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- Mar 7, 2006
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- 2,171
Okay, this is a lot of stuff from a post I made on another forum, but I didn't want to type the same thing over so I just edited and brought it here. It's mine so I don't think I need to quote or cite my own self. 
My SAK Swisschamp and the Champ before it were probably my longest running, most used and abused knives that have covered ground in two hemispheres and desert to sub-arctic and in between. I finally quit carrying the Swisschamp mid-to early 2000s because I was going to college to burn up my GI Bill before it ran out and I was working doing sales and CS in a camera store and it just didn't fit in. It was also getting heavy on my belt as I got older.
Well here is a pic of my worn, well used, and even abused, hard used SAK Swisschamp with the "other" tool I used with some of the walking sticks I made about 10 years ago with just these two tools. The SAK and a generic carbon steel tomahawk.
First a wider view showing more of the sticks with the SAK and 'hawk.
The critter looking headed one was a small tree on the edge of a gravel road that had been shoved over when the grater went buy and the county laid in some new gravel. The head was the twisted off at the root base portion. I used the hawk to rough shape and skin most of the shaft and finished with with a lot of shaving and scraping with the SAK. I used the main and secondary blades to trim the torn parts, cut away rough stuff, and work out all the other parts to let the natural spirit show itself. The eyes are citrine and the stone in the mouth was a layered agate type that was in the shape of the Sinai Peninsula that I found, in all places, the sands of the Sinai, and carried in my pocket for almost a decade. It happened to fit perfectly in the "jaws." As it was each of the stones actually fit tightly, but I went ahead and used a dab of 5 minute epoxy just to make sure they stayed as I knew the stick would get knocked around.
I did stop once or twice during the project to touch up the SAK on a fine Arkansas oilstone, then back to work. Finish is with a boiled linseed, odorless mineral spirits, Japan hardener, mix I used for all of them. Hand rubbed even though I probably took years off some internal organs doing so.
The middle stick is my wife's "Story Telling Stick." The rounded part at the top was the branches of a fork cut down and trimmed to fit, then wrapped. There is a webbing you can't see much of that is artificial sinew done in a dreamcatcher type weave with "power" items hanging in it.
The top stick is river cane (thin wall bamboo). I collected some with the saw on the SAK, others I collected just by whacking them down with the hawk and trimming cutting off at the nodes with the SAK saw, and trimming the sharp edges with the main blade of the SAK. I also made a bamboo flute using just the SAK, but it's long gone.
Here is a close up crop of the knife and the head of the "Iron Wolf Clan" stick.
If you have good eyes you can see how the liners at the end of the SAK are battered and nicked. The blade is also to the point it needs a fresh edge cut, but I don't use the blade anymore so it's low on the priority list, but I should just out of respect for it. The nicks are from using the knife to pound when I had nothing else to pound with and the knife was handy.
The knife has done more than one car battery replacement using just the pliers (including prying the terminal clamps off) and banging the clamps back into place before tightening with the pliers again. It's also done some radiator hose repair. That in addition to all kinds of daily cutting, cutting things in the field, and having the various tools used for all kinds of things. Btw, in addition to shoving paracord ends through tight knots the fish scaler/hook remover works great for stirring your coffee.
I guess you could say this knife has been my "Hard Use" knife. This Swisschamp and the Champ before it have done the miles and the hard time and always came through for me. They still have a lot of life and trails left in them. More than I do probably.
My Champ had the MFO logo on it (Multinational Force and Observers) and I bought it along with a Schrade 34OT (carbon) in the Force Exchange the year I was stationed in the Sinai. Anything to have some connection with good ol boy things and a touch of back home. I finally gave my son the Champ along with a small pile of knives and the stories behind them.
I managed to wear out one belt sheath apiece with both the SAK Champ and Swisschamp. They got carried and used that much. Much more than any of my other knives have.
Now a SAK Alox farmer rides in one pocket always. Even after playing with other knives I'm back to the Case Mini-Trapper in the watch pocket and the Farmer with a lanyard in my left front pocket. It's really not that much more to reach in the upper pocket and open the knife up. I really need to get a wallet sharpening card or figure out how to easily (read comfortably) carry my pocket stone. Given those items I could wake up in the forest and feel good about my cutlery. Let me have a Mora and it's even finer. Let me trade the Mini-Trapper, capable as it is, for the Skrama or my tomahawk and I'm platinum on cutlery. If I still have my decades old, slightly worn Boy Scout firesteel on my key ring and the braided paracord lanyard on my SAK I'm doing pretty darned good.
My SAK Swisschamp and the Champ before it were probably my longest running, most used and abused knives that have covered ground in two hemispheres and desert to sub-arctic and in between. I finally quit carrying the Swisschamp mid-to early 2000s because I was going to college to burn up my GI Bill before it ran out and I was working doing sales and CS in a camera store and it just didn't fit in. It was also getting heavy on my belt as I got older.
Well here is a pic of my worn, well used, and even abused, hard used SAK Swisschamp with the "other" tool I used with some of the walking sticks I made about 10 years ago with just these two tools. The SAK and a generic carbon steel tomahawk.
First a wider view showing more of the sticks with the SAK and 'hawk.
The critter looking headed one was a small tree on the edge of a gravel road that had been shoved over when the grater went buy and the county laid in some new gravel. The head was the twisted off at the root base portion. I used the hawk to rough shape and skin most of the shaft and finished with with a lot of shaving and scraping with the SAK. I used the main and secondary blades to trim the torn parts, cut away rough stuff, and work out all the other parts to let the natural spirit show itself. The eyes are citrine and the stone in the mouth was a layered agate type that was in the shape of the Sinai Peninsula that I found, in all places, the sands of the Sinai, and carried in my pocket for almost a decade. It happened to fit perfectly in the "jaws." As it was each of the stones actually fit tightly, but I went ahead and used a dab of 5 minute epoxy just to make sure they stayed as I knew the stick would get knocked around.
I did stop once or twice during the project to touch up the SAK on a fine Arkansas oilstone, then back to work. Finish is with a boiled linseed, odorless mineral spirits, Japan hardener, mix I used for all of them. Hand rubbed even though I probably took years off some internal organs doing so.
The middle stick is my wife's "Story Telling Stick." The rounded part at the top was the branches of a fork cut down and trimmed to fit, then wrapped. There is a webbing you can't see much of that is artificial sinew done in a dreamcatcher type weave with "power" items hanging in it.
The top stick is river cane (thin wall bamboo). I collected some with the saw on the SAK, others I collected just by whacking them down with the hawk and trimming cutting off at the nodes with the SAK saw, and trimming the sharp edges with the main blade of the SAK. I also made a bamboo flute using just the SAK, but it's long gone.
Here is a close up crop of the knife and the head of the "Iron Wolf Clan" stick.
If you have good eyes you can see how the liners at the end of the SAK are battered and nicked. The blade is also to the point it needs a fresh edge cut, but I don't use the blade anymore so it's low on the priority list, but I should just out of respect for it. The nicks are from using the knife to pound when I had nothing else to pound with and the knife was handy.
The knife has done more than one car battery replacement using just the pliers (including prying the terminal clamps off) and banging the clamps back into place before tightening with the pliers again. It's also done some radiator hose repair. That in addition to all kinds of daily cutting, cutting things in the field, and having the various tools used for all kinds of things. Btw, in addition to shoving paracord ends through tight knots the fish scaler/hook remover works great for stirring your coffee.
I guess you could say this knife has been my "Hard Use" knife. This Swisschamp and the Champ before it have done the miles and the hard time and always came through for me. They still have a lot of life and trails left in them. More than I do probably.
My Champ had the MFO logo on it (Multinational Force and Observers) and I bought it along with a Schrade 34OT (carbon) in the Force Exchange the year I was stationed in the Sinai. Anything to have some connection with good ol boy things and a touch of back home. I finally gave my son the Champ along with a small pile of knives and the stories behind them.
I managed to wear out one belt sheath apiece with both the SAK Champ and Swisschamp. They got carried and used that much. Much more than any of my other knives have.
Now a SAK Alox farmer rides in one pocket always. Even after playing with other knives I'm back to the Case Mini-Trapper in the watch pocket and the Farmer with a lanyard in my left front pocket. It's really not that much more to reach in the upper pocket and open the knife up. I really need to get a wallet sharpening card or figure out how to easily (read comfortably) carry my pocket stone. Given those items I could wake up in the forest and feel good about my cutlery. Let me have a Mora and it's even finer. Let me trade the Mini-Trapper, capable as it is, for the Skrama or my tomahawk and I'm platinum on cutlery. If I still have my decades old, slightly worn Boy Scout firesteel on my key ring and the braided paracord lanyard on my SAK I'm doing pretty darned good.
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