Whittling with a 110

R

RevolverGuy

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Aug 19, 2015
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This is not my video but just wanted to share. This guy apparently whittles with his Buck 110. Almost makes me want to try my hand at it.

 
When I was in the Navy we'd go camping on the weekends when we were in port in WAState. We lived off trout and beans while out there. We'd cut a billet from a log and carve a spoon out of it. I did it with my 112. I split with it, chopped with it, gutted with it. You used the spoon for the duration of the trip and after the last meal you flung it into the woods.

I wish I had one of the spoons back.
 
Interesting video.
It looked like the second 110 he used had a different blade profile than the first; not as much belly at the tip.
Has Buck changed the blade profile since call it 1974?
The photos I've seen here for the "No Dots" and early "2 Dots" (with two small cover pins) and the 2 Dot (with two mall cover pins) I own do not have the same amount of belly at the tip as my 2014 to 2017 production 110's.
I do not know if this is a design change or simply "a lot of sharpening". My two dot matches the pictures posted here concerning them, so I suspect a design change.
 
To my eyes the date stamp is a 2008, it has large pins. He has polished it and sharpened the belly off. The edge is polished, so he took it to a
high grit around 2-3000 and the blade tip area is thin. I have a 1994 Buck lite that has a thin blade profile like that but with more belly. So, this
change can be done easy. I'll be, a 110 can easily be used as a whittler in the hands of a knowledgeable knife guy. Although English, he makes
a statement for some here. DM
 
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I guess one could carve a spoon with a 110. But there are better knives for the job. The 110 has a lot of extra blade that just gets in the way for that kind of work. Did you notice how much he is choking up on the blade while he carves. If I was picking a Buck to carve with it would be a 301 or 303. I would use the spey blade the most, so I would reprofile the edge on that blade. Making it a lot thinner and sharper.

O.B.
 
Looks like the guy reground the knife to better suit his needs though.

I have found that while you can definitely whittle with a standard 110, it's quite obvious it wasn't designed for it. Dedicated whittlers are better. But hey, the best knife is always what you have with you!
 
These are newer 110s with rounded frames, and, as has been already said, blades have been reshaped.......don't know why he kept that sharp tip. I'd prefer a blunt tip just for safety.

The older 110s with the sharply squared off frames would be uncomfortable to hold for this kind of repetitive work, I would think.
 
I had commented on the video and the whittler replied giving this explanation:

"just to be clear a Buck 110 and a like would normally be absolutely useless for wood carving and I do mean absolutely crap. The grind on this pair of Buck 110s I call the wave grind as it’s not a recognised knife grind each 110 has been reshaped with a motorised Waterstone to take the belly out and make the blade much more pointed this really screws up the edge geometry it then takes up to half a dozen sharpens each blade to get the geometry spot on for woodcarving. And just to be absolutely transparent it’s taken years and hundreds of hours of practice to be able to do this to a blade. This is why you don’t see anyone else carving wood with these knives as the skills needed to sharpen them is very rare outside of Japan."
 
Revolver Guy,

Glad you posted this video. I found it amazing, since I don't seem to have those skills! It put me onto his channel, which has a lot of other videos. I'm especially keen on watching the ones concerned with sharpening convex edges. Thanks for posting!

--Larry
 
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