Why Does Everyone Think 1095 is Tough?

[000Robert]

You should try it. It is great for making fine kindling.

I can make fine kindling with a hatchet much faster. If I was using a fire starter and needed some fluff then I would slice some wooden fluff with my knife.

 

[Londinium Armoury]

Cost, has to be worked cool so it doesn't air harden and then abrasion for all of the steps is slower and in the end, the sword isn't really that much better of a sword (would be my guess).

But the flip side of it is if nobody does it, sooner or later there will be a small group of people who will pay a mint for it.

Friend if mine had a bunch of chisels made out of 3V - really just bar stock stuck in a handle. I devised a novel sharpening method for chisels that helps chisels a bit soft hold a fine edge. After years of talking about how good the chisels were and how tough they were, he sent me a message and said my sharpening method saved his chisels because at 59 hardness, they were too soft.

Sometimes I wonder why stories change so fast like that, but the point of it was that while it may be very tough, and it may have been very abrasion resistant compared to plain steels, it doesn't make a better chisel for use (japanese white II and I are probably about as good as it gets for chisels - 3V can't take the ideal hardness that they can attain and it makes a sweeter-working chisel. Even a shaped and reheated vintage file makes a better chisel, but none of those are likely to be tougher than 3V - the toughness just isn't needed, and neither is wear resistance).

I think most people would agree about the toughness not being needed when it comes to most types of knives and cutting tools we all use everyday, escpecially when it comes to fine edged slicing food prep knives and wood working chisel type blades. There's only really a few type of blades where super high toughness is needed, like competition choppers, machetes maybe as well. That's why I took the discussion over to the sword end of things where more impact abuse is expected to be normal use, where as most people consider hard use kind of abusive for slicing tools.
I think white paper steels are known for taking a very fine thin edge at very high HRC, and is a very pure steel. More toothy wear resistant steels are good for EDC knives where you are just cutting through cardboard and other stuff that can eat up blaade edges. I have noticed chefs and wood workers like a very fine edge, highly polished and not toothy, also soemthing they can touch up reasonably fast. Even when it comes to general EDC folders I tend to carry 2 types with me at all times, 1 CPM steel with Vanadium etc with good wear, and another Sandvik steel like a 12C27 which I put a very fine edge on for slicing and that is easy to re sharpen. I don't really walk around with 3 types of stones on me daily, so if I chip or ding my CPM wear steel, it's going to be a pain in the butt to reprofile outside, but I can reprofile and touch up my Sandvik 12C27 and get it back to razor sharp and remove rolls or chips on the go easily with just a little pocket stone. I like all types of steel, I do enjoy the high wear Bohler and CPM newer steels, but I still find a need for the more simple steels with refined grain structure that take fast fine edges. I've been enjoying my K390 Delica for the past few weeks, it's amazing stuff, but I don't enjoy the thought of repairing a chip on stones. It takes a killer edge and I just hone it on ceramic sticks and strop it back to razor sharp, the edge stability and HRC is insane on it, just not really the type of knife I want to reprofile outside.

 

[D-weaver]

I think most people would agree about the toughness not being needed when it comes to most types of knives and cutting tools we all use everyday, escpecially when it comes to fine edged slicing food prep knives and wood working chisel type blades. There's only really a few type of blades where super high toughness is needed, like competition choppers, machetes maybe as well. That's why I took the discussion over to the sword end of things where more impact abuse is expected to be normal use, where as most people consider hard use kind of abusive for slicing tools.
I think white paper steels are known for taking a very fine thin edge at very high HRC, and is a very pure steel. More toothy wear resistant steels are good for EDC knives where you are just cutting through cardboard and other stuff that can eat up blaade edges. I have noticed chefs and wood workers like a very fine edge, highly polished and not toothy, also soemthing they can touch up reasonably fast. Even when it comes to general EDC folders I tend to carry 2 types with me at all times, 1 CPM steel with Vanadium etc with good wear, and another Sandvik steel like a 12C27 which I put a very fine edge on for slicing and that is easy to re sharpen. I don't really walk around with 3 types of stones on me daily, so if I chip or ding my CPM wear steel, it's going to be a pain in the butt to reprofile outside, but I can reprofile and touch up my Sandvik 12C27 and get it back to razor sharp and remove rolls or chips on the go easily with just a little pocket stone. I like all types of steel, I do enjoy the high wear Bohler and CPM newer steels, but I still find a need for the more simple steels with refined grain structure that take fast fine edges. I've been enjoying my K390 Delica for the past few weeks, it's amazing stuff, but I don't enjoy the thought of repairing a chip on stones. It takes
a killer edge and I just hone it on ceramic sticks and strop it back to razor sharp, the edge stability and HRC is insane on it, just not really the type of knife I want to reprofile outside.

I can't speak for chefs, but yes, as woodworkers, the idea of a coarse edge is one that doesn't really fly. I think proficiency in just about anything involves not damaging tools (perhaps not possible in busting rocks or trimming bricks, but...). I've been experimenting making chisels and plane blades (not new to me). I made my first 1095 irons in the past couple of weeks to see how they go compared to O1. O1 doesn't fare well in Larrin's tests, but it makes an excellent woodworking steel both for chisels and planes (and I've had luck making little knives with it). It's predictable and tough enough.

It sounds odd, I guess, but we tend to pound on narrow bits of steel with a hammer, and still search for a way to do that without damaging an edge and at the same time, without creating one that's blunt or toothy. It turns out to be not that hard.

As far as my narrow experience with 1095, I've made 1084 (on one side of it) and O1, as well as a few irons with XHP (which takes a fairly fine edge and leaves a bright polish, but is a little bit more chippy). I like 1084 and O1 better than 1095, but have only made irons from one bit of bar stock and I get that the quality of 1095 bars isn't always top notch (My O1 is american-made stock, decarbed and precision ground - for woodworking, the edge is ideally situated in relation to the rolled direction, so forging becomes secondary. Some of the same myths exist for us as do with knives, such as forged tools always being tougher or being needed whereas it's really setup, geometry, hardness and technique that prevent damage.

If I had any knife that I was damaging, I'd adjust those prior to relying on steel. I tried the super wonder steel route early on hoping to find something that was just about impervious to damage and long wearing, and neither really can be had without decent technique. With good technique, then all of the types seem to do fine.

(I'm not devoid of super steel tools and knives, either. I've got some CPM-154 - no longer that super, hitachi YXR-7, plenty of more pedestrian HSS tools, and I've dabbled with 3V and M4...oh, and an SGPS knife that hates most of my sharpening stones - it gives up little pits on the bevel under the microscope , which I couldn't break it of doing until I tried finishing the edge with a deburring wheel and a buff after grinding on a friable stone. it LOVES that and the edge is indistinguishable from a fine stainless by feel once that's done, but the edge is always a bit coarse if sharpened on stones).

I argue on both sides of this whole debate - here, it looks like I'm wondering why people will assert that "X is better" when there really shouldn't be any performance difference in skilled use between anything. But I will also generally tangle up people who say things like "1095 is very tough - after all, it's a spring steel". (well, you may not like it that much in a knife if you're using it at spring temper).

 

[D-weaver]

One other thought with all of this - my background is woodoworking tools. There's a sweet spot for efficiency with them. I've learned to try to find it with everything. Straight razors, for example - the modern desire for people new to the sport of shaving is to hone their razors as finely as possible and do it often. Razors actually work better if the edge is preserved and the bevel kept thin. Preserving the edge is generally with linen and leather -the edge gets a tiny bit rounded (still far sharper than most people will deal with using knives, partially due to the 16-18 degree total bevel angle). Once the sweet spot is found, honing doesn't need to be done more than about once every 150-300 shaves, maybe even less. Razors fail by impact, so you use the linen and leather to keep the bleeding edge a bit tougher by geometry. It turns out also to be a good sharpness to shave hair and not shave a pore off on the back side when the hair is lifted (too crisp of an apex at such a low angle can actually do that......you know it as razorburn).

I hone my straight razor (daily shave) about once a year, and the process takes about five minutes.

I'm wired to try to find the sweet spot where everything is accommodated and would never have an issue with a 1095 thick spine blade in the woods as rather than blasting the tool and criticizing it, I'd find the sweet spot for efficiency. Uncontrolled flailing, beyond damaging things, usually results in inefficiency, anyway.

I think sometimes what's less than ideal teaches a user a whole lot more than chasing a technology to use instead of finding the sweet spot. In plane irons, I chased high wear steels to increase the interval to next sharpening, but at some point on a plane that had a softer iron, I learned that the sweet spot for the plane (combined with other setup items) was a thicker shaving, and that turned out to be a much more efficient way to use the plane, in combination with setup and technique, than taking a million thin shavings with a higher wearing iron. This idea of learning and using tools as they like to be used (including knives) rather than expecting them to just "do something like X does, because X can do it, too" is not always popular. My grandparents were farmers. I'm sure because of the era they started, they used something similar to 1095 for butchering (as they got older, they just started to pay someone else to do it). Their knives were touched up often, kept rust free and I don't ever remember hearing them say "I stopped butchering pigs because the knife didn't hold an edge long enough".

They stopped butchering pigs because the rest of the bits and pieces about it are stinky, filthy and hard work.

With knives, I also tend to think that when somebody asserts just how much better one type of knife steel is than another, and we're not talking about hardness or geometry, then the discussion is tending toward fascination with an object and not much fascination for doing work or learning skill. It's a shame to cheat ourselves out of learning skill and tools in the context of a cycle of work, etc.

 

[D-weaver]

I can make fine kindling with a hatchet much faster. If I was using a fire starter and needed some fluff then I would slice some wooden fluff with my knife.

ditto - set the hatchet edge into the kindling quickly, then lift all of it and one tap for each piece of it. No froe or mallet or any of that, though the hatchet can be laid upside down and the kindling malleted into the edge. If there were small dry sticks (there usually are), even hanging dead on trees within reach, I'd skip the kindling, anyway.

 

[Spears]

by the way, this isn't an association fallacy - they use 1095 for just about everything. Nobody said anything about toughness. there's a huge fascination with toughness in most knife circles, but I think it's a cliquey sales point. I don't know where 1095's toughness would be challenged in butchering. This isn't forged in fire or some fake scenario - the knife cuts skin and meat. A saw cuts bone.

What's even a little more strange is that forum members who spend their days reading charts and sharpening knives used in contrived scenarios shoot barbs at groups who are actually using the knives heavily and not for a made-up purpose or a contest.

Ah, my bad. I thought it was implied since you mentioned the "professional environment" and "using knives heavily," I figured that might mean toughness was likely a requirement for the tools used in those situations. If that's not the case, I will retract my statement.

When during butchering is it not likely the edge may accidentally contact bone? What about the cutting board? If the knife is there to cut just skin and meat, they would benefit greatly from a high alloy knife. They would pretty much only need to sharpen it once in a blue moon.

Also, hunters can and do benefit from these steels and their development. I'd reckon it would be beneficial for a hunter to be able to process multiple animals without resharpening in between animals or halfway through processing just one. I'd say that's a pretty good real world situation and not some contrived scenario.

They tend to work pretty fast, actually (the amish) despite backwards stories. They generally have a good disposition and can go into heavy work mode without issue. As to why they generally like 1095 vs. anything else for butchering, they probably like that it grinds easily and is very even. I don't think anyone makes a good thin butcher knife in AEB-L for anything close to the price of the ontario 1095 knives.

For woodworking, I found simpler steels are generally better for me (I do a lot of woodworking from rough to finish just with hand tools). I even did a durability test and found M4 and XHP to be the longest wearing of the steels that I used (high carbide count and good high hardness without being fragile lead to wins in those tests. I used 3V in one with a bos heat treated plane blade, but the spec ordered was 61 on the c scale and it came back 59 - I guess they're just so used to that). XHP was at about 63 and M4 was 64.

In a standardized test, all of those blew away oil hardened steels. When it gets to actually doing woodwork, the plainer steels (O1 and older cast steel) are much tougher at the fine edge for some reason. If the damage gets larger, maybe the story changes (I can trim brass and wood junctions with a high speed steel chisel, but the same chisel lets go of its fine edge earlier - we generally work with angles around 30 degrees, so the higher vanadium steels with large carbides are out -they leave little lines all over work).

At any rate, after doing the standardized test, I found keeping all of the little nicks out of XHP a pain because removing a couple of thousandths of steel all the time is a pain. The plainer steels seemed to be tougher (XHP isn't that tough, but again, the cast steel irons seem to do the best for reasons I couldn't guess - they're not soft by any means to gain toughness). The M4 and 3v irons went back to their respective owners. The desire of 3V to really hold on to a burr when you are going to sharpen 6 or 8 times in a given shop session is a huge pain. M4 sharpened nicely (these are all PMs, not the pre-PM versions), but had more friction in the cut than the other irons and probably cost a moon - a dedicated woodworker may have four bench planes, but a whole bunch of others - perhaps with a hundred irons - M4 isn't practical for that).

When it comes down to it, after all of that, I found ease of sharpening more important as long as an iron wasn't absolute trash - to keep ahead of small nicks and bits, and 3V or anything else takes about twice as long to sharpen, even with diamonds (which you don't have to resort to with cast steel or O1) - just because you have to deal with the burr, etc. Even on diamond, 3v grinds half as fast as harder O1 (thus hones the same amount half as fast) - all of the supposed advantages are negated by screwing around honing and getting cornered into using a specific abrasive.

That long explanation boils down to my guess that the amish can get a 1095 knife and pretty much keep it sharp with a whisper of sharpening here or there, and it's not a nuisance to deal with a burr and no need for prissy sharpening stones that need flattening or this or that. It sharpens on anything and grinds well on hard low maintenance stones.

That's really interesting regarding the Amish. I mean, sometimes simpler is the way to go and if it works for them, it works for them.

I think that burr issue you talked about in 3V might have to do with excess retained austenite (RA). I'm not sure what Bos does regarding RA (maybe accidentally forgot the cryo) but that might explain why the hardness dropped a couple points and the deburring woes. For large cross sections in non-cutting industrial applications, some RA might be well and dandy, but at the apex of a knife, RA is known to make deburring and sharpening more of an issue. Wear resistance might have been reduced as well.

XHP at 63 probably wouldn't have been the best for that application. Toughness drops to low single digits at that hardness. That's probably why you were seeing all the little nicks pop up. I think if you dropped the hardness down to 60-61, it would have gotten back quite a bit more toughness and you would have seen less nicking and still have increased wear resistance over the simpler tools. What hardness were the other simple carbon steels at? O1 can be ~30 ft/lb at 60.

Going back to OPs original question. I think another factor that contributes to a false conclusion of the intrinsic properties of a material is that sometimes ductility is equated to toughness. Seeing a knife bend 90 degrees not break makes the knife seem "tough." However, again, ductility is property that can measured separately from toughness. There are materials with high ductility but low toughness and vice versa.

Seeing a 1095 knife in a vice getting hit with a hammer several times and having the knife permanently deform instead of breaking, people are likely to think that 1095 knife is "tough." While, then seeing a 3V knife in the same vice break after getting hit a couple times with the same hammer, and people are likely to say that 3V knife isn't as "tough" as the 1095 knife that just bent. However, by the numbers, that's just not the case.

 

[D-weaver]

If contact with bones or cutting between them ruins a 1095 edge, then something is wrong. I don't know what hardness vintage knives were, but the ones that amish buy now are mid to high 50s hardness, so even with 1095, there's no toughness issue.
. THey
As per my comment above, high repetition environments generally involve skill and the person wielding the knife doesn't do things that will damage it, but they will appreciate not spending much time between sessions resharpening or steeling. Not sure what the amish do.

The whole quaint thing that most people apply to amish is off kilter. They're very rigid and work like crazy (and there are bad apples here and there -we always had trouble keeping them out of our woods when we were hunting. Property rights aren't a real big thing to them, and I've heard people say that the land isn't really ours, we're borrowing it from God and some of them see it that way. When you're hunting and come across them, they leave when you ask them, but they'll be back so long as they're nearby. They don't need treestands, either- the younger guys are fit, not particularly into safety and will climb a main stem of a tree with no branches without any issue.

The difference between them and someone reading the internet looking for something they can hit with an iron mallet instead of pine is that they're just trying to get their work done relatively efficiently. They don't really lose focus on that, and despite the simplistic view of them, they are extremely analytical (especially at the arithmetic level - they may be less interested in chemistry), and if you do anything around them and they can do it better, be ready for a barrage of questions about why you're doing things the way you are.

I could never live like they do, and the people who think they're cute would lose interest after the first 3 1/2 hour church session sitting on a wooden bench with no back. And the lack of deodorant can be tough (I've been to weddings with a few attending, which they're not supposed to do, but some will if you invite them. They'll wear a nicely made shirt and coat, but still bring a spicy aroma!

My point in all of the above, though, is that I think being fascinated with knives and steels is far away from completing work or learning to use tools. I don't have an issue with that, but most people who would say they need a certain knife that could be swing into bone or whatever would be hanging a pig and the amish would be done with theirs, touch up their knife and be on to the next one. The same thing applies in woodworking. The fascination with edge retention and improvement of this or that doesn't really exist in the few who do professional work mostly by hand. A predictable edge and sharpening routine in a cycle of work are far more important.

re: the XHP - it does make a good plane iron, and it lasts a long time and will leave a bright polished surface. Most people don't care about a little bit of notching and would hate sharpening 61 hardness 3V to get the same or less edge life. I'm not sure that 3V would get through much work without losing bits off of its edge, either. I can't reconcile all of the tests about toughness with fine edge holding or edge stability - the toughest plane iron that I have (that will be the last to take any damage, knots or whatever else) is just plain cast steel from 150 years ago or so, it's not that soft and it'll go through dry knots and whatever else that will chip everything that's described as tougher on a chart. But that's just the very tip of the iron - i'd bet if you did a notching test or hammered it into a nail, there are a lot of modern steels that don't hold their tip of the apex that well that would have no issue with the nail. A large part of the old plain steel tools will chip out spectacularly. It's a matter of what the test is.

 

[Chapp]

I thought bushcrafting was about learning to do things with basic tools and being able to adapt to different scenarios.
Batoning seems like the opposite of that. Sacrificing versatility so it can do a specific task in a specific way instead of learning the different methods on splitting a log.
If you want to save weight then replace that big knife with a smaller one and carve some wedges to drive into the logs.

What kind of gatekeeping is that ? Outside of your headcanon, there are no fancy rules about bushcraft.

Bushcrafting is making yourself confortable in outdoor situation, in a self-sufficient way. That's it.

Speaking of versatility a good bushcraft knife (Esee 6 for exemple) will always be way more versatile than an axe or a saw. In fact, a knife is probably you're most versatile tool.

I don't care about spending precious energy to carve wedges into wood or fancy dumb techniques. Batonning with a knife is effective, fast and energy efficient. In fact, I'd even argue it's more energy efficient than using an axe, less prone to mistake too since you have more control for spliting wood (one big swing vs smaller taps). Managing your energy is a big part of bushcraft, not because of fancy rules, but because it's survival 101.

 

[Arathol]

Also, hunters can and do benefit from these steels and their development. I'd reckon it would be beneficial for a hunter to be able to process multiple animals without resharpening in between animals or halfway through processing just one. I'd say that's a pretty good real world situation and not some contrived scenario.

The problem there as I see it is if the knife should need to be resharpened in the field in the middle of processing doing so might be a real pain with some of the new so called "super steels", where with old school carbon steel 1095 a few swipes on the stone and you are back in business. If you have never done this sort of thing you should give it a try........might open your eyes to the difference between the real world and what the internet experts have to say...

Seeing a 1095 knife in a vice getting hit with a hammer several times and having the knife permanently deform instead of breaking, people are likely to think that 1095 knife is "tough." While, then seeing a 3V knife in the same vice break after getting hit a couple times with the same hammer, and people are likely to say that 3V knife isn't as "tough" as the 1095 knife that just bent. However, by the numbers, that's just not the case.

So, if a 1095 knife just bends a bit in a situation where a knife made from a much acclaimed super steel breaks, how does that make the 3V better? I find that "numbers" can be made to mean whatever you want them to mean when put in the right context. How does that help you if you have one knife and it breaks when you try to do a simple task such as making a fire because its just too brittle? A broken knife that is straight is still a broken knife ... I'd rather have a knife in one piece that is slightly deformed and still has a working edge than two parts of a broken knife.

 

[D-weaver]

What's the likelihood of getting in a survival situation vs. getting in a spat on a forum about a survival situation. Then, beyond that, what's the likelihood of carrying 1095, having it break in a survival situation and dying because of it?

I live in the NE/Midwest transition area (pittsburgh). There's a fair amount of remote area around here, but it'd be pretty hard to die anywhere around here if you just picked a direction from the sun and walked in a straight line. Sooner or later, you'll run into a road or private property.

I'm not a bushcrafter, so visualizing survival scenarios is pretty far out to me. I did cut into a staple in a box today (and didn't know it was there). I think this would've done some edge damage to any edge (I used a really cheap knife and fixed it with an india stone, a deburring wheel and a buffer in 8 seconds over a minute).

 

[Smiling]

It depends...
@EatingSarma has been cutting wires and cables with his D2 Boker GoBag that cost him like 25€...
I wanted to intervene as D2 is supposed to be chippy and chip out on such use, but his edge suffered no damage at all. He's using that knife for these tasks fairly often. But according to internet - it should have chipped...

I tried the same with my 3V - it also received no damage at all. That is no surprise.

Out of curiosity, I tried to do the same with my SK5 CRKT Mossback B&T when I got home - there was some dulling after copper wire (the very edge folded on itself).

Later I asked him to do the same with his ESEE3 which is 1095 - part of his edge got pressed in he said.

None of that was damage that can't be fixed in few minutes on a stone but results are rather interesting.
SK5 and 1095 are softer, so they both took some damage.
3V performed as expected, while I didn't think that D2 can cut metal without taking damage as it's known as brittle steel.

 

[Arathol]

What's the likelihood of getting in a survival situation vs. getting in a spat on a forum about a survival situation. Then, beyond that, what's the likelihood of carrying 1095, having it break in a survival situation and dying because of it?

I live in the NE/Midwest transition area (pittsburgh). There's a fair amount of remote area around here, but it'd be pretty hard to die anywhere around here if you just picked a direction from the sun and walked in a straight line. Sooner or later, you'll run into a road or private property.

I'm not a bushcrafter, so visualizing survival scenarios is pretty far out to me. I did cut into a staple in a box today (and didn't know it was there). I think this would've done some edge damage to any edge (I used a really cheap knife and fixed it with an india stone, a deburring wheel and a buffer in 8 seconds over a minute).

Yeah, the what-would-you-do scenarios can be a bit over the top but things do happen...hunters get lost all the time....cars get stuck 100 miles from nowhere....planes crash in the wilderness.....walking out in a couple hours before nightfall isn't always an option, and sometimes seeing the sun isn't either. Lots of folks have walked in circles until they died from exposure. Rule #1 when lost is stay put if possible.....

 

[Zeunerite]

I don't care about spending precious energy to carve wedges into wood or fancy dumb techniques. Batonning with a knife is effective, fast and energy efficient. In fact, I'd even argue it's more energy efficient than using an axe, less prone to mistake too since you have more control for spliting wood (one big swing vs smaller taps). Managing your energy is a big part of bushcraft, not because of fancy rules, but because it's survival 101.

Carving out wedges doesn't use up much energy at all. If that's not your thing, fine I'm not forcing you.
I've tried batonning before and it didn't feel more efficient at all to me compared to using a hatchet. Contact splitting and the sissy stick method solves the control and safety issue.

Are you sure you're not the one gatekeeping by making it seem like there's only one right way to do things and discarding all other ways as inferior?

 

[Arathol]

Later I asked him to do the same with his ESEE3 which is 1095 - part of his edge got pressed in he said.

None of that was damage that can't be fixed in few minutes on a stone but results are rather interesting.
SK5 and 1095 are softer, so they both took some damage.
3V performed as expected, while I didn't think that D2 can cut metal without taking damage as it's known as brittle steel.

As has been said, heat treatment is a big factor. For those who think regular 1095 can't be as good other steels, if you don't the name Frank Richtig you should look him up....

 

[D-weaver]

Yeah, the what-would-you-do scenarios can be a bit over the top but things do happen...hunters get lost all the time....cars get stuck 100 miles from nowhere....planes crash in the wilderness.....walking out in a couple hours before nightfall isn't always an option, and sometimes seeing the sun isn't either. Lots of folks have walked in circles until they died from exposure. Rule #1 when lost is stay put if possible.....

It raised curiosity for me more along the lines of if you were going somewhere that could happen, what would you take?

I'd have a gps tracking/messaging device. I've been lost in the laurel mountains here before, but it's a matter of inconvenience, like "OK, how dark are we going to let it get before we flag someone down on the next road we come across". What else would I take? paraffin wax or something - a couple of ounces of it so that I could start several fires without having to split kindling (and a cheap buck folder to cut meat). IT's not hard to pick a smooth rock out of a creek bottom and sharpen one of those and bark or stick strop it.

 

[Arathol]

Carving out wedges doesn't use up much energy at all. If that's not your thing, fine I'm not forcing you.
I've tried batonning before and it didn't feel more efficient at all to me compared to using a hatchet. Contact splitting and the sissy stick method solves the control and safety issue.

Are you sure you're not the one gatekeeping by making it seem like there's only one right way to do things and discarding all other ways as inferior?

This...I use a small GB hatchet and a 3 or 4 inch diameter branch to split small logs. Doing it with a knife seems asking for trouble, but then again if that is all you have.... no one way is any better than any other if the circumstances allow.

 

[D-weaver]

As has been said, heat treatment is a big factor. For those who think regular 1095 can't be as good other steels, if you don't the name Frank Richtig you should look him up....

Not being a knife person, but having made knives (and preferring to drive them to high hardness and leave them as close to quench hardness as I can), I've seen a lot of listings for 1095 knives from ontario, et al.

I'm guessing the reason for the soft temper is partially due to not knowing what someone will do with them, but also due to hammering them straight after they're quenched. A knife with a gentle wave can be tapped into straightness at 62 hardness without much issue, though, but 65 .....not sure. i have heard the ping of a splitting blade once in my life after hand filing a nice wharncliffe blade out of an old chisel for a pocket knife. Once was enough. It was at too high of hardness and I treated it in a way that it must not have liked, tapping on it on an anvil. I've since done the same many times, but only after temper. What was going through my head at the time was the idea that industrial files get a final straightening of the blank after hardening, but there's some little secret they're not telling. I recall seeing the process and the straightening was done right after quench with the comment that "the ductility that allows this process is ductility that's gone after a short period of time, so the files are straightened right away".

Anyway, we all like different things. The idea of a 58 hardness 1095 blade breaking due to malleting would be the last thing on my mind. Once some of these over the counter inexpensive knives dip a point of two below that yet they'd have to have a quench defect to break easily.

re the comments above - it is interesting that the PM blades will not tolerate a significant bend, but forged or rolled stock knives will. But somehow that gets thrown out on a technicality or something.

 

[Arathol]

It raised curiosity for me more along the lines of if you were going somewhere that could happen, what would you take?

I'd have a gps tracking/messaging device. I've been lost in the laurel mountains here before, but it's a matter of inconvenience, like "OK, how dark are we going to let it get before we flag someone down on the next road we come across". What else would I take? paraffin wax or something - a couple of ounces of it so that I could start several fires without having to split kindling (and a cheap buck folder to cut meat). IT's not hard to pick a smooth rock out of a creek bottom and sharpen one of those and bark or stick strop it.

You can prepare for anything you can think of, but how much are you willing to carry? Most places around the NE you really don't need much. A good knife, a fire steel, a small hatchet, maybe some strike anywhere matches in a match safe, a compass, a 9 volt battery or two and some steel wool for emergency fire starting if you absolutely need it.... Fire making material is easy to find. Dry pine needles and pine cones are common and burn well, birch bark generally can start a fire even wet....Electronic stuff doesn't run forever.....a first aid kit should be in your vehicle, it can also help you get a fire going if you know how and its properly stocked.....

 

[D-weaver]

a cell phone, an extra battery and if I were out of cell range (like in a really serious way), a satellite messenger would be necessary. The combination of those would be about a pound. Imagine feeling like you're lost with no cell coverage and no real interest in being lost for several days and tapping something that's similar to a transponder in an airplane. You're being rescued in hours instead of days and unless you're trapped in a cave, you have a signal.

I used to follow a guy who ended up later being on ice road truckers. He would go out in the bush in northern canada and at great expense, rent a satellite phone - it's a survival issue at that point when you're in the middle of nowhere with the potential of losing your duds through a frozen lake. I always watch TV about stuff like that with a stinkeye, but had seen him doing what he did (harvesting scrap out of the bush and hauling freight across frozen lakes with bulldozers) for about ten years before seeing that. Interesting dude - the satellite phone struck me as "this guy is out there all his life and he has to rent a satellite phone when he goes to unknown places, I guess no matter how rugged you are, there's a measure of safety needed". His trip distances were far, and to say the means were sparse out there is an understatement. "the land of the toothpick trees" he'd call it. If his trips were a bit farther north, the trees got smaller and smaller until there were none.

Relative of mine heads west every couple of years and goes with a guide to hunt. Not out and back to the lodge at night, but out. If I were one of those guides, I'd think a GPS messager would be cheap insurance.

 

[Chapp]

Carving out wedges doesn't use up much energy at all. If that's not your thing, fine I'm not forcing you.
I've tried batonning before and it didn't feel more efficient at all to me compared to using a hatchet. Contact splitting and the sissy stick method solves the control and safety issue.

Are you sure you're not the one gatekeeping by making it seem like there's only one right way to do things and discarding all other ways as inferior?

Don't shift the blame, I'm not the one who made up what bushcrafting was supposed to be. You were the one trying to push precious rules about it just above. Now you're trying to push some buzzword to make splitting wood like it's some black technical magic. Sissy Stick method and contact splitting ? Yeah...

I never said big knives were better than axes. I said that TO ME, they're more energy efficient, less bothersome and allow more control. Every solution is fine to me as long as you can get through. That's what bushcraft is and that's exactly what I replied to you above. I've skinned a small dear with a cheap 6$ victorinox office knife and made a lantern with a flashlight and an hand sanitizer plastic bottle (yes it works), everything is possible.

However, when I see office-warriors trying to downplay the usefulness of batonning and suggesting an axe instead, it annoys me. A full-fledged axe is too cumberstone when I have to cover long-distance for some kind of hunts or go to far away spots. They're just too big and too heavy next to a big knife, especially when you have already have a Remington 700 on your back. I hear the argument about hatchets, but I found them horrible to use next to batonning or a full-fledged axe. I've tried a bunch of those, even pricey ones and I always get back to batonning.