When are we going to do another Knife Challenge?

[rwn2000]

I'm in, either way but would prefer the "last ditck/neck knife" over a tin knife

randy

 

[james terrio]

I'm very interested.

I think a ' Last Ditch ' knife would throw up more ideas, some might consider it a Neck knife some a Tin knife and yet others might consider it a little Bush-craft or Bird & Trout type knife that would sit unnoticed on a belt.

That makes a lot of sense to me. Set several clear tasks that need to be performed, instead of arbitrary size/material limitations. Why exclude the guys who like to carry one big honkin' camp knife or bowie? It would make for very interesting comparisons, especially in terms of overall usefulness and "carryability". There's only so much you can do with an Altoids-tin knife, either in terms of design or use... and quite frankly that's not a whole lot.


Cost of the finished product is a very real factor to most people, so that should be a parameter for comparison in any challenge.

If you really want to keep costs/size/complexity under control, simply do a separate beginner knife challenge with tin or kit knives. That opens it up to pretty much anyone with a chunk of steel or an old file, some gumption, a campfire and a kitchen oven.

 

[Brian.Evans]

I'm very interested.



That makes a lot of sense to me. Set several clear tasks that need to be performed, instead of arbitrary size/material limitations. Why exclude the guys who like to carry one big honkin' camp knife or bowie? It would make for very interesting comparisons, especially in terms of overall usefulness and "carryability". There's only so much you can do with an Altoids-tin knife, either in terms of design or use... and quite frankly that's not a whole lot.


Cost of the finished product is a very real factor to most people, so that should be a parameter for comparison in any challenge.

If you really want to keep costs/size/complexity under control, simply do a separate beginner knife challenge with tin or kit knives. That opens it up to pretty much anyone with a chunk of steel or an old file, some gumption, a campfire and a kitchen oven.

Interesting points JT, very interesting. I would be interested to see how one of my smaller knives designed to be carried on a day hike compares with a larger knife in the same tasks.

I second a separate tin knife challenge. Emphasis on separate. Or heck, let 'em join in with the main challenge. That might be interesting too. No point in carrying a knife that hasn't been tested......

 

[daizee]

I have purchased a tin of Altoids...

I'm quite curious how a couple of my small standard designs would fare in such a role compared to designed-to-task competition.

There's only so much you can do with an Altoids-tin knife, either in terms of design or use... and quite frankly that's not a whole lot.

That's the 'challenge' part.

 

[james terrio]

That's the 'challenge' part.

Well, of course. If you restrict the parameters to only include knives that are that small, it only boils down to which of them can cut well - which ain't much of a challenge. By definition, none of them will be terribly useful at much of anything, or perform at all well in a wide variety of tasks. A survivalist or castaway would be much better-served by a cheap package of Stanley utility-knife blades.

(I know that will piss a lot of people off, but it's a stone-cold fact. Wanna do a challenge about that? )

I'll put my 4" SideKick against any "Altoid tin knife" on the planet, and wipe the floor with it in terms of the sheer number of tasks it can perform very well. That's not a "challenge" at all.

So if y'all want to do a tin-knife contest, have at it, that's cute... I mean great. Yeah, that's... gonna be fascinating. Count me out.

If you cats and kittens want to do a true general-purpose survival knife challenge, don't pussy-foot around. Let's blow the doors off this thing... no limits on how large or small, just pick a wide-ranging set of bushcraft/survival tasks and allow any maker to put any knife they want to build up against every other knife for a specific series of work, from fine detail stuff to felling trees.

 

[Outsoul]

I'd love to see a tin knife challenge.

 

[LG&M]

I think a overall size limit and a overview of what will be expected of it would be good. After that leave it up to the maker. A smaller knife might get more to play.
How about has to fit in this?
http://www.planomolding.com/product.php?BCCID=139&PID=726

 

[baldtaco-II]

This picking the size thing could be addressed at the same time as adding a well known small knife as a control.

Instead of adding arbitrary size and weight limitations what about a game of “follow the leader”. Take a well known knife [F1, Ontario USAF survival, Buck Special, KA-BAR, mebe even a Woodlore type or an ESEE 5, .etc] and do stuff with it.

Once you have established a baseline performance with that, say an F1, at food prep [meat, tubers, onions], done edge retention testing, seen how much it squirms in offal, river bank silty mud, or even the classic fistful of washing up liquid, and mebe knocked up a set of emergency snow shoes, you can rank all the submissions against that.

All the maker needs to know is “what is the control knife I'm trying to beat?”, and a gist of the tasks it will undertake. Adapt this model to whatever ballpark size you're after. Can your build thrash an Izula at everything? Are you better off buying and Izula? All builds spanked the Izula, mine most of all!