Sweet Rose Came a Calling

Cpl Punishment

Cpl Punishment

Joined
Jan 28, 2006
Messages
7,035
Got my Cherokee Rose from the 3/31 DOTD
3-31-08%20008.jpg


Holy Crocodile "That's not a knoife, this is a knoife." Dundee!

This is a BIG knife. Of it's rather formidible 20.5", 13" of that is blade. It's .308" (a good number, wherever you're from) thick before the top edge, and 2.340" wide at the widest point. You can think of it as a bowie with an asian slant to the design, or as a short scimitar. Either way, if you're headed out for a Saturday night knife fight, this is the date to bring.

The wood is beautiful, and I think the grain will stand out a bit more after a few coats of BLO.

One thing, sadly, it's not is sharp. To the others that have bought them, did they come dull? I mean, press it into my hand and draw the blade and nary a drop of blood dull.

Running my hand along the edge, I can feel where there WAS a bevel.

I don't know what otehrs think, and I don't want to be rude, but maybe they could ease off on the buffing near the edge? I know there's villagers, but they are sporadic on DOTD, and besides, I really do like the buffed blades, just not to the point of rounding off the edges so bad.

Well, I'll spend some time with her tonight with a file and some diamond stones and give a cutting report in the future. I can tell by the weight distribution that it definitely won't chop as well as any of my kukris, but then, I never expected it to.

Overall I really like it.
Of course now I have to get an AK bowie to compare it to. . .

(We need a "D'oh!" smiley).
 
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Can't speak for the out-of-the-box sharpness, since mine came from Steve Ferguson. But I can tell you that he gave it an edge that can slice the wings off a gnat!:eek:
 
Ah yes, a little file work, a modicum of coarse diamond stone and a LOT of fine diamond stone, and she was lookin' sharp enough to be seen in the woods with.

She's still not sharp enough to just "weight" through paper, but I question if she needs to be. I took her outside for some trials. I started out on some very soft vegetation, I figured this would tell if she was sharp enough or not. She sliced right through it effortlessly, both away from and towards the roots (if it was dull, then it would have just deflected the stalk on a towards-the-root cut). Smooth straight cuts, no tearing.

OK onto something a bit harder: some palmetto stalks. These can be difficult as they are hard, yet resilliant. plus they tend to be "loose" at the roots, so they can take the heavy winds and not break. Cuts away from the roots resulted in clean, straight cuts, cutting through with little effort. Towards the root, it bit about halfway through, and the stalk deflected away at the root.

Ok, onto the felled birch trees. Anything up to half an inch came off with a single stroke. 3/4" stuff took an average of 3 strokes. A 2" branch took 9 strokes. OK, like I stated before, I did not intend for this to be a wood chopper, but I had to see how it would do, and it does pretty well. It also confirmed that it will not chop with a comparable sized kukri, as my 20" will go through any of the above with one swing.

I don't know if this is recommended for HI knives, but I did stab the point into a birch trunk and pried. No blade deflection at all. I was afraid I might bend the tip, but all it did was pop a big chunk out of the trunk. No blade damage at all.

Excellent knife.
 
They really are something, aren't they? The tip on a Rose is normally very thin, so if your's didn't bend, that's excellent!

Nice review. Thanks for taking the time to write it!

If you ever want to shave with it, send it to me, and I'll fix it up for you.;)

Steve
 
Cpl Punishment said:
One thing, sadly, it's not is sharp. To the others that have bought them, did they come dull? I mean, press it into my hand and draw the blade and nary a drop of blood dull.
Click to expand...

I've gotten several HI blades that were not sharp, in varying degrees of dullness. This prompted me to get a 30x1" belt sander that was on sale, and sharpening belts. Now they and other makes are about 90% shaving sharp overall.
 
Yeah, I really need to get a belt sander.

Diamond stones and such are great for keeping something sharp, but not that much fun when you have to spend hours putting an edge on something.
 
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