Well I finally broke through my mental barrier and decided to -very briefly- test the RJ Martin, both chopping and sawback. This came about because I decided the very sharp edge on it provided was finely done, but simply too open in angle to have any real performance (it is probably more open than I thought, about 18-20° per side, really fairly blunt), so I bought a few diamond hones, as I now know the current edge on it now is "expendable"... I didn't take any pictures of the RJ's chopping result, as the hair popping sharp 36-40°+ edge performed so poorly it became irrelevant (Even the Model 18, at under 10° per side, would beat it hands down, at nearly 1/3rd the weight...): I'll do more testing later when it has an actual edge on it...
This was the result of the sawback test, TOPS Hellion on the left, very easily getting to well over 1/2", and the RJ's Parrish-like saw on the right, with quite a bit of extra effort, stopping dead at around 5/16"...:
Because the saw is so shallow visually on the RJ, this is not quite a major disaster (like on the WALL, which is going to be fixed, and re-tested, later), because visually the RJ's saw is really not "in your face"... Also, unlike the Model 18's saw, the wood dust is more "consistent", and is not a powder that blows away in the wind, so the saw has some remaining functionality, even for notching as well... I think the Hellion benefits here from being of a little thinner stock: It is just a tad stouter than pure 3/16", but still under 1/4": Whatever it is, it feels like a perfect thickness...
I now feel like I need to hang on to that Hellion like it was gold... Although the thick 1.8 mm edge base probably greatly reduces whatever the 11-12° per side edge I put on it can do... Even at 21 ounces, I doubt it can chop much better than many smaller and lighter hollow ground knives, but the tip mass probably increases confort in the long run: The slightly hollow ground Model 18 performs surprisingly well in "bite", but feels really odd and tiring to chop with...: Imagine chopping with a bottle held by the fat end: Maybe it can still perform, but you don't want to do it a long time...
Over the week-end I did another test, this time to get an "initial" feel of how a well-designed convex edged knife will perform when compared to thin edged/deeply hollow ground knives: I purchased the San-Mai III Trailmaster precisely for this purpose... I used to own a Fallkniven Odin and, if anything, the Trailmaster is actually equally if not more finely made (edge grind geometry included), but with a cheaper-feeling sheath and handle materials...: The thin nylon sheath does not scratch the blade at all, which is a big surprise, as the Odin was a nightmare beyond all description on this point... It feels adequate to its purpose in my opinion... Not a bad deal.
This was the result of a brief test of about 17-20 chops (the number being adjusted when I felt I did some poor blows, to try to even things out objectively: This was in favour of the Trailmaster and Model 18, just so you know):
The Randall is around 12 ounces, 7.4" blade, balance 1/4"
behind guard, the Al Mar Special Warfare is about 10-11 ounces, 7.75" blade, on-guard balance point, the Trailmaster is around 17 ounces, 9.5" blade, balance point 3/4" in front of guard...
Edge thinness is not spectacular on the Trailmaster, but hard to measure: 1 mm at 2.5/3 mm from the edge, peaking at around 1.3-1.4 mm later on... As usual on convex edges, the final edge angle is quite open if you sharpen on a flat hone, at or even over 20°, and the price in performance is there to show it (my Fallkniven Odin's edge was the same or worse)... The Randall is 0.65 mm at the shoulder, and the Al Mar is 0.5 mm, the sharpest of the 3, and with by far the deepest hollow grind, from a full 1/4" stock(!). The Randall is 3/16", the Trailmaster 5/16", all the way to the start of the clip.
The Al Mar had the advantage of the longest handle, which was used in a full rear hold: Its chopping performance was incredible for its weight: The bites were astoundingly deep and effortless, owing almost entirely to the hollow grind I felt, not the longer handle: It
easily matched the much heavier Trailmaster blow for blow, even though I tried to put a lot of extra wallop behind the bigger knife... You could just feel the convex edge "blunting" your effort...
The Model 18 was its usual "what am I doing here?" self: Despite this, its edge allowed deep bites, but for the first time I noticed the huge round hollow handle made accuracy more difficult compared to the other two knives: You can see that in the wider less efficient cutting pattern... The thick cord wrap is probably an additional hindrance here... The edge was perhaps not completely at a phonebook paper "straight" push-cutting level, so I re-sharpened it later on.
The Trailmaster handle felt strange, and the new moulded "pinhead" checkering is definitely very aggressive to a bare hand: It does feel much more secure than the Fallkniven Odin's slick nightmare (quite frankly, the Odin feels like an accident waiting to happen in comparison, and I can't even imagine what the Thor is like: Here on Bladeforums, one Thor owner recounted a self-inflicted wound, after loosing his grip, that would not be out of place in a Stephen King novel: Brrr!). The Trailmaster handle feels too thin, and over the long run it seems like that concentrated narrowness would be hurtful to a bare hand: It makes full power chops a bit worrysome: I used it too little to really say what it would be like in the long run, but I will find out...
The Al Mar's handle did not draw any attention to itself, which must be a good thing...
Anyway this is quite surprising to me. In general I would say the Bk-9 and Chris Reeves Jereboam were equal to each other, and slightly above these 3, but not by a huge amount. 10-20% maybe. As they say, stay tuned!
Gaston
P.S. A notion occurred to me concerning poorly performing thick-spine sawbacks (the rope pulling trick doesn't help, because the knife will move but still does not go deeper): It seems to me the shape of what you cut might affect the depth the saw will go: For instance, using smaller diameter branches, like 2-3", might help, along with doing two 1/4" deep cuts angled but joined to one another, so that in the middle of the cut there is now an angled "peak" that the saw will have an easier time gaining "purchase" into, and thus "grinding down" much deeper than round stock...: This "angled" cut peak might allow saws that can't do 1/4" to do over 1/2", which puts them into the weak-point breakage territory if done twice: four angled cuts, two top ones and two bottoms ones, two times 1/2" equals a full inch taken out of 2" diameter, without using up the main edge...: I'll try this with the RJ Martin saw...
G.
