A Simple Cold Steel San Mai III Trail Master Review:

This thread is all over the place!

I have a china sk-5 TM that has seen years of hard chopping

Also have a mint san mai and a used carbon V TM that i picked up online but have not used due to the sk-5 doing the job

Even have an extra in the box sk-5 in the vault.......

I like the trailmaster
 
Brad "the butcher";14851658 said:
This thread is all over the place!

I have a china sk-5 TM that has seen years of hard chopping

Also have a mint san mai and a used carbon V TM that i picked up online but have not used due to the sk-5 doing the job

Even have an extra in the box sk-5 in the vault.......

I like the trailmaster
Click to expand...

Don't baton with it, because it will fail if they have not changed the design of the transition
 
Well, after some searching, I guess laminating the blade makes for a strong feature that negates the weak point mentioned above. Here is some proof that the San Mai trailmaster is actually a fairly tough blade:

[video=youtube;_E7hjGNaIe4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E7hjGNaIe4[/video]
 
I would love to see more info about the blade and tang transition to see if the TM has stress riser.
 
cbach8tw said:
I would love to see more info about the blade and tang transition to see if the TM has stress riser.
Click to expand...

Based on the many failures, I would say it does, but the laminated steel compensates for that apparently.
 
I had the trail master in San Mai for 10 or so years. Lots of chopping ability for the weight.

I never had any issues with mine.

The stick tang can be fine. I believe Resiprine C is a superior handle material, hands down.

I did experience a bit of wiggle in the handle after years of yse. Just a smidge. But it was enough to notice when chopping hard, when the knife wanted to torque in the hand.

The steel is great. I wish they would put a bit of a radius in the tang/ricasso area.

I never had any issues with mine, but the handle material, and that was only alter years. It is not immune to deet, and not as thermally stable as I would like.

I had a Busse Basic11 with that feature, and the rest c handle material. It was less pointy, and more choppy, but the addition of a clip point would affect that.

My issue with the Trail master in San Mai is the price point. At that price, you are getting into custom, and higher end production prices. Like Busse, and more than Swamprat, Scrap Yard.

I have to say that I did not pay anywhere near retail for mine. I got it from a dealer when they stopped caring it. It was the display model, and had the price sticker plaque on the blade, so I got it for a screaming price (more than 70% off).

I used it for a long time, and sold it for what I paid.

It did teach me the beauty of convex grinds though. Very well executed.












Also, I have to say this, seperately, I have mote than a double handful of Cold Steel products, and can't say enough grest things about most of them.

Hawks, shovel, bad axe, kobun, recon 1's, safe keeper III, Pocker Bushman, Black Rhino, Gi tanto, throwing knives, big bore blow Guns (hands down, no competition the best blow gun I've used in 30 years of having them), pole ax, machetes..

Just so many great products from CS that are really killing from a use for the money standard.

But in the end, I sold the San Mai trailmaster.
 
Last edited:
The design of the TM blade is near ideal in my opinion. It is just too bad that CS does not just go one step further and give it a great handle. It will cost you about $40 in materials to rehandle one if you do it yourself. If you get one at a great discount it may be worth it, but only in the San Mai model. My understanding is that Hatori makes the San Mai for both CS and Falkniven. But Falkniven goes the extra step with handles.
 
Doctor_big said:
So the idea of a Trailmaster outperforming 99% of all knives is hyperbole. It's a great knife (I have one) but it's not Thor's hammer...
Click to expand...

If you take all the knives made by custom knife makers in the world, as well as all of the knives made by the makers with subs on BF, and even schrade, Gerber, as well as every single American made chopper, euro chopper etc, they do not account for even a 10th of a percent of all the knives in the world. Most of which are Pakistani or Chinese crapper knives, or kitchen knives.

So 99% is conservative, and every knife maker, who makes a chopper, could say the same thing, and it would be true.
 
jac_solar said:
I noticed this quote before, and was wondering if it's in any way true?
Click to expand...

It isn't true. It isn't true for the San mai III mostly because the convex edge robs it of a lot of wood chopping performance, and the edge is also too thick. The Bk-9 outperforms the Trailmaster slightly in wood, even the V-edged Trailmasters.

The Trailmaster blade is too narrow to really have unbeatable geometry, but it could be hard to beat with a true flat grind on top of a really thin edge. The convex grind "fattens" the blade and robs performance in chopping wood, but that is simply true of all convexed knives: My Fallkniven Odin had the same issue. The performance of convex edges is largely the result of them being thinner than the V-edges they are compared to...: At "equal" 0.020" edge thinness, depending on how you measure the convexing (which edge thinness so far only Randall, and a few Al Mars, make as true V-edges on a proper hollow grind), the V-edge and hollow grind combine to be inherently superior by a wide margin.

Want real-world proof? How about this chopping comparison I made between a slim, very pointy, 11 ounces 7.75" Al Mar "Special Warfare", and the burly 17 ounces 9.5" Trailmaster: The hollow grind and V-edge of the Al Mar allowed it to be a rough match after 20 chops: The Al Mar's performance felt incredible, while the Trailmaster you could tell was being "held back" by its brand-new convex edge... The Cold Steel now does significantly better with a sort of partial V-edge worked into the convex, but its blade is on the narrow side for real chopping performance: I expect the Randall Model 12, with its deep hollow grind and slightly "flaring" blade, will prove better, despite being only 0.22" thick vs 0.30" for the Trailmaster...

P7016061_zpsq7pp6acy.jpg


One thing to note with the Trailmaster is that the handle felt too narrow to bear the impacts of chopping confortably. The checkering felt too aggressive also, and I do not say this easily as I did not find this to be true at all on the Chris Reeves Jereboam's aggressive metal knurling, which was the best handle I've tried so far (especially against the vibration prone Bk-9)... Form-fitting handles are not necessarily the best either, since the top of the handle is always narrower, where the broadest support is needed... Handles that get closer to round are more confortable for chopping, but have more of a rolling tendency when the blade slips into the wood's grain, which is a bit unsettling...

Gaston
 
Not a fan of hollow ground choppers. I have gotten severe edge damage on hollow ground blades because there wasn't enough steel behind the edge to give support and the steel rippled on hard stuff. On soft woods it was not a problem. I would take the TM's convex blade over your hollow ground blade any day. I have used both styles many times and except for chopping into medium woods, I have had better results with convex and flat ground blades.
 
Gaston444 said:
It isn't true. It isn't true for the San mai III mostly because the convex edge robs it of a lot of wood chopping performance, and the edge is also too thick. The Bk-9 outperforms the Trailmaster slightly in wood, even the V-edged Trailmasters.

The Trailmaster blade is too narrow to really have unbeatable geometry, but it could be hard to beat with a true flat grind on top of a really thin edge. The convex grind "fattens" the blade and robs performance in chopping wood, but that is simply true of all convexed knives: My Fallkniven Odin had the same issue. The performance of convex edges is largely the result of them being thinner than the V-edges they are compared to...: At "equal" 0.020" edge thinness, depending on how you measure the convexing (which edge thinness so far only Randall, and a few Al Mars, make as true V-edges on a proper hollow grind), the V-edge and hollow grind combine to be inherently superior by a wide margin.

Want real-world proof? How about this chopping comparison I made between a slim, very pointy, 11 ounces 7.75" Al Mar "Special Warfare", and the burly 17 ounces 9.5" Trailmaster: The hollow grind and V-edge of the Al Mar allowed it to be a rough match after 20 chops: The Al Mar's performance felt incredible, while the Trailmaster you could tell was being "held back" by its brand-new convex edge... The Cold Steel now does significantly better with a sort of partial V-edge worked into the convex, but its blade is on the narrow side for real chopping performance: I expect the Randall Model 12, with its deep hollow grind and slightly "flaring" blade, will prove better, despite being only 0.22" thick vs 0.30" for the Trailmaster...

P7016061_zpsq7pp6acy.jpg


One thing to note with the Trailmaster is that the handle felt too narrow to bear the impacts of chopping confortably. The checkering felt too aggressive also, and I do not say this easily as I did not find this to be true at all on the Chris Reeves Jereboam's aggressive metal knurling, which was the best handle I've tried so far (especially against the vibration prone Bk-9)... Form-fitting handles are not necessarily the best either, since the top of the handle is always narrower, where the broadest support is needed... Handles that get closer to round are more confortable for chopping, but have more of a rolling tendency when the blade slips into the wood's grain, which is a bit unsettling...

Gaston
Click to expand...

Cool knives. I hate hollow grinds for chopping. Convex all the way.

Have you tried any estwing stuff? They hollow grind the cheeks on the heads. I'm not a fan of it but hollow grinds seem to be your favorite.

Nice collection BTW.
 
Well I'll have a chopping shoot-out done with a Randall Model 12 against the Trailmaster and several others. Not sure what to expect, as the Model 12 performed poorly with a 15° per side edge (30° inclusive): I sharpened it down to 10° per side, 20° inclusive now, as it seems anything more open just has no bite into the Maple I try it on... Because the Model 12 has only a 0.22" spine, I feel it is too light to perform the way it should, but I heard great things about what it could do... The blade "flares" slightly to the front, so that could be its "edge"...

Not a fan of how Randall claims 1/4" stock on a bunch of their knives, but they are all obviously way below that in the blade... The finish is rough and swirly too, but the edges are the thinnest I have seen...

I have trouble believing 0.020" of metal would bend from just impact on wood alone, no matter how hard (a Randall's Model 14 super thin 0.020" edge won't even bend from chopping concrete, as demonstrated in an actual test). I think the risks of bends come from twisting while removing an edge "sticking" into the wood. Very likely convex edges don't bend or "ripple" because they can't even bite deeply enough to get themselves into trouble...

If you pull them out by gradually rocking, and keeping the rocking gesture straight to the blade, there is no way edges will bend from impact on wood alone...

Gaston
 
Last edited:
Good review. One small point: traditional Japanese swords were made by forging a higher carbon/harder steel over a more malleable iron core. Thus the harder edge and sides are outside. A Google search for 'Japanese sword making' turns up a lot of fascinating information.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top