Knives

I suppose I'll start with one of the more controversial topics I've ever come across, and get it out of the way.

That is, the subject of knives.

It must first be said, that I am a knife-maker. It is a professional hobby of mine, insomuch as I do it occasionally and not full-time, but I treat it with high regard for quality, in my research of metallurgy and historical metalwork, and in how I deal with customers. I take it seriously, and have now for over 15 years.

Arguments pop up here and there, on forums, on facebook, and even in person at camp, which is the best knife for a particular use, or overall. Debates on steel, its chemistry, what hardness is best, the difference in heat-treating methods, etc. Endless preference for one grind or another.

To all who love an argument, I will say this first: Most people simply cannot tell quality from a visual inspection. It's not possible to see inside the steel of a knife with your eyes, short of damaging it somehow, or performing destructive testing on it to define its limits. Marketing and selling the sizzle is the job of every knife manufacturer, and the airwaves are cluttered to a fault with misinformation, half-truths, and rapt persuasion for commercial products. The lay-person can use a knife, and know what they like about its performance, but at the end of the day, the core quality of steel is unknown until it's too late. That's why reputation is so important, and brands will do almost anything to develop and protect it. In the modern age of social media, their zealots do half the work for them, encouraging what I see as the uninformed opinions that shout down objective truth.

I also see a lot of questions about the "ultimate metal," often from people taken in by entertainment, fantasy, or just wishful thinking. The reality is, that steel is the ultimate metal. There are thousands of alloys, and different ways of heat-treating them for very specific tasks. Any single application won't do every job perfectly, but there's a perfect blend for every job these days. Following that, shape and geometry is driven as much by the chemistry of the steel as it is by the intended use. An antique Viking axe in my collection weighs about twice as much, and is overly thick in some places, than a modern equivalent should be. This is not because the ancient smiths didn't understand conservation of material, in fact they probably understood it far better than most modern smiths. It's that the material they had available at the time had a certain performance envelope, and so the shape, size, and weight were driven by that, and its intended use, rather than just whimsical design or a fluke of the hammer that forged it. Steel is a marvelous material, and our modern abilities to create a wide range from simple carbon steel, to exotic blends meant for very specific applications means the consumer has a dizzying array of choices, and thoughtful consideration is needed to make the choice appropriate for their needs.

So what's a woodsman to do? Simply put, find what you like, learn how to use it, and take care of it.

Knives perform 3 functions, generally speaking. They pierce, they slice, and they chop. I've tried to raise the question politely, and have yet to find unbiased or unemotional discussion on just when the recent fad of batoning came into popularity. I consider it abuse of a knife, when what you're really doing is treating it like a wedge, and that's an entirely different set of requirements for metallurgy, heat treatment, and geometry. I understand the utility of the method in dire need, but consider it a last option as opposed to a prime quality in a manufactured blade.

To pierce is to stab, and that requires a sharp tip, with enough reinforcement for whatever the knife is intended to pierce. Most often it's soft material like skin and meat, sometimes it's wood, as when preparing a fire board for bow or hand drill. It should never mean pounding into a tree, disrespecting the grain of wood, or heaven forbid, stabbing at rocks.

Slicing is exactly that, using the length of the blade to separate one thing into two. Again, most often this is meat or skin, or skin from meat, sometimes bone from flesh, and quite often bark from wood.  Slicing is done starting at the heel of the blade, and finishing near the tip, using a smooth draw motion.

Chopping is the rapid separation of one thing into two, and should be done with a stable base (like a cutting board), material soft enough to be chopped, and a firm grip of both the knife and the material being cut. While chopping through logs and 2x4's is possible with well-made knives, it's an abusive test popularized by the American Bladesmith Society to weed out bad work, and is generally not an appropriate use of a knife in everyday practice. I find that when something needs chopping that's beyond appropriate scale of the knife in hand, a better tool is an axe, thought-problems of "which single tool do you want in an emergency" notwithstanding.

Back to my advice on what to do, I think it's important first to understand how to use a knife safely and properly. It's a difficult skill to teach, but a good training exercise is to carve a lot of wood. Make "try sticks," carve relief patterns, carve 3-dimensional objects, carve love spoons, carve whistles, and carve food of every variety. Do this, and you'll start to understand what works and what doesn't. Very quickly, one begins to appreciate that the shape of handle, it's comfort during hard use, is just as important as the blade itself. The shape of the knife will lend itself to certain tasks more than others, so a nice, simple all-purpose shape is best to carry in most environments. A knife ought to be a multi-tool, capable of making dinner, or making shelter. While one can carry specialized tools for every conceivable task, it's a far better skill to learn how to use one or two tools very well, under any circumstance, and excel as a generalist.

To conclude, I'll share my weapons of choice for the woods. For a knife, I prefer a simple Mora in a hard sheath. They're inexpensive, I've only seen one picture of a broken one, and I've used mine for a wide range of projects (shelter building to minor surgery) with great success. Because of their economy and size, a backup can be carried in the case of loss or damage, which would require carelessness or abuse on the part of the user. I also carry a simple pocketknife, which I keep surgically sharp, an Opinel No. 8, for fine work only. In the Eastern Hardwood forests I generally haunt, I also like a Tramontina machete of either 14 or 18 inches in length for brush-clearing and light de-limbing, and I like a mid-size scout axe for any serious chopping, which only happens around a base camp I have vehicle or boat access to, not for lightweight backpacking where I'm making a smaller footprint.

Everyone will have their favorite tools, and some are impressed by brand, some by testimony of performance, some by price alone. Again, find what fits well in your hand, what you can use all day without blisters, what you can afford, and most importantly, what gets the job done. The rest is just oh so much personal taste being flaunted around, at the end of the day.

Happy camping.