Very nice small knife! There is only one thing I find peculiar: The counter-sinking of the wrapping at the rear is a fairly broad surface: Is there a reason for doing it that wide?
The radiusing of the guard's soldering is superb. Good work!
Here is a few shots of my testing the Lile "Mission": This was on a fairly thin diameter branch of under 4", 19 strokes for all:
I just cannot get the Trailmaster to perform anymore, yet it keeps its edge as well as the others: I find the convexing is so accentuated, it simply makes the blade cross-section a little fat. I remember the Aus-8 Trailmaster I had in the early 1990s as being a somewhat thinner convex than that... I can't swear to it but... They all push-cut phonebook paper initially, throughout the edge.
You'll notice the Trailmaster has more widely spaced hits: I find this is a natural tendency, when the hits lack a bit of depth, to spread them laterally, to get chunks out "sideways" to make a broader "lower level" to work on. The thinner the geometry, the easier it seems to make a narrow V and keep progressing within that narrow V. Also, on a blade that feels "fat", you sense you can't afford to hit inside a previous strike, because the blade will then be "grasped" and decelerated gradually, while a thinner blade will sail through a previous cut and still hit the bottom hard inside that previous strike... This encourages a narrower concentration of hits, so the result should not be considered biased because of you can see some have more spread...: It is a result of the performance, not a cause...
I do think it is possible to go a little harder on the Trailmaster, but the thick abruptly decelerating blade, coupled with the much too thin handle, combines to make it kind of a little scary...
The "Mission" performed way better than I expected, with its feather light point: That light point was mitigated by hitting fairly close to the guard. It made a peculiar "tink" "tink" noise completely unlike any other chopper I ever tried... It feels like a feather, and must undoubtedly perform by the finesse of its geometry alone (0.028")... It may be the absolute best chopping knife I have seen so far, only the Neeley SA9 being inexplicably close... The SA9 does have something like a four-five times thicker point 1/4" from the tip than the "Mission", but not any extra mass over the wider, thicker bladed and better profiled Trailmaster...: The SA9 geometry is way worse than the Trailmaster, but I think the key issue here is the use of a hollow grind, even if a thick one, combined with my heavily reprofiled 16° or therabouts edge: The hollow grind simply leaves the edge "free" to go deep, while the convexing swells and slows down the Trailmaster...
That does not explain why the hollow grind Chris Reeves seems to feel hampered in a similar way to the Trailmaster... An interesting note is that on 3 inch diameter or less, the Chris Reeves and Trailmaster seem closer to the Randall Model 12: With less wood to decelerate them, their thick blade mass seems to overcome the wood, but maybe the wobblier branch just evens up all the knives...
Below is on a thicker log with 35 strokes each, if I'm not misremembering... The grinding flaw on the Mission's plunge line shows up really well here...: Quite pronounced, and it looks like a kind of "machine rig"-related thing (it is caused by the presence of the sawteeth being already cut), so that could have been fixed easily on later blades: I think this is either quite an early unumbered one, or they simply counted on the black paint to hide it...: It doesn't bother me, but it is worth mentionning for the price...: An apparently documented first 25 black blade also has a slight hint of the same thing, but not that bad... $8000 on Ebay... I've never seen this flaw on any of the others... No serial numbers anyway so...
The Trailmaster's cut is tilted, so it looks much deeper than it actually is...
The "Mission" saw works quite well, hard to say if any better than the Farid's, but it seemed truly effortless until it stopped at about 5/8" or more on this 3" log. On the same log the Neeley saw would stop in less than 1/4", but try a log under 2" in diameter and all of a sudden it goes over 1.25" or maybe even all the way, but by then the weakening wood "pinches" the sawing, and stops things anyway... I didn't test the "Mission" saw on something smaller, as I was pressed for time: The huge clip shortens and impedes the stroke motion, but not overly so.
I wanted to mention the Chris Reeves, as it is a favorite of many, and this time it had been re-profiled by RazorEdgeKnives to under around 15°, so the performance should have been better than before... Initially the edge took a lot of bending damage very easily, but when I re-sharpened it, same angle, and for some reason that did not re-occur... The claim I made of visibly low edge-holding no longer appeared to be obviously correct... I would no longer trust my initial assesment of the Neeley SA9 edge after that either, but this time for the CR it was a professionally applied edge that buckled, and it was my work that solved the "issue", whatever "it" was... A fickle business if you ask me, since that initial CR edge was hand-applied and flawless, while my non-buckling edge edge looks much scratchier and is probably a bit more thinned-down in angle...
Chopping performance for the CR remained low throughout, and very similar to the Trailmaster in that a narrower 2-3" limb that wobbled, seeming to bring it level to the Model 12: That bigger branch below is truly rigid, and gives a better view of its actual performance...:
So far for chopping I would rank them in categories: Top: Lile Mission, Neeley SA9 (but with a heavy, heavy edge reprofile)
Just a touch below would be the Randall Model 12: It would do better if there was not some slight "convexing" fattening above the V-edge, something I've never seen on any Model 14 or 18...: It is well done and intentional, and not limited to mine...
Well below that, but still good, would be the Trailmaster, Chris reeves Jereboam, Re-profiled TOPS Hellion, Wall FB, Al Mar "Special Warfare" and many others.
At the bottom would be the Randall Model 18 and the Farid "First Blood"... Note the Randall did a little better while chopping than the Farid, owing to a 0.020" edge versus a 0.043" edge on the Farid (which is now 0.030", maybe not to be tested), but they were both equally bad in "pommel down bite", which is actually the main reason they sit in another category to those immediately above...: The balance point is similarly 1/4" behind the guard on both, but note the Farid has a hugely heavy steel buttcap, and so is not quite representative of a Lile... I actually like the Farid buttcap, quite frankly, as Liles have this "feathery" feel to them that is a bit disconcerting... But it certainly doesn't help chopping much...
Overall chopping performance seems consistent, but hard to predict in advance with theory...: I thought the Neeley would rank among the lowest...
Gaston
