- Joined
- Jun 11, 2008
- Messages
- 1,409
First off I want to apologize for the review only being partially completed. A few of you may know this already but I am in the process of several surgeries for a broken back and have not been active for a while here. Because of that, I had to get my neighbor to do the chopping and battoning for the review and our schedules don't match up. This is just the first part of the review, initial impressions, and some edge testing.
So..... onto the good stuff.
My muck arrived two days ago. I went with the leather sheath and Dan hooked me up with the JRE prototype! This is a great sheath! The production version will have a dangler but other than that this is pretty much it. This is my temporary solution to the lack of dangler.
The pouch is very deep and the leather of the sheath is really supple. I wet form and wax all my leather sheaths so this was perfect for me. The fire steel loop fits a 3/8in firesteel, the size of the LMF "army" model. The small pocket on the side is perfect to fit a 3inX3/4in sharpening stone but I don't think that would be a good use for the pocket because the mini stones are all natural and not hard enough to work well on 3V, especially with Dan's heat treat. I will likely use that pocket for tinder or something like that (my wife suggests bandaids
).
OK, enough about the sheath......
The Handle- this shot in hand shows the extra large handle. I have big hands so this was a perfect fit for me.
The edges are all rounded nicely and the contours are VERY ergonomic and the "guard" is perfectly contoured into the grip so there is no rough transition. Please note the top pic. There is a swell along the back of the handle that tapers smaller at the top of the handle. This allows a machete style pinch grip when chopping that heavily reduces fatigue. I am a big machete fan and found this style of chopping to bring out this knife's real potential.
The but of the handle is tapered into a glass breaker. I don't really need this in a camp knife but for an emergency or urban survival knife this is a great feature and I applaud Dan for thinking a bit outside the box to add this feature.
There is also a very large lanyard hole that won't make you struggle to get thick cordage through there. The sides of the lanyard hole has been de-burred, an important step to reduce wear on your lanyard.
The Blade-
From back to front.... We have a really aggressive jimping. I can take or leave jimping on most knives because its usually not deep enough to really grip well, especially while wearing gloves. This jimping is deep and wide and give great grip, even with gloves.
The spine is sharp above the jimping. This was designed so that it would strike a firesteel well.
I find it just as suited to scraping seasoned wood to make tinder so the firesteel won't feel lonely.
The willow shaped blade was a great choice. There is an acute point for drilling or piercing, but lots of belly for skinning, and plenty of meat behind the sweet spot for chopping.
There is a swedge...... I normally wouldn't want a swedge in a chopper/splitter like this but I learned something about this knife while chopping. The material removed to make the swedge changes the balance point, moving it toward the handle. This ends up making the knife as balanced as a fighting bowie while still keeping its blade shape and most of it's chopping ability. The feel is very machete like when chopping. As I said before this knife, when held in the pinch grip, is so low in fatigue that you could use it heavily all day long with no ill effects.
The Steel.... Dan's 3V
There's no pretending that I am not a huge fan of Dan's heat treat. I have made reviews over the years showing his 3V doing everything from carving bone to planing a single hair. I'm not gonna go to in depth in this review because It's all been done before so I'm just gonna do one quick battoning and chopping test and then check the edge.
This is seasoned red oak, very hard.
the second shot is ten of those, split all the way to kindling
the third shot shows the batton, note the damage done by the swedge. I still think the swedge is well worth it on this design.
Now for some chopping....
This is after 10 hard chops. The lighter weight blade reduces a little bit of chopping power but the lack of fatigue of this well balanced knife makes it a good trade off imo.
Now that we have battoned (a lot) and chopped, lets test the sweet spot to see how the edge is doing. The sweet spot on this knife is just above the apex of the belly. I chose this area because it took the most use during testing. I started by wiping the blade off on my jeans to clean the dirt off. Then I sliced some paper (no pic, sorry) and tested the edge on my hairy wrist...... it not only shave but even dry it wipes the hair off my wrist without irritating my skin at all!
Lastly, I wiped the edge clean on my jeans again and took a photo. You can see that the micro bevel is even in thickness and has no high ow low spots.
This edge is in perfect condition even after all the fire prep type use. I will keep using this knife and continue the review until it will no longer shave easily. The knife will not be stropped and no compound will be used but I will wipe it on my pants to clean it occasionally.
Final thoughts- I love it. There are a ton of well thought out features and the execution is ideal a tough camp/survival knife. I thought I would prefer a full spine for chopping but I was wrong. The balance provided by the swedge is one of the best parts of the knife. Home Run.....
So..... onto the good stuff.
My muck arrived two days ago. I went with the leather sheath and Dan hooked me up with the JRE prototype! This is a great sheath! The production version will have a dangler but other than that this is pretty much it. This is my temporary solution to the lack of dangler.
The pouch is very deep and the leather of the sheath is really supple. I wet form and wax all my leather sheaths so this was perfect for me. The fire steel loop fits a 3/8in firesteel, the size of the LMF "army" model. The small pocket on the side is perfect to fit a 3inX3/4in sharpening stone but I don't think that would be a good use for the pocket because the mini stones are all natural and not hard enough to work well on 3V, especially with Dan's heat treat. I will likely use that pocket for tinder or something like that (my wife suggests bandaids
). OK, enough about the sheath......
The Handle- this shot in hand shows the extra large handle. I have big hands so this was a perfect fit for me.
The edges are all rounded nicely and the contours are VERY ergonomic and the "guard" is perfectly contoured into the grip so there is no rough transition. Please note the top pic. There is a swell along the back of the handle that tapers smaller at the top of the handle. This allows a machete style pinch grip when chopping that heavily reduces fatigue. I am a big machete fan and found this style of chopping to bring out this knife's real potential.
The but of the handle is tapered into a glass breaker. I don't really need this in a camp knife but for an emergency or urban survival knife this is a great feature and I applaud Dan for thinking a bit outside the box to add this feature.
There is also a very large lanyard hole that won't make you struggle to get thick cordage through there. The sides of the lanyard hole has been de-burred, an important step to reduce wear on your lanyard.
The Blade-
From back to front.... We have a really aggressive jimping. I can take or leave jimping on most knives because its usually not deep enough to really grip well, especially while wearing gloves. This jimping is deep and wide and give great grip, even with gloves.
The spine is sharp above the jimping. This was designed so that it would strike a firesteel well.
I find it just as suited to scraping seasoned wood to make tinder so the firesteel won't feel lonely.
The willow shaped blade was a great choice. There is an acute point for drilling or piercing, but lots of belly for skinning, and plenty of meat behind the sweet spot for chopping.
There is a swedge...... I normally wouldn't want a swedge in a chopper/splitter like this but I learned something about this knife while chopping. The material removed to make the swedge changes the balance point, moving it toward the handle. This ends up making the knife as balanced as a fighting bowie while still keeping its blade shape and most of it's chopping ability. The feel is very machete like when chopping. As I said before this knife, when held in the pinch grip, is so low in fatigue that you could use it heavily all day long with no ill effects.
The Steel.... Dan's 3V
There's no pretending that I am not a huge fan of Dan's heat treat. I have made reviews over the years showing his 3V doing everything from carving bone to planing a single hair. I'm not gonna go to in depth in this review because It's all been done before so I'm just gonna do one quick battoning and chopping test and then check the edge.
This is seasoned red oak, very hard.
the second shot is ten of those, split all the way to kindling
the third shot shows the batton, note the damage done by the swedge. I still think the swedge is well worth it on this design.
Now for some chopping....
This is after 10 hard chops. The lighter weight blade reduces a little bit of chopping power but the lack of fatigue of this well balanced knife makes it a good trade off imo.
Now that we have battoned (a lot) and chopped, lets test the sweet spot to see how the edge is doing. The sweet spot on this knife is just above the apex of the belly. I chose this area because it took the most use during testing. I started by wiping the blade off on my jeans to clean the dirt off. Then I sliced some paper (no pic, sorry) and tested the edge on my hairy wrist...... it not only shave but even dry it wipes the hair off my wrist without irritating my skin at all!
Lastly, I wiped the edge clean on my jeans again and took a photo. You can see that the micro bevel is even in thickness and has no high ow low spots.
This edge is in perfect condition even after all the fire prep type use. I will keep using this knife and continue the review until it will no longer shave easily. The knife will not be stropped and no compound will be used but I will wipe it on my pants to clean it occasionally.
Final thoughts- I love it. There are a ton of well thought out features and the execution is ideal a tough camp/survival knife. I thought I would prefer a full spine for chopping but I was wrong. The balance provided by the swedge is one of the best parts of the knife. Home Run.....
