- Joined
- Feb 25, 2001
- Messages
- 6,675
Well, I made a new years resolution for 2002. I made an oath to the blacksmiths of the gods to purchase fewer better knives, instead of many cheaper knives. To kick off this new year of quality, I decided to purchase a Camillus Mini-Talon. Ive always wanted to try Talonite since I got into knives last year. I actually would have paid out for a genuine Simonich custom knife, but his web site clearly stated that he was not currently taking orders. I figured that the Camillus would be a good choice though, as the Mini-Talon was destined to be a beater knife.
So why Talonite? Thats an easy one. I live in New York. I have to deal with winter snow and nasty humid summers. Im also a very enthusiastic fisherman, and am always dealing with rust. Much of my spring, fall and winter time is spent in the Adirondack Mountains, which are darned inhospitable to anything that man can come up with. When the Adirondacks arent breaking what you own, theyre rusting them. Good stain resistance is a must for many of my activities.
The Mini-Talon arrived on Friday, and my wife did her usual inspection to see if she was going to claim ownership of my package. And given her amazing ability to rust paring knives, I thought I was sunk. Fortunately, the Mini came in standard Camillus fashion. It had a pretty bad bevel put on it, kind of like every slipjoint companys standard edge, and a visible wire edge. The wife just said, This one is yours. Some people might be disheartened after paying over $100.00 for a dull knife, but not me. First of all, it means I get to keep the knife, instead of my wife getting her paws on it. Second, Ive grown to accept this from Camillus. When you buy a Camillus production knife, youre buying into what the knife can be. A Camillus knife doesnt always have a spectacular fit and finish, but its purely made for using, and using hard. Thats the trade-off. You get a quality working knife from Camillus. If I want superb quality control, Ill buy a Columbia River. A CRKT wont perform anything like a Camillus, but it will be next to perfect in appearance. You often pay the same price for a Camillus as you would a Columbia River, but the Camillus is made for using.
Reprofiling the Mini-Talon was an interesting experience. I was headed up to the Adirondacks on Saturday, so I packed away the Mini-Talon along with my SharpMaker 204. Once I was up to camp, I put the SharpMaker to work. Unfortunately, the job would have taken a century on a SharpMaker 204. My father-in-law, always being prepared in the Mountains, whipped out an Ankansas stone the size of Texas. It had an extraordinarily coarse side and a medium grit side. Knowing that Id have to do some serious grinding, I decided to start on the extra-course side. The first stroke produced a 1/16th of an inch groove down the center of the monstrous Arkansas stone. My father-in-law jumped high enough to hit his head on the camp ceiling, and promptly asked, What the %$&*^#@ are you try to sharpen?!?!?!. He quickly took back his freshly grooved stone. (Mental reminder to myself to purchase a new stone for Pa.) Anyways, this was my first exposure to the Talonite carbides. I made some bad attempts at putting a new edge on the Mini over the weekend, but didnt get something satisfactory until I got home today. The Lansky diamond hones made quick work of the job, followed up by the Sharpmaker 204.
Now for some edge testing. I did my usual beginning tests like shaving hair on my forearm and slicing copy paper. No problems there, but a little unusual. Most steels cut along the grain of a piece of copy paper easily, but tend to hang up badly when cutting against the grain. The Mini-Talon made it along the grain almost as well as other steels, but did equally well against the grain. Ive never seen that before with 154CM, ATS34, BG-42, D2, or 1095. Talonite seems to take a middle road in cutting, instead of excelling or failing at things.
My next test was performed on leather. I had to pull some 80 years old leather straps from a pair of snowshoes this weekend. If youve ever seen ancient leather, it comes in two varieties. Its either brittle and frail, or its hard like stone. These straps were the hard kind, much akin to the leather spacer used in fixed blade sheaths, which keep the blade from cutting through the stitching. This is hard stuff!!! The Min-Talon refused to push cut through the hard leather, but the minute I started to saw a little Wow!!! A tiny sawing motion caused the Talonite to sail through the leather. It actually went through quick enough that the knife almost cut through me after unexpectedly exiting the hard leather. Darned impressive.
The cardboard testing proved quite good. The Mini-Talon is a pretty thick chunk of metal compared to most small knives, so it theoretically should prove inferior in its cutting abilities. It didnt cut quite as well as my 1095 Schrade stockman or my Spyderco Military in 440V, but it held its own. I should also mention that the Mini is very small, and you dont get a supreme amount of leverage on the blade. The big Schrade and the Military provided lots of leverage, so that may have been the deciding factor. All in all, the Mini did much better than I would have expected for such a tiny knife. Cuts on paracord proved about the same as with cardboard. Oh yah. I also have the Schrade and Military sharpened to a 30 degree bevel. The Mini is only set at a 40 degree bevel. Its possible that a reprofile to 30 degrees could have put the Mini-Talon right up there in cutting performance.
So the mini-Talon cuts very well. The size and shape are a limiting factor, but it cuts better than most of my other small knives. It cuts especially well when you saw with it, almost acting like a carbide tipped saw. I also did some cut testing on hard cherry wood and soft white cedar. The Mini had a tendency to dig deeply into the wood, where the thinner Military and Schrade sliced thin wisps. Ill guess that that had to do with the thickness of the blade as well as the Talonite alloy.
Now for the neck sheath. It is very nice!!!! The Kydex is perfectly molded to the point where it firmly holds the Mini-Talon, but it doesnt take Arnold Schwarzenegger to get the knife back out. Well done to say the least. BladeForums own OwenM was kind enough to send me a few carry options including a mini TekLok and a Kydex dropped loop. Both fit the Mini-Talons sheath perfectly. I also tried Will Fennells method of hitching a piece of paracord around my belt and dropping the sheath into my front pocket. Wills method is definitely the most comfortable and least conspicuous. Im not sure what carry method Ill use though, as my large Sebenza usually takes up my valuable pocket space. Id have to drill a hole in the sheath to do a 45-degree carry on my belt, but that may be the best compromise in comfort on my belt. Ive never been much for hanging things from my neck.
I do have a couple of other observations. Camillus did a great job in fitting the G-10 handle to the Talonite. Everything meets up perfectly. The handle itself provides a very comfortable grip for such a tiny knife, and the G-10 scales are simply gorgeous. They almost have the appearance of carbon fibre. The lanyard hole on the knife is a great addition and really should be used. The extra grip from sliding your pinky finger into the lanyard helps add quite a bit of cutting control.
As you can observe, Im a pretty happy camper. All of the materials used on the Mini-Talon are slanted towards making it indestructible. And the collaboration between Rob Simonich and Camillus managed to make is same knife good looking and useful at the same time. Only time will tell whether Talonite is as good as the hype, but initial results are quite optimistic. Push cuts are good, and any sawing motion produces instant action. Considering that Im getting performance this good in an absolutely rustproof knife really tickles my fancy.
I must say that Camillus is really on a roll lately. I was privileged to own a Camillus EDC, getting to try out Darrel Ralphs extraordinary styling and creativity, and now Im allowed to partake of Rob Simonichs brainchild. Life is good here in New York.
So why Talonite? Thats an easy one. I live in New York. I have to deal with winter snow and nasty humid summers. Im also a very enthusiastic fisherman, and am always dealing with rust. Much of my spring, fall and winter time is spent in the Adirondack Mountains, which are darned inhospitable to anything that man can come up with. When the Adirondacks arent breaking what you own, theyre rusting them. Good stain resistance is a must for many of my activities.
The Mini-Talon arrived on Friday, and my wife did her usual inspection to see if she was going to claim ownership of my package. And given her amazing ability to rust paring knives, I thought I was sunk. Fortunately, the Mini came in standard Camillus fashion. It had a pretty bad bevel put on it, kind of like every slipjoint companys standard edge, and a visible wire edge. The wife just said, This one is yours. Some people might be disheartened after paying over $100.00 for a dull knife, but not me. First of all, it means I get to keep the knife, instead of my wife getting her paws on it. Second, Ive grown to accept this from Camillus. When you buy a Camillus production knife, youre buying into what the knife can be. A Camillus knife doesnt always have a spectacular fit and finish, but its purely made for using, and using hard. Thats the trade-off. You get a quality working knife from Camillus. If I want superb quality control, Ill buy a Columbia River. A CRKT wont perform anything like a Camillus, but it will be next to perfect in appearance. You often pay the same price for a Camillus as you would a Columbia River, but the Camillus is made for using.
Reprofiling the Mini-Talon was an interesting experience. I was headed up to the Adirondacks on Saturday, so I packed away the Mini-Talon along with my SharpMaker 204. Once I was up to camp, I put the SharpMaker to work. Unfortunately, the job would have taken a century on a SharpMaker 204. My father-in-law, always being prepared in the Mountains, whipped out an Ankansas stone the size of Texas. It had an extraordinarily coarse side and a medium grit side. Knowing that Id have to do some serious grinding, I decided to start on the extra-course side. The first stroke produced a 1/16th of an inch groove down the center of the monstrous Arkansas stone. My father-in-law jumped high enough to hit his head on the camp ceiling, and promptly asked, What the %$&*^#@ are you try to sharpen?!?!?!. He quickly took back his freshly grooved stone. (Mental reminder to myself to purchase a new stone for Pa.) Anyways, this was my first exposure to the Talonite carbides. I made some bad attempts at putting a new edge on the Mini over the weekend, but didnt get something satisfactory until I got home today. The Lansky diamond hones made quick work of the job, followed up by the Sharpmaker 204.
Now for some edge testing. I did my usual beginning tests like shaving hair on my forearm and slicing copy paper. No problems there, but a little unusual. Most steels cut along the grain of a piece of copy paper easily, but tend to hang up badly when cutting against the grain. The Mini-Talon made it along the grain almost as well as other steels, but did equally well against the grain. Ive never seen that before with 154CM, ATS34, BG-42, D2, or 1095. Talonite seems to take a middle road in cutting, instead of excelling or failing at things.
My next test was performed on leather. I had to pull some 80 years old leather straps from a pair of snowshoes this weekend. If youve ever seen ancient leather, it comes in two varieties. Its either brittle and frail, or its hard like stone. These straps were the hard kind, much akin to the leather spacer used in fixed blade sheaths, which keep the blade from cutting through the stitching. This is hard stuff!!! The Min-Talon refused to push cut through the hard leather, but the minute I started to saw a little Wow!!! A tiny sawing motion caused the Talonite to sail through the leather. It actually went through quick enough that the knife almost cut through me after unexpectedly exiting the hard leather. Darned impressive.
The cardboard testing proved quite good. The Mini-Talon is a pretty thick chunk of metal compared to most small knives, so it theoretically should prove inferior in its cutting abilities. It didnt cut quite as well as my 1095 Schrade stockman or my Spyderco Military in 440V, but it held its own. I should also mention that the Mini is very small, and you dont get a supreme amount of leverage on the blade. The big Schrade and the Military provided lots of leverage, so that may have been the deciding factor. All in all, the Mini did much better than I would have expected for such a tiny knife. Cuts on paracord proved about the same as with cardboard. Oh yah. I also have the Schrade and Military sharpened to a 30 degree bevel. The Mini is only set at a 40 degree bevel. Its possible that a reprofile to 30 degrees could have put the Mini-Talon right up there in cutting performance.
So the mini-Talon cuts very well. The size and shape are a limiting factor, but it cuts better than most of my other small knives. It cuts especially well when you saw with it, almost acting like a carbide tipped saw. I also did some cut testing on hard cherry wood and soft white cedar. The Mini had a tendency to dig deeply into the wood, where the thinner Military and Schrade sliced thin wisps. Ill guess that that had to do with the thickness of the blade as well as the Talonite alloy.
Now for the neck sheath. It is very nice!!!! The Kydex is perfectly molded to the point where it firmly holds the Mini-Talon, but it doesnt take Arnold Schwarzenegger to get the knife back out. Well done to say the least. BladeForums own OwenM was kind enough to send me a few carry options including a mini TekLok and a Kydex dropped loop. Both fit the Mini-Talons sheath perfectly. I also tried Will Fennells method of hitching a piece of paracord around my belt and dropping the sheath into my front pocket. Wills method is definitely the most comfortable and least conspicuous. Im not sure what carry method Ill use though, as my large Sebenza usually takes up my valuable pocket space. Id have to drill a hole in the sheath to do a 45-degree carry on my belt, but that may be the best compromise in comfort on my belt. Ive never been much for hanging things from my neck.
I do have a couple of other observations. Camillus did a great job in fitting the G-10 handle to the Talonite. Everything meets up perfectly. The handle itself provides a very comfortable grip for such a tiny knife, and the G-10 scales are simply gorgeous. They almost have the appearance of carbon fibre. The lanyard hole on the knife is a great addition and really should be used. The extra grip from sliding your pinky finger into the lanyard helps add quite a bit of cutting control.
As you can observe, Im a pretty happy camper. All of the materials used on the Mini-Talon are slanted towards making it indestructible. And the collaboration between Rob Simonich and Camillus managed to make is same knife good looking and useful at the same time. Only time will tell whether Talonite is as good as the hype, but initial results are quite optimistic. Push cuts are good, and any sawing motion produces instant action. Considering that Im getting performance this good in an absolutely rustproof knife really tickles my fancy.
I must say that Camillus is really on a roll lately. I was privileged to own a Camillus EDC, getting to try out Darrel Ralphs extraordinary styling and creativity, and now Im allowed to partake of Rob Simonichs brainchild. Life is good here in New York.
I do love those small fixed blades though. I guess you wife just shows that a "knifeknut" for a spouse may not be so good. 
