- Joined
- Dec 30, 2018
- Messages
- 323
Some things first:
General specs:
This knife is something you can call a ,,companion“ knife. Something that you can have all the time while you are in the woods. Light enough that you can forget that you carry it, but capable to do any knife related task.
Overall length: 22,8 cm (8,9 inch)
Blade length: 10,5 cm (4,1 inch)
Spine thickness: 3,8 mm (0,149 inch)
Weight: 200 g (7 oz) and with sheat: 320 g (11,3 oz)
Fit and finish
Very nice, only with one small thing. One handle slab is not quite flush with the tang, there is little tiny jump, but you can't really see it, but you can feel it with your finger nail. But that's it. Other then that, grind is nice and even, plunge line is nicely rounded, jimping is sharp. I have to say that I really like the maker´s logo - one letter and some wings, simple yet nice.
Blade:
Full flat grind with nice drop point. It is made from Elmax with hardness around 60 HRC (according to maker). With this blade shape you can do almost everything, it is capable of whitling wood, but it has also enough belly for food preparation (or maybe even skinning an animal, but I am not a hunter). I have to say that the grind is done very nice. On flat area, BTE is 0,5 mm (0,02 inch), at belly is around 0,76 mm (0,03 inch) and at the tip is 1mm (0,04 inch), so the tip is quite stout. Spine is sharp, it can scrape a firesteel or a bark for tinder.
Elmax is a nice steel, very stainless, good edge retention and so far, I don't have any problems with chipping. Like, it's not 3V or S7 toughness vise , but it should be around 1095 tough.
Only bad thing was, that the edge out of the box was kinda obtuse, and for my purpose I had to reprofiled it. Now it is around 35 ° inclusive and is cuts much, much better.
Handle:
It is made out of black and green G10 and it is kinda interesting. It is kinda neutral with more pronounced index finger groove. Handle slabs are more or less flat, but they have a bit of coce bottle contouring and they are very nice to grip (but is very subjective, you can like some broomstick like handle more). G10 is smooth, but handle itself is not slippery (even wet).
Tang of the knife is protruding a little and you can use it for some smashy smashy job.
There is also hole for lanyard (but I am not really into these things).
Balance of the knife is a bit handle heavy, exact balance point is somewhere in the middle between first and second handle screw. But for knife of this size, I think it is a good thing, I want a knife that will sit in my hand.
Sheath
It is made from kydex and leather. This is my first kydex sheath ever, so I can't compare it to another products, but retention is nice (knife will not fell out even when you shake it) and you still have strap for even more secure fit. It has a drainage hole.
Oh, and I forgot, sheath is ambidextrous, just lose the screws and mount it to other side.
Performance
Blade geometry is good, you can slice food and also made feather sticks with ease. Of course, it is not as good and kitchen knives, but it not a sharpened pry bar either.
And yes, I am batoning with this knife regularly (we have a wood stove, and I love to make small sticks and feathers sticks for firestarting).
Value
This is going to completely subjective. You might know that price vise, situation in Europe is VERY different from USA. When I was in the market for this kind of knife, I could just buy and ESEE 4 and call it a day. But, here's things start to get more complicated.
ESEE 4 with sheat costs around 160 Eur (both 1095 or 440C). And that is a lot of money (in my eyes) for a piece of 1095 (which is IMO HT very low) and some micarta scales. Yes, you get lifetime no ask warranty, but I just can't really justify the price. Around 100 Eur, yeah, ok, but not like this.
I paid 165 Eur for this knife, and I think that is excellent price and excellent value for custom made knife out of very good PM stainless steel. And the best part, if you go custom, you can have pretty much anything you like.
If you made this far, thanx for reading and take care.
- I bought this knife with my own money. I was not paid by @gollik or anybody else to do this review. But if someone want to send me some free stuff, I´ll take it.
- This is my first review on Bladeforums. So yeah, some things are not going to as sleek and polished as you might expect.
- English is not my native language, but I hope you get the general idea.
- -Maybe it is a bit pointless making a review on custom knife (one of a kind), but Jakub (the knifemaker) is also selling knives here, so it could be helpful.
General specs:
This knife is something you can call a ,,companion“ knife. Something that you can have all the time while you are in the woods. Light enough that you can forget that you carry it, but capable to do any knife related task.
Overall length: 22,8 cm (8,9 inch)
Blade length: 10,5 cm (4,1 inch)
Spine thickness: 3,8 mm (0,149 inch)
Weight: 200 g (7 oz) and with sheat: 320 g (11,3 oz)
Fit and finish
Very nice, only with one small thing. One handle slab is not quite flush with the tang, there is little tiny jump, but you can't really see it, but you can feel it with your finger nail. But that's it. Other then that, grind is nice and even, plunge line is nicely rounded, jimping is sharp. I have to say that I really like the maker´s logo - one letter and some wings, simple yet nice.
Blade:
Full flat grind with nice drop point. It is made from Elmax with hardness around 60 HRC (according to maker). With this blade shape you can do almost everything, it is capable of whitling wood, but it has also enough belly for food preparation (or maybe even skinning an animal, but I am not a hunter). I have to say that the grind is done very nice. On flat area, BTE is 0,5 mm (0,02 inch), at belly is around 0,76 mm (0,03 inch) and at the tip is 1mm (0,04 inch), so the tip is quite stout. Spine is sharp, it can scrape a firesteel or a bark for tinder.
Elmax is a nice steel, very stainless, good edge retention and so far, I don't have any problems with chipping. Like, it's not 3V or S7 toughness vise , but it should be around 1095 tough.
Only bad thing was, that the edge out of the box was kinda obtuse, and for my purpose I had to reprofiled it. Now it is around 35 ° inclusive and is cuts much, much better.
Handle:
It is made out of black and green G10 and it is kinda interesting. It is kinda neutral with more pronounced index finger groove. Handle slabs are more or less flat, but they have a bit of coce bottle contouring and they are very nice to grip (but is very subjective, you can like some broomstick like handle more). G10 is smooth, but handle itself is not slippery (even wet).
Tang of the knife is protruding a little and you can use it for some smashy smashy job.
There is also hole for lanyard (but I am not really into these things).
Balance of the knife is a bit handle heavy, exact balance point is somewhere in the middle between first and second handle screw. But for knife of this size, I think it is a good thing, I want a knife that will sit in my hand.
Sheath
It is made from kydex and leather. This is my first kydex sheath ever, so I can't compare it to another products, but retention is nice (knife will not fell out even when you shake it) and you still have strap for even more secure fit. It has a drainage hole.
Oh, and I forgot, sheath is ambidextrous, just lose the screws and mount it to other side.
Performance
Blade geometry is good, you can slice food and also made feather sticks with ease. Of course, it is not as good and kitchen knives, but it not a sharpened pry bar either.
And yes, I am batoning with this knife regularly (we have a wood stove, and I love to make small sticks and feathers sticks for firestarting).
Value
This is going to completely subjective. You might know that price vise, situation in Europe is VERY different from USA. When I was in the market for this kind of knife, I could just buy and ESEE 4 and call it a day. But, here's things start to get more complicated.
ESEE 4 with sheat costs around 160 Eur (both 1095 or 440C). And that is a lot of money (in my eyes) for a piece of 1095 (which is IMO HT very low) and some micarta scales. Yes, you get lifetime no ask warranty, but I just can't really justify the price. Around 100 Eur, yeah, ok, but not like this.
I paid 165 Eur for this knife, and I think that is excellent price and excellent value for custom made knife out of very good PM stainless steel. And the best part, if you go custom, you can have pretty much anything you like.
If you made this far, thanx for reading and take care.
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