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Sorry Ebbtide, I should have put a smiley in there or something. Upon re-reading, that comment does sound more terse than I intended. No slight meant. I'm glad you're taking an interest in this.
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Hatchet vs. Big ol' knife
- Thread starter akennedy73
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Pict well said and people should be able to realize that alot depends on terrain, types of vegetation and experience so if you want to really talk about what to use where and when be open to varying factors and realize function follows; design, use and enviroment.
A
A
Oh dear ... we have a tantrum. :yawn:
You consider my Alice heavy but compared to what? The point and issue is that it is not heavy for me and I have made my reasons for choosing such a pack quite clear. I compensate my content perfectly without sufferance. When you've actually done 800 plus miles on foot across the French Pyrennese and northern Spain, then you might be better qualified to tell me what pack might work for you ... but not for me eh mate.
But sure ... continue to justifiy your glib observations and bolster that newfound predjudice based soley on my choice of pack - and wait! - your total lack of experience with it. Don't worry, nobody is going to take your axe away ...
PS - Love the straw man arguments you come up with ... I never said my pack was Ultralight - you did! hilarious stuff ...
You talked in a different part about being ultralight.
Lack of experience hold on... hahahahahahahaha! oh wait hold on hahahahahahah!
Tiki it would seem I did find a sense of humor in my cache after all... hahahahaha!
Don't presume for one second you even know what my level of experience is. Do you honestly think I would be here saying all of this unless I had some level of competence and experience... hold on again! hahahahahaha!
it is based on experience that I can tell you why I pack the way I do.
Honestly, I fail to believe everyone in OZ has you mentality. That would mean everyone there is ignorant. and seeing as how some of my best friends are from OZ and don't seem to think no where near the way you do, the only logical conclusion is you are in a class all unto itself.
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Alan,
Once again you come to the page with straw man arguments - I was never talking about my pack being ultralight or even travelling ultralight generally - I was however talking about balancing my requirements with utility for maximum effect without redundancy - add to this that items like your beloved hatchet are totally unnecessary when a saw chain will do the same job at 1/10th the space. But you seem to feel attached to your hatchet and that's fine too.
I have clearly outlined my reasoning earlier, which quite a few others clearly understood and concurred with - my pack choice was non negotiable as my pack needed to carry my entire home whilst travelling overseas and yet it can be packed differently for different situations - ie BOB.
You're talking from the peanut gallery about now and are showing some true colours - I've got little or no interest in discussing anything further with you. It's interesting to note that anyone who disagrees with your superior judgement is eventually subject to the same treatment - who's really living in a fantasy world I wonder?
Consider yerself ignored ... :thumbup:
Once again you come to the page with straw man arguments - I was never talking about my pack being ultralight or even travelling ultralight generally - I was however talking about balancing my requirements with utility for maximum effect without redundancy - add to this that items like your beloved hatchet are totally unnecessary when a saw chain will do the same job at 1/10th the space. But you seem to feel attached to your hatchet and that's fine too.
I have clearly outlined my reasoning earlier, which quite a few others clearly understood and concurred with - my pack choice was non negotiable as my pack needed to carry my entire home whilst travelling overseas and yet it can be packed differently for different situations - ie BOB.
You're talking from the peanut gallery about now and are showing some true colours - I've got little or no interest in discussing anything further with you. It's interesting to note that anyone who disagrees with your superior judgement is eventually subject to the same treatment - who's really living in a fantasy world I wonder?
Consider yerself ignored ... :thumbup:
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Pict, great post. I think it illustrates several points rather nicely. The most important being: which tool is better depends on what you need it for.
A screwdriver makes a better chisel than a wrench, but a chisel is still a better chisel, that's what it was designed for.
In general, I would have to say that an axe is a better hammer than a knife, but that a knife is a better knife than a hammer.
An axe look more like a hammer since they both have shafts for handles and all the weight on one end. I don't think a double bit axe would make a very good hammer though.
I used the spine of a knife as a hammer to put together an Ikea bookshelf once. Worked fine, but I had to concentrate more.
In the end, I think that neither the big knife, nor the axe is inheirently superior to the other, both ahve advantages and disadvantages. Which is better depends on what you want to do, and how you prefer to do it, IMHO.
For much of woodcraft use, I would prefer a good saw over either. But saws are not very sexy to most people, no glitz, no glamour. Too bad becuase they are great tools, and much safer than either the axe or big knife. Kinda hard to split wood with a saw though
No, but I should.
A screwdriver makes a better chisel than a wrench, but a chisel is still a better chisel, that's what it was designed for.
In general, I would have to say that an axe is a better hammer than a knife, but that a knife is a better knife than a hammer.
An axe look more like a hammer since they both have shafts for handles and all the weight on one end. I don't think a double bit axe would make a very good hammer though.
I used the spine of a knife as a hammer to put together an Ikea bookshelf once. Worked fine, but I had to concentrate more.
In the end, I think that neither the big knife, nor the axe is inheirently superior to the other, both ahve advantages and disadvantages. Which is better depends on what you want to do, and how you prefer to do it, IMHO.
For much of woodcraft use, I would prefer a good saw over either. But saws are not very sexy to most people, no glitz, no glamour. Too bad becuase they are great tools, and much safer than either the axe or big knife. Kinda hard to split wood with a saw though
No, but I should.
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Ebbtide, I majored in agriculture, so I struggle with some technical concepts myself. Took a lot of art & related courses whenever I could though. I've always liked to draw. Any chance you could share some of your work? (perhaps in the community forum or something would be more appropriate?) My sister went to college in Manhattan for a year, and much of the artwork she did there is great stuff.
Ebbtide
Gold Member
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- 8,009
Possum, and easy one to show would be Bruce Evan's logo.
I also did the flaming version of it on his homepage
http://www.homestead.com/beknives1/beknives5.html
Also all of his banners that you see on the bottom of his posts as well as sprinkled around his site.
My field is graphic design, less fine art stuff. I amuse myself with cartooning.
One logo that I was quite proud of was for the NJ Lottery's "Winner Wonderland" scratch off ticket.
I can, however, draw both hatchets AND knives
I also did the flaming version of it on his homepage
http://www.homestead.com/beknives1/beknives5.html
Also all of his banners that you see on the bottom of his posts as well as sprinkled around his site.
My field is graphic design, less fine art stuff. I amuse myself with cartooning.
One logo that I was quite proud of was for the NJ Lottery's "Winner Wonderland" scratch off ticket.
I can, however, draw both hatchets AND knives
No Tiki, Has nothing to do with superior judgment. I, unlike you, already said there were things a chopper may be able to do better. As someone already pointed out and I stated early on, in the jungle I would carry a machete. That admission there should be enough to confirm I am not married to the hatchet for everything.
You are being narrow minded saying there is no need for them, at all... some crap about weight and space. I then came back and said the GB mini is lighter than many choppers out there.
Apparently, there seems to be words that become invisible to you as you come across them.
personally, you can take your advice, shove it down your throat then regurgitate it for a more captive audience.
You are being narrow minded saying there is no need for them, at all... some crap about weight and space. I then came back and said the GB mini is lighter than many choppers out there.
Apparently, there seems to be words that become invisible to you as you come across them.
personally, you can take your advice, shove it down your throat then regurgitate it for a more captive audience.
Gentlemen, Gentlemen.
I'm sitting here drinking a Dogfishhead Ale, and shaking my head.
Cliff: You are correct the Becker BK1 is a decent blade configuration.
The stock black handles are somewhere between 'fair' and poor'.
The Micartas are somewhat better, I would give them a 'Good' rating, but not 'great' or 'excellent' , they are too squarish for my liking.
They don't have enough (or any) palm-swell to them, that is the problem, I think.
I may reshape them, or use some of the Corian or Apple, Cherry or Walnut peices, this winter, to fashion some scales that fit my liking.
With leather working gloves they suffice, but, being another perfectionist, I always will look to improve something i don't feel is quite up to muster.
To Tiki: Face it, your pack is too heavy! Therefor your ideas and words are meaningless to us.
Please go to the corner and face away from everyone, and not a peep out of you. 
BTW how was that gunshow in Sydney? tell us about Aussie gun laws, I heard bad things about personal gun ownership dann-under.
To everyone: Let's lighten up .... a little. The comparisons and technicals arguments are great, but the personal sniping is taking an otherwise informative thread down to gutterville.
Speaking of gutters....I was cleaning leaves out of our gutters today, I'll try to take some chopping pics tomorrow. Maybe I'll cut some notches in cucumbers and build a green log cabin to show how well my big blades can handle cylinderical plant matter.
if I remember correctly, the original Q? for this thread was whether it was better to carry a Big Blade and a small blade, or perhaps, a hatchet and a small blade.
So, if you have a small blade, why cut vegetables with the big chopper or hatchet?
Here's my problem, perhaps you can help:
I have too many blades and have to choose which ones I want to take and which stay behind. Do I take the Brute and the SwissChamp? or do I take the Machete and the SAK trekker? or maybe travel lighter and take the RAT-7 with the SAK?
And what about the Mutitools? I have a couple of Gerbers, and they too can serve well in the wilderness.
Can't carry all of them, so, for a moment forget about hatchet Vs. Big Blade.
Simply, in the wilderness, what do you carry in the way of blades and tools?
Whether it be a Leatherman, a Busse, a becker, a machete, what is the LOAD you are willing to carry in order to have "the right tool for the right job?"
(You can even include hatchets and those ultraheavy Australian packs)
I'm sitting here drinking a Dogfishhead Ale, and shaking my head.
Cliff: You are correct the Becker BK1 is a decent blade configuration.
The stock black handles are somewhere between 'fair' and poor'.
The Micartas are somewhat better, I would give them a 'Good' rating, but not 'great' or 'excellent' , they are too squarish for my liking.
They don't have enough (or any) palm-swell to them, that is the problem, I think.
I may reshape them, or use some of the Corian or Apple, Cherry or Walnut peices, this winter, to fashion some scales that fit my liking.
With leather working gloves they suffice, but, being another perfectionist, I always will look to improve something i don't feel is quite up to muster.
To Tiki: Face it, your pack is too heavy! Therefor your ideas and words are meaningless to us.
Please go to the corner and face away from everyone, and not a peep out of you. BTW how was that gunshow in Sydney? tell us about Aussie gun laws, I heard bad things about personal gun ownership dann-under.
To everyone: Let's lighten up .... a little. The comparisons and technicals arguments are great, but the personal sniping is taking an otherwise informative thread down to gutterville.
Speaking of gutters....I was cleaning leaves out of our gutters today, I'll try to take some chopping pics tomorrow. Maybe I'll cut some notches in cucumbers and build a green log cabin to show how well my big blades can handle cylinderical plant matter.
if I remember correctly, the original Q? for this thread was whether it was better to carry a Big Blade and a small blade, or perhaps, a hatchet and a small blade.
So, if you have a small blade, why cut vegetables with the big chopper or hatchet?
Here's my problem, perhaps you can help:
I have too many blades and have to choose which ones I want to take and which stay behind. Do I take the Brute and the SwissChamp? or do I take the Machete and the SAK trekker? or maybe travel lighter and take the RAT-7 with the SAK?
And what about the Mutitools? I have a couple of Gerbers, and they too can serve well in the wilderness.
Can't carry all of them, so, for a moment forget about hatchet Vs. Big Blade.
Simply, in the wilderness, what do you carry in the way of blades and tools?
Whether it be a Leatherman, a Busse, a becker, a machete, what is the LOAD you are willing to carry in order to have "the right tool for the right job?"
(You can even include hatchets and those ultraheavy Australian packs)
Tikirocker
Both A2 and 01 can take a razor edge and so can D2. IMHO when it comes to toughness A2 will pull ahead. I have knives from all these steels and I am happy with all of them; I would say though that if you were to push a blade really hard, then most likely A2 would be the way to go. It's true that it requires more looking after however, it's not that sensitive. Others though probably know better
. I hope that helps. BTW, I don't know anything about Clives knives. Could you please, pass me some information on his job?Cliff Stamp
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I am only significantly active on Bladeforums, I post on others like SwordForums on email request so they are rare, like once a week. I post on rec.knives with similar frequency. You can easily, and this isn't something to brag about, cut a truck load of wood in a day. So cutting a dozen truckloads is only two weeks work. What takes the time is actually stacking/loading/unloading which is where friends some in handy. With a couple of people to load and in shift you can easily haul out that much wood in a day. The frequency of my knife reviews is actually really low, the only reason there is a lot of them is because I have been doing it for about ten years so they add up.
If this is in regard to the Opinel thread, I some chopping/splitting videos I am editing in responce to the points raised there, I'll post when they are done.
A lot of fishing is on the rocks near the water or actually in the water so there is no place to actually put the fish to chop through it. Plus you can eat the heads of a lot of fish (you can make stock or glue if that turns you) so cutting them off is wasteful and it also makes a mess especially when you are moving around and then end up leaving piles of animal parts behind you. It is also a lot easier to carry a string of fish by poking a stick through the gills which ends in a v-notch to hold them all in place. This again was simply an example of the use of high pressure impacts not the total functionality.
The narrow points on the top of hatchets are fairly difficult to impact with due to grip dynamics. You can use the corner of the poll but that is often rounded and the grip is not so well designed and as well the actual balance is off. The spine on the knife has several impact abilities, the sharp corners for example vs the actual spine and you can align the impact so you get the thickness or length of the spine.
You don't spend a lot of time "making" those tools, you pick up a stick and remove any knots to enable a grip. It isn't like you wandering through the woods oblivious to the surroundings. You look for tinder for fire, watch for animal trails, vegetation for shelter/food, signs of water, people have passed, etc. . A decent walking stick is extreme valuable for many reasons; they can check for depth of snow or bog or just deep mud. You can also use them to pry apart rotted wood, or heavy bark and save the edge on the cutting tool. They also do things which while you could do with a axe like dead wood limbing, you generally would not because the stress is too high. If an axe can actually do that without harm it is way overbuilt for just felling and thus using the cudgel in essence makes the axe actually fell wood better.
I would assume you mean less here, but it is near impossible to actually crack a properly grained plate. If you are doing it then most likely you have the grain aligned parallel to the impacts. This isn't actually a separate tool, you can adjust the staff/club to be multi-functional.
The period is the time for one rotation. For knives the point of rotation is generally about the index finger position on the handle thus you set the knife rotating about that point and see at what length a point mass has the same period, i.e., it rotates matching the knife on the swing. You just fix a mass to a string and tie it to the point of rotation and adjust the length until the mass and the blade rotate together. The first online discussion I recall of this type of performance was where Swaim compared a machete and large khukuri and found that the khukuri had a much more focused "sweet spot" and that it wasn't productive to cut with the tip. These are consequences of the dynamic balance point but it is much more than that.
-Cliff
canranger, it doesnt look like cliff plans on apologising like everyone else did. :thumbdn:
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I love it that this thread has gone on so long:thumbup:
Great thread!
Great thread!
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Why does Cliff owe any one an apology? Did he personally attack someone? IS it in this thread at all? IF not, where is said conduct for which an apology is owed? How is any of this relavent to the discussion at hand?
I am not trying to slam you in any way, I am just trying to understand where you are coming from.
true enough Cliff. On that note do you not feel that anyone could have enough self control as to the amount of power they use to stun the fish? be it hatchet, knife, rock, limb, or otherwise. Last I checked it didn't take much effort.
guess what Cliff, wrong again. if you choke up all the way up to the head of the hatchet, literally grab the head, you will indeed have more control over that small impact point, than if you were to hammer at it as you would with a knife. Yes you'll have more impact points, but you'll have greater control with the hatchet, because of alignment. Now, if you want to talk love taps, why use a chopper or hatchet at all?
No, you read it right, I meant more. I was being sarcastic. Of course, this is something you would do with a chopper. Apparently I just saved myself an extra chore and time by using a hatchet... thanks
Alan
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2004
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- 467
You would have to go back and reqd the thread but Cliff started remarking about personal attacks when statement where made about batoning then proceeded to call people trolls(what I would concider a personal attack and others as well) Everyone else realized that some misdirection could have gone on and things could have been tken in a wrong way and were big enough to give general apologies.
I do stress big enoug Cliff some how failed to quote anything regarding that or give one himself.
Now back on topic.
A