- Joined
- Apr 13, 2004
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- 17,069
Well, went camping for four days over last weekend. Fire danger has been so high here (you might have heard about a few of our forest fires), I hadn't planned on even thinking about being able to have a fire. Well, daily widespread thunderstorms in the mountains for the last week or so changed that, and my first day up there they lifted the fire bans! 
Unfortunately, since I hadn't planned on having a fire, I didn't bring an axe or hatchet. 
However, I had planned on doing some wilderness area backpacking while I was up there, and brought the Chopweiler along as a large trail knife. The insane amount of lightning in the thunderstorms made me decide to forego those plans and simply stay in a forest service campground instead. Since I had the Chopweiler instead of an axe or hatchet, I used it to split some wood to have my fires. Finally, she is no longer a virgin!!! 
Here are a few pictures. This is how she looked not terribly long ago:
And here she is after reducing the firewood:
I was pretty danged impressed with how well it batoned through the wood, and how it was esentially just as sharp afterward as it was when I started. As you can see, some bits of wood stuck to the blade coating. They came right off with a little bit of water and some scrubbing with my fingers. After I got home, I used a plastic brush under running water and scrubbed it even better, and all of the wood came right off. The baton was pretty beat to smitherines when it was all over, but still burned just fine...
This wood was so dry that many of the cuts only required a single blow with the baton to split the wood all the way through! :thumbup: I actually think this might be the easier way to split wood versus an axe or hatchet; It is most certainly safer! Anyway, just wanted to say that all of the legendary stories you hear about the Choppy are TRUE!!! Definitely a classic Swamp Rat blade that deserves all of the attention it gets! Time to put a sweet, sweet convex edge on it now that she's been broken in! Just thought I'd share with y'all that we have one less virgin Chopweiler in the family. 
Later. :emot-yarr:
Unfortunately, since I hadn't planned on having a fire, I didn't bring an axe or hatchet. However, I had planned on doing some wilderness area backpacking while I was up there, and brought the Chopweiler along as a large trail knife. The insane amount of lightning in the thunderstorms made me decide to forego those plans and simply stay in a forest service campground instead. Since I had the Chopweiler instead of an axe or hatchet, I used it to split some wood to have my fires. Finally, she is no longer a virgin!!!
Here are a few pictures. This is how she looked not terribly long ago:
And here she is after reducing the firewood:
I was pretty danged impressed with how well it batoned through the wood, and how it was esentially just as sharp afterward as it was when I started. As you can see, some bits of wood stuck to the blade coating. They came right off with a little bit of water and some scrubbing with my fingers. After I got home, I used a plastic brush under running water and scrubbed it even better, and all of the wood came right off. The baton was pretty beat to smitherines when it was all over, but still burned just fine...
This wood was so dry that many of the cuts only required a single blow with the baton to split the wood all the way through! :thumbup: I actually think this might be the easier way to split wood versus an axe or hatchet; It is most certainly safer! Anyway, just wanted to say that all of the legendary stories you hear about the Choppy are TRUE!!!
Definitely a classic Swamp Rat blade that deserves all of the attention it gets! Time to put a sweet, sweet convex edge on it now that she's been broken in! Just thought I'd share with y'all that we have one less virgin Chopweiler in the family. Later. :emot-yarr:
