Out with the Kabar Cutlass today..

cramsey3006

cramsey3006

Joined
Aug 2, 2010
Messages
2,129
So I've been off work for almost two weeks now, thanks to miscommunication between people at my new job. I start on Monday now.

Anyway, I figured that I'd head over the the father-in-law's house and hang out in the woods for a while. That's where my playground is, since it's close.


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Here's the Kabar after cutting through a cedar that the snow and ice had brought down. Not quite uprooted but close. I didn't time it, but I know it was around a minute or so to get through it. Around 4" of frozen wood. Not too shabby.

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You can't tell, but there's around 50 gallons of acorns spread in a big pile in the upper area of this picture. I've got a big oak tree in my backyard and the acorn drop this year was crazy! I didn't want to waste them (when I raked them all up) so I filled a couple of garbage cans with them and then dragged them into the woods and dumped them out. The deer and squirrels have been happy!


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Here's a picture of the canopy over where I was. We got about an additional inch of wet snow last night and with the little bit of wind we had today, it kept falling down my coat collar. Next time I'll take a coat with a hood, in addition to wearing a stocking cap! Temps today were a balmy 32 degrees.

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Batoning through a section of log. Frozen wood is tough stuff. I broke 3 batons getting through it.

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I don't know if you could consider that a fuzz stick, but it was better than it looks in the picture.

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Played with a little fire making too. My fire-fu was NOT strong today. I've got to get some decent ferro rods. I had to resort to the match and cotton ball. :o Those are my Rick Lowe and James Rehrer customs in the background.

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Fire making sure can be finicky, especially when it's cold or your hungry and trying to cook up some dinner! Nice blades, I always like seeing Rick Lowe's work :thumbup:
 
Also along were my two customs (so far). How about some 1095 love?

Here's little EDC from Rick Lowe. 3/32" thick, flat grind, differentially tempered 1095. Black paper micarta handle. 5 1/2" overall. Wicked little slicer.

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Here's my James Rehrer that I picked up on the forum boards. 1/8" thick, hollow grind, 1095. 4" blade with overall length of 8". Fits my hand to a T. I'm guessing that it's canvas micarta from the looks. It's a cutter too.

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tknife said:
Fire making sure can be finicky, especially when it's cold or your hungry and trying to cook up some dinner! Nice blades, I always like seeing Rick Lowe's work :thumbup:
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I wasn't really in a good location to protect the fire. Kept getting snow from the canopy dumped on it. The no-name rods I have just don't throw sparks worth a darn, whether I use a knife, the scraper, or a bit of hacksaw blade. :grumpy: Eh well, they were free with some little LED lanterns I bought for the kids to play with.
 
I LOVE this cutlass. I have one, I need to take pics of it being used.
 
All in all, I give the Cutlass a very good rating. I cut through the frozen cedar tree 3 times. Batoned through frozen wood and used it as a draw knife just for kicks. I cleared some brush from the area as well. Anything less than about 1.5" would cut clean through with one stroke. I cut several a saplings off flush with the ground. I did hit a rock while doing that with the front area of the blade. The edge dented and rolled a bit, about 2" long, but didn't chip out. That's what I would expect with 1085 carbon at 52-54RC. Even with the damage, that area of the blade would still cut wood cleanly. I used the Cutlass as a shovel too, clearing snow and debris from the area I was in. If this was my only blade in a survival situation, I'd have no worries about its ability.

If you hit square on belly (sweet spot) it would bite deeply into the wood, even with it being frozen. Anywhere along the edge resulted in a good clean cut as well. Exception being the damaged area, the edge would still easily slice printer paper when I got home. The damaged area would cut it raggedly.

It touched up easily on my Work Sharp. A 5 passes per side on the 220 Norton belt, then 3 per side on a 320 MX belt (metal finishing), and 5 passes on a 800 MX belt (metal finishing) had almost all of the damage gone and the blade was sharper than the factory shaving edge.

I do wish that the handle sides were a bit flatter in profile, as the blade tended to roll in my hand a little. I have small hands and the grip is pretty big, so if you have bigger hands, it would probably be a non-issue.

I should have took my Potbelly out to compare the two, but hindsight is 20/20. The Potbelly is a hell of chopper for a 7" blade and it doesn't roll in my hand at all. It is better at batoning, but it's a 1/4" thick and that helps to split the wood apart, IMO. I'd bet that it bites as deep on it's sweet spot too.

As for the custom Rick Lowe and James Rehrer knives, there was no noticeable loss of sharpness with the limited amount of work I did with them, as I would expect from a custom knife. :thumbup:
 
This is one of the blades I have wanted but always seem to get something else instead. Thanks for the pics :thumbup:
 
very nice. still waiting on mine :) i finally took the plunge... honor the TOoOj
 
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