I think we all take ourselves a little too seriously!

FortyTwoBlades

FortyTwoBlades

Baryonyx walkeri
Dealer / Materials Provider
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Mar 8, 2008
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At least when it comes to we think a knife has to be in order to be used hard! I was at Wal*Mart the other day and saw this "crummy" $4.00 chef's knife and thought I'd pick it up and do a bit of an experiment in the basement to see what "outdoorsy" tasks it could stand up to. :D

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The edge that came on it was poor at best, but we're used to that on other inexpensive pieces like Opinels and goodness knows how much we love them! A quick pass on the belt sander with a 20 micron belt produced this edge.

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After using the knife to round out a piece of wood for baton usage (see where I'm going with this? :p) I found a nice big seasoned piece of rock maple I had lying around.

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At no point during the course of this exercise did I feel that the knife was being strained. It went through no problem and came out just as sharp as it went in. Now we know that a chef's knife is good for chopping veggies, but what about wood? I did a single cross-grain chop into a piece of scrap wood to see how deep it would go.

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All in all, the $4.00 "piece of junk" Wal*Mart-branded kitchen knife held up fine and, in fact, did a pretty good job! The only shortcoming of the knife was the narrow handle, which wanted to rotate in the hand a little from time to time.
 
Awesome bro, often feel the same when I prepare food with my integral Santoku from IKEA.

Soft 420 steel often used in kitchen knives is usually treated to the low 50's (53-54'ish) which is a similar level of hardness that a machete has.

And we all know how tough machetes can be so ;) Good stuff.
 
Old Hickory chef knives have a reputation as being quite sturdy performers in the bush, too. Not too much different than that fella you have there, but I'd take carbon over stainless. Gotta figure it would hold an edge better than a Wally-world special. Not bad, though, for the price. I have a set of Tramontina steak knives that find their way into my camp kitchen from time to time. Pretty handy performers.
 
Considering the knives that a lot of the frontiersmen looked a lot like Old Hickory knives,
I'm not too surprised on the performance of a modern chef knife.
 
F/T Blades, that is pretty slick thinking. I can see JGON (ESEE member) right now flippin' out with someone taking kitchen cutlery & batoning with it . . . . Actually though, he might be scratching his chin & thinking hmmmnn . . . .:thumbup:
Great thinking idea for a thread, hope my wife doesn't see this, I'll be spending all day tomorrow sharpening knives . . :D
Be safe.
 
See that's the whole point--I wanted to use one of the cheapest and most typical kitchen knives out there to see how it would do. It couldn't be so crappy as to be useless for its intended task since Wal*Mart wouldn't want folks being unhappy with it, but they sure were shooting for the bare minimum. And guess what? It took a beating without any damage! Every knife knut knows about Old Hickory--but what about a plastic-handled Wal*Mart cheapie made out of mystery stainless? :p
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
I was at Wal*Mart the other day and saw this "crummy" $4.00 chef's knife and thought I'd pick it up and do a bit of an experiment in the basement to see what "outdoorsy" tasks it could stand up to. :D
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. . . also looks like "Mainstays" is going to have to amend their "improved! sticker for not only providing excellent cutting performance", but also for "batoning maple" . . . . :thumbup:
Be safe.
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Better get rid of my expensive knives and buy a bunch of these :p

I'm quite glad they do so well. With so many people only having these cheap knives, it is good to know they can take some level of a beating.
 
I think we, as aficionados, are so used to high-end cutlery (even the inexpensive stuff) that we automatically assume that anything made for the common non-knife person is junk and will fall apart if you look at it wrong. Just thought I'd put the assumption to the test. :D
 
My kitchen knives are from the Kitchen Devils range, which I've used for over 20 years with no complaints.

But then, my outdoor knife is a Mora Clipper...
 
That's why I keep telling people that you can pay more than $20 for a decent machete (i.e., an Ontario Knife 12"), but you can't get more.
 
you are just proving the answer to the question, what is the best knife for the woods? If you don't have one, what ever you can come up with.

I got a Tramontina chef's knife at Wmart on clearance a few years ago and and now my wife claims it. So found another at a city wide yard sale for a buck, I was thnking OK, his and hers, nope now that is her back up if the other needs cleaned or a little dulling waiting for me to sharpen it for her,

but they are good usable knives.

Thanks for the post and pics.:thumbup:
 
A couple of months ago we wanted to make some last minute chili. The meat was a large frozen chunk and would not fit into the pot. I just got one of my batons, laid a piece of cardboard on the counter and proceeded to baton the frozen chunk in half with my chefs knife. It took about 30 hard blows and the counter was shaking pretty good, but it worked and we had chili that night. The knife held up just fine. Score one for the bushcrafters! :thumbup:
 
I'm usually all for batoning and defending batoning, but I am against this. There is a danger, and this just proves it, a cheap knife just might survive tough batoning! That must mean that an expensive one is sure to break right?
 
I know it's blasphamy to say this but 90% of the time it aint about the knife as much as the person using it. I'd rather be Mors Kochanski with a mora #1 than some rambo wanna be with a 2000.00 custom uber-knife who couldnt get a fire started with gasoline and a road flare. Heck this makes me wanna go grab the 2 tramontina chefs knives pk from Sams for 12bux and see what they can do.
 
Cyblade said:
I know it's blasphamy to say this but 90% of the time it aint about the knife as much as the person using it. I'd rather be Mors Kochanski with a mora #1 than some rambo wanna be with a 2000.00 custom uber-knife who couldnt get a fire started with gasoline and a road flare. Heck this makes me wanna go grab the 2 tramontina chefs knives pk from Sams for 12bux and see what they can do.
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I'd rather be myself and the $90 knife that I have been using over the years. It doesn't have to be an either/or situation.

Old Hickory knives are great values. They keep their steel a little soft, but I love them for carving - turkey at Thanksgiving, hogs during family reunions, good stuff!!! Very easy to put a wicked edge on also! :thumbup:
 
sodak said:
I'd rather be myself and the $90 knife that I have been using over the years. It doesn't have to be an either/or situation.

Old Hickory knives are great values. They keep their steel a little soft, but I love them for carving - turkey at Thanksgiving, hogs during family reunions, good stuff!!! Very easy to put a wicked edge on also! :thumbup:
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Yeah, I was thinking....I'd rather be a woman, so I can wear fine lacy underwear every day.......Nah...But I liked both yours & Cyblade's posts. They both had good points of views!
 
Yes, but if we were to charge eachother on horseback and clash blades together, mine would chop yours in half.... so I got THAT going for me.:cool:

Buy my knifesesez... they can chop other knifesesez in HALF!:grumpy:


Rick:p:thumbup:
 
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