- Joined
- May 9, 2002
- Messages
- 12,259
Despite being busier than all get out due to the increased construction demands of "these uncertain times", my Honey-Do list remains lengthy.
Over the last few weekends as time has allowed, I decided that I would get a few backyard projects done, earn a few brownie points with the Mrs, and have some fun attacking things with Nepali steel. It had been so long since I had had an excuse to cut something up, I kinda forgot what a good time it was
One of my elected chores was to cut up and burn the sizeable oak limb that had fallen during the last rain storm. It was still fairly green but had been dead long enough to behave like oak, ie HARD.
I figured that this was as good as any test to try out the new Pen Knife Yangdu sent me a couple weeks back. I was interested in how it would perform compared to my old one that was stolen years ago. My old one was a Bura and pretty thick at the edge. IMHO, it was actually a bit too thick for such a light knife, and Kumar's thinner edges have always spoken to me and performed well.
I decided to work my way back from thinner to heavier parts of the limb. After hacking through thumb size branches with one easy swing, it was time to start on the 1.5"-2" part.
Obviously, I didn't expect much in the way of trouble cutting through, what surprised me was the ease at which this 12 oz knife handled the work.
I bet this didn't take me 15 seconds to go through.
Next was a part of the limb that was maybe 2.5-3" thick.
No problems here. 20-ish seconds and I was left with this:
Finally, I made it to the 3-3.5" thick part. While this part of the limb was softer and greener, it was still plenty tough.
My before pic turned out blurry, but no more than 30-35 seconds of chopping and I was through with very little effort.
This really wasn't a true hardcore test of the PK, but i was mostly interest in how Kumar's edge would hold up to several hundred whacks into oak. No suprise, the edge remains perfectly straight. It was also sharp enough on the sweet spot to take off hair on my arm and surprisingly the tip of the knife would still pop hair.
Without touching up the edge, I went ahead and cleaned the plant matter off of the blade, dried it, and gave it light coat of oil. The only effects were a bit of a patina from the tree juice, but over all the PK performed exactly as I had expected and chopped well above its weight class.
My Fiber Fix wrap held up well. The handle wasn't slick at all yet it created no hot spots from use. If anything, the only issue I had was from the buttcap rubbing at my wrist. Then grip isn't overly short, but a bit more purchase would be welcome.
I'm actually thinking about maybe doing a drawing of some of the modifications I would like to see on the PK and see if Yangdu would think they would be in the Kamis wheelhouse. Never hurts to see what they think.
As always, a huge thank you to Yangdu, Kumar, and you all for reading.
Over the last few weekends as time has allowed, I decided that I would get a few backyard projects done, earn a few brownie points with the Mrs, and have some fun attacking things with Nepali steel. It had been so long since I had had an excuse to cut something up, I kinda forgot what a good time it was
One of my elected chores was to cut up and burn the sizeable oak limb that had fallen during the last rain storm. It was still fairly green but had been dead long enough to behave like oak, ie HARD.
I figured that this was as good as any test to try out the new Pen Knife Yangdu sent me a couple weeks back. I was interested in how it would perform compared to my old one that was stolen years ago. My old one was a Bura and pretty thick at the edge. IMHO, it was actually a bit too thick for such a light knife, and Kumar's thinner edges have always spoken to me and performed well.
I decided to work my way back from thinner to heavier parts of the limb. After hacking through thumb size branches with one easy swing, it was time to start on the 1.5"-2" part.
Obviously, I didn't expect much in the way of trouble cutting through, what surprised me was the ease at which this 12 oz knife handled the work.
I bet this didn't take me 15 seconds to go through.
Next was a part of the limb that was maybe 2.5-3" thick.
No problems here. 20-ish seconds and I was left with this:
Finally, I made it to the 3-3.5" thick part. While this part of the limb was softer and greener, it was still plenty tough.
My before pic turned out blurry, but no more than 30-35 seconds of chopping and I was through with very little effort.
This really wasn't a true hardcore test of the PK, but i was mostly interest in how Kumar's edge would hold up to several hundred whacks into oak. No suprise, the edge remains perfectly straight. It was also sharp enough on the sweet spot to take off hair on my arm and surprisingly the tip of the knife would still pop hair.
Without touching up the edge, I went ahead and cleaned the plant matter off of the blade, dried it, and gave it light coat of oil. The only effects were a bit of a patina from the tree juice, but over all the PK performed exactly as I had expected and chopped well above its weight class.
My Fiber Fix wrap held up well. The handle wasn't slick at all yet it created no hot spots from use. If anything, the only issue I had was from the buttcap rubbing at my wrist. Then grip isn't overly short, but a bit more purchase would be welcome.
I'm actually thinking about maybe doing a drawing of some of the modifications I would like to see on the PK and see if Yangdu would think they would be in the Kamis wheelhouse. Never hurts to see what they think.
As always, a huge thank you to Yangdu, Kumar, and you all for reading.
