Ontario Rat AUS8 w/ razor edge regrind

[bodog]

I've never held an Ontario Rat before so this is a first. I've handled knives just below and just above this one's price point. I've messed with steels just below and just above AUS8 so I hope I can come up with a fair overall assessment.

First impressions out of the box:

Woah, this is a cool knife. Feels good, action is great, size is just right. Again, feels fantastic.

Upon closer inspection I saw that the tip is slightly off. Don't know if that's because of the regrind or through use.

The cerakote is pretty much intact.

The centering is off. It's hard to tell if it's because of the tip being a little bent or the blade simply being off center. It looks kind of like a combination of the two. The blade does not rub and opens very nicely.

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The lockup is greater than 50%. Again, I don't know if the regrind has anything to do with it. It's solid, though. No wobble or up and down play.

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The plunge lines are very well done coming to a very even edge

The markings on the clip are a little worn off but I think it looks pretty danged cool as is.

Pics and tests to come. I have three days off coming up and will test it as much as possible. I'll also take it to a home construction site and will let the workers there handle and use it for a little bit.

It was printer paper slicing sharp but I'm going to throw my own edge on it prior to my own testing so I have a known benchmark.

 

[REK Knives]

Good stuff man. Looking forward to it!

So the tip is bent? Oh, and if you have a caliper I would be curious if you can measure the shoulders of the edge to see how much they have thickened up through sharpening =)

I had the edge set at 15 dps when it left, not sure if it's still at that or not would be good to know.

 

[bodog]

Good stuff man. Looking forward to it!

So the tip is bent? Oh, and if you have a caliper I would be curious if you can measure the shoulders of the edge to see how much they have thickened up through sharpening =)

I had the edge set at 15 dps when it left, not sure if it's still at that or not would be good to know.

I don't have a caliper on me but I'll try to get one in the next day or two to measure. Here it is next to a knife that's about .010" +/- behind the edge.

 

[bodog]

Good stuff man. Looking forward to it!

So the tip is bent? Oh, and if you have a caliper I would be curious if you can measure the shoulders of the edge to see how much they have thickened up through sharpening =)

I had the edge set at 15 dps when it left, not sure if it's still at that or not would be good to know.

And I just put it on my edge pro. It was right at about 15 degrees, maybe just a little closer to 16 degrees, per side. Very evenly sharpened from tip to heel. Well done to the prior users. This steel is almost too easy to sharpen. I'm going to see just how ridiculous I can get.

Ok, this is a ridiculously easy to sharpen knife. I just went from 220 grit up to 14K grit and it easily slices the hair off my arm. It'd easily whittle hair at this point. Took me all of what, 20-30 minutes? That's with some stopping to get some beers, light a smoke, and bellow some lines to country boys can survive for a couple of minutes, too. It's been awhile since a knife has been this easy to sharpen for me. Thank you to the previous sharpeners for making it so easy.

Torn apart. Cerakote at the pivot.

And up to David Allan Coe's Tennessee Whiskey and Willie Nelson's Blue Eyes Cryin in the Rain. Great night, great knife.

Here ya go, one of the best songs to have stuck in your head as you read on

[video=youtube;kppBxEkb8to]https://youtu.be/kppBxEkb8to[/video]

 

[jstrange]

Great songs too!

 

[bodog]

Well, I tried fixing the off centered blade and slightly bent tip. I fixed the centering issue but slightly screwed up the bent tip. I did a decent job polishing the washers, lubed with fireclean, and now it opens better now than it did before, IMO. I can thumb and finger flick it open.

But trying to straighten the tip resulted in a screwed up coating and a tip that needs some TLC.

 

[REK Knives]

Ok, this is a ridiculously easy to sharpen knife. I just went from 220 grit up to 14K grit and it easily slices the hair off my arm. It'd easily whittle hair at this point. Took me all of what, 20-30 minutes? That's with some stopping to get some beers, light a smoke, and bellow some lines to country boys can survive for a couple of minutes, too. It's been awhile since a knife has been this easy to sharpen for me. Thank you to the previous sharpeners for making it so easy.

That's one of the beauties of a thin edge - insanely easy to sharpen and maintain because it's such a small contact area for the stone which allows the abrasives to work very quickly compared to a wide edge!


No worries on the tip... you can either fix it by grinding the spine side down or just leave it and I'll do it when I get it. =)

 

[bodog]

That's one of the beauties of a thin edge - insanely easy to sharpen and maintain because it's such a small contact area for the stone which allows the abrasives to work very quickly compared to a wide edge!


No worries on the tip... you can either fix it by grinding the spine side down or just leave it and I'll do it when I get it. =)

If you're good with it I can fix the tip that way but it'd remove the cerakote from the spine near the tip...

 

[REK Knives]

If you're good with it I can fix the tip that way but it'd remove the cerakote from the spine near the tip...

Yeah that's cool I would do the same anyway haha

 

[bodog]

Yeah that's cool I would do the same anyway haha

I tried with what I have

 

[REK Knives]

Great job!

 

[bodog]

This morning I went to a home building site. I told the guys there I was doing a review of this knife and that I wanted to cut some stuff up. They said of course so I popped some pallet straps and cut some plastic sheeting. No big deal. That's all they had to cut up when I was there. A couple of them handled the knife and I believe Ontario may have a few new customers after I told them about how much they could get the knife for. They seemed to like it.

So these pallet straps are the thick plastic ones. I cut off a piece to do the comparison and basic test. We all know that AUS8 isn't the most wear resistant steel so I'd test the edge stability during push cuts to highlight the geometry.

I doubled up the strapping and the Ontario push cut through it cleanly and relatively easily. Geometry is important.

A thicker knife could not do it. I was pushing as hard as I could and it barely notched the straps.

Since the Ontario could handle the doubled up pretty easily, I doubled it again. It was pretty difficult pushing through quadrupled banding straps but it still did it where the thicker knife could only push through one at a time.

I whittled and bored into some fairly soft wood. With the Ontario I could cleanly shave thin slivers and carve out up to about a quarter inch without the wood splitting. The thick knife could not shave the wood quite as cleanly and trying to carve off an equivalent 1/4" split the wood instead of cleanly cutting it like the Ontario.

After this amount of work the edge rolled. Not terribly, but enough where I couldn't just strop out the damage. Several spine leading strokes on a 1000 grit stone straightened the majority of the edge but there were still some deformed spots that need to be sharpened out. It's super easy to sharpen so it's not a real concern. If you're doing this stuff all day everyday you'd probably want a knife with a tougher, harder steel. For edc purposes it's good to go, though, especially considering the price.

This is before taking it to the stone

And after about 4 spine leading passes on the stone to straighten the edge

Normal view:

Enhanced, the lighter sections are the still intact edge. The darker spots along the edge are flattened or dented:

__________________________________________________
Now that the basic knife/steel review is out of the way I can comment on Josh's work.

The regrind is very well done. The primary grind is even and straight. It's taken to a very reasonable width that showcases what the knife is really made for.

The cerakote is smooth, evenly applied, and looks great. It doesn't bind or seem to hinder the pivot action. I wouldn't hesitate to send a knife to him for this kind of work.

Having said that, I'm not a fan of the coating on the primary grind. It scratches pretty easily. I can definitely see applying it to non-stainless blades, though, especially if it's a folder, and especially on all of the flats.

Thank you for the opportunity to play with this knife, Josh. Link to further discussion here: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...-for-a-reground-and-cerakoted-RAT-pass-around