Dear Blade-Forums-members!
My name is Vincent, I am 32 years old and am living in Vienna (a big city in Austria). During high school, I went on a foreign exchange year to Idaho and fell in love with the outdoor lifestyle and hiking and camping trips. Following this amazing year, back in the city and busy with finishing my education and simply having had other priorities over the last years, I did not really get to enjoy the outdoors all that much. Nevertheless, now that I am settled in a little in my life and having grown up, I have come to find myself cherish the outdoors again to get away from my busy work schedule and just free my mind.
Welcome Vincent! I'm a good deal older than you but, followed a somewhat similar path. During college, I spent 6 months in the South of "West" Germany on a farm exchange program. After college, I was fortunate to have some work in the Northern Netherlands (Enschede area). I absolutely loved my time on that side of the Atlantic Ocean!
As I regularly go on trips into the mountains (most of the time renting a small cabin and hiking from there) and I just recently became interested in knives (watching hours of Youtube-videos and reviews), I would love to get my first set of decent knives for both my outdoor adventures (fixed blade) and also as a knive I could carry in my bag everyday.
First, if you ask three "
Knife-K
nuts" and only get five recommendations, you are talking to the wrong group!
As a fixed blade camping/outdoor knife, I was thinking about a blade length of 5-6 inches to handle most tasks that could come up during a camping trip, including food prep but also chopping wood. Regarding a folding knife, I would love to have knife which is not too heavy but tough to fulfill every day and camping needs.
I have been down this "road" ahead of you. For my main knife, I find the 4.5" to 5.5" fixed blade to be my most used and favorite size. Longer than 6" gets to be a bit cumbersome in terms of length being carried, stored, packed, transported, etc., and didn't provide enough advantage for me to be worth the extra hassles.
I also found the "extra heavy-duty" knives were so thick they didn't get much use. Sure, a saber ground 1/4" stock 7"~9" knife is easier to baton through a piece of firewood but, how often are you going to do that and why? Anytime I thought I would need to split or chop wood where a knife over 6" was needed, I took a small axe and found it simply worked much better. With thin 'cheeks' like you see on a Hunting Axe or the German pattern hand axes, they would generally work for the same tasks I used a fixed blade for if I 'choked up' on the axe head for fine work (close gentle work).
My biggest piece of advice is don't get an:
- overly heavy knife
- overly thick blade
- overly long blade
As you can imagine, being new to the whole knife-scene I feel very overwhelmed given the thousands of options. To give you a rough idea what I believe should suit me, I would say that for a fixed blade, I have been looking closer at the Esee 6 (I like the looks and the price point - at least if purchased in the US - seems appealing). Then of course being from Europe, I have read lots of great things about the Fällkniven A1, which is however almost twice as much as the Esee. Regarding a folding knife, I have been looking at the Spyderco Paramilitary 2 and Benchmade Knives (Bugout or Griptillian).
If I were in Vienna, I would look towards the Scandanavian fixed blade option to start.
Terävä options from Varusteleka would get a close look from me. I got one of their smaller ~4" knives and found it was great value in a hard use knife. I haven't personally used their bigger knives but, they get high marks in the Bushcrafter scene which is pretty consistent with how you will use your knives.
Don't overlook Morakniven (sp?) options. I get their knives shipped to the USA from Lamnia out of Finland and have been impressed with both the knives and the Lamnia! The Garberg is a good option and can be paired with a "cheap" Mora good for food preparation and other light camp chores.
I will also throw some attention to Lionsteel out of Italy. I don't have any of their bigger knives but, their M1, M3, M4, etc. have all been awesome knives for normal pocket, belt, or bag carry.
While I really like the Buck Knives I have and the Puma lockbacks, the clip-point blade style is a poor choice for your uses. I find a drop-point or spearpoint is much better for spreading butter on biscuits, grabbing peanut butter from the bottom of the jar, or slicing meats, cheese, etc. Thin cuts better than thick as well so, think thin for a food prep knife!
However, the knives I mentioned above are just some knives that seem to go into the direction of what I would like to have/need. Nevertheless, I am not hoping for detailed reviews on these knives as hundreds of them can be found on the internet, but rather for your advice, if my choices seem to be fine (and which one you would prefer) and also mostly for suggestions of any other knives that I currently do not have on my radar but which would maybe be an even better choice.
I own several ESSE knives and they are good knives but, to be blunt I think they are generally overbuilt for most people and how they use their knives. They would generally be much better served with a Hultafor axe from Lamnia (significantly cheaper than Gransfor-Bruk, Hults-Bruk, Helko, and Ochsenkopf). Modern Husqvarna axes today are not what they were prior to the brand being sold off. Old Husky's are really good though.
Being in Vienna, I would give
Mueller Axes a serious look along with any of the other "local" brands from the
Stubai (sp?) Valley! If I ever make it back to Austria, at least one of those axes will come back with my luggage!
Regarding the price point I was hoping to find a fixed blade for up to around 200 USD and a folder for up to around 100-120 USD which should serve me for a long time (provided I take good care of them).
With a nominal budget of ~$320USD, I would spend my money a little differently than you suggest. For the fixed blade, I scored a Mora Garberg off Amazon for less than $100 with a bit of patience and watching for a price drop for a "like new/very good" return. A small Hultafor axe is ~$60 and a local Stubai Valley option is likely even less. Pay attention to how thick or thin the "cheeks" are on your axe as you want it to 'bite' well into the wood but widen for reasonable splitting. Add a $10~$15 Mora for general food prep and light duty.
For a pocket knife and briefcase knife, when in Europe, I find a Victorinox Spartan with tweezers a low profile easy to carry pocket knife that won't cause me grief even if I stumble into a place in my travels where a slipjoint pocket knife isn't technically legal. For my Vienna briefcase/lunchbox, a Lionsteel M1 would be a bit spendy but, an awesome choice! For the cheap Opinel, I can highly recommend the "Garden" version as I find that handle option to fit my hand and how I use a knife better than the traditional handle. A Lambsfoot knife out of Sheffield England would also work well for a pocket carry and as a briefcase folding knife.
As knives are usually considerably more expensive in Europe than in the US, I would order my knives online and have them shipped to a friend in the US who I will visit this summer (before going on a 2.5 week camping trip through Idaho and Canada, where I would love to already use them).
I don't know about shipping costs inside Europe and VAT versus combining orders for reduced shipping to the USA but, that is something to consider. Finland in general seems to treat me well when I ship from Europe to the USA so I keep going back to Lamnia. With COVID transportation and supply chain challenges, things have changed some (in my case the minimum order for free shipping has increased significantly). Of course, Amazon negates shipping cost concerns and sales tax will generally be half of what VAT is.
Any of your comments, suggestions and advice are highly appreciated and I thank you very much in advance for your input!
Best regards from Austria,
Vincent
Hopefully, this is helpful, and worth the time to read it!
Best Regards,
Sid
. There are many choices! LKW make excellent/ tough fixed blades for around the price you mentioned ( I believe ). The Crusher as mentioned by
A
Ad58
is a great fixed blade. You can get them with blades in a few different lengths as well.
.
