Tiny fixed-blades: Sicut Mark III Leilira, or Mintan models

My Buck Hartsook arrived today and no buyer's remorse on this one. I got out the paracord and whipped up a square knot lanyard for it. The knife comes with a simple loop of paracord off the bottom eye of the handle, which does fit the simple nature of the knife, but I wanted something a little more showy. The lanyard does improve the grip, allowing your ring and pinky fingers to help stabilize the knife. The actual grip on the handle is index and middle fingers. The jimping on the spine is in two sections with a 5/8" or so smooth section between, which is right where the tip of my thumb pad rests. They should have just jimped the whole thing.

The sheath on mine was a little loose for upside-down carry on a neck lanyard and I ran boiling hot water over the plastic and molded it by hand to get a tighter fit and ran it under cold water to set the shape. That worked just fine.

I made a neck lanyard from paracord jacket. I lightly flamed the ends and ran one end inside the other for about an inch. I made three stiches to hold the ends in place and provide a break-away so I don't hang myself with it.

This little knife begs to be breath-taking sharp. The factory edge was decent, but a few licks on a ceramic stick set and a light stropping made it better.

It's odd how we percieve a small fixed blade. I compared it against my own SAK Classic and the Harsook is 3/8" or so longer. I use the Classic without thinking about the grip much-- open it and cut whatever and put it way. Somehow the grip on a fixed blade becomes a big deal and of course it really isn't-- not any more than a small folder is.

I was going to put this knife in my PSK, but I like it too much-- it's going to stay around my neck while hiking to keep it handy.
 
SIRGALANT said:
please , allow me to set you straight on the sicut leilira and mintan > DO NOT BOTHER YOU WILL REGRET IT . these are soft steel , hard to sharpen , made in pakistan, chisel ground POS , designed by a guy who hates forumites as a principle ! the grinding on these is also crap .
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Sir, I see you are from the "Land Down Under" so I can only percieve that you have some sort of axe to grind against your fellow countryman. While I have never met Keith Spenser or his wife I have dealt with them on a few projects and find them to be fine folks indeed.

Yes his knives are ground in Pakistan just as many knives here in the US are ground in either China, Taiwan or Japan. Manufacturing costs often drive this practice.

I have both the Leilera and the Mintan. For the price they are fine examples of back up (kit) knives. Both required a bit of sharpening to get them to the edge I wanted, this is often the case with factory ground blades.

The wholesale bashing of their product was a bit harsh. David Alloway, whose opinion I valued, liked them, and so do I.
 
Have been playing around with, and experimenting with, a Russell Woods Walker and a Buck Hartsook. Woods Walker, as mentioned above, is very comfortable in hand, great blade angle. Though I like the leather pocket sheath, I got it with the intention (aside from just checking out the knife) of cutting the sheath down for using the rig as a patch knife for muzzleloading, attached to a possibles bag.

Got the Hartsook today, and I like the above characterization of it as the stone flake for our times. The little paracord loop is a great idea, being sized just right to let you hook it around your little and ring fingers and essentially turn a two-fingers-and-thumb-held knife into a whole-hand-held knife. This, in turn, gives me a level of confidence in the grip that I'd probably be lacking, otherwise. I like it a great deal. It is dwarfed by a standard Wenger Swiss Army knife, as discussed. It is so small that I have already lost it in my pocket a few times, having had to fish for it among the pens and keys for a while before locating it. The factory edge will, I agree, need reprofiling; you're not going to do much batoning with it, as there's not enough spine to hit with a baton. The scabbard could use tightening, and if I were planning to try to carry it concealed I'd think about cutting off the projecting loop at the tip of the scabbard. All in all, though, a neat little knife. Might even go well in the pocket in the brim of some hats (so long as you remember to remove it before going through airport security or the like.) (Incidentally, the above-mentioned ToolLogic cards fit nicely into the brims of hats that have such pockets, too.)
 
Check out TOPS. They make 4 or 5 fixed blade knives 4-5 inches or under, along with some fixed blade neck knives and keychain knives down to about 3 inches.
 
Along with JD I too just received a Buck Hartsook. When I get some time I'll compare it to the Hellion from Nemesis. For now the Buck is very sharp and bery pointy. The sheath, well I'll just have to see how well it holds the knife as neckwear. It seems a bit loose but I could be wrong. These arte the only S30V blades I have so it should be a good test.
 
What do you all think of the CS Hunter's Scalpel for a small fixed blade versus the Hartsook?
 
One thing about the Hartsook: there is so very little to it, apart from some of the clever design features, that I wonder if one couldn't make a very credible high-carbon replacement with an Old Hickory paring knife and a Dremel tool, for about a quarter of the price. I'd pop off the rivets and the wooden scales, maybe insert the blade into a potato to avoid drawing the temper, then try grinding a choil or some other finger-friendly curvature to the handle part, perhaps enlarge or add a hole for a Hartsook-like paracord loop (because that is, I think, a genuinely-great feature of the latter knife), cut a few jimping notches in appropriate spots . . . . It'd be an interesting project. Also, one could try a similar trick with some of Old Hickory's larger knives, which would give you a little wider stock, again potentially allowing you to get plenty of grip on a very short handle. I could imagine getting some seriously-excellent handle-handling mileage by combining a Hartsook-like loop and jimping with a Sicut Mintan-like handle structure. If any of you knifemaking types try any of this out, I'd love to see your results.

And, 2dogs, I look forward to your comparison with the Hellion. I'd be particularly interested in how the hollow grind of the Hellion (it is hollow, isn't it?) stacks up; your impressions of how the handle shape works would be interesting, too.
 
Return of the J.D. said:
...I wonder if one couldn't make a very credible high-carbon replacement with an Old Hickory paring knife and a Dremel tool, for about a quarter of the price. I'd pop off the rivets and the wooden scales, maybe insert the blade into a potato to avoid drawing the temper, then try grinding a choil or some other finger-friendly curvature to the handle part, perhaps enlarge or add a hole for a Hartsook-like paracord loop (because that is, I think, a genuinely-great feature of the latter knife), cut a few jimping notches in appropriate spots . . . . It'd be an interesting project. Also, one could try a similar trick with some of Old Hickory's larger knives, which would give you a little wider stock, again potentially allowing you to get plenty of grip on a very short handle.
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You can make a fine necker from a Old Hickory...

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OH2.jpg


todd
 
Pretty neat, Todd. I was just thinking about doing something similar with a Cold Steel Bushman.
 
Todd, that is absolutly the neatest thing I've seen in a long time. Small, but very effective looking. You did a very good job.:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:
 
SIRGALANT said:
please , allow me to set you straight on the sicut leilira and mintan > DO NOT BOTHER YOU WILL REGRET IT . these are soft steel , hard to sharpen , made in pakistan, chisel ground POS , designed by a guy who hates forumites as a principle ! the grinding on these is also crap .
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I own one also and totally agree! They are't small enough to fit an altoid tin either... Go with some of the other suggestions.
 
This is actually one of mk favorite kinds of knives - small fixed blades. For the majority of cutting tasks, you don't need much more than 2" (Obviously, this precludes such activities as, say, skinning a bull moose;)). In addition to the Buck Hartsook, here are a few I thought I'd throw in.

Vox Mini & MegaMini: http://www.voxknives.com/knives.htm
A bit pricey for my taste, but quite interesting.

CRKT Ringer Series: http://www.crkt.com/sting.html
I'm not crazy about the utility of any of the blade shapes. They need a modified sheepsfoot blade shape for utility. The ergonmics on the hawksbill knife are, I imagine, fairly good.

CS Urban Pal, Mini Pal, or Super Edge: http://www.coldsteel.com/utilityknives.html
I've got an older version of what they're now calling the Super Edge, and it's one of the best work knives that I've ever had. It performs like a much bigger knife. Between the other two, I'd go with the Urban Pal, as the Mini Pal has a Secure-Ex sheath (Secure-Ex = crappy plastic).

County Comm folding straight razor: http://www.countycomm.com/straightrazor.htm
Can't beat the price on these, but they're just a blade, not a knife.
 
I forgot about the Pocket hippo from Gene Ingram. (just go to example knives, top left corner, then fixed blades, and it at the bottm on the first page)
 
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