jon1all
Gold Member
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2012
- Messages
- 1,003
My wife and I went up to our cabin in pine country this weekend. We bought the cabin exactly a year ago yesterday and have enjoyed it more than even we expected. With the budding of Spring it was time to do some Spring cleaning and get it ready for the heavy use summer months (we do go up in the winter too, love the snow!). Well, my wife has been wanting to start a garden and plant a fruit tree so we headed off to the local small town hardware store and bought some seeds and an apple tree to plant. As I was out in the backyard digging a hole for the apple tree it came time to cut the plastic pail it came in and the only thing I had on me was my Gen4 XM-18 3.5″ Spanto Flipper in S35VN. What to do??? Well, I have always been of the mentality that you use the knife you are carrying. If youre not going to use it, dont bother carrying it. Heres pics:
The tree planted it was time to relax on the porch.
And since the Hinderer had already been working I figured I might as well play with it some too and do a bit of edge testing on the S35VN. So I grabbed a piece of kindling and set to whittling. I believe it was oak, but there is also a mix of juniper in our wood pile, so it could have been juniper, regardless, I spent about 20 minutes whittling to my hearts content. Heres pics:
Copious whittling out of the way, I then switched to cardboard followed up by a paper cutting test (which it passed).
Obviously the edge was not as good as when I started, but it was still a very serviceable utility edge fully capable of cutting that paper (BTW, it would not cut phonebook paper, but this little memo pad paper was lighter weight than typical printer paper). I know that S35VN has been a bit of a controversial steel, and I do not discount or dispute any of the issues others have had with it. I think (much like S30V when it first came out) that S35VN suffered from some poor heat treating initially. Rick Hinderer seems to get it right though (I definitely prefer the S35VN on my XM-18 to the S35VN on my Zero Tolerance 0550). And if you look at the pics above of the very fine curly-Q whittling its hard to say (as some have said) that the Spanto grind is a poor slicer. Im not saying its necessarily the ultimate best slicer in the world, but its faaaar from poor, far indeed in fact, considering the thickness of the blade stock and the thickness of the flat grind Id say its a pretty dang good slicer!!!
After all my fun I went ahead and put the XM on the Wicked Edge and sharpened it back up (and decided to re-profile it to approximately 36-37 degrees inclusive). Heres a pic of the Wicked Edge session (on the picnic table under the pines the front yard of our cabin no less check out the reflection of the pine trees in the laptops screen) and one of the finished product.
If you are one of those people who wants to use your XM-18 (or any pricey knife) but are afraid to do so just do it. Its a knife, a tool
its purpose is to be used. And honestly, using it is much more fun and enjoyable than just looking at it and fondling it.
(A slightly more in depth version of this can be found on my blog (1all's Pub).)
The tree planted it was time to relax on the porch.
And since the Hinderer had already been working I figured I might as well play with it some too and do a bit of edge testing on the S35VN. So I grabbed a piece of kindling and set to whittling. I believe it was oak, but there is also a mix of juniper in our wood pile, so it could have been juniper, regardless, I spent about 20 minutes whittling to my hearts content. Heres pics:
Copious whittling out of the way, I then switched to cardboard followed up by a paper cutting test (which it passed).
Obviously the edge was not as good as when I started, but it was still a very serviceable utility edge fully capable of cutting that paper (BTW, it would not cut phonebook paper, but this little memo pad paper was lighter weight than typical printer paper). I know that S35VN has been a bit of a controversial steel, and I do not discount or dispute any of the issues others have had with it. I think (much like S30V when it first came out) that S35VN suffered from some poor heat treating initially. Rick Hinderer seems to get it right though (I definitely prefer the S35VN on my XM-18 to the S35VN on my Zero Tolerance 0550). And if you look at the pics above of the very fine curly-Q whittling its hard to say (as some have said) that the Spanto grind is a poor slicer. Im not saying its necessarily the ultimate best slicer in the world, but its faaaar from poor, far indeed in fact, considering the thickness of the blade stock and the thickness of the flat grind Id say its a pretty dang good slicer!!!
After all my fun I went ahead and put the XM on the Wicked Edge and sharpened it back up (and decided to re-profile it to approximately 36-37 degrees inclusive). Heres a pic of the Wicked Edge session (on the picnic table under the pines the front yard of our cabin no less check out the reflection of the pine trees in the laptops screen) and one of the finished product.
If you are one of those people who wants to use your XM-18 (or any pricey knife) but are afraid to do so just do it.
Its a knife, a tool
its purpose is to be used. And honestly, using it is much more fun and enjoyable than just looking at it and fondling it.(A slightly more in depth version of this can be found on my blog (1all's Pub).)
). It came out pretty decent for just messing around I guess. 
