
