I unexpectedly had an opportunity to get the Garberg dirty. Turned out to be a beautiful sunny day in the upper 50's, a rare combination when the words "New Jersey" and "November" are used in the same sentence. Instead of raking leaves I played hookey and hit the woods. I was only out for about 5 hours though, so I was not able to perform an exhaustive test, but the knife did get used pretty heavily.
I bought the multi-mount system, but I only use the plastic sheath and belt dangler attachment. A plastic sheath to me is kinda cheesy, but a lot of Mora's come with them so I've learned to at least accept it. Retention doesn't feel all that tight but I didn't have a problem with it falling out. Pulling the knife in and out of the sheath was never an issue, and with the dangler there was no jabbing in my side as I moved around. It weighs next to nothing and is not at all large, so I didn't even know it was on my belt to be honest.
Mine came with a very good factory edge so it hasn't been touched up at all, not even stropped. I started out my day with some light duty tasks, like shaving bark off a branch and carving a pot hanger. Things changed quickly though because I was getting swarmed by gnats, another thing not common for November. Because there were just so many of them I decided to build my fire right away. That means battoning, and I went right for my acid test.
The area I go to has quite a few Eastern Red Cedar, or should I say "had"; every single one of them is standing dead now. There must have been some type of horrible blight years ago because they're the only dead trees in this part of the woods. The Cedar are scattered among deciduous trees, so it's not as though they were concentrated in one area and something wiped out everything in just that spot.
Anyone whose cut into Red Cedar knows that very unique smell, and I absolutely love it. One thing I don't necessarily love though is how this stuff gets when seasoned. Actually, "seasoned" is probably not the right word - think more along the lines of petrified instead; it's as hard as a rock. Add in the plethora of knots it frequently has and you end up battoning through natures equivalent of concrete with rebar. Makes for a good knife test I must say.
The Garberg is a bit smaller than my preferred blade length so I had to baton off planks as opposed to the normal quartering I do. I beat on this knife and cut at least a dozen of those planks, and it was while doing this I found my one true complaint (OK, so I cut to the chase with that statement
). The sharpened pommel makes the act of battoning a problem, at least if you have hands like mine that are larger than average. As my palm extends beyond the handle that pommel started to nic up the fleshy part, and in my case even took out a few tiny chunks of skin. The pommel isn't all bad though because it was helpful for scraping the cedar planks to get some shavings to start a fire. The motion and angle while scraping with the pommel wasn't the most efficient, so in the end I used the spine of the knife for the majority of this task.
One thing that surprised me somewhat is the handle gave me no fatigue. When I first got the knife I wasn't impressed with the contour, nor did I like the plastic feeling scale material. Because of that I wondered what might happen if I used the knife for a while. In real word use it ultimately proved very effective, felt comfortable and secure and had no hotspots. It does transmit a far amount of shock while battoning. For someone like me that's a problem, but for the person who doesn't batton it would be a non-issue.
Cutting prowess was typical Mora, which means it does that task with ease. From hogging off large chunks of wood to fine carving tasks, and everything in between, the Garberg did its job extremely well. Even thumb pushing on detail cuts wasn't bad, which can be irritating sometimes when working with a knife that has a sharp spine (and the Garberg has a very sharp spine).
After all manner of woodworking, from light to heavy, when I got home the edge had zero issues; no rolling, no chipping, no damage of any kind. I showed no quarter today, yet in spite of that it sliced through phonebook paper as cleanly and easily at the end of the day as it did in the very beginning. The Garberg demonstrated itself to be one very fine knife, and for the $65 I paid it's an amazing value as well. The blade is a bit too small for me to consider it my favorite, but for anyone looking at something in the 4" range this one should definitely be considered. The knife gets a thumbs up for sure.
Following are a couple of pic's from the day, with the first being the knife before it had seen any work.
Here is a sample of what I battoned.
5 picture limit per post, so the rest of them are below
