Love the Recluse. I must admit to not having used it for bushcraft tasks yet. It has been more of an all purpose knife for me so far with frequent, but light use. I love the size, handle, and profile on it, but think I would still prefer a bushfinger or bushcrafter to take in the woods. It is a great knife and I am sure it would perform excellent in bushcraft use. Congrats! (You really can't go wrong with any Fiddleback!) —CT
Thanks so much for the in-hand pic CT! That is one beautiful knife you have there. I absolutely love the wood handles, they look amazing and I'm sure they are very comfortable. I've always leaned toward the micarta for over all durability, but I'm going to have to try one of Andy's wood handled knives at some point.
I also have one of Andy's Aretes coming, so it will most likely be my go-to bushcraft blade. That being said, I like that this knife will be a good all-around utility knife, with a lot of belly for slicing and a nice straight spine for batonning small kindling, and some other camping/woods chores when needed.
My Recluse is out by the woodpile. I use it to cut tender before starting the fireplace up. I also shave off slivers of fatwood with it. Its been in service over two years now for that. It was with me when I harvested that fatwood stump too. It does the trick for Bushcrafting. Just a good all around utility knife.
Andy - it's great to hear that this has been one of your go-to knives for a while. With the selection of amazing knives you have access to that says a lot! Any knife I have will be a user, so it's good to hear how versatile this blade is!
Here's a link to a thread on the Recluse. I posted the last two entries, with pictures.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...-Recluse-as-a-hunting-knife?highlight=Recluse
I love it! It could easily be the "one knife," for any outdoorsman.
If you have specific questions, just ask. I'll do my best to respond to your inquiries.
You are going to LOVE it.
Thanks for the info Kismet. Do you still have the production Recluse, or did you ever get a custom from Andy? I've heard some not so great things about the BRKT version, so I never picked one of those up. I know Bark River makes some great knives, I had the Bravo 1 and really liked it.
My take on it is that the production Recluse is essentially a Bark River knife, and the custom Recluse is a Fiddleback. Everything is different on the Bark River version, from the steel, heat treat, handle shape/contour, grind, manufacturing process, etc. Not that Bark Rivers aren't good knives, but a custom blade from Andy Roy's shop is pretty hard to beat.