Small Knife Carve Off - "Infi v the Rest"

[PeterPHWS]

This review is by far the hardest review I have done. It is also the "one" that has taught me the most. However .... let's get going and see what everyone makes of the results. By "small knives" for me I mean on average blades from 3.5 inches up to 5 inches for the most part. I did'nt exclude any "length" of knife on length .... just on how it "felt" or how it "performed" and to learn from "practise" I added some longer blades. The test is a simple one. My smaller belt knives need to be able to do "everything" they possibly can. So with the exception of chopping that is how I have tested them. I learned the most about edge retention/comfort/edge angles and the importance of blade geometry from working with wood .... so hence "the title".

Anyway .... here are the main contenders .... I added some others ... but these will do to begin with .... putting up all the pic's done and the write ups may infact take some "days" .... so it will come in a "piece meal" fashion .... I have reserved some posts to enable it eventually to read in one stint .... but it may take a little time to get it all together. The idea behind it to hopefully give a comparison on some different steels.

The top six are easy to recognise if you have been on the Bussekin Forums ...
the SAR8, Skinny Ash, SJTAC Variant, RMD G10, RMD Micarta, S5LE.

The others are all customs, the two with Big Horn grips are a SOG Bowie inspired knife by Hiro Itou of Japan at 6" 3/8ths and the other a Loveless inspired 5 inch drop point hunter. They are both in R2 damascus. Next is a Ichiro Hattori 5 inch Randall inspired Bowie with Stag grips and which has been heavily modified by me. It is done in Cowry X damascus.

Then we have some custom bushcrafters, a 5 inch 01 blade in 3mm stock by Mark Hill with Spalted Beech grips , a 4 inch Damasteel Woodlore by Alan Wood with white micarta grips , a 4 inch 01 damascus blade by Mick Wardell with Thoya Burr grips, and finally a standard 01 Woodlore by Alan Wood with Birdseye Maple grips.

The others I added were :

A 3.5 inch Hiro Itou in R2 damascus and stag grips ....

A Bud Nealy 3.75 inch Khinzal in CPM154 .... the bottom knife in the pic below with burl micarta grips

A Dusty Moulton 3.75 inch "one off" drop point hunter in Devin Thomas damascus and fossilised Stag grips with engraved inlays above it and two above that knife I added my Basic 5 when it arrived.

Dusty's knife and Bud's knife are hollow ground. The others are a mixture of sabre and flat grind and scandi and the Itou knives, SAR8 and Skinny Ash are zero convex. Zero convex for those unfamiliar with the term means that the blade takes a convex curve from the spine to the apex of the edge. The Basic 5 is an Asymetrical Grind (referred to as "ASM" for short).

Instead of doing the "large to small" route .... for a change lets go the other way round.

The smallest here is the Itou stag handled drop point ....

I got this knife for the steel. Hiro Itou and Jerry Busse have similar traits in common. They both work with a unique steel made to their own specifications. Itou started out using Hitatchi Blue Steel (Aogami) which he says took a great edge but suffered from rusting .... he then went to Kobe Steel and used their R1 .... but that was a bit brittle .... so he then worked with them to develop R2 steel which he uses in a unique way.

All his knives are hammer forged and are laminated in the traditional japanese way .... he uses R2 hardened to Rc62 for the central section of the blade and forge sandwiches this in 32 layer damascus stainless steel combinations. This gives added corrosion protection to the high speed R2 tool steel and all knives are hand ground on a large slow turning water stone which he feels helps keep the heat out of the blade so that the forge applied heat treatment is not affected. He feels his process enables a better edge to be applied to and retained by his knives ..... so le't see.

Looking at the spec's of this knife .... the stock is thin .... at the spine just infront of the guard it is .0890" and tapers along the spine to .0395" behind the tip. This is the thinnest knife on test.

The edge came initially as a zero convex but after using the blade a fair bit I have given it a micro convex bevel .... it is at a slightly more obtuse angle than the zero edge .... that zero edge was so sharp that I used it as a scalpel to cut a sist out .... but after experimenting on wood and harder materials generally I found that the most long lasting type of edge came from having the thin edge profile finished off with a less steep more obtuse micro bevel. This prevented the edge from rolling and enabled the edge to last longer as a result. Once an edge "rolls" the performance tapers off a lot quicker than it does from a more obtuse micro bevel gradually blunting from use. If your edge apex is too thin the edge rolls when cutting into wood at a 45 degree angle .... you can feel this with practise .... the only way to use knives with ultra razor sharp edges is to keep stropping the edge like a barber strops a straight razor .... this centralises the edge after use .... but is too much of an inconvenience for field work. Far better to go with a micro bevel ... if the blade is still thin behind the shoulder of the micro bevel you still have phenomenal cutting power .... this is basically how the competition cutting knives are sharpened. I spoke with Bayley Bradshaw on how he applied edges on his competition blades which whilst thick on the spine taper remarkably thin towards the edge .... he uses a convex micro bevel and believe me this style of "edge" really is amazing ....

The Itou measures just 0.0150 behind the micro bevel so the more obtuse edge apex caused by the micro bevel hardly causes any obstruction to the cut. This knife is one of my favourite food prep and game knives .... ideal size for working inside a carcass and the edge retention of the steel at Rc 62 with the micro convex bevel is quite amazing.... so I was interested to see how it did on "carving".

I normally carry the knife with my SAK in a pocket sheath so I used the saw on the SAK to gather some green wood sapling branches. The saw on these things is excellent for this sort of thing.

The initial cut is a simple cross cut ....

If you want to be able to dovetail the hanger with the cross beam over the fire you can do a square cut like below or just carve a wedge shape notch .... the square cut fits better and is less likely to result in tipping your kettle over the fire ... but the wedge cut is a lot quicker to do .... I usually just do dovetailed work if I am going to be camping for a few days. You can use the saw on the SAK though to speed up the dovetailing .... then just cut out the sections and create the point with the knife ....

So how did it do ? Very well!

The edge on this knife is one of the sharpest on all my knives and as said above it does'nt roll easily .... I owned most of these customs before I got into Busse's .... so that is a good few years ago now and most have their "niggles" ironed out .... but the knife does have limitations.

The sheer thinness of the stock does make me cautious about using the blade for leveraged work .... and the length of blade restricts it for batoning .... the tip can take reaming tasks well for carving a hole in wood but that type of task does create edge dullness near the tip. However that is true of many knives. The knife excels at food prep, carving and is great for gralloching work .... and the grip is very comfortable .... so over all I rate it highly but it could do with being just a bit bigger for some tasks and slightly more robust in thickness. Teamed with a SAK though it works fine.

 

[PeterPHWS]

Next up is the Bud Nealy Kinzal ....

I got this knife a long time ago. The kydex system of carry options was the main attraction and it's concealability. These days it spends more time in a simple leather pouch sheath I made for it .... without the magnet installed in the kydex sheath the knife has gradually become none magnetic which I prefer. The magnet enabled a very secure and fast draw .... but has it's draw backs. Close proximity to a compass being the main one ..... it can cause a permanent reading aboration to the needle by altering it's magnetic field given enough time .... and it is hard to pick up on until using it carefully .... which is usually when you need it the most.:grumpy:

However, like many bit's of kit used when in the services ... if you come back in one piece and it's been lucky for you and sorted you out when you needed it .... it's a "friend". This knife has since those days been on many a deer stalk with me. The blade is ideal for some of the delicate work on a gralloch and the blade takes a very good edge. I don't know if Bud does his own Heat Treatment or whether he farms it out to Paul Bos .... my first Nealy knife was a Pesh-Kabz back in the early to mid 80's .... I think they might have been a Bos treatment .... I know they had serious body armour penetration ability ....but they also took a very long lasting edge .... hard to sharpen though .... as is this Kinzal ... at least on a stone system. Mine now has a convex edge from using the belt sander .... it is a very good slicing knife and makes the most of a hollow grind.

However whilst the knife is up to the tasks edge wise it suffers from being a thin design in terms of grip comfort. The thin profile makes for a very good design for concealment but is not so good for long term use on your hands ...

An hour or so of hard use and the right angle edge at the rear of the grip starts to give your hand a hot spot .... and my hands are'nt really prone to them either. So I guess this knife is best applied to tasks it was intended for .... it can cover as a general utility knife for most tasks such as food prep and gralloch work and will get you by in a pinch in the woods but for regular wood work it is'nt that suited. Like the Itou blade it also is a bit small in blade length for batoning and is thin around the tip for any form of leveraged application. Stabbing anything though and it really excels ... as you might expect. Horses for courses with this one .....

The steel is CPM154 and the knife is hardened to Rc58-59 ..... hollow ground the edge it takes when convexed on the sander is excellent .... and it lasts a long time .... in the cutting department it also excels .... but more flesh than wood .... very good "meat" knife and a regular for me in the Deer Larder. In the past because of the ideal kydex sheath it also worked superb as a "chute knife" .... very easy to tape this where you needed it .... and I never did in that capacity .... so I always see it as a "lucky friend":thumbup:

Next up in size is a 3.75 inch Dusty Moulton .... done with Devin Thomas damascus and engraved bolsters with mosaic pins and fossilised stag grips with black liners this is one of my prettiest and most expensive knives .... but it is still a "user" ...

The knife is not a large knife but is very comfortable "in hand" .... for small grips the shape is very well thought out to fit in the crevasses of your hand ...

Usually knives like this I expect are more collectables than users but the ergonomics of the handle and the quality of the steel made me want to use this one from the day it arrived. It started out as a gralloch knife being like the others done so far an ideal size for working with game. The blade is hollow ground and takes a phenomenal edge ....the steel as much as I could glean from speaking to Dusty is a stainless form of damascus blends .... it looks like a tool steel combo from the colouring but is infact stainless .... and going on to Devin's web site the damascus steels seem to be more categorised from their pattern than the blends that make them up.

So it is a bit of a mystery this knife .... the heat treatment is excellent and from a guess it to is around Rc59-60 .... but the edge retention is well up there with the best of my Japanese knives .... not quite at the same level due to Rc 62 for the R2 damascus and a whopping Rc 64 for Cowry X damascus which I will come to later .... but certainly it eclipses straight forward CPM 154 or ATS 34 or CPM S30V which I have in stainless knives ....
it has been on numerous Deer Culling shoots and can do a weeks worth of work in the Larder without dulling out .... for me that is around 8 deer a day for 5 days with four in the morning and four in late winter afternoons/dusk .... so that is gralloching around 40 Deer before in dulls out.
Not bad for a none tool steel knife :thumbup:

 

[PeterPHWS]

I wondered how it would do therefore in carving ....

and it really excels here .... the size of the knife gives ideal control and the shape of the blade is very "practical" for all manner of cuts ....

Of my smallest knife range and those done so far this is by far my most comfortable and favourite .... the grips for a small knife are just such a useful design .... they "lock into" your hand and the light weight makes the knife just a pleasure to use.

A cracking little knife and one that I enjoy using very much ..... it is brilliant in the kitchen too .... and is one of my most used "all round" knives :thumbup:

Next up in size is perhaps my favourite small Infi blade .... my Basic 5 ....

The Basic 5 is .25 thick and has Jerry's asymetrically ground edge which is convex one side and straight grind on the other.... this particular one was a smooth coated model which are the early ones .... and has had the convex shoulder raised a bit on the edge to give a more acute angle to enhance the cutting ability. These ASM grinds take a very very sharp edge when "tweaked" .... the sharpest I have had on Infi .... not sure if these old models were perhaps taken to a higher Rc setting than Rc58 as I know some of the early knives Jerry did were done at Rc62 .... but this knife and my old Basic 9 certainly have a noticeable "lasting quality" to the edge. I think it may come from the fact that this type of edge is very resistant to "rolling" through use and therefore seems to dull solely through wear. Some of my other Infi blades when taken this sharp on a convex grind can roll through pro-longed cutting in one direction on wood .... by that I mean if you swap hands and do some whittling with your left hand .... this seems to centralise the edge again and then it can last longer ....or alternativelyyou can strop the blade on leather and have the same effect.

If Infi "rolls" when it connects with stones when chopping this makes repairing the edge much easier .... no chips on the edge means steeling the edge is possible and once re-aligned this makes sharpening the knife back to tip top condition far simpler than having to re-profile an edge to remove a chipped effect. Great on "choppers" but when it comes to the smaller knives you have a trade off .... in the field Infi sharpens easily and quickly .... but the longevity of the edge and the anti rolling effect seen on some of the higher Rc hardness blades is missing. The ASM grind though seems to balance these issues as from prolonged use of my Basic 5 doing some techniques which would definately roll other edges and other steels .... it just seems to lap this up.

A good example is when reaming a hole in wood using the tip .....

The deep ASM grind just seems to laugh this type of twisting and torquing off ....

Given how sharp the edge is around the tip .... and I have a similar level of sharpness on my S5LE .... the S5LE with a standard convex edge does dull from this type of technique. The edge benefit's really being why the Basic 5 is my favourite .... and using it for carving is a pure joy.

Mors Kochanski refers in his teacjhings to "practise sticks" for different uses as being a good way to test a knife's suitability for "bushcraft" .... here is what I mean ....

You can use a Basic 5 to make one of these and still have a perfectly good edge left on the knife .... and no hot spots on your hand. The Res C grip is very comfortable .... the small choil brings the edge closer to the grip for fine work .... and the choil is ideal for a strike point for a fire steel. All told this knife is a brilliant carver/bush knife. The thick spine allows for a very comfortable choked grip for your thumb. I like using this knife a lot.:thumbup:

 

[PeterPHWS]

The handy thing for the Basic 5 which gives an added benefit is how tough it is for tasks like batoning .... at 5 inches and .25 thick you can use it to easily prepare wood for a good fire .....

and if combined with a saw or a chopping knife it makes for a great "team".

Definately the best Infi blade I have in the smaller category:thumbup:

Next up is the S5LE ....

Again superbly comfortable Res C grips .... and at .187 thick is not quite as thick as the Basic 5 but for light weight and ease of use in chores like food preperation or meat and game work the thinner blade is actually a benefit. However it does carve remarkably well .... a lovely knife in the hand .... and with a wider choil it has more room for your forefinger when using a choked grip ....

I have removed the spine ramp on mine so that a choked grip can be used a little more effectively and I may at some date curve the choil area for the forefinger grip .... but as it is it makes for a good fire steel strike point so I am tempted to leave it as is ....

You can do the very thinnest of cuts with the S5LE if the edge is sharp enough .... perfect for the type of tinder needed to light from fire steel use .... lots of thin little matchsticks feathered to take a flame from a smouldering piece of tinder ....

The S5LE can do better delicate work than the Basic 5 and I suppose that is where the trade off is ..... one is a bit more robust than the other but both are excellent knives and really for my Infi preferences in small knives .... they have it all. Good comfy grips .... great edges .... and light to carry.:thumbup:

 

[PeterPHWS]

Staying with Busse or Bussekin knives let's look at the Ratmandu ..... I have two of these .... one with G10 grips .... the other with Linen Micarta .....

Both have sharpened swedges and re profiled convex edges .... and both are now stripped .... and SR101 ( 52100 modified steel ) takes an amazing edge.

Well able to do the most delicate cuts SR101 has fantastic edge holding qualities .... and the balance and feel of the RMD is "legendary" .... you can so easily carve with this knife and this steel ....

The choil enables a great choked grip and the sharpened swedge just lends itself to working with a firesteel and bushcraft generally .... getting a fire going from basics with the RMD is great fun ....

I have had one of these now for a long time and in the small knife category it has always been a knife you can use as a "standard" .... which says a lot .... it is a little heavier than the B5 or S5LE but the robust aspect of the full tang enables it to take some serious punishment and laugh it off .... until I had a S5LE and then a Basic 5 the RMD was "the" clear choice for me from my Bussekin blades. It has some competition now but all three of these knives are superb choices.

If we can now go back to a knife by Hiro Itou in R2 damascus which is larger than the earlier model we can then move to something of a direct comparison.... these knives are done on Loveless lines and this one is a 5 inch drop point blade with Big Horn Sheep grips, red liners and nickel silver guard ....

These are pic's of the knife when new .... it came with an incredibly sharp edge and a very different style of grind to the Busse knives .... similar to it's smaller sibling it has a very thin tapering fully convex grind. It is .187 at the spine but towards the edge it is much thinner stock than on the Infi S5LE, Basic 5 and RMD. At Rc 62 it is also hardened quite higher and despite the thinner stock it does not suffer from rolling.

It is perhaps hard to appreciate from pic's such as this but the influence of "geometry" on the grind of the blade really started to show when using this knife ..... it was very noticeable how deep this knife could cut into wood for the same effort used on my Busse blades which were undoubtedly hair poppingly sharp .....

On carving projects it just seemed to sail through the wood .... cuts were very very easy and the edge just did not dull ....

If you look carefully at the above pic you can see some stock removal on the edge compared to how flat with the ricasso it was when new .... I decided on this knife to experiment with the sharpening technique used by the competition cutters who give a more obtuse micro bevel convex edge on the thin stock of their competition knives rather than have them taper too thin to the edge. Any steel can "tear" if too thin at the edge and I did wonder if this was happening a little when using the knife on deer bones when gralloching .... so I took it to the finest of belts on my sander and gave a more robust angle to the convex grind .... at a guess around 20-23 degrees per side .... this caused the loss of stock but "WOW" what a difference it made .... this knife is now like a cut throat razor on sharpness .... it actually got sharper !! .... and the edge lasts and lasts ....

 

[PeterPHWS]

Having discovered that this knife seemed to have special qualities when using it on wood or for that matter food and meat .... I started to do some direct comparisons .....

I lined it up with the S5LE in Infi and the RMD in SR101 and from the above shot you can see how similar in size they are .... the Itou is perhaps slightly thinner in stock .... maybe .175 compared to .187 .... and has a tapered spine for balance and slight blade heavy feel which I like .... but in doing "loads" of practise sticks this knife just showed how a thinner profile behind the edge made a world of difference on cutting ....

Against the B5, RMD and S5LE it simply did carving easier and I suppose going off physics .... the reason is because it is thinner behind the edge ....
it is perhaps not as tough a blade from the grind being thinner .... but laminated and forged as it is in such a clever way so that softer more maleable steel surrounds the core of R2 .... it will be a tough knife .... and knives in this size are used more as "cutters" than "prybars" by me so I am happy with the grind ....

I did however trim back the finger guard on the grip, as can be seen above, to make it easier to move forward to a choked grip .... this helped a lot on comfort and in doing very fine work .... it also opened up a little space on the grip as the shaped heel of the handle was a little tight over long periods of use .... if this knife shows anything I guess it is that grind profile is terribly important in giving performance .... much like the new KZII can hold it's own or better the heavier TTKZ because of the new improved grind .... the same is true here :thumbup:

If there were one knife though which might be able to carve better than the Itou above I thought this one could be it ....

The knife is by Ichiro Hattori and is in Cowry X damascus steel with a 5 inch blade and a Sambar Stag handle. Cowry X steel is considered by some to be one of the best cutlery steels made .... and the damascus forged treatment by Hattori is done on the same premis as the Itou .... it gives the inner core of Cowry X multiple layers of softer outer stainless steel to protect the blade. The edge is taken to a high Rc hardness of Rc 64 and the knife has been modified by me to make it more comfortable and a good "user".

Originally the knife looked like this ....

The handle was pretty uncomfortable so I smoothed it out and reduced the finger guard to enable an easier ability to choke up on the grip .... comfort wise this is one of my best knives .... but the knife was primarily bought for the steel. It can take an incredible edge .... it has a fully convexed profile and given the higher Rc setting I thought it would retain it's edge longer and cut better than the Itou. It certainly can carve excellently .....

however it is thicker behind the edge than the Itou .... more akin to the profile of the S5LE .... and when it comes to carving wood the Itou still seems to perform the task easier .... so it just goes to show that the grind profile on a knife used for cutting is definately the most important feature.

Once they are seriously "sharp" .... this is the issue which makes a critical difference .... but it also goes towards the lasting aspect of the edge and it's sheer "sharpness" .... the less resistance is there .... the longer the edge seems to last and able to perform. I think a Cowry X knife done in the same fashion as the Itou could give it a good run for the title .... but then so could Infi if hardened to the same degree and with the same style of grind .... it is "obvious" if you think about it .... but not so obvious that, for me at least, I was'nt sure whether the "ideal" properties of a steel would make the most difference.

Here is where the real learning curve comes from this type of test .... finding that the grind of the blade is the critical thing .... and perhaps in some cases the style of the edge .... and in hindsight you can see why in competition cutting there are a number of steels able to win if the maker and user get the grind right .... because the properties of the steel don't come anywhere in the equation if you don't maximise the knife's cutting ability with the grind.

Next I will look at my Scandi Bushcrafters .... but that is not a good thing if you are a fan of this type of knife .... certainly they are comfortable and excel at making fuzz stick style cuts .... but compared to the above knives they have a profile which is one of the worst for making a cut which needs to go past the spine of the blade .... they are very high in a "drag factor" .... but none the less there is more of a learning experience acquired on these blades too .... although that may need to wait until tomorrow.

 

[PeterPHWS]

Here is the first of the Bushcrafter knives ... a Woodlore by Alan Wood in 01 tool steel.

Bushcraft knives over here tend to have their specs given in metric measurements .... there seems to be two common thicknesses .... 4mm and 3 mm .... the Woodlore is 4mm thick and 110mm long .... which for those of us who think in inches is 0.157480 thick and 4.33070 long. These measurements are repeated on a number of my Bushcrafters and this knife really is the "father" of all bushcraft knives. Alan Wood does his Woodlores with a slight hollow or concave grind to the scandi grind .... it probably comes from using a circular stone for grinding .... he maintains this is done to assist novice Bushcraft students with sharpening ..... the knives were "originally" only made available to students on Ray Mears courses ....and if you allow for how high the grind is taken and the depth of the blade .... some of the points I now make have to be taken with a "what if that was not intended ?"

When the knives come .... they don't come with sharpening instructions .... it could be argued that the slight hollow grind was done with a view to giving novice freehand sharpening students an easier time of it .... was done to give them a chance to sharpen the edge using a secondary bevel or a micro bevel as it is often called .... do enough micro bevels and you will wear down the depth of the grind until the hollow aspect is getting less and less and then you could go to a simple flat grind sharpening where you hold the edge flat against the stone. It takes more time because it removes more metal ... there is more metal in contact with the stone ... but done properly it preserves a "constant angle" ... and in theory is the easiest type of edge to learn how to sharpen as the consistancy of pressing the edge against the stone is far easier to master and keep correct .... compared say to the freehand technique required for a V edge where the majority of the knife is held above the stone.

Now when I got mine I knew I simply wanted to be able to sharpen it with the flat grind technique .... I had ordered the selection of Japanese water stones recommended by Ray Mears in his sharpening tutorial for a Woodlore on his Bushcraft Survival DVD .... and having checked the edge which I found to be not too bad but not perfect .... I set to ... and took the convex grind out of the edge. It was a "marathon" session .... but it also got the stones broken in and gave me my first insight into edge angles and what happens when your edge is too fine ....

Basically using that technique and taking the edge down to "flat" had angles on the edge so acute that the edge was starting to "tear" .... you just could'nt get an edge to hold ....

Now if I had gone down the hollow grind route a fair old bit .... the depth of the edge would be less, the angles therefore higher or less acute and you might well get an angle which would take the edge straight from the "off" ...

But perservering with Ray's tutorial I started to do his 50 strokes on the back of a leather belt stropping the edge ... 50 is quite a high number .... basically this takes an edge so fine as this and starts to convex it .... right at the edge .... just like a competition knife edge or for that matter a straight razor .... then if you use his tip of holding the knife higher than the grind and gently running it along the top of a car window you actually give the knife a bit of a micro bevel which is quite "toothy" .... similar infact to the way a butcher will tooth up his edge using a steel to enable it to cut into meat better ....

All told it is a very long and labour intensive sharpening practise .... but it does give you an amazingly sharp edge .... however how does the edge work when using it ???

Well if you want to do the most delicate of carving where you take some very hard wood stick like this ....

and turn it into something like this .... a needle for using deer tendon ....

then the edge is just about perfect and in fairness so is the knife .... the length of blade and the fine edge 01 tool steel can take .... and the ease of sharpening because these knives are hardend at around Rc58-59 ....combined with the comfort of the handle and the proximity of the edge to the grip .... and you have a superb carving impliment ....

But if you use that type of edge for deeper more powerful cuts there is a difference ....

From making multiple pot hanger notches on sticks you can notice prolonged right handed cuts start to roll the edge ... it is a bit too thin .... however if you use the knife for different cuts such as V cuts for resting other sticks into them ....

and alternate the use of the knife so you do one side with your right and the other with your left ... you can actually re-align the edge so it does'nt roll ... but basically you are having to do something that you should'nt need to do ... the edge is basically too thin ....

Getting around this is easy enough to do ... you simply need to put a micro secondary bevel on the edge but somehow for me that is a little dissapointing ... ideally to make the design work well for you in the field so you can sharpen the knife easily .... the use of a secondary bevel has you thinking that it might be just as easy to work with a knife that requires either less sharpening such as the harder Rc 62 in the Itou knife or one which has a much sturdier edge design and is a lot less prone to rolling .... such as the Basic 5 with it's ASM grind.

However, one option was to see what a knife with a less high scandi grind and therefore a less acute angle on the flat grind would work like .... there is'nt a great deal of difference in the hight of the grind to this next knife but it is less than the Woodlore .... this is a Bushcrafter done by Mick Wardell from an 01 damascus steel .... although the blend of the other steels is not known to me .... it is a forged blade and from sharpening it and using it for a while it is hardened to a higher Rc than the Woodlore .... it feels like a Rc 60-61 .... or basically just slightly higher than the Woodlore .... but not as hard as the Itou ....

This has been sharpened like the Woodlore using Japanese Wet Stones and despite having a less high grind which can take an edge which is razor sharp using a flat grind technique ....

It still needs some stropping to make the edge at it's best. This time I used instead of Ray Mears techniques .... a simple leather stropping paddle with green compound and thus it was quicker and gave the edge a nice micro convex bevel which if you look carefully on the pic above you can just see in the change of light on the edge ... using the paddle and green compound has the same effect but as a method it is a lot quicker ....

Using the knife making the same cuts such as pot hanger wedges ....

the edge rolled a lot less ... almost no rolling .... and as a consequence the knife stayed sharper a lot longer ...

But when using the edge on this knife and the Woodlore which are both 4mm thick stock or 0.157 inches thick for cuts such as making points on sticks or trying to cut through young saplings the resistance you feel when the short scandi grind is then pushed deep into the wood is very noticeable compared to the Itou .... the grind design and thickness is the difference .... the appleseed shape of the Itou just makes cuts through wood so much easier .... and within Bushcraft or carving this benefit counts for a great deal IMO ....

However what happens when you go for a Bushcraft scandi grind which uses thinner 3mm stock and a higher grind to the edge ??

Here is my 5 inch Bushcrafter done in 3mm or 0.118110 inch thick 01 tool steel and with quite a high grind hight done by Mick Hill it is very suprising the difference the thinner stock makes ....

Taking the edge to a flat grind is pointless on this type of knife ... it definately tears ... but once done and then applying a micro bevel .... in this case using the ceramic rods on my sharp maker set at the 30 degree inclusive setting and after that a little stropping with the leather pad and green chrome compound .... and WOW ... what an edge the knife takes ....

 

[PeterPHWS]

The edge done on this knife is one of the sharpest I have done .... able to make a fuzz stick cut out of one of my hairs ... for me that is about the sharpest I can make a knife ....

and using the knife on pointing cuts it simply sailed through the wood ....

and using the knife on pot hanger cuts and other cuts such as V cuts it performed very well .... the edge can roll a bit if too acute.... it is hardened similar or identical to the Woodlore and must be around Rc58-59 but the level of convex micro bevel you put on the edge can cure this .... and being a thinner stock and higher grind enables the knife to cut a lot easier when doing cuts through wood. Of my Scandi bushcrafters this one works the best .... I have done some great repairs to my axe haft using this knife where near the head the haft has taken a knock hitting a branch on swings when clearing off the crown of a tree by limbing .... you can lie it flat and incline it on the grind and it acts almost like a "plainer" ... comfortably smoothing the rough dinks in the haft that you get from impacts like that .... and I could not get that "finesse" from trying the same cuts with the Woodlore and Wardell knives .... so for carving this knife is excellent .... but as with all my Scandi knives .... having to do a micro convex bevel seems a bit contrary to what you expect from the grind ....

If you are in need of doing this .... then the ease of sharpening in the field is lost for me .... really they all then merge into one .... the ASM edge which needs stropping ... the convex and then the scandi .... the ideal edge then becomes harder to fathom. Going off the way the Itou cuts ...the fully convex grind taken thin behind the shoulder is amazing and the best .... then after that the cutting ability of the Mick Hill Scandi and the Cowry X Hattori are about a joint second .... then the Dusty Moulton/ Smaller Itou are a joint third, then the Basic 5 with it's ASM edge comes in fourth .... then the RMD and S5LE come in fifth .... the RMD if thinned a bit could be amazing I think .... SR101 takes a cracking edge .... but I have'nt thinned the grind on these from the factory grind .... maybe one day I will do ... but as things stand this is the order.... the Woodlore and the Mick Wardell are sixth and would be higher if they did'nt have such resistance on power cuts or saying it different ... if they were made from thinner stock .... the Bud Nealy comes in last as it is not a comfortable knife to use in carving but there again it is not designed to be used for this purpose .... I know I have grouped a couple of knives together on placings .... but some knives are very hard to seperate and for me I see that as more of a draw than something to take to fine nuances to try to seperate them.

The other knives pictured at the beginning I have'nt yet had the chance to do a test on ..... you would be suprised on how long this all takes .... but given that they are a little longer in the blade there is a strong liklihood that for point work they are not going to feel as comfortable as the smaller knives .... particularly when they share the same steels, makers and grinds as their smaller cousins .... but I will try and cover off all of the knives at some time. If I do though .... I will do it in another post ....

From doing this over quite a long time there is something I have often pondered .... if Jerry did a Basic 4-5 inch blade with .157 stock on a steep flat grind with an ASM edge and a Rc hardness of Rc62 with no choil and the edge taken close to the handle .... would it have out performed the Itou .... ???? I reckon it just might :thumbup: and I would buy one in a heart beat ....

 

[Will York]

Thanks for this, Peter. Enormous anticipation here. That Moulton is exquisite, by the way--I've always liked his handle designs, and especially the way the grip-to-blade angles flow to yield superb natural positioning. :thumbup:

 

[Barbarossa]

Looking great so far I can't wait to see the rest. Thanks for doing this!

 

[Volk]

now when you say infi vs the rest, that isn't exactly fair. Those knives you've got there are beautiful an quality pieces. I naturally assumed you would be running a comparison to knives like ESEE or Bark river which mortal men like me maybe can afford. But it is a fantastic review so far, and I'm looking forward to the rest of it. You've got an awesome collection, and your reviews are always very useful in terms that you are actually performing a relevant task and not just randomly beating away. Tanks agaimn.

 

[stjones]

EXCELLENT testing Peter!!!
Very much looking forward to the final results.
Thank you for investing the time into the detail of this 'carve-off'.

 

[on_the_edge]

Peter,
I always enjoy your reviews. I'm hoping that in the end, you'll rank each knife according to your own preferences. Of course, someone else may prefer a different order, but I'd be interested to hear what your personal preferences are.

And thank you very much for this HUGE undertaking!:thumbup:

 

[OldPhysics]

Peter,
I always enjoy your reviews. I'm hoping that in the end, you'll rank each knife according to your own preferences. Of course, someone else may prefer a different order, but I'd be interested to hear what your personal preferences are.

And thank you very much for this HUGE undertaking!:thumbup:

I'll second this.

There's not a thing wrong with this sort of test, personal as it is. I know I enjoy reading it and learning one man's point of view.

 

[scrumpy jack]

wow, thanks so much, love to see how these handle

 

[Bigfattyt]

It is great to see some lovely customs in the mix as well.

Great info so far.

I do find that while Infi at standard hardness makes for great "hard use" that the edge retention can tend to be a bit less than you would hope when applying torque. The trade off is ease of re aligning the edge.

I would like to see more higher hardness releases in the smaller knives. Like the bad

 

[giant1]

Great posts, thank you Peter.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the review.

 

[d.weglarz13]

Thanks Peter. This is great. Love to read about the finer details of using these.

 

[pioneertoo]

Thanks Peter. Very informative and fun to read.

 

[JohnnyO]

Thanks for the time it must have taken to perform these tests. Then, post pics and write about it.