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Ontario RAT-3. Good for IWB?
- Thread starter crollins
- Start date
powernoodle
Power Member
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2004
- Messages
- 11,971
How would you carry it IWB ("inside the waistband")? It works nicely in its little kydex belt holster (outside the waistband) and is held fairly close to the body. It can be covered with a shirt without much difficulty.
cheers
cheers
Yea it works fine. You can unscrew the clip plate (four small phillips screws) and screw it on the other side of the Kydex if you want. Then, the sheath will go inside the waistband and the clip will go between belt and waistband.
My beef is with the clip plate and the TekLok that comes as an included accessory. They only go attached to the Kydex in one or two ways. I like my RAT-3 on the right side, angled back about 50 degrees from vertical. Can;t do it... the holes iin the Kydex are not "multi-position" compatible with the holes in the clip and TekLok.
Other than that, it's fine to carry in the waistband, outside the waistband, from the neck, in the boot, etc.
Handle is not bulky. It's a tad over 1/2" thick and 4" long. If on the waistband, it does not show through a sweatshirt pulled over it, a shirt with shirttails hanging out, or a light jacket. It will not show through a medium weight shirt (say a light flannel long-sleeve WalMart shirt - I wear those alot) if your wearing it around your neck. Now, if you're wearing it on the waistband, say clipped inside the waistband with Kydex on the outside, it hangs down almost exactly 3" from top of belt. So, as long as your shirt or jacket is longer than that, it will not be seen and will not protrude from front or back of shirt.
I really like this knife. I never envisioned buying an Ontario until I accidently ran across it in a knife shop (while looking at Benchmades). I fell for it and it still impresses me. If only I could re-profile and sharpen the thing!
My beef is with the clip plate and the TekLok that comes as an included accessory. They only go attached to the Kydex in one or two ways. I like my RAT-3 on the right side, angled back about 50 degrees from vertical. Can;t do it... the holes iin the Kydex are not "multi-position" compatible with the holes in the clip and TekLok.
Other than that, it's fine to carry in the waistband, outside the waistband, from the neck, in the boot, etc.
Handle is not bulky. It's a tad over 1/2" thick and 4" long. If on the waistband, it does not show through a sweatshirt pulled over it, a shirt with shirttails hanging out, or a light jacket. It will not show through a medium weight shirt (say a light flannel long-sleeve WalMart shirt - I wear those alot) if your wearing it around your neck. Now, if you're wearing it on the waistband, say clipped inside the waistband with Kydex on the outside, it hangs down almost exactly 3" from top of belt. So, as long as your shirt or jacket is longer than that, it will not be seen and will not protrude from front or back of shirt.
I really like this knife. I never envisioned buying an Ontario until I accidently ran across it in a knife shop (while looking at Benchmades). I fell for it and it still impresses me. If only I could re-profile and sharpen the thing!
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2005
- Messages
- 8,161
You summed it up nicely and I agree with you, I own this knife and I have edc'ed it. I have never IWB'd it but I have no doubts it would be good for it.
I sharpen it on a Spyderco Sharpmaker
Yes Barrabas,
You're right.....on the advice of the good people in the Toolshed, I bought a Sharpmaker. I sharpened all my knives with it and got them acceptably sharp.....one of them will shave hair (I AM PROUD OF THAT!). But I cannot sharpen that doggone RAT-3, I should've left it alone. It was fine with a decent edge, but I thought "Lemme see if I can get this thing to shave hair". Big mistake. It's ground at more than 40 degrees. So I bought a Lansky and tried to re-profile. Bigger mistake. I've got 600 strokes on it (easily 600) with an Extra Course hone and still have a dull RAT. Should've left it alone.
Crollins, my friend, take it from me (your humble idiot). Unless you're good with diamond hones, leave that D2 edge alone until it absolutely must be sharpened. Then reprofile it....but NOT to 17 degrees like I did (kick myself in the butt). Make it worth your while....take it all the way down to 15 degrees.
You're right.....on the advice of the good people in the Toolshed, I bought a Sharpmaker. I sharpened all my knives with it and got them acceptably sharp.....one of them will shave hair (I AM PROUD OF THAT!). But I cannot sharpen that doggone RAT-3, I should've left it alone. It was fine with a decent edge, but I thought "Lemme see if I can get this thing to shave hair". Big mistake. It's ground at more than 40 degrees. So I bought a Lansky and tried to re-profile. Bigger mistake. I've got 600 strokes on it (easily 600) with an Extra Course hone and still have a dull RAT. Should've left it alone.
Crollins, my friend, take it from me (your humble idiot). Unless you're good with diamond hones, leave that D2 edge alone until it absolutely must be sharpened. Then reprofile it....but NOT to 17 degrees like I did (kick myself in the butt). Make it worth your while....take it all the way down to 15 degrees.
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2005
- Messages
- 8,161
Stretch, that is curious, I had no problem on my sharpmaker.....hmmm. Have you tried working it at 30 and then back at 45? Do you know how to sharpen freehand on stones? My RAT-3 pops hair just on the spyderco. Let me know, it might be your technique or just bad luck.
Oh it's my technique allright! 
It's called 'Doesn;t Know How To Do It' hehe
Seriously, I put a magic marker on the edge and determined that it needed to be honed at 40 degrees (yep, I could've been wrong). Now I didn;t completely wreck the edge, but it wasn;t as sharp as it was before I started. Well, you know how that goes.... We can;t have that! It MUST BE as sharp or sharper than we started. So I decided that the grind was just too obtuse for my tastes. Mind you, I "decided" this before even knowing what "obtuse" meant. So I decided to reprofile the edge to 30 degrees....and you know the rest of the story.
No Barrabas, I don;t know how to sharpen a knife freehand. I mean, I kindly understand the mechanics, but I've never done it because I'm afraid I'll make it worse. But that Sharpmaker....now it did fairly well on my other knives (BM975, Buck 110, Victorinox SAK, Spyderco Endura, Frost Deer Hunter fb, Nimravus 154CM (ever so gently), and a couple of cheapies (like the Frost) that I started with to practice on). It did OK and I got over my fear of "freehanding" a vertical knife edge while sliding down an angled stone.
Ok I'm getting carried away in someone else's post. Sorry about that. End result=bad Rat.
MY PLAN IS: I'm just going to get a coarse diamond hone and keep stroking it over the next few days until it's 17 degrees. Then I'll do a micro-bevel on the Sharpmaker at 20 degrees. Does that sound reasonable? I'm open to suggestions, and have a recent thread in the Toolshed about reprofiling RAT-3 with Lansky.
It's called 'Doesn;t Know How To Do It' heheSeriously, I put a magic marker on the edge and determined that it needed to be honed at 40 degrees (yep, I could've been wrong). Now I didn;t completely wreck the edge, but it wasn;t as sharp as it was before I started. Well, you know how that goes.... We can;t have that! It MUST BE as sharp or sharper than we started. So I decided that the grind was just too obtuse for my tastes. Mind you, I "decided" this before even knowing what "obtuse" meant. So I decided to reprofile the edge to 30 degrees....and you know the rest of the story.
No Barrabas, I don;t know how to sharpen a knife freehand. I mean, I kindly understand the mechanics, but I've never done it because I'm afraid I'll make it worse. But that Sharpmaker....now it did fairly well on my other knives (BM975, Buck 110, Victorinox SAK, Spyderco Endura, Frost Deer Hunter fb, Nimravus 154CM (ever so gently), and a couple of cheapies (like the Frost) that I started with to practice on). It did OK and I got over my fear of "freehanding" a vertical knife edge while sliding down an angled stone.
Ok I'm getting carried away in someone else's post. Sorry about that. End result=bad Rat.
MY PLAN IS: I'm just going to get a coarse diamond hone and keep stroking it over the next few days until it's 17 degrees. Then I'll do a micro-bevel on the Sharpmaker at 20 degrees. Does that sound reasonable? I'm open to suggestions, and have a recent thread in the Toolshed about reprofiling RAT-3 with Lansky.
It took a bit, but the DMT8XX got it done during the watching of two Rifleman reruns on TV...
On a steep relief, as I am want to do, the logos remain because of the steeper factory grind. BTW, really worth the effort, and it's now on par with my Dozier Agent also in D2...
And freehand it -- the RAT-3 is in the range that it can be played around with and not be ruined...maybe a Norton 1000/4000 wetstone would just be the ticket for you after the DNT8XX does the heavy work. Or, then again, DMT fine 8" stones might be the ticket, with a final steel...good luck
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