Maine Primitive skills school knife, ESK, Extreme Survival Knife

Dan Gray

Dan Gray

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Joined
Jun 25, 2001
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these knives were made for and helped designed by the Maine Primitive skills school and now after their testing they are in use by the staff and students.
see the new letter here
http://www.primitiveskills.com/news.html

They wanted a fairly inexpensive Knife to beat the crap out of and to do what it's designed to do. to help keep prices down..
the profile has been laser cut from my Cad file design
and the finish kept to a reasonable grade.
replaceable bead blasted green canvas Micarta handles
1095 steel 11 1/4" OL with a blade edge of 6"
very little Recarso for whittling ease
the first tooth was not set for use in ringing/notching saplings for para-cord say for tent posts.
I cut the saw teeth like a chain saw chain 3 3/8" of them each with a set (each tooth is
kanted out clearing the flats of the blade) so the blade will have
less binding,
The finish is a FC soak to darken the blade nothing pretty.
$240.00 shipped for the knife shipped with-in the US ,
if you want a sheath ( some guys order thier own)
a $36.00 Ballistic nylon sheath for just $24.95 shown below the knife
you can have Black or green Para cord with it ( dog tags not incuded)
5% Maine sales tax if sent with in Maine
thanks for looking..
esk8-18-07.JPG

reconsheath.jpg
 
Wow, I like the design a lot! Great steel for abuse, and Micarta can't be beat. Very tempting.
 
i remember having a dream around 2 weeks ago where i was at another forumite's house (or was it a shed?) and there was a (what I thought in the dream to be tknife's sig knife) on the floor and we were standing above it. I wanted to hold it but the guy didn't want me to and wanted to trade me a gerber hatchet, except it extended like a tree pruner 20' long i guess? :confused: (weird dream). In the dream the knife had writing etched on it, it had a dark finish, and a green micarta handle. I think the dream knife is the ESK . I'm not sure whether or not i traded the extendy hatchet or not. Its a good feeling to resolve a dream. :)
 
thanks Guys
Keith
are these dreams waking you up at night :confused: :D
haha keep dreaming , good ones hopefully :)
 
Bump
If you don't like it send her home :)
and I'll give it to the little old lady next door :D
only a few out of 14 left
 
tknife said:
Quick question, what is the steel thickness on these? Thanks
Click to expand...

at first the school wanted 1/4" saying one of the other guys there had a tracker and broke it,
I felt I could make these hold up better and still use a thinner steel.
...we found from all the testing, it only had to be 5/32"
so far with all the beatings they got.. :thumbup:
thanks for asking
 
I got this email from one of our forumits,,, I like these emails :)
thanks Jason
( justa few left, another went today..)

Dan,
I have the ESK knife in my hand. Used it yesterday to saw thru a 2" thick green pine branch, a kiln dried fir 2x4 and make some fuzz sticks from dried alder branches. Saw is slow but works better than any other fixed blade saw I have used. I have beck, linger and terrel WSK's and your saw is better. The blade geometry is great for real wood work. Handle is comfortable in all positions and secure when useing the saw. I like the spear piont blade and the extended tang. The design is a winner.
Thanks much,
Jason

my return mail to why it slow.. some thought went in to this..

Thanks Jason
I'm glad to hear that..and in green pine, if that won't bind it up nothing will, Cool ! (;>))
I'm getting all good reports from the ESK owners.

Keep in mind the saw teeth on the ESK I filed with a special flat grind file used mostly by the pro's in chain saw racing and pro loggers that look for a safer chain on regular pro chain..
On a chain saw filed this way the chain will not kick back and the drag is less letting the RPMs stay higher thus cutting more wood..
in the case of these knives filed this way, it cuts down on the aggressiveness but will still cut well.. though a little slower
( lack of RPM's if you will ) Mal mentioned that the prototype was very aggressive being round filed so this was the main
fix, though Mike at the school didn't mind the aggrieves of the prototype, so filing the teeth this way would satisfy both wants with out having two types of tooth configurations.
To cut faster but be more aggressive you'll just need to file the teeth with a regular 5/32" chain saw round file , if you do, just make sure you keep about 20% of the file above the top plate while filing, same as filing a saw chain but keeping the angles at 90%
Or you could send it back to me for resharpening when needed, to be filed
either way you want it .. just pay for the return shipping is all I ask
.. keep me posted on it.. and Thanks for the email.. Dan
 
bummped..
one reserved yesterday.
and one heading to France Tuesday..
just a couple left gents . it will be a while before I can make more of them..
to those that emailed me,, thanks...:)
 
That looks like a great design! Quite suitable for the outdoors and if I had the cash one would be mine:(.
 
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