Fugitive PassAround - Reviews Are In!

Psyop said:
Nice review!
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Thanks
daizee said:
I really like that handle (from this distance anyway).

-Daizee
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Honestly, I thought it looked nice, but was concerned that I would not have the grip and comfort I like during heavy cutting. I was genuinely pleased with the handle in spite of my preliminary concerns.

I forgot to mention that I had some pretty gnarly blisters from shoveling snow days prior to receiving this knife, and I was able to do some pretty substantial cutting without aggravating things.

Blais said:
Nice write-up, Ken.
:thumbup:
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Thank you, sir.
 
Unit,
Awesome review! I like how detailed it is and thoughts about what happens why and how it might impact different users really shows your experience.

Thank you. :)
 
Thanks.

This knife should reach it's next destination on Saturday. It is ready for more;)
 
since it didn't show up today, I won't get it until Tuesday - Monday's a postal holiday and they don't deliver the mail on Saturday to the office. (Although I will be there...)
 
I tried to make some videos of this knife in action but my equipment just isn't what it used to be.

I should probably give some final words on this one before I forget them.

After I did the carving and fire making exercise (practical testing) I moved into...shall we say...less practical testing.

As some may know I used to compete in Blade Sports (competitive cutting). Much of my experience with this is with highly specialized, thinly ground, highly refined competition knives. In that regard, I sharpened the edge on this knife (the Fugitive) and polished it exactly the same way I do on my comp knives.

I then set out to attempt many of the cuts we do in competition (free hanging rope, free standing thick cardboard tubes, rolling golf balls, water bottles (full and empty), and others.

While the knife failed (in my hands) to make about 2/3s of the cuts I tried, it is NOT a competition knife and therefore lacks a lot of the attributes that make these cuts possible.

That said, it retained a nice sharp edge through it all with only minor degradation. (The next reviewer will be able to provide insight regarding this....I only stropped the edge before sending it forward to him).

While this is sort if pointless, I'll share some of the cuts and indicate success or failure.

Free standing 3" diameter thick walled cardboard tube. 10 attempts all failed between 1/2 and 2/3s through.

Free standing water bottle. success every time.

Free hanging hemp rope 1". 20 attempts all successful

1.5 inch hemp rope. 20 attempts, all failed

2 inch hemp rope. 5 attempts all failed.

Golf ball. 20 attempts. 8 success (the rest did not cleave in a single blow).

Plastic cap and hard plastic neck of free standing water bottle. 2 attempts, both successful.

http://youtu.be/jOUqJdhKmw4
 
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Since the Fugitive was never designed, built, ground, balanced, intended or sharpened to be a BladeSports Competition Cutting Knife, I'm not at all shocked by your findings. It's not a straight-razor or a splitting maul either, so... there's that... ;) I must say though... that's not an entirely unacceptable success rate for a medium-sized SERE knife in those sorts of tests... but I'll leave that for others to decide.

As for unit's video - which I find tremendously amusing :) - I will only point out that in various conversations, folks have asked me if the round choil/sharpening notch/thingamabob between the edge and the guard is meant to be used as a cap-lifter.

It is not meant for opening beer bottles or scraping sparks off your ferro-rod. (I leave a portion of the spine crisp and square for scraping purposes, and I will include a churchkey with any THK knife if you're really that thirsty.) Opening bottles with your survival knife is a terrible idea, and doing so would only cause you to dull the edge right where you need it for tasks like whittling tent-stakes and peeling apples. It's just meant to catch something that might slip down along the edge, and prevent it from possibly jumping over the guard and injuring your hand.

[video=youtube;jOUqJdhKmw4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOUqJdhKmw4&feature=youtu.be[/video]
 
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james terrio said:
Since the Fugitive was never designed, built, ground, balanced, intended or sharpened to be a BladeSports Competition Cutting Knife, I'm not at all shocked by your findings. It's not a straight-razor or a splitting maul either, so... there's that... ;)
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Yes, I think the real take away here, is that it did quite well at some fairly unreasonable tasks asked of it, and most notable of all, it retained a sharp edge.

Funny you mention a straight razor, I almost attempted a shave with it. This steel seems to have a nice fine grain and hones to a nice smooth edge.
 
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Great reviews, Ken. I always look forward to hearing and/or reading your thoughts.

It is pretty impressive that it did as well as you describe in the "less practical testing". Especially considering it was designed with different uses in mind.
 
unit said:
Funny you mention a straight razor, I almost attempted a shave with it. This steel seems to have a nice fine grain and hones to a nice smooth edge.
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I have no concerns whatsoever about grain size and consistency with this steel, certainly not to any degree that anyone I know would be able to determine in use.

I built this Fugitive proto and had it HT'ed in a continuing attempt to exploit Elmax's maximum toughness at what I consider to be a standard hardness for knives of this size/style - 58Rc. That's hard enough to develop full strength and allow the carbide-forming elements to come to the fore, but not so hard as to be in a completely different class from more familiar alloys. It also happens to be pretty much the industry's baseline for a good hard, tough knife... although that standard is inching upwards as more manu's and makers use more complex steels. (60Rc is becoming much more common, and 62Rc is no longer unheard of...)

This whole endeavor is a direct result of me asking myself, "can modern 'stainless' steels approach - or even beat - classic alloys like O1 and 1095 in terms of toughness and durability?" We shall see.

I've not even begun to explore Elmax's potential for truly serious edge stability at higher hardness levels and different tempering protocols, in much thinner, more refined edges that are designed to be used much more gently. That's a whole different can of worms :)
 
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Thanks Cooper.

I thought I'd add some flavor. There are various theories on reviewing knives. Mine is to shoot for the middle ground between a bunch of tasks the knife EASILY succeeds at and a bunch of tasks that destroy the knife (both show us very little).

Is it really necessary to know your knife can stab through a car hood and pry open a fire door on a bank vault? Is it really a shock that your knife can slice peppers, tomatoes, and chicken for your fajitas?

How about knowing that it won't be able to cleave 2 inch barge rope in a single whack...but it'll get it in the second or third and still have a keen enough edge to whittle a figure 4 trigger notch.

As for the golf balls and plastic bottles...sometimes a guy just needs to have fun;)
 
I'm looking forward to future reviews.
 
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The Fugitive looks great James! Great review, I am looking forward to more opinions of this knife.

Jeremy
 
apparently the USPS likes the knife - it spent 4 days in Kansas City before heading back where it came from instead of trundling my way.
 
USPS is pretty efficient. You probably did not know that the most efficient way from central missouri to Kansas involves travel to St. Louis then to Kansas, then back to St. Louis, then back to Kansas. These guys know what they are doing;)
 
I've sent multiple knives to Canada, Norway, Sweden, Australia and just about every state in the Union... yet this one may still end up holding the record for most miles traveled :confused:

"Fugitive", indeed :D
 
unit said:
USPS is pretty efficient. You probably did not know that the most efficient way from central missouri to Kansas involves travel to St. Louis then to Kansas, then back to St. Louis, then back to Kansas. These guys know what they are doing;)
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and now it's been delivered -- to you........

want to try mailing it again, or would you rather meet up for lunch tomorrow in Independence?
 
Well for Pete's sake :rolleyes: I'm sorry this has turned into such a hassle for you guys, it was intended to be fun.
 
I shipped it again. I have to work tomorrow so meeting is out unfortunately.

USPS is getting a real stink-eye from me. This may be the last time I ship with them. I shipped it in the exact package it came in (when James sent it to me) and now they rejected it (after parading it all over creation) stating that the packaging was unacceptable (not because it was haphazard, rather, because it was apparently a box created by recycling and cutting down an old one rate box). By the way, they charged me more than it cost to ship it to me the first time...twice.

So the take away from this is:
Never recycle packaging, thou shall waste.
Never ship priority in anything that resembles a fragment of a one rate box.

I think tomorrow I may cart in a balsa wood box filled with a helium filled balloon and when it floats above the scale, I will demand they pay me to ship a negative weight parcel:D
 
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sorry for the hassle -- I'm amazed that one post office is allowed to reject a package that a different one accepted - and then bill you for it.
 
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