Isle Royale Alpha - Added V2

[Remyrw]

A while back I posted a new design I'm calling the Isle Royale. This is the big brother and I couldn't come up with a wolf species I wanted to use that made sense with the pairing so it's just the Alpha version.

I forgot to include anything handy for scale, but it's just over 10" long overall, 1.4" tall and 3/16" 1080 steel. I was specifically making this as a design prototype and personal use knife so I didn't sweat the belt finish being a bit uneven and a few quirks on the handle, it's comfy and that's what I was after. Outside the "lazy" factor I'm not quite sure how I like the design scaled up. I feel like it could use some tuning but can't pin down what exactly to change. I think the handle is slightly too long and the shape of the scales up front needs some adjustment but that's as far as I have gotten so far. I'm kind of thinking it needs to be even more narrow edge to spine. I'd also like to try it in 3/32" steel and adjust the handle setup slightly to improve it's utility as a kitchen knife. The 3/16" steel is just too thick at this height for a nice slicing action on more solid stuff other than near the tip.

The wood is some stabilized fiddle back jarrah. Very pretty and easily worked wood, if this piece is anything to go by. Since it's a personal knife I'm not going to do better photos I don't think, but I might just to show the wood better.

 

[Remyrw]

Just tried it out in the kitchen, I'm not so sure it really needs to be thinner for my uses. It wouldn't HURT to be thinner, but I may just round over the spine near the handle a bit and keep using it for food prep. You have to adjust how you do some things, but it works nicely as long as you keep in mind the rather thick blade and relatively obtuse angle it causes. The only actual issue I ran into was that it's shorter than I'm used to and I was getting some of the stuff I was dicing and chopping under the ricasso. I may have to grind that up a bit higher to give more clearance and discourage things from getting stuck there.

Don't get me wrong, thinner would be better for kitchen work in this design, it's not meant to be a chopper, but it's also not meant to be a "laser" style kitchen blade. I'll do a thin version next and compare the two. I've got the 1/8 in stock so that's what I'll use. 3/32 will have to wait for a steel order.

 

[Remyrw]

Version 2 along with comparison shots.

The new one is 1084 and started life as 1/8" stock. It's a longer blade, as intended but I did put a little extra taper into things to help thin it out further. The scales are 1/8" paper micarta just sanded to about 220 or so and buffed, user finish not fine. Likewise, the blade is a fairly basic finish rather than a super fine one. I may actually go back and put a 1500grit belt finish on it then buff, just for less friction when cutting. The edge got taken down fairly thin then final edge of around 12 degrees per side. The actual edge is blended in with a slight convexing so there's no actual corner transition between the edge bevel and the rest of the blade.

The photographs make the original look even more stubby than it really is, but it's definitely not a thin knife for most of the blade much less the handle. The new one is not a laser style knife but much more effective in the kitchen.