Tom Brown Tracker

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wolfenhawk

Joined
Oct 1, 2009
Messages
141
Hey Guys. I just wanted to get your opinion on how good a knife the "Tom Brown Tracker" knife actually is. I saw the movie "The Hunted" which showcased this knife and I've seen it being sold online starting on average at over $200 and going up well over a thousand. I have a working forge and I'm just starting to learn knife making and I've been considering this design. My main question is how good of a knife would this be for an actual survival situation or as a fighting knife. I've read a place or two online that there is alot of hype associated with this knife and I still haven't made up my mind about it.
Thanks for your time.
 
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Wait a bit, there's going to be interesting opinions about it.

(gets the chips and beer and puts his feet up. . . )
 
wolfenhawk ... the tom brown tracker certainly has its band of followers and i think a very dedicated blade. You'll get responses for sure. I recon its blade edge is marred by the kick before the front rounded section. It has its purpose but not for me. The sharpening routine seems as though it needs careful attention. I like the all purpose blades so I'll watch this thread with interest as usual :)
untamed, I'm with you ... i'll just go and grab a beer ;)
 
tombrowntracker.jpg


I couldn't help myself
 
tom brown tracker is a heavy useless POS . the knife used in the film the hunted was actually a custom made by dave beck , probly a much more useful knife. as for a tom brown tracker as a fighting knife............LOL
 
I have the Red Scorpion Six version. Always wanted one, Got it, It sits in my safe. One of those great concepts on paper, that at least in my mind fails in application.

It works, especially in tandem with a smaller knife. But I would not want it as my only knife. Movies are cool but not real. In reality it's slow due to it's weight, making it not a good choice for knife fighting. It chops relatively well. Can't imagine cleaning a fish or skinning a wabbit, slicing steak, or opening a cardboard box. Hacking Zombies maybe.

Cool knife, Great conversation piece, I just wouldn't stake my life on it.

A Rat RC-anything or Bravo-1 and a small Wetterlings Axe would serve you better in the field. And cost less to boot.

JMHO
 
The Tracker is a movie prop, and for that use, its one of the best. I wouldnt mind having one on my wall, even though I think the knife used in First Blood, or LOTRs Narsil -sword might be even cooler.

Making one yourself might be difficult 'cause of the saw-like shape on the knife's back.

Being an amateur blacksmith myself, my recommendation is; start with traditional designs, and especially with small-ish knives. Forging, hardening and heat treating bigger blades is more difficult, and a mistake in the hardening process might even make a bigger "chopper" dangerous to use.
 
i enjoy beating the absolute s@#t outta my tom brown tracker , sold my red scorpion six knives pedator . (and mine was one of the original 1000 first made)
 
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attej said:
The Tracker is a movie prop, and for that use, its one of the best. I wouldnt mind having one on my wall, even though I think the knife used in First Blood, or LOTRs Narsil -sword might be even cooler.

Making one yourself might be difficult 'cause of the saw-like shape on the knife's back.

Being an amateur blacksmith myself, my recommendation is; start with traditional designs, and especially with small-ish knives. Forging, hardening and heat treating bigger blades is more difficult, and a mistake in the hardening process might even make a bigger "chopper" dangerous to use.
Click to expand...

Yes it does look difficult to make, and for now I'm still practicing and learning by making rail spike knives, and am planing to make a hawk soon. Thanks for the heads up as I am still very much a newbie blacksmith.
Also thanks for all the interesting and informative responses so far. From what I'm hearing, at this point, it doesn't look like I'll be hanging up my 15" HI AK in favor of a tracker anytime soon.
 
in my oh so humble opinion, when you combine a slicer, chopper, splitter, saw all in one package, the resulting tool does none of those well.
Besides, its UGLY. :thumbdn:
 
I really hope this doesn't turn into a pissing match..

For what its worth; I have seen the tracker knife used in the outdoors with great success. The person using it was far from a mall ninja, or follower of any kind. I don't think the knife does any task better than a dedicated knife, but it will handle all tasks put forth.
That said, I think the knife is butt ugly, and definitely not something I would own. However, if in a survival situation I would be happy to have any knife including the tracker.

Who wants Tracker porn?





The tracker is ugly enough by itself, but putting it next to the NWA makes it look even worse :D

 
Pitdog is one of the few members here who regularly posts about his and he seems to like his quite a bit. Many of these kinds of tools can be interesting to think about in terms of what goes on in the designer's head and whether they have true concepts of how each feature will be used. Tom Brown is a bit infamous for the way in which his schools are marketed and couple that to the Hollywood schtick, and lets face it, the movie wanted a 'unique knife' as part of its theme, the tracker is what you end up with. I'm not sure how much the latter two pulled the design elements then the actual intended use. The TOPs model often gets criticized for being overly thick, although Pitdog had his considerably thinned out by the previous owner who generously donated it to him.

If you do a search you will see a number of tracker variants that have been produced by other makers. As somebody who critiqued earlier, I tend to like the variants that have a smooth transition between the flat edge and belly. But then again, I more often not really just like simple designs and simple attributes. In a sense, the basic knife is one of the most versatile tools out there. Adding all those 'specialized parts' actually makes it less versatile and more restricted in its use pattern not more.
 
As a beginner, I would not recommend trying to take on that design to make. That is just my two cents though. If you really want maker tips on how to make it, contact Tim Horan at http://www.horanknives.com/
 
The one I had was useless until I reground the edge. Then it performed ok. Pitdog has it now, and he seems pleased with it. I would rather have a nice camp machete myself, for 1/10 the price and better performance once you get the edge right.
 
Horn Dog said:
The one I had was useless until I reground the edge. Then it performed ok. Pitdog has it now, and he seems pleased with it. I would rather have a nice camp machete myself, for 1/10 the price and better performance once you get the edge right.
Click to expand...

+1K on this. I give the Tracker props for being an innovative design...I just don't consider it a very good one, especially for the money. :)
 
I had one briefly just to play with it. In its factory version it was just about useless. The edge and grind wouldn't cut much of anything, and literally couldn't make a fuzz stick. I've never owned a knife that couldn't do that no matter how bad a shape it was in. It also didn't chop better than even a 7" fixed blade.

I had it reground and thinned quite a lot, to a lovely polished convex edge. It would at least cut, and sort of make a fuzz stick, but it was still heavy, ungainly, unbalanced, and cumbersome in my hand. It also didn't chop any better.

This isn't a bash, it's just an honest opinion from when I got one. I'm not trying to fuel any wars. There are folks here who use that knife and that design with great success, and every persons woods tool is entirely their own choice and business. But as a first woods tool, please listen to others and get a quality machete or Mora, etc.
 
As a scraper or draw knife, it weighs 5 times as much and does half the work. as a KNIFE, it weighs 8 times as much and does 1/10 the work. As a chopper, it's not a bad replacement for a cleaver. :D

The decorations on the spine on the one I used were useless.

There, all the pissing done. Now, there's a lot- a lot of potential in the basic design.

I have a friend who has been to something like 8 months of hours of dirt time with tom, and does have his own version of a tracker. His version keeps the chisel grind near the hilt, and has a full convex grind for the 'blade' portion. the back is flat and straight, no saw teeth, and the thumb ramp is fileworked. It's made of 3/16 5160 stock, and it really looks and works well in the sierras. He also put some holes up near the spine in various sizes for straightening and "drawing" arrows.

If I was going to make one, as a beginner, I'd make 3-

First, make the basic overall shape, simple and with one grind all the way through. convex or flat grind, and work out a good differential hardness either with Fowler style multiple edge quenching or a differential tempering process. Try this one without the index finger cutouts.

Make a second in a similar fashion, but go ahead if you think the first one didn't work well as a draw knife (betcha it does fine!) and do the variable edges grind. Try out your index finger cutouts, and find (probably) that you like the smooth handle better. Here's a decent spot to try out your saw teeth if you want, just remember that your tempering is going to get all wonky and your blade may end up more brittle. but anything over 1/8 inch is going to start killing your efficiency as a saw.

Third one, dial in your first two efforts and make something twice as usable and half the weight of the current TB tracker :)


One of the things that people forget is that Tom Brown teaches what ends up being a highly individual path. I don't think he'll ever admit it, but the preliminary tracker design is a jumping off place for the individual tracker to start from.
 
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