- Joined
- Dec 31, 2005
- Messages
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I was giving some thought as to what "Mistress" sized blades stand out for me as being choices I would make if I had to "thin the herd" a little and was looking for a cross section of blades on weight and performance .... these three came to mind .....
and I thought I would give them a spin to see how they stacked up against each other ....
The NMFBM is fully convexed and comes in at 28-29 oz's .... it is a CG model which has been stripped and cleaned up and thinned down slightly from removing the Infi dimples ...it has a 12 inch blade and the hand shaped linen micarta grips ...
The BWM LE has a reprofiled convex edge and smoothed out G10 grips and comes in at 22 oz's ... it has a 10 inch blade ...
The Basic 9 is a stock blade with an ASM edge as from the factory and weighs in at 14 oz's and has just over a 9 inch blade ....
All three knives had had a fair work out in the recent past so I took a strop out and just tweaked up the edges to a "hair shaving sharp" level ....
I decided to take a fairly "uniform" limb I had left over from some earlier chopping and do the standard perperation stuff for a camp knife in terms of turning the log into firewood .... the first task was removing the bark which was wet and sodden from the limb ....
I used the NMFBM first and this sort of task is an easy one for it .... given the length of blade and the comfortable rounded spine you can use the knife well as a draw knife ... sitting behind the log with one hand on the blade and the other on the handle it is easy to shave the bark off ...
The sharper the edge the easier the task and this took no time at all with the NMFBM ...
Chopping off the smaller branch stubs was easy too ... one whack and they were gone ...
I don't know how others prefer to do their chopping when making logs but I find it easiest to take the limb as above in a vertical position leaned up against some support at around a 35-45 degree angle and simply chop and rotate the limb. This gives me a log with a pointed end on one end and a flat end on the other which I can stand the log on for halving/quartering etc for sticks ... it is pretty quick done like this and you have angled the wood to enable a 45 degree or so entry strike with the knife moving in a safe straight downward chop .... gives good power and control compared to chopping with the log flat and the knife held at an angle .... and you can position your feet safely so they are not in the line of a swing with the earth as a backstop.
Anway ... on to the NMFBM doing a few logs .... for log cutting I don't go for the same power at all as when chopping down a tree or clearing limbs ... I have far too many logs to do for my fires ( two fire places in the house ) so I just easily pace myself and go for accuracy to link up the chops with one going in vertical and one coming in at an angle to chip out the wood cut ....
The NMFBM is a pleasure to do this with .... the weight of the knife and it's good balance make for nice accurate work and the convex blade throws chips out just as good as a hatchet .... safety wise when doing this at dusk or when needing to cut more wood when outside and it suddenly starts raining and you need to feed the fire more than you expected to ...to take it through the rain ... the length of the knife blade is a much greater safety measure than that of the smaller Axe or Hatchet ... and the NMFBM is a very safe knife to use. You don't need to exert yourself or apply "power" which can lead to inaccuracy and mistakes ... sometimes bigger tools are safer tools in this sense .... and the NMFBM is one of my favourite knives because of the great blend of balance and weight to enable tasks like this to be done quickly and safely ... it just simply breezes through this sort of stuff ...
and I thought I would give them a spin to see how they stacked up against each other ....
The NMFBM is fully convexed and comes in at 28-29 oz's .... it is a CG model which has been stripped and cleaned up and thinned down slightly from removing the Infi dimples ...it has a 12 inch blade and the hand shaped linen micarta grips ...
The BWM LE has a reprofiled convex edge and smoothed out G10 grips and comes in at 22 oz's ... it has a 10 inch blade ...
The Basic 9 is a stock blade with an ASM edge as from the factory and weighs in at 14 oz's and has just over a 9 inch blade ....
All three knives had had a fair work out in the recent past so I took a strop out and just tweaked up the edges to a "hair shaving sharp" level ....
I decided to take a fairly "uniform" limb I had left over from some earlier chopping and do the standard perperation stuff for a camp knife in terms of turning the log into firewood .... the first task was removing the bark which was wet and sodden from the limb ....
I used the NMFBM first and this sort of task is an easy one for it .... given the length of blade and the comfortable rounded spine you can use the knife well as a draw knife ... sitting behind the log with one hand on the blade and the other on the handle it is easy to shave the bark off ...
The sharper the edge the easier the task and this took no time at all with the NMFBM ...
Chopping off the smaller branch stubs was easy too ... one whack and they were gone ...
I don't know how others prefer to do their chopping when making logs but I find it easiest to take the limb as above in a vertical position leaned up against some support at around a 35-45 degree angle and simply chop and rotate the limb. This gives me a log with a pointed end on one end and a flat end on the other which I can stand the log on for halving/quartering etc for sticks ... it is pretty quick done like this and you have angled the wood to enable a 45 degree or so entry strike with the knife moving in a safe straight downward chop .... gives good power and control compared to chopping with the log flat and the knife held at an angle .... and you can position your feet safely so they are not in the line of a swing with the earth as a backstop.
Anway ... on to the NMFBM doing a few logs .... for log cutting I don't go for the same power at all as when chopping down a tree or clearing limbs ... I have far too many logs to do for my fires ( two fire places in the house ) so I just easily pace myself and go for accuracy to link up the chops with one going in vertical and one coming in at an angle to chip out the wood cut ....
The NMFBM is a pleasure to do this with .... the weight of the knife and it's good balance make for nice accurate work and the convex blade throws chips out just as good as a hatchet .... safety wise when doing this at dusk or when needing to cut more wood when outside and it suddenly starts raining and you need to feed the fire more than you expected to ...to take it through the rain ... the length of the knife blade is a much greater safety measure than that of the smaller Axe or Hatchet ... and the NMFBM is a very safe knife to use. You don't need to exert yourself or apply "power" which can lead to inaccuracy and mistakes ... sometimes bigger tools are safer tools in this sense .... and the NMFBM is one of my favourite knives because of the great blend of balance and weight to enable tasks like this to be done quickly and safely ... it just simply breezes through this sort of stuff ...
and even brought out a few other knives just to do a bit of whittling whilst enjoying the fire and a bite to eat ....
