Vaciacraft dagger, long+pics

[shortgoth]

"Guingate" Dagger by Vacicraft.

I'd like to start this review with a rant. Feel free to skip to the interesting bits

I've noticed a lot of BS about daggers both on this forum and others, via private e-mails and even in real life. I'd just like to make one thing very clear - daggers ARE utility knives. They are not the sole preserve of killers, assassins, SOE/OSS/Other alphabet soap personnel, and special forces operatives. Since the very first flint knife was smashed out of a piece of shiny rock, they have been triangular shaped, twin edged tools. Through the various stone and metal ages, the one common thread in tools has always been the classic tapered twin-edged dagger. Strong, durable, and efficient over hundreds of thousands of years. They came well before any single edged style, be it spearpoint, droppoint, clipped point, or anything else. Granted, the most famous daggers these days are the F-S fighting knife and the triangular-bladed stiletto popularised by Italian and Spanish assassins, but those are specialised designs just as much as the REKAT Hobbit is a specialised design and so should not be taken as a "standard" example of a dagger and more than the Hobbit is a "standard" folding utility knife. This said, on to the review.

Specs:

20" OAL, 13" blade of unspecified carbon steel, 5/16" stock (see below), brass and massacar ebony furniture. Weighs in at 1lb 9oz. Bought from Southern Swords for £60, or US$87.22 cents (converted at time of writing).

Style:

The overall looks and style of this is fairly generic, a blade that could come from pretty much any part of the time zone classified as "mediaeval" 1" ricasso followed by a slight taper of the blade down to the last 2" at which the taper increases in a fairly standard spear point shape. Fullered on both sides for approx 7", this is really more stylistic than for any real advantage (fullers aren't necessary on daggers after all). Thick diamond grind with a convex edge culminating in an edge bevel of 40 degrees (approx 1.25mm being the edge).

Blade:

Well, according to all info I can find on the 'net (which is very scant) these are forged carbon steel (of unknown type, probably 5160 or summat like that) that are then hardened to 55 RC. Of course it's impossible to tell by just looking at it. What I call tell you is that I do believe they're forged into shape, somewhat roughly in fact. If you look at the two pictures below I've attempted to show the off-set lines of the tip, one pic per side. Not a great first impression, eh?

 

[shortgoth]

Well, it gets worse. In addition to the wonky hammering, the NIB sharpness was around about Chinese POS levels. And it's mirror finished. I really don't like mirror finishes. Now onto a cool aesthetic point, the center line of the ricasso is 5/16" thick but it has a gentle curve down to 1/8" at the edges. A nice little touch. I've attempted to show this with this pic but I'm not sure if you can make it out. You'll also see that the stock thickness itself starts off at 5/16" at the tip of the fuller and comes down smoothly towards the convex edge.

Now the plunge lines aren't impressive at all. Pics here of both sides, neither of which are symmetrical, one side being very noticeable, the other not showing up much in the photo. But at this price, I'm not too bothered really. And given these slight plunge line differences and slightly wonky center line, well, that's what I'd expect on a hand forged knife costing less than $100, wouldn't you?

Guard/Handle:

Hmmmmm. Says full tang construction. Again I'd believe them, certainly looks and feels as solid as a rock. The wheel pommel looks to have been soldered onto the handle, can see no soldering on the guard but that might just be hammer-fitted and being held in place by the handle. Pics below are the best I could get of the pommel soldering while keeping them small enough for dial-up users.

So enough of the first impressions, let's play with it. First things first, let's try to bend the blade. I did this by hand, one holding the handle just below the guard in hammer grip, the left holding at the tip. Could only get a tiny bend giving approx 5mm of play at the tip of the knife. But for such a thick knife with this claimed RC and a blade only 13" long, it doesn't surprise me. Bounces off my palm and various solidly fixed objects well and willingly.

 

[shortgoth]

Handling the knife, it's feels quick, light, and well-balanced. Oval handle large enough for all hands, but small enough for mine too.Great for forward and reverse hammer fist, balance point is dead center of the ricasso (or as a non knife friend of mine put it "All the weight's in the handle. What are you supposed to do, hold the blade and beat them round the head with it?" But his only experience with fixed blade knifes is a POS Pakistan-made bowie that has a plastic handle and the balance point roughly at the beginning of the clip ). It's clearly not specifically design as a off-hand parrying dagger, being too short and lacking a true trapping guard, but I think it could work. Laying the side of the thumb parallel to the ricasso/fuller isn't uncomfortable, although making a channel in the brass guard for the thumb to go through would improve this grip tenfold. Also by hooking the index finger over the guard a la "rapier grip" gives fantastic control of the knife point for delicate work.

Using this as a draw knife is possible too, the fuller in fact coming in handy as a thumb rest to keep the draws straight and true as well as providing angle/depth control.

So obviously before doing anything, I had to sharpen the knife properly. Knowing that it was carbon steel, I knew it'd take a nice edge quickly and easily. And it certainly did. For a start, I left the edge finished to "medium" diamond (600 or 800 grit if memory serves) for the first test, obviously thrusting.

A simple "drop" penetration test into an old soft-back book gave a penetration of 1/4", which went up to 3/4" with the tiniest amount of pressure/speed. I then set about stabbing a plastic doughnut container. Penetrated to approx 6" effortlessly, and the push-cut it's way through (see pic). Also did well thrusting into the usual corrugated cardboard and jiffy bags.

So, I don't actually do much in the way of food prep, but I decided to try to push-cut a grape (I can't stand tomatoes). It failed. But the again, I expected it to with this finish. (The grape was fed to the rat used in my avatar BTW). Using it as a draw knife into some lengths of spruce and pine I have lying around, again it only succeeded in small curls, but again that's just the lack of polish causing that. Hacking and slicing into the wood worked fantastically well though. So I decided to take it outside.

Now I honestly have no idea what this sort of bush is called, it's just a brown twiggy thing with green leafy things. Anyone here know?

 

[shortgoth]

Anyway. Using a mix of snap cuts, clean slices, and simple hacks, I went through the bush for 10 minutes cutting the "leafy bits" and the "twiggy bits". When the "twiggy bits" got to 3/4" thick it would no longer go through straight, and had to be taken at a ~45 degree angle. Worked quite well though, and no noticeable loss of edge.

the onto the long grass.

OK, so it isn't that long. But using long sweeping strokes and also holding the grass taut and then snap-cutting, it cleared a small patch w/no problems. Of course, no noticeable edge loss.

Going back inside, I polished up the edges with a ceramic hone. Tried the draw knife, paper push cutting, and stabbing test again. Was as expected a huge improvement for these applications. Have no hair left on my forearms so I can't tell you whether it would shave them or not. Feels sharp enough to though. And it push-cut a couple grapes for the rat.

Taking it back outside, I repeated the same tests. Still worked just as well, slightly better in fact on the grass. Still no noticeable edge loss.

So onto a far more fun test. Deliberately nicking the blade. Well, why not? Gotta get some character into the blade after all don't I? Hit it as hard as possible with my right hand into the spine of my Martindale machete (this was held in my left, tip pushed against the floor to keep it steady). Yes, it nicked the blade. It also nicked the martindale slightly. I also did it again on the other side. So it formed two nicks, approx 1/3rd of the way up the blade on one side and 2/3rds of the way up on the other side. Both were approx 1mm deep and one was approx 2mm wide, the other approx 3mm wide. Both were straightened out in literally two seconds, no worries. Here's the pics.

Now about that mirror finish. I decided to remove it. Looking at the possibilities, I have: A medium/fine stone, a coarse, medium, and fine diamond stone, my ceramic hone, and some 1500 grit wet/dry paper. Not exactly what I need, and I couldn't be bothered getting the dremel out. So I went for the simplest method, rubbed the ceramic along the blade until it roughed out the surface and then used the wet and sry to smooth it out again without mirroring it. I've no idea whether or not it will work, but will do it when I have more time. I seemed to be making some progress, but have a feeling it could take a while. The joys of using hand tools.

But, in doing this I noticed another imperfection in the blade. Bright spots appeared, retaining the mirror finish in a few small patches where it was slowly being removed all around it. This indicates that the blade isn't a perfect flat from fuller to convex edge, another slight "gah" w/the blade, but again for this price I'll accept it. If anything the small foibles give the knife character, and like the other "flaws" it doesn't actually detract anything from the usability.

So in sum? I honestly believe it is forged, full-tanged, and ready for utility use. It's fairly tough, has great tip controllability, thinning out the edge to approx 25-30 degrees would make it better IMO, but it's good enough as it is. Personally I'd keep it at the "medium" grit rather than polishing the edges, same as all other utility knives. Of course, twin-edged knives have a huge advantage over their single edged counterparts in that you could have one 40 degree angle with a coarse edge for heavy duty tasks and a 25 degree high-polish push cutting edge. Or two identical edges to give you twice as long between sharpening. They also give far better penetration results than any single edged style (including those "armor piercing tanto" points, but the BS hype about that profile won't be discussed here). Big enough for light brush clearing work, could do kitchen tasks well, and looks pretty. If you really insist, yes it could be used for self-defense, although for serious sword/dagger work, the brass guard is a might too soft and it's not efficient for blade catching. The blade's also a little short for a off-hand dagger IMO, but these points would be more important in a classic "cut and thrust" duel than in a modern SD situation.

Why did I buy it? Because I like daggers. And the over-hyped stuff generally worshipped on these forums really is hugely overpriced in this country, and hugely under performs for the amount of money they cost. This (and other Vaciacraft) dagger is unusual, a nice pleasing design, medium-good build quality, and available at a decent price without having to import from the US.

One last thing. On the few times I've asked about Vaciacraft daggers and swords, the only voices have been of dissent. The usual "never heard of them, must be POS" that any non-fashionable blade maker gets. I think KWM was the only person willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Over at netsword.com, I read 27 threads all of which said Vacicraft swords and daggers weren't worth buying, despite not one of the 70+ posters actually owning one of them! I know people are wary of unknown companies, and though this maker deserved a chance at a simple honest review rather than just "well I heard" or "looks to me" comments by people that don't actually own any of their products. As it is, I'm withholding judgment on the swords until I get my first one delivered (what with the four-day weekend and the state of our postal service, will probably be next Monday (8 days) before it gets delivered. But going purely on the knife, I think it might really stand up to the "battle ready" claims. One thing's for sure, I'd rather buy four Vacicraft daggers than one Cold Steel Trail Master for the same money. Really there is no comparison is there? Fit and finish is just as good, the steel on the CS may be 5-10% better, but it's smaller than any of the Vaciacraft line, has nasty rubber handles, and looks ugly as hell. I know the way my money's going.

 

[gearGOON]

shortgoth,
i was skimming through your review and i noticed that you encountered a situation that i had just dealt with. i just got an HI khukuri with a mirror finish and i decided i would prefer a satin finish. like you, I messed around with sandpaper, stones, etc and found that they didn't work so hot (the HI is hand forged like your dagger, so it too had "pools" of mirror finish untouched by my sandpaper). i finally found something that easily put on an attractive satin finish (at least i think it's attractive)...a plain old 3M green scrubby pad. because the pad is relatively soft, it hugs the imperfections in the blade a produces a very consistant finish. if you're fairly careful to keep your scrubbing parallel (i scrubbed from tip to grip, but i'll you could go edge to edge if you prefer), you can quickly make a pretty spiffy looking surface. anyway, i thought you might want to try it if you're not satisfied with the results you got by other means.

have fun,
e.

 

[Ken Cook]

Shortgoth,

Good review, but I've got to take some issue with your opinions concerning daggers.
(Didn't you know somebody would?)

The earliest flint knives were nothing but a rock with a sharp edge knapped on it. It was much more of a hand held "ax blade" than what we would think of as a knife, but it's use was primarily as a knife.

It was only with the advent of flint tipped spears and much greater refinement in the art of knapping flint that the double edged blade appeared, and then it was reserved for hunting tools and weapons. Single edged flint knives were still the mainstay of early utility knife users. The primary reason for this is simple. It took twice as much work to make a double edged knife than it took to make a single edged one. Why go to the extra effort when it's not needed and the results will be less than desirable?

Although I am quite fond of daggers both for their beauty and their efficiency, I have to say they generally make lousy "work" knives. You can't choke up on the blade for added leverage, the balance is all wrong for any chopping use, they make lousy skinners, etc...

Yes, a dagger can be pressed into light utility use if needed, but it's primary purpose for the last million years has been as a hunting/fighting tool. That doesn't make it a "bad" knife any more than a bayonet lug makes an AR-15 a "bad" gun. "Good" and "bad" are found in the intentions of the user, the tool is just a tool.

 

[shortgoth]

Gear goon, thanks, I'll give that a try.

Ken, sounds like you got me on that one. Obviously my research isn't deep enough.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

The largest problem with daggers for utility use, from a basic design point of view, is the very obtuse primary grinds. Essentially they are double sabre ground on narrow stock, this leads to relatively low cutting ability. Other problems are the large guards, thin tips, light to neutral balance, and often slick grips. However all of these are nothing that can't be solved. A smatchet is essentially a dagger than has been modified for utility use. Gone are the large guards, thin point, narrow body and neutral balance.

The biggest problem that remains is that you have a sharpened upper edge which means you can't readily place your hand there, nor can you hit it with anything for cutting hardened objects or splitting. On the plus side you can, as noted, adjust the edge angle, which allows a many to one increase in cutting ability. For dedicated brush cutting this is a *tremendous* advantage. Just consider having to do eight hours of work, and suddenly having it turned into four or even two. Or from another point of view it increases your power (or recovery time) many times to one. Not insignificant by any means.

In regard to the harsh comments made about such companies, there is a lot of junk out there, and often one of the biggest problems with them is the lack of QC. Yes you can get a really good product if you are lucky (Ontario, Tramontina), but you can also get really bad ones not too infrequently. I just did some searching on "Vaciacraft" and turn up some facts like guaranteed for 30 days, that would have made be easily pass them by. In any case, it looks like you got a solid piece. Real feedback, instead of propogated "facts" is always valuable. I would be interested in how this holds up to extended use.

-Cliff