Some comments on new utility/hunter from Tim Johnson

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Jun 23, 1999
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Back in October I think I started a thread over here asking if there was anyone out there who wanted to make a utility/hunter out of 3/32" stock with a 4" blade about 1" wide flat ground from the spine. Basically a straight hunter or mild drop or clip point.

Only two knife makers responded to my request. One had a Bird & Trout available and I had a look. Really nice, but the blade was too long, and the handle very specialized. A really nice knife, but not for the general purposes to which I intended to put it.

The other maker was Tim (Taz) Johnson. He said he'd do it in ATS-34 for $100 so for that I said hey lets try it! We exchanged emails for a while, made some drawings and modified them. Eventually Tim went to work on it. The result arrived on my doorstep yesterday. There is a picture and some vital stats here at:

http://www.quine.home.sonic.net/taz.html

I think the knife has a nice profile. Taz offered me a few handle shape options, and the one in the picture is what I was looking for. It's a nice red micarta, the dropped end of the handle serving to enhance grip in a pull stroke and also to index the knife to the pinky. The handle is nicely shaped and finished, though I prefer a more oval cross section (like () this) as compared to its more rectangular one (like [] this). This is not a criticism of Taz's work though as we did not speak about such details.

The blade profile is just about perfect for me, though I do favor a slightly more acute tip. The flat grind is nicely done and the steel has a clean satin finish. Another nice touch is the barest hint of a finger notch that you can just barely see in the picture. I asked Taz to try to balance the knife exactly on the second finger, and he came pretty close being just barely forward of it, which I prefer to being behind it.

Tim also included a kydex sheath. A very simple sheath holding the knife in with a spring-like pinching around the lateral indentations on the handle slabs (visible in the picture). This is probably the simplest engineered sheath I've ever seen with the exception of the one that came with my Aki light-machete. The work is a little rough. The edges don't quite come together in one place, but the pins hold it securely enough. It is intended for weak-side carry with a cross draw. The kydex sheath has a leather strap attached between a pin near its tip, and one up by the handle. This looks like it will cause the sheath to ride vertically on the belt with the belt being at about its middle, but what happens is that the sheath to slides forward at a 45deg angle putting the handle into a perfect cross draw position. Very simple, and works very well.

The only specification Tim didn't exactly meet was the 3/32" stock thickness. I suspect that he started with 1/8" stock and ground 1/32" away from it, or at least he tried to. The knife came out just a little thicker than 3/32, more like 7/64". Still, its very light. Lighter than my 1/8" thick Dozier K-1 which is 1" shorter!

Having been into small-shop and a few custom knives in the same class for a little while now, I have learned to look and pick out the little imperfections that demonstrate the knife's true custom status, and by a non-master maker who is, never-the-less, very good and I'm sure will be even better in years to come. The only real flaw I found is that the primary grind is not perfectly centered. That is, the edge is not aligned exactly under the center of the spine, but is set off to the left about 1/64" inch (or less). This causes the secondary bevel lines to be of slightly different widths even though the two secondary bevels do (as far as I can tell) meet at exactly the same angle.

So far I've used it to make fuzz sticks, cut fiberglass insulation, made sandwhiches for lunch (bread, mustard, cheese and dried salami), and slice up various vegetables for dinner, along with a few cardboard boxes. It will be my EDC around the farm here for some time to come so I'll be able to report more fully on it in the future. At the moment, I love the extra reach of the 4" blade.

Taz was great to work with. Answered all my questions, and was very responsive (almost always in 24 hours) to emails. Indeed I told him there was no hurry, and as the months went by, he kept me up progressive developments even without my asking.
 
Very nice profile on that one. I like mine to have a little more meat on the butt. But, then again, this would alter the balance from your target somewhat. I am sure that Taz has already learned a little from making this knife and will likely absorb your constructive critism as well.

Your design parameters were very much on target for a small utility knife. Thin blade stock combined with a full flat grind allow the knife to perform everyday cutting tasks without peer. It cracks me up when I see a small utility/hunter made from 3/18" stock and then sabre ground or with a shallow hollow grind :confused: Kind of defeats the purpose most small blades supposedly are designed for.

looks to be a solid design which has been very well executed. Hope it meets your long term expectations. Keep us posted as to long term comfort, edge holding and sheath longevity. Most of all, enjoy!
 
thanks for the review :) One point, the steel is D2, not ATS-34...

the steel was miked at approx .140 at the start, and .103 at the end. I had to surface grind it down, which took a long time :)

the edge is convex, and may attribute to the bevels being slightly off, but it could be my grinding, too. I'm new at this whole convex edge stuff :)

Thanks for the review! Glad you like the sheath. I get so sick of hearing everyone complain that kydex scratches the blade. Well, dont have it clamp on the blade!! Lol. I try to get it to clamp to the handle or the guard, so the blade remains unscratched! Just dont expect the panty lines look on the sheath, if u do that, generally, u get scratches. The belt loop on the sheath is stuff called Duraleather, it is waterproof, so I feel it works nicely with the kydex sheaths. Also, with t he chicago screws, it is easily adaptable for left hand carry, or inverted carry.
 
That is one great looking custom. Excellent using everyday knife. The price of $100 was a steal!!
 
That's OK, I like D2 too!

The handle profile is pretty good for me, but it could be fuller latteraly. Its thick enough, but too flat. Taz will have to practice shaping micarta a bit to get the third dimention right, but since it was impossible to specify this or show it well in the drawings we looked at I can't fault Tim for this, and its comfortable enough for everything I'm going to do with it.

After a few days of cutting the knife lost its shaving edge. Because it is convex, it doesn't come back very well with a steel. I can bring it back to shaving sharp with a leather strop and some jewler's rouge, but I can't get it to be as sharp as it was out of the box. Eventually I'm going to have to re-grind the edge, and that means loosing the convex grind. Convex grinds are interesting, but they are difficult to maintain unless the knife is never allowed to get very dull.
 
Ok. I use a leather belt and white rouge to get the edge, you might also be able to use a buffing wheel, also. Do you have acces to any sort of belt grinder? A 1x30 or something where the belt can be a tad slack will pop that edge right back on. otherwise, diamond stones would prob be best. There was also a way to sharpen a convex edge, using sandpaper and a piece of leather IIRC. You kinda roll the edge as you pull the knife back in a stropping motion. The leather gives a little, and the roll helps keep the edge convex.
 
ok. I picked up a chef's choice model 440 i believe, its a hand held thing that is supposed to put a 2 bevel edge on a knife, and it plain sucks. doesnt work too good for any of my blades, ranging from a stockman to camp knife. its going back today. i dunno id the chefs choice electronic models are any better, but one has 3 bevels, making it similiar to a convex edge. Ill pick up a fine diamond stone today, and see how that works.
 
Well dispite the very interesting info on convex edges and maintaining them, I decided for the sake of comparison to my other working knives that I would re-grind the edge into a flat secondary bevel at 20 deg. (40 deg. included). At the moment the most consistent I can get is with a DMT alignment system. I used the X-coarse hone first (I'm glad I got this one). It took 60 strokes on each 3/4 inch of blade (the width of the stone) to regrind the edge. After that I applied the coarse hone for about 20 strokes, and then the fine hone for maybe 10. The result, as I like it, is an edge with some smoothness, and at the same time just a little toothyness to grip when slicing. The resulting edge just about melted into my finger.

Most extensive test so far has been to cut some 50 feet of heavy carpet. Knife lost its shaving edge after maybe 15 feet, but I could bring it back with a steel applied every 10 feet, until I ran out of carpet. A few strokes with a steel and it still shaved!

It occurs to me that the thickness of the steel behind the secondary bevel will have a lot of influence on a knife's cutting ability as well as its durability. I measured this on some of some of my other knives with the following results:

Taz B & T: .0312"
Spyderco DragonFly: .0218"
BM/Crawford Leopard: .0312"
A.G. Russell Hocho: .0140" <-- delicate edge
Barry Posner: .0350"

All of the above are flat ground. The Hocho is a very specialized (for vegetables and other cooking chores) knife. All of my other "good knives" are hollow ground and so can be thinned out much more fully. For the sake of comparison, here are two customs and a small shop knife all in the $100-$125 range (when I bought them anyway).

Dozier K1 .0218"
Lynn Dawson .0250" (this on a knife with a 5/32" spine!)
D.B. Fraley .0170" (Better than Dozier on 1/8" stock!)

To illustrate how the thickness behind the edge, and the spine thickness come into play consider that the Dozier cuts carpet like a razor, but when applied to a 3/16" thick cardboard tube, a material that tries to bind against the sides of the blade, the Taz knife pushed through more easily both because of its flat grind, and because its spine, ultimately, is not as thick and therefore does not have to push the binding material as far apart.
 
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