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- Feb 28, 2007
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Well it seems like every new trip I take I try to devote a little extra time using a new knife and comparing its merits. For the last three days I was up at my buddies cottage near Sharbot Lake, Ontario and was using my Scrapper 5. Apologies for my pics as it was so wet most of the time, I had a hard time keeping my lens from fogging up most of the time.
I still haven't gotten a formal sheath for this one yet, but it fit snugly in one of my Breeden pouch sheaths and I wore it on my belt most of the week. The weight of the scrapper 5 is very light, much of this due to the lightness of the respirene C handles. The blades gets a great ranking here. A 5" blade is superbly handy for many camp type chores and this one marries the good attributes of being robust and yet light and easy to carry.
I will go for kydex pants on this one a little later on, but it worked well with leather. I would even say it looked pretty good in Bryan's leather sheath! Still, I don't want to get the Big Paw too pissed!
Over the two days I used the blade exclusively for almost all my typical camp knife needs. A lot of this was food prep and my being more on the better cook side of the folks at the cottage meant that I did most of the food prep. This included a Lake Trout dinner (purchased) that involved my cutting head off and a pile of vegetables and potatoes. The knife worked great at these tasks and certainly didn't behave like the sharpened prybar we usually associate the scrapyard name with. It did a good job of slicing tomatoes and onions. The onions did wedge out a bit (the knife is 3/16" thick after all), but not horribly so and I would rate it better than my buck 119 did in a previous posting. My modifications to the knife involved removal of the lower guard and that helped quite a bit in food prep. I just hate it when the lower guard taps the cutting board before you blade can intersect it. On this task, the knife exceeded my expectations.
I played a bit with fuzzies, but not extensively so. Just didn't have too much time. The knife did pretty good here. Not as good as some of my other knives but admittedly the S5 is still sporting its factory v-grind which came shaving sharp, but I like convex much better. So eventually, another mod will be made to convex the edge on this one. Fuzzies can be improved, but this is sort of expected and overall I think the knife will be an excellent contender after I get it to the convex edge that I like and am more used to using.
The muddy handle is quite comfortable on this activity to use. The ridges on the top and bottom of the knife handle are a bit too deep IMO and cause small hot spots. I think it will be worth the effort to sand them slightly just to smoothen them out. Aside from that, the grip is very secure, comfortable and affords multiple grip options.
Much of what I used the knife for is the kind of thing you'd expect of scrapper. I was digging through lots of stumps looking for fatwood. I was prying out grubs and generally just having fun poking things with the blade
Okay, here is where the scrapper and its reputation make it excel. The tip has one of those beautiful designs of being both very sharp and yet very robust. You can pry and force the blade laterally with considerable force and there is no perceivable flex to the knife. I was reefing pretty good in a few places and never felt any hint of stress on the blade. It is afterall 3/16" which isn't the quarter inch stuff of the SOD but thick enough for this length to make it plenty robust. One of the reasons I was attracted to scrapyard in the first place was their ability to take legendary punishment. This one certainly feels like it is up to the challenge. In this area it excels.
It was pretty rainy and wet during my use. One of those niceties of the coated blades, as much as everybody hates them, is that it does offer some protection against the elements. I certainly wasn't worried about corrosion. After two days of wet slogging, I didn't notice any evidence of spotting on the uncoated edge either.
Overall, the Scrapper5 is a great belt knife that is up to the task of all the kinds of things I'd ask of it. Having used it for a few days as my main blade I certainly didn't feel any want for anything different. It is a great knife that fits into the 4-5" survival knife categories.
My only issue is that the knife is kind of ugly. Yeah...just that it is ugly. I mean, I really can't find myself falling in love with the respirene C for its aesthetics even though I like how it feels and performs. It is just a pure functional knife. I don't find myself taking the blade out of the sheath and admiring it or enjoying the depth of the grain in the handle. Those are probably just trivial things, but they are also a wee bit important too (for vanities sake). I suspect that this will translate into a bit less belt time than some of my more attractive knives Now, the scrapper 5 will make an awesome additional back pack knife or truck knife etc. It will be there in case I need it and now I know that it will perform great at every task I throw at it. If it had a nice mircata or natural handle material, I probably just like it a wee bit more.
Still it is a great performer and certainly worthy knife for use as a camp belt knife.
I still haven't gotten a formal sheath for this one yet, but it fit snugly in one of my Breeden pouch sheaths and I wore it on my belt most of the week. The weight of the scrapper 5 is very light, much of this due to the lightness of the respirene C handles. The blades gets a great ranking here. A 5" blade is superbly handy for many camp type chores and this one marries the good attributes of being robust and yet light and easy to carry.
I will go for kydex pants on this one a little later on, but it worked well with leather. I would even say it looked pretty good in Bryan's leather sheath! Still, I don't want to get the Big Paw too pissed!
Over the two days I used the blade exclusively for almost all my typical camp knife needs. A lot of this was food prep and my being more on the better cook side of the folks at the cottage meant that I did most of the food prep. This included a Lake Trout dinner (purchased) that involved my cutting head off and a pile of vegetables and potatoes. The knife worked great at these tasks and certainly didn't behave like the sharpened prybar we usually associate the scrapyard name with. It did a good job of slicing tomatoes and onions. The onions did wedge out a bit (the knife is 3/16" thick after all), but not horribly so and I would rate it better than my buck 119 did in a previous posting. My modifications to the knife involved removal of the lower guard and that helped quite a bit in food prep. I just hate it when the lower guard taps the cutting board before you blade can intersect it. On this task, the knife exceeded my expectations.
I played a bit with fuzzies, but not extensively so. Just didn't have too much time. The knife did pretty good here. Not as good as some of my other knives but admittedly the S5 is still sporting its factory v-grind which came shaving sharp, but I like convex much better. So eventually, another mod will be made to convex the edge on this one. Fuzzies can be improved, but this is sort of expected and overall I think the knife will be an excellent contender after I get it to the convex edge that I like and am more used to using.
The muddy handle is quite comfortable on this activity to use. The ridges on the top and bottom of the knife handle are a bit too deep IMO and cause small hot spots. I think it will be worth the effort to sand them slightly just to smoothen them out. Aside from that, the grip is very secure, comfortable and affords multiple grip options.
Much of what I used the knife for is the kind of thing you'd expect of scrapper. I was digging through lots of stumps looking for fatwood. I was prying out grubs and generally just having fun poking things with the blade
Okay, here is where the scrapper and its reputation make it excel. The tip has one of those beautiful designs of being both very sharp and yet very robust. You can pry and force the blade laterally with considerable force and there is no perceivable flex to the knife. I was reefing pretty good in a few places and never felt any hint of stress on the blade. It is afterall 3/16" which isn't the quarter inch stuff of the SOD but thick enough for this length to make it plenty robust. One of the reasons I was attracted to scrapyard in the first place was their ability to take legendary punishment. This one certainly feels like it is up to the challenge. In this area it excels.
It was pretty rainy and wet during my use. One of those niceties of the coated blades, as much as everybody hates them, is that it does offer some protection against the elements. I certainly wasn't worried about corrosion. After two days of wet slogging, I didn't notice any evidence of spotting on the uncoated edge either.
Overall, the Scrapper5 is a great belt knife that is up to the task of all the kinds of things I'd ask of it. Having used it for a few days as my main blade I certainly didn't feel any want for anything different. It is a great knife that fits into the 4-5" survival knife categories.
My only issue is that the knife is kind of ugly. Yeah...just that it is ugly. I mean, I really can't find myself falling in love with the respirene C for its aesthetics even though I like how it feels and performs. It is just a pure functional knife. I don't find myself taking the blade out of the sheath and admiring it or enjoying the depth of the grain in the handle. Those are probably just trivial things, but they are also a wee bit important too (for vanities sake). I suspect that this will translate into a bit less belt time than some of my more attractive knives
Now, the scrapper 5 will make an awesome additional back pack knife or truck knife etc. It will be there in case I need it and now I know that it will perform great at every task I throw at it. If it had a nice mircata or natural handle material, I probably just like it a wee bit more.Still it is a great performer and certainly worthy knife for use as a camp belt knife.
