Serendipitous Geometric Functionality... or It's Funny How Things Can Turn Out In Our Favor

[Mistwalker]

One of my first knives by Ed Martin was a saber ground Rio model back in 2012.

It was the first knife I used in the field, both as a cutting tool and as a size reference, in the course of starting the flora fauna database I was just beginning at that time

Sadly it was also one of many knives sold to fund surviving the crazy winter of 2013 / 2014 in Michigan, and I had wanted another Rio with what Ed refers to as a sow belly handle ever since. And was hoping for one with a stainless blade and a higher grind. Then a couple of years ago Ed posted this Rio on his website, in a nearly identical profile, but in CPM 154 with a deep hollow grind and a tapered tang, and I grabbed it without much thought before it could get away.

Ed posted a video of the batch of these on his you tube to warn us that they were deeply hollowground and not meant as combat or survival knives, though being a knife it could obviously be used as a tool for survival if needs be, but they were intended to be hunting and field knives. Yet when I got it home, after years of being hung up on knives I had chosen for their durability and intended uses in "survival" baded on my childhood experiences and PTS-driven train of thought, I wandered if it were maybe too deeply hollowground for my uses and if it would be too fragile.


It definitely slices well

After 13 years of intense herblore studies and photography, I don't just photograph plants, I harvest quite a few I make quarts of herbal extracts with to boost my vitamin, nutrition, and polyphenol intake in the winter months, and the hollowground edge does a geat job of slicing the fruits and roots for the extracts as well as expected.

 

[Mistwalker]

It wasn't until I got it in the field that I realized other areas where the geometry of this knife allows it to excel in my needs. One of which is in getting the briers out of my way as I make my way through forest meadows and fallow fields to collect my photos. We have a lot of briers here in this temperate rain forest. Some are very dense and hard.

But the mass of the nearly 1/4 in thick spine teamed with the hollow grind and the tapered tang, gives the knife a weight distribution that allows for great inertia development in very short distances of movement. So by holding the knife in a rearward three-finger grip, I can flick-cut through briers with minimal movement and minimal noise, doing less damage tp the plants in my path and not scaring off all the wild life and insect life I'm photographing. And makes harvesting berries easier.

It also flick-cuts through plant stalks the same way, less force, less movement, less noise, less disturbing of the wildlife in the are. Great for harvesting Elderberries, for which there is a LOT of competition in the wild.

And I still use it for a size reference for tracks also, when I don't have my forensic measuring devices with me.

.

 

[Mistwalker]

The hollow grind also makes a sort of trough I can hold things on to studdy and photograph them, like this wooly caterpillar.

And as for the choil, I had noted years ago, with the first Rio, that it came in handy for manipulating fruit bearing branches into better lighting, giving me a way to hold branches in place that I may not necessarily want to touch, like briery branches or poisonous plants, and gives me a size reference with the blade length simultaneously.

I had Ed make me one of his multi-carry / vertical-horizontal sheaths for it so I can carry it different ways to suit my needs at the time. And now, after all the intial concerns, this Rio has become the fixed blade I carry the most often and any time I am out in the field collecting illustration images or harvesting herbals.

It's funny how things can just turn out great sometimes when we least expect it.

 

[J. Doyle]

Nice write up. Cool pics.

Yep, Michigan winters are a real bee-otch.

 

[Mistwalker]

Nice write up. Cool pics.

Yep, Michigan winters are a real bee-otch.

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed the post. Yes, but the winter of 2013-14 set new records for most of Michigan. We were in central Michigan and got over 9 feet of snow for the year and had 5 weeks where the high didn't excede -14F for the day time high. It snowed 6 inches on Thanksgiving day 2013, and we didn't see the grass in our yard again until March 28th.

When we first got there, I asked my daughter's Principle at Boyce Elementary how many snow days to expect for the year, just to get a feel for things. She told me not to worry, the roads are flat and in a grid, they had it down now and they only expected the kids to miss three more four days due to snow. My daughter missed 3 weeks of school.

Things were so bad by mid winter, she and I were driving up our road and saw what we thought were young raccoons trying to nurse from their dead mother. When we got to it, we realized they were actually eating her. In March when the snow thawed, the bark on a lot of the trees was missing from about 4ft up to 7 ft from the deer eating it. In the 6 miles from Woods Corners south to Ionia on Hwy 66 I stopped counting the dead deer on just the right side of the road when I got to 60 because I still had a couple miles to go and it was heart breaking.

Having grown up in the deep south in south Florida, I'm pretty good on winter for the rest of my life lol

 

[Mimic Knife & Tool]

That seems like an amazing knife AND it’s beautiful. I also admire you knowledge of plants and edibles! My 5 year old son and I have really enjoyed mushroom hunting lately

 

[Mistwalker]

That seems like an amazing knife AND it’s beautiful. I also admire you knowledge of plants and edibles! My 5 year old son and I have really enjoyed mushroom hunting lately

Ed does amazing work. And thank you I first started the herblore studies in hopes of becoming less fearful and less easily manipulated by interruptions in food supply lines or threats of it. I grew up hunting, and fishing and trapping commercially as a kid in the 70s, but meats are limited in nutritional value, our diet needs other nutrients to go with it, and much of that lies in leaves, berries, and roots of various plants.

For instance every part of the dandelion plant is not only edible and highly nutritious, it's medicinal as well and packed with powerful polyphenols that are antioxidant, antiinflammatory, and antimicrobal. And our creator made them so incessantly prolific we can't rid of them all even if we try and no matter how hijacked we may become by the lawn care people.

I'm glad you are getting your daughter into this. I'm still slowly learning the edible and medicinal fungi or the southeast. I know chicken of the woods, hen of the woods, oysters, honey fungus, and Lion's mane. But I also know we have death angel mushrooms here as well as death caps and autumn skullcaps. So I am approaching mushroom lore very slowly. I love them, and it's fun, but there is more nutrition in many other plants here.

I got my youngest into plantlore ealy in hopes of empowering her in the face of all the fear mongering and weaponizing of fear that goes on. Here she was studying garlic scapes about 13 years ago. This year she was out with mme raiding the mulberry trees.

If you're into plant studies, I posted this thread on the subject back in November, It's from the southeast so not knowing where you are I don't know how helpful it may be, but you might enjoy it.

Brian

 

[jfk1110]

The hollow grind also makes a sort of trough I can hold things on to studdy and photograph them, like this wooly caterpillar.

And as for the choil, I had noted years ago, with the first Rio, that it came in handy for manipulating fruit bearing branches into better lighting, giving me a way to hold branches in place that I may not necessarily want to touch, like briery branches or poisonous plants, and gives me a size reference with the blade length simultaneously.

I had Ed make me one of his multi-carry / vertical-horizontal sheaths for it so I can carry it different ways to suit my needs at the time. And now, after all the intial concerns, this Rio has become the fixed blade I carry the most often and any time I am out in the field collecting illustration images or harvesting herbals.

It's funny how things can just turn out great sometimes when we least expect it.

Great job.....Nice to see a review \ article by you.......Been a minute....... Ed makes great blades.....So did Newt........RIP.

 

[Mimic Knife & Tool]

Ed does amazing work. And thank you I first started the herblore studies in hopes of becoming less fearful and less easily manipulated by interruptions in food supply lines or threats of it. I grew up hunting, and fishing and trapping commercially as a kid in the 70s, but meats are limited in nutritional value, our diet needs other nutrients to go with it, and much of that lies in leaves, berries, and roots of various plants.

For instance every part of the dandelion plant is not only edible and highly nutritious, it's medicinal as well and packed with powerful polyphenols that are antioxidant, antiinflammatory, and antimicrobal. And our creator made them so incessantly prolific we can't rid of them all even if we try and no matter how hijacked we may become by the lawn care people.

I'm glad you are getting your daughter into this. I'm still slowly learning the edible and medicinal fungi or the southeast. I know chicken of the woods, hen of the woods, oysters, honey fungus, and Lion's mane. But I also know we have death angel mushrooms here as well as death caps and autumn skullcaps. So I am approaching mushroom lore very slowly. I love them, and it's fun, but there is more nutrition in many other plants here.

I got my youngest into plantlore ealy in hopes of empowering her in the face of all the fear mongering and weaponizing of fear that goes on. Here she was studying garlic scapes about 13 years ago. This year she was out with mme raiding the mulberry trees.

If you're into plant studies, I posted this thread back in November, It's from the southeast so not knowing where you are I don't know how helpful it may be, but you might enjoy it.

Thread 'Scenes From Harvest Season In God's Gardens (better on a bigger screen)'

Nov 29, 2024

It took while, but I finally managed to land one of LT's GNSes in AEBL. which is a new-ish steel for me, but living in a temperate rain forest, I have been wanting a stainless one with a higher-than-scandi-grind, and micarta scales.

So. naturally, after waitng so long for it, I've spent a good bit of time wandering with it the last 4 or 5 months. The following images were shot over the course of the last 5 months from my days out working in the field.

The Mulberries are anong the first wild edibles to get ripe...

• Mistwalker
• Replies: 8
• Forum: Wilderness & Survival Skills

• 
• 

Brian

Thats amazing, I didn’t grow up doing any of that but am pretty interested in it now. I’m in Northern California, but loved reading your other post too… there is so much out there. I’m sure I could find a good foraging book and start the journey.

 

[Murphy Slaw]

Outstanding writing and pictures.

How do you keep ticks and chiggers manageable? Routine maintenance down here will have you covered and bathing in Deet doesn't work.

 

[Mistwalker]

Great job.....Nice to see a review \ article by you.......Been a minute....... Ed makes great blades.....So did Newt........RIP.

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed the post. Ed really does do wonderful work, I'm going to miss him when he retires. I still miss Newt terribly. I need to re-do the photos I have in the Newt Martin Caiman review with my new photo host since I got away from photobucket, and get their watermark out of the way. And I'm working on two other reviews. One is on a simpler wooden handled EMK bushcraft knife.

Being the single dad of an autistic daughter, dealing with the madness of 2020, I had to let a lot of things go and focus on getting my daughter through the craziness. I wrote a post on some of what I was dealing with, people attacking children through their phone apps, in Andy's subforum in the summer of 2020, it was pretty insane. I had to take her, to more funerals for classmates of hers that didn't make it than I ever would have imagined. Sitting there holding her as she shook and cried through three funeral services for teenage friends was almost more than I could handle. If you want to read the post on what was happening, it's here.

Thats amazing, I didn’t grow up doing any of that but am pretty interested in it now. I’m in Northern California, but loved reading your other post too… there is so much out there. I’m sure I could find a good foraging book and start the journey.

I think after people seeing where things stand with commercial foods, there is a renaissance in the studies of wild plants. I have a lot of conversations with my customers about it, even travelers that aren't local, and a lot of people are getting into foraging. And I see more and more people picking and eating the wild blackberries and mulberries that grow in our parks here. We started selling plant identification and foraging books at the outfitter I work for and they sell like hotcakes, we can't keep them in stock. I hope you get into this and have fun with your daughter and empower yourselves at the same time! Just be safe in the process. I've been a member of UBC's botany forum almost as long as I have been a member here, 17 years there. Whenever I have questions I turn to their professors and grad students in the plant ID section. They do not give answers in laymans terms and you have to look up the common names for their answers, and they require clear close up photos of the plant's leaves (top and bottom) stems, bark, and fruit etc., but they are a great botany resource.

Outstanding writing and pictures.

How do you keep ticks and chiggers manageable? Routine maintenance down here will have you covered and bathing in Deet doesn't work.

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Ya know, that's actually a very good question I've wondered at myself. I hate deet, and years ago I would come home from the woods with one or two ticks, sometimes more, on me every time I went out. But these days it's maybe one every third or fourth time and even then it's crawling and I feel it and kill it. I've wondered if it has something to do with me quiting smoking almost 10 years ago, getting away from toxic fast foods junk foods and sodas, me drinking teas and extracts every day that are high in detoxifying elements, or a combination of things. I have a theory that has developed over the last 10 years that a lot of what the medical and pharmaceutical communities blame on ticks, mosquitoes, and fleas are actually man made issues caused by toxins in our day to day lives in diet, atmosphere, and medications but it's just a theory. I'll be 60 this year, and the only time I've seen a doctor the last 20 years is when I've injured myself bad enough to need one. But I take ancient natural medicinal compounds I make myself every morning.

 

[Mistwalker]

Nice to see a review \ article by you.......Been a minute.......

I'm glad you like my work, thank you! I did this article on the Mora Ashwood Collection for Athlon outdoors online magazine earlier this year. if that's something that would interest you,

And I post this review a Fiddleback KE Bushie in Andy's subforum a couple of days ago.

I'm also working on a review of the LT Wright GNS in AEBL in the wild harvest thread, just have to do more in use images for it, I'll be posting a winter survival skills post that feratures it first though.

 

[jfk1110]

I'm glad you like my work, thank you! I did this article on the Mora Ashwood Collection for Athlon outdoors online magazine earlier this year. if that's something that would interest you,

And I post this review a Fiddleback KE Bushie in Andy's subforum a couple of days ago.

I'm also working on a review of the LT Wright GNS in AEBL in the wild harvest thread, just have to do more in use images for it, I'll be posting a winter survival skills post that feratures it first though.

Love all your writing....

 

[Mistwalker]

Love all your writing....

Thank you! I appreciate the support and the feedback!