Here we go again, long time, no post, and I have to admit, I was being a bit of in a rut, so I left blogging be for some time now. But here we go again: I wish all my faithful readers a happy new year 2014. 2013 was a bit of a bastard for me, but hope dies last...;-)
Here are some thoughts about another legal carry knife I purchased dead cheap on Solingen "Messer-Gabel-Scheren-Markt" knife expo in November. It is an Otter pruning knife. It comes with a big (85 mm) billhook blade from C 75 high carbon steel with a homogenous temper (not selective, that is).I estimate the hardness to about 56 - 58 HRC. It comes with beautiful cocobolo wood scales, brass bolsters and liners, and a stiff spring out of C 30. Overall craftmanship is meticuous, and i can´t for the death of me figure out why it was sold as second grade... It has a high convex bevel that is nice and thin and nearing a flat grind. Out of the basket (no packaging here) it came razor sharp. The handle is nice and chunky. Often the scales on knives like this look a bit crappy, but this one simply is beautifully finished. There are little to no tolerances. There is no radial or axial play in the blade. The spring is quite stiff, and the blade opens in one fluid motion due to a round base of the blade´s root. This is one thing I would recommend to change, for a rectangular blade root would add some more safety to a slipjoint, even if it is a very safe handler already. The upswept handle allows for powerful cuts when pruning trees, and makes it even suitable for some whittling tasks. A knife of this shape quite naturally is not suited for all tasks ideally, but that´s not to be said that they canot be done! Even cutting sausage is a cinch with the proper technique.Peeling an apple is where the billhook design really shines, and cutting rope and zip - ties also is really easy.
What do I think? This is a very able cutter with a friendly appearance suited for a lot of tasks, not only pruning, harvesting herbs and mushrooms, but also kitchen and whittling tasks, provided it is used with the proper technique. For the price it is a real great bargain. I would add a lanyard hole, for a lanyard comes in real handy when you are pruning trees, and would wish Otter could find it in themselves;-)to add a rectangular blade base. But other than that I would not change a thing!
Buy it, it takes little room on your shelf*ggg*.
Those are the adventures of Mr. Fimbulmyrk, in bushcraft and blacksmithing, mountainbiking and hiking, reenactment, writing, singing, dancing, stargazing and having a piece of cake and a coffee. Pray have a seat and look around you, but be warned - the forest´s twilight is ferocious at times.
Beliebte Posts
-
Made a fast herb chopper for the most extremely bestest magical sorcery troll. File steel, selective quench and triple temper.
-
This is part of my not exactly tiny collection of German hunting knives, representatives of a very distinct and ancient style of knife. Y...
-
Also on the recent Jaagd und Hund expo I met with István Nagyi, who gave to me this beautifully accomplished Hungarian shepherd´s knife. ...
-
Well, folks, this might be an unpopular opinion post. When I got started on blogging, there was no such thing as a thriving bushcraft c...
-
On Saturday and Sunday I was forging at the really great event "Meilerfest" in Ennepetal. I was there for the Bethaus smithy. I...
-
On a recent stroll home from my mother´s I came across this little fellow: This time a live one;-).
-
This is one of those knives I own and use for quite a long time now. It rides in my pocket every day, since 2013... for a reason. In the ...
-
Hi, folks, normally I do not take much towards posts like this, but yap, I am still alive-just so, that is. I have a lot of quarrels going o...
-
These are three knives that have thoroughly earned their merits. I made two of them very long ago and one quite a long time ago. All thre...
-
Now this is an old knife I have somewhat revived these days. I just cleaned the blade a bit and did some stropping. I had shared it some t...