- Joined
- Jan 23, 2014
- Messages
- 1,554
What a weekend, My new 5.1 came in on Friday at 2 pm and the wife and I promptly packed up the car and set out for a camping weekend. Some might remember that I was also able to snag my wife a 5.1 3V 2nd in the first Monday sales thread, this was her first real knife (short of a pink spyderco squeak). This promised to be a weekend where we would both get to try out our new knives and each form our own opinions, both from experience and from a newbie eager to learn. First impressions of both knives was extremely positive. I am a fan of the old-school stonewash finish, but aside from that I really couldn't ask for anything more in these knives, But we all know that, so lets move on!!
There will be a few running themes from our weekend, most notably that my dog is a priss and apparently doesn't like the ground...
When we first got to camp I noticed the fire pit seemed warm, someone forgot to practice good fire etiquette, and I was able to save a match, boom!!
After that was settled, I attached the UKE 2.0 to my wife's 5.1 and got her all rigged up (side note, Chiral's rig is awesome and was my wife's pick of the options I gave her, it's now her permanent setup):
This was all the first evening, and we spent most of that getting set-up and just enjoying the surroundings, well except for lando:
Saturday Morning we started off with some backcountry breakfast burritos and my wife finally got to start using her knife!:
Tortilla is a pretty easy first cut, and the 5.1 obviously handled it well
I needed to get myself setup, including adding a nice lanyard + bead to my knife, so out comes the paracord:
Obviously I made this lanyard a bit too short ....woopse... but that didn't stop the 5.1 from banging out this tent stake in no time flat. We spent the early morning whittling and we were both excited at how nimble such a large blade could be. My wife made a shank/spear of sorts...too much walking dead I think?
After our morning test runs and whittling we decided to go enjoy some gosh darn nature, this is also the point that my wife decided "moss is like the coral of the forest"...deep woodland thoughts!!:
But one of us was still protesting all of this "nature" business:
So with that, we head back to camp, as the wife wants to learn all the "cool stuff" I am always talking about, specifically batoning:
She was a natural, and really enjoyed it. We discussed why you would need to use this skill, and why you wouldn't she then proceeded to use my hatchet to chop half the fire wood!!!! After all of that, it was time to start the fire, so I decided to teach her how to do a feather stick:
Again, our bead game was NOT on point, mine was stupid short and hers way too long...we will work on it. The wood I chose for the sticks was pretty hard and made it a little tougher but the 5.1 was easily able to handle the fine work required. Choking up in the choil definitely helped when working the wood, though for those eyeing the 6.0 (myself included) I think you could easily carve a duck decoy with these knives, they are so sharp and nimble! Like any good southern boy that has put in a decent days work, I like to relax with some nice iced sweet tea (we used honey to sweeten it):
With the firewood cut, feather sticks made, Iced tea brewed...it was time to light up our final fire and make dinner:
Lando could tell there were only two steaks, which left him the odd man out for fresh meat and once again he decided to pout about it:
But it worked out for us, as the campsite had a picnic table and we had GSO-Steak Knives:
A couple more notes:
Big shout out to Ellie and Guy for these knives and for hooking my wife and I up with (not pictured) Survive T-shirts. The Knife was a surprise for my wife and she loved it and was especially touched to have a shirt for her as well. WE also got 2 patches and bunches of stickers!!! I Put the patches on my kit bags! These knives handled everything we threw at them, and came out awesome. I was not the biggest fan of the change to add better ergos to the knives (from a strictly aesthetic perspective) HOWEVER...the 5.1 handle is fantastic and it MIGHT replace my old spec 4.1 as my go-to blade...I have already decided to order some leather pants for it. For all you Jade G-10 lovers, my wife decided red linen was not for her and we ordered her up a pair of fancy new handles, hopefully it'll help make her new knife truly to her "spec"
I was also able to drop off my buddies 5.1 I ordered for him and he unboxed/sent me photos as I was driving to the campsite...pure love, super thrilled and while it was a 2nd, he couldn't find any mark on it what-so-ever!
We did have two oh sh!t moments though...Somehow grit got in my sheath (still unclear how) and i found out the worst way....re-sheathing... The new finish held up as well or better than compressed sand on steel should, but that was a heart wrencher and I already have ordered a new one to prevent any worse damage
The 2 scratches are only noticeable at severe angles in direct light. My wife used hers as a steak knife which resulted in a bit of discoloration on the blade, or patina. That was super easy to remove with one of those carbon steel eraser doo-hickies found online, just note that red meat blood "might" cause a bit of a patina (3V)
I hope this wasn't too long winded, hopefully i was able to provide a little fun insight on the knives and how great they are!
There will be a few running themes from our weekend, most notably that my dog is a priss and apparently doesn't like the ground...
When we first got to camp I noticed the fire pit seemed warm, someone forgot to practice good fire etiquette, and I was able to save a match, boom!!
After that was settled, I attached the UKE 2.0 to my wife's 5.1 and got her all rigged up (side note, Chiral's rig is awesome and was my wife's pick of the options I gave her, it's now her permanent setup):
This was all the first evening, and we spent most of that getting set-up and just enjoying the surroundings, well except for lando:
Saturday Morning we started off with some backcountry breakfast burritos and my wife finally got to start using her knife!:
Tortilla is a pretty easy first cut, and the 5.1 obviously handled it well
I needed to get myself setup, including adding a nice lanyard + bead to my knife, so out comes the paracord:
Obviously I made this lanyard a bit too short ....woopse... but that didn't stop the 5.1 from banging out this tent stake in no time flat. We spent the early morning whittling and we were both excited at how nimble such a large blade could be. My wife made a shank/spear of sorts...too much walking dead I think?
After our morning test runs and whittling we decided to go enjoy some gosh darn nature, this is also the point that my wife decided "moss is like the coral of the forest"...deep woodland thoughts!!:
But one of us was still protesting all of this "nature" business:
So with that, we head back to camp, as the wife wants to learn all the "cool stuff" I am always talking about, specifically batoning:
She was a natural, and really enjoyed it. We discussed why you would need to use this skill, and why you wouldn't she then proceeded to use my hatchet to chop half the fire wood!!!! After all of that, it was time to start the fire, so I decided to teach her how to do a feather stick:
Again, our bead game was NOT on point, mine was stupid short and hers way too long...we will work on it. The wood I chose for the sticks was pretty hard and made it a little tougher but the 5.1 was easily able to handle the fine work required. Choking up in the choil definitely helped when working the wood, though for those eyeing the 6.0 (myself included) I think you could easily carve a duck decoy with these knives, they are so sharp and nimble! Like any good southern boy that has put in a decent days work, I like to relax with some nice iced sweet tea (we used honey to sweeten it):
With the firewood cut, feather sticks made, Iced tea brewed...it was time to light up our final fire and make dinner:
Lando could tell there were only two steaks, which left him the odd man out for fresh meat and once again he decided to pout about it:
But it worked out for us, as the campsite had a picnic table and we had GSO-Steak Knives:
A couple more notes:
Big shout out to Ellie and Guy for these knives and for hooking my wife and I up with (not pictured) Survive T-shirts. The Knife was a surprise for my wife and she loved it and was especially touched to have a shirt for her as well. WE also got 2 patches and bunches of stickers!!! I Put the patches on my kit bags! These knives handled everything we threw at them, and came out awesome. I was not the biggest fan of the change to add better ergos to the knives (from a strictly aesthetic perspective) HOWEVER...the 5.1 handle is fantastic and it MIGHT replace my old spec 4.1 as my go-to blade...I have already decided to order some leather pants for it. For all you Jade G-10 lovers, my wife decided red linen was not for her and we ordered her up a pair of fancy new handles, hopefully it'll help make her new knife truly to her "spec"
I was also able to drop off my buddies 5.1 I ordered for him and he unboxed/sent me photos as I was driving to the campsite...pure love, super thrilled and while it was a 2nd, he couldn't find any mark on it what-so-ever!
We did have two oh sh!t moments though...Somehow grit got in my sheath (still unclear how) and i found out the worst way....re-sheathing... The new finish held up as well or better than compressed sand on steel should, but that was a heart wrencher and I already have ordered a new one to prevent any worse damage
The 2 scratches are only noticeable at severe angles in direct light. My wife used hers as a steak knife which resulted in a bit of discoloration on the blade, or patina. That was super easy to remove with one of those carbon steel eraser doo-hickies found online, just note that red meat blood "might" cause a bit of a patina (3V)I hope this wasn't too long winded, hopefully i was able to provide a little fun insight on the knives and how great they are!
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, maybe I'll go back and fix it up! I mentioned to the wife it would make an excellent eagle project for some young kid. I have to admit that until I get my wife a backpack, our trips will all be car style. BUT lest you think we were too domesticated:
