- Joined
- Mar 27, 2000
- Messages
- 1,822
Im just back from my one-week winter holiday
now that was fun! Too bad its just finished. And as you can see that was really WINTER holiday. Snow, snow, snow
Of course Ive used this opportunity to test couple of my knives in these quite extreme conditions. One of them was my hard-use field knife MK.VI. Whittling, splitting some wood, a bit chopping nothing spectacular. However, Im really glad to tell you that A2 steel is not brittle at all in 20 C below zero (well, theory is one thing but now its been field tested by myself) and also its not as prone to corrosion as you may think. After the whole day (a very snowy day may I add) in a LBE sheath on side of my backpack and resting in the same sheath for the whole night in a room temperature Ive found only two blackish spots on the very edge in the morning. And I expected something much worse than that. So don't be affraid of A2! And well, in the end Ive tested my MK.VI in the summer and winter, in the woods, open fields and even under water. And I can say only good things about this knife! Pure performance. Get it, use it, enjoy it to me its proven to be worth much more than its actual cost.
Now I also would like to share some pics what I carry in the handle. First of all I ALWAYS carry there two pieces of adhesive bandage. I prefer my knives to be sharp so its always good to be prepared for the unlucky moment. Than I usually carry there about foot-and-a-half of paracord, which I use as a lanyard when chopping. And I carry there also two small sharpening sticks (coarse and fine) which you can find in Gatco pocket sharpener. Each of them is covered in paracord outer tubing for protection... it fits perfectly!
You can imagine that sharpening knife of this size on such a small hand-held sharpening stick is neither convenient nor safe. However with your MK.VI you can create very easily a sharpener that is more than enough to restore the edge in the field... well under 3 minutes! Just take a 3/4 inch stick, whittle a bit to have a flat area of 0,5 x 3 inches. Than cut a shallow, 2-inch V groove using tip of your MK.VI, just like that one:
Than put the stick in the groove:
and start sharpening:
Hope that you like my small contribution to the never ending what do you carry in the handle thread
Of course Ive used this opportunity to test couple of my knives in these quite extreme conditions. One of them was my hard-use field knife MK.VI. Whittling, splitting some wood, a bit chopping nothing spectacular. However, Im really glad to tell you that A2 steel is not brittle at all in 20 C below zero (well, theory is one thing but now its been field tested by myself) and also its not as prone to corrosion as you may think. After the whole day (a very snowy day may I add) in a LBE sheath on side of my backpack and resting in the same sheath for the whole night in a room temperature Ive found only two blackish spots on the very edge in the morning. And I expected something much worse than that. So don't be affraid of A2! And well, in the end Ive tested my MK.VI in the summer and winter, in the woods, open fields and even under water. And I can say only good things about this knife! Pure performance. Get it, use it, enjoy it to me its proven to be worth much more than its actual cost.
Now I also would like to share some pics what I carry in the handle. First of all I ALWAYS carry there two pieces of adhesive bandage. I prefer my knives to be sharp so its always good to be prepared for the unlucky moment. Than I usually carry there about foot-and-a-half of paracord, which I use as a lanyard when chopping. And I carry there also two small sharpening sticks (coarse and fine) which you can find in Gatco pocket sharpener. Each of them is covered in paracord outer tubing for protection... it fits perfectly!
You can imagine that sharpening knife of this size on such a small hand-held sharpening stick is neither convenient nor safe. However with your MK.VI you can create very easily a sharpener that is more than enough to restore the edge in the field... well under 3 minutes! Just take a 3/4 inch stick, whittle a bit to have a flat area of 0,5 x 3 inches. Than cut a shallow, 2-inch V groove using tip of your MK.VI, just like that one:
Than put the stick in the groove:
and start sharpening:
Hope that you like my small contribution to the never ending what do you carry in the handle thread
Thank you!
