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Recommendations for fixed blade knife

Glenn MacGrady

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All these recent sharp discussion have got me rethinking my canoe camping kit. I have four quality folding knives in the 2.9"-3.5" blade range, which I frankly don't use a lot. But I don't have a good fixed blade knife, which would probably make more sense for canoe trips for MY particular needs and applications.

My applications do not include any fishing, hunting or food preparation, or any sophisticated whittling or woodworking.

My applications and needs would mainly be:

1. Occasional splitting of small diameter wood, as I carry a folding saw but no axe.

2. Occasional stripping and shaving of branches or small trunks into tarp poles.

3. Self-defense against man and beast. (Paranoid, yes, but I'm getting old.) So the knife should be a reasonable stabber.

4. Low maintenance, especially around water. I have little interest and great neglect for cleaning, sharpening and polishing.

5. Long enough to do the job but short enough that I can comfortably wear it. If I get a fixed blade, I would want to wear it in and out of the canoe.

6. Reasonable price. Fixed income here. I don't want junk but don't need a Rolls Royce.

I'm not necessarily looking for particular make and model recommendations--though they are welcome--but rather recommendations as to blade shape, blade length, blade steel, handle shape, handle material, and sheath type.
 
Mora, pick one you like. I prefer the carbon clippers. Cheap, and very good. If you dont like it, i will buy it from you.
 
In lieu of discussing features, design and construction materials I would simply look at the classic outdoor knife designs that have stood the test of time. I'm a rather avid edged weapon fellow but specialised knives are very much just that. A good fighting knife is a traditional Bowie design. A good killing knife is a traditional double edge of an appropriate length. A good outdoor field knife with inherent versatility can be found in a number of brands at varying price points.

When friends ask me about a good general use outdoor knife at a workin' man's budget I often recommend the Buck Special. Its been around for a long time and is well regarded.
http://www.amazon.com/Buck-119BKS-Spec-Hunting-6/dp/B000EHWWJQ

Get a good quality diamond stone, study a sharpening tutorial or two on youtube and you'll be set. Unless abused, a decent knife is fairly easy to keep sharp and well maintained.
 
If I was going to buy me a medium sized store boughty knife for general purpose, Buck Vanguard is hard to beat as a all around cutting tool. If I were just going to look at it I would buy something sexier.
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It even feels good in a reverse knife grip like this. (for when you're feeling slashy / stabby)
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I would second the Mora, there are even stainless steal models that require less maintenance. My second recommendation would be Condor, Bushlore or Kephart. The Condor's do not come out of the box sharp so you would need to do some work on the blades. Mora's come out of the box shaving sharp. Just my opinion, I am no knife expert.
 
It's funny, because I finally made a semi-decision in my waffling over what to buy...or should I say think about buying. On-line window shopping can be fun, but I wish I hadn't given up writing down every interesting knife I'd found. When I found the "perfect" knife for my wife, I trusted myself to remember where I'd seen it on-line. Stupid me. My "memory" is the main reason I have at least two of every hand tool in the shed, basement, tool box or wherever I've put them down. I'd hate to have to buy two knives. Wait, that may not be a bad thing. Where was I? Oh yeah, I came across a Mora fixed blade with poly handle and choice of steel for <$20 + tax. That's hard to beat, especially if you might be considering a second one as back up...just in case you can't remember where you stored the first.

http://www.workwearcanada.com/products/detail.cfm?product=1727
 
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Hi Glen,
This topic of knives really is a wide open opinion-fest, as just about everyone has a favourite style, steel type, shape, edge profile, handle design, sheath design, etc. There is no right answer. It’s a very personal decision as to what works best for you. Based on your needs, especially since you do not carry an axe, I think you would want to consider a robust, strong, full tang blade for batoning through wood.

Here is my 2 cents based on what works for me:
The knife I have been carrying for several years now on my belt, and which is my favourite, is the Falkniven F1. It’s a legendary knife too.
Its just a tad under 4 inches, drop point. I prefer drop points for many reasons.

http://www.fallkniven.com/en/shop/details/370/24/fixed-blades/survival-knives/f1l

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The blade is 4mm thick on the spine, with a very strong point. The spine is sharply right angled so it will rip off a whopping ball of molten metal from a ferro rod (the F1 was designed as the Swedish air force pilot’s survival knife, so fire making function is part of its design). The standard model’s steel is laminated with a hard VG10 in the middle for edge holding (Rockwell 59), and a softer stainless on the outside for strength. I recommend this one. They also make it in a 3G steel, which is much harder at Rockwell 62, which IMO is too hard for a bush knife that you will want to be able to touch up easily.

It’s a perfect convex edge. A convex edge is very strong and holds an edge when sharpened right. If you don’t know how to sharpen a convex edge, there is a learning curve. Best way is to strop it on wet-dry 2000 grit sandpaper on an old mouse pad. You can google it on YT for many demonstrations on how to strop on sandpaper and a mouse pad. You finish by stropping it on a leather strop, with an optional intermediate step to strop it on a leather strop with honing compound. Once you get used to stropping (no oil, no water), it very quick and convenient to touch up an edge.

You can also work it hard on a series of grits of a sharpening stone to put a micro bevel on it, and then sharpen it in the more familiar style of sliding into the stone. I did that on my F1. I still strop it mostly, but in the bush I carry a little diamond sharpening stone, and touch it up by stroking into the stone along the micro bevel, and stropping it on my belt or on tree bark, or anything smooth but firm. This combination of both into the stone, and stropping, is very easy to maintain a super sharp edge with very little time and effort.

However a robust convex edge knife takes a little more skill than a scandi grind or gradual flat grind to carve very fine feathers for kindling, but you will get the hang of it. A convex blade is a much better wood splitter than a flat or scandi grind. The F1 is so robust you can also baton across the grain to cross cut wood without any fear of rolling the edge, or breaking the blade. The negative to the above listed advantages is that it does not have that very thin blade for fine carving work, but with skill you can work it.

The F1 comes with two sheath options: a classic snap-over leather sheath, which is what I have, and a top snap around plastic zytel sheath. Both of these sheaths have secondary securement, which is what you want for paddling in case you go for a swim, and or crawling over around and through blowdown, and bushwhacking. An open pouch sheath IMO is not secure when in a canoe and over water.

The handle is a very nice feeling thermorun rectangular shaped handle (thermorun is like a hard textured rubber). The rectangular cross section provides good blind feel for where the knife is, compared to a rounder handle where your muscles cannot feel what the blade angle is. The F1 handle is made to work in the dark, and in freezing cold, and when wet – they thought of everything for this little survival knife.

The negative for the F1 is that its on the small side, and is not shaped like a stabbing knife for bear (or people) protection. Being a little short, it will have limitations for baton splitting of larger diameter wood. But you take outer splits off first, or cut wood splitting wedges to baton with, and you are fine. Its not an issue for me because I carry an axe as standard kit. But I got the F1 to see me through should I lose my axe, and it’s a very nice fire prep knife anyways, especially with its full sharp spine for making micro shavings.

The F1’s tang is also extended as a steel pommel for hammering stuff.

I like the F1’s deep belly for versatile work, but its tip is still pointy enough for drilling holes.

The next size up in Falkniven’s survival and forest knife family is the S1, which has a 5 inch blade, which they call their “forest knife”. It does have a swedge end for stabbing. Its even more robust at 5mm thick. The rear spine is sharp right angled for ripping a ferro rod for fire making, and making fine shavings. I do not own the S1 and have never used it, but I lust after it as my next knife! Its bigger and heavier than the F1, and so far I just love my F1 so much that I am Ok to leave the S1 for another day. But as a bear weapon the S1 would be superior. Its also got more chopping ability that the F1, but I don’t chop (much) with my knife, again since I have my axe. But perhaps for your needs without an axe, the extra length and weight for chopping might be an advantage.
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Have a look at Falkniven’s website. http://www.fallkniven.com/en
For purchasing, I got mine from BushcraftCanada.com. I know that Harlan at Red Lake Outfitters also sells F1’s, and its one of his feature knives.

For fine carving, a thinner steel with a scandi grind, like many of the Mora’s, will do a better fine carving job. I love my Mora’s too, and take one in my kit as a second knife. I make all my bow drill and hand kits with my Mora’s. But for firecraft, shelters, tent pegs, bushcraft, emergency repairs, carving a new paddle, or new gunwale splints, etc, I would rely on my F1 first.

Best of luck with your choice.
 
Based on your needs, especially since you do not carry an axe, I think you would want to consider a robust, strong, full tang blade for batoning through wood.

A convex blade is a much better wood splitter than a flat or scandi grind.

Yes, being axe-less and not motivated to bring my Condor Golok machete (which would work), I would say minor wood splitting is my most important actual need for canoe camping. The inability to shave, baton and split is one of the reasons I usually don't make fires even when there's lots of wood, especially when it is wet.

So, I think full tang and the convex grind information is valuable. Some machete bushcrafters have a convex grind on all but the bottom six inches of their blades, on which they have scandi. They carve and shave with this lower six inches. Do knife users dual grind blades?

BTW, Hoop, I've watched your excellent series of videos of your canoe trip from a year or so ago, and I now understand why an axe is so integral to the kind of camping and bushcraft you employ and enjoy.

Thanks for all the suggestions so far and I will look into any others than come along.
 
Looks like a nice knife Glenn / Hoop. It's hard to go wrong with a drop point. Hoop, is the blade cross section flat ground with a convex edge, or convex with a convex edge? Hard to tell in the picture but it seems flat ground to me. When Glenn mentions machetes being convex ground I think he is referring to the cross section and not just the edge. I use a convex edge on most knives but I cheat and use a fine belt on a variable speed belt sander and a buffing wheel. Touch it up on the buffing wheel from time to time. Hardly ever go back to the belt sander. Yes I know, it's hard to fit all that in my pack.
 
Don't neglect to have it in a cutproof sheath. I once met a MD who on an Alaska hunt, who said he watched helplessly while a man died with a severed femoral artery caused by his beltknife going through the sheath and into his hip. I line my sheaths that aren't bulletproof with a metal liner. The boy scouts prohibit fixed blade knives for this reason.
Turtle
 
I third the Mora recommedation. I have switched over to Mora knives and find that they do all the tasks very well. The blade is thinner than other fixed blades so splitting isn't as good, but still works fine for splitting small stuff baton style. What I like about Mora is that they are great for carving and also great camp kitchen knives. Slicing onions, garlic and steak like a home kitchen knife. For $15, it's hard to beat. I find that all my other knives now stay at home since I tried a Mora.

If you want a thicker blade, I use an Anza that is a great all around blade and splits wood really well. They are made from heat treated files, are solid and come in a wide variety of blade lengths and styles. You can usually find Anza in a good price range, too.
 
Hoop, is the blade cross section flat ground with a convex edge, or convex with a convex edge? Hard to tell in the picture but it seems flat ground to me.

The Falkkniven survival knife line are one of the few production knives (to my knowledge) that are perfectly convex for the edge profile. Its only flat along the blade just down from the spine, but at a certain point down from the spine it transitions into a full parabolic convex profile. I just placed a straight edge ruler on my F1, perpendicular to the edge, and you can see the convex curve below the flat upper part, i.e. the ruler cannot touch any flat surface as you rotate it along the surface, except for one point along the curve, like a tangent line on a curve graph. At the base of the blade near the handle, the convex starts a good 1/2 inch, maybe 5/8 inch up from the edge. Toward the tip the convex is smaller and starts about 3/8 inch tapering to about 1/4 inch up from the edge but remains perfectly convex tapering right to the tip.

The tip is relatively beefy because of this convex. Its survives many tip wood stabbing and prying tests on YT (although I recommend do not use a knife tip for prying! ). However I have seen a YT video of a snapped tip from supposed regular use, but I think this is rare. The VG10 has been accused by some of being brittle and prone to chipping. I knocked a small chip out of my edge (not tip) when I hit a rock, but that was my fault and I don't blame the knife for that. I sharpened it out, but it still has a very very slight nick sometimes noticeable when I am doing a paper cut test. It adds character, my knife is a user, not an ornament.

I understand its harder and more time consuming to manufatcure to this convex profile, so that's one of the reasons Falkniven's cost a little more.
 
Well Glenn, I've got a whole drawer full of grand fixed blade knives that would be quickly reduced to rubbish if I started "battoning" them through wood. They weren't designed for that, the guys who made them wanted knives.
There are some knives out there that were designed to withstand the shock of the batton and come back for more. But I'd suggest that if you were able to hold them you'd find that they were much more "clunky" than a knife with similar blade shape that wasn't built to such rigorously over built standards. Of course this only matters if you were planning to use the thing.

If I were in your shoes: I'd cut with my folders and get a Estwing hatchet, the one with the blue handle and all steel, one piece construction. True, you would need to learn to use it, but really, do you doubt that you have the snap to learn? With a hatchet you have a tool designed to do the job, no muss, no fuss, not expensive and your knife can be a user friendly tool.

As far as a deterrent or weapon against man or beast, I'm really out of my depth here, too many variables. I guess any underlying thought is that if I'm in some really desperate situation then I'd want the most deadly thing I own. Until they come out with a "death ray" that means firearms.

If you really are determined on a fixed blade knife, then I'd go to a sporting goods store where you can actually hold the knives they offer. Somewhere you've used knives; what blade shape did you find worked for you? Consider how the handle feels in you hand. I once bought a knife with an aluminum handle, bad plan, it proved so cold in use that my hand hated it. I see that Buck Knives now has a line of knives with rubber/plastic handles, they ought to grip well, also offered in orange (!!!) however ugly at least it would be hard to loose! And offered at very low prices.

All my life I've carried my knives on my hip, they were hard to get to under clothing and tended to bump on things. Well, that's just the way it was and I accepted it. Lately I've been experimenting with carrying the sheathed knife on a cord around my neck and looped under one armpit. It's still a work in progress but so far the method of carry seems to have a lot to offer. You might give it a try, sure doesn't cost much.

Glenn, on your #4 above, you really need to buck up your ideas. Cutting tools are serious things and need to be kept sharp and deserve care and respect. U-Tube has bunches of films on how to sharpen knives and take care of your tool.

On Turtles #11 above, my take on the guy who cut himself: It was a quick death. And I'll bet the doctor thought " Darn, he's dead and I didn't didn't get a chance to make a dime off him!"
But Turtle surely is right, the sheath ought to contain the sharp what ever the tool is.

Best Wishes, Rob
 
I like old carbon steel knives and have plenty of them, but for canoeing a Mora stainless steel knife goes on the PFD with a plastic sheath and a plastic handle.
 
Moldy,I know you meant you comment in fun, But this was around a primitive campfire after passing the jug. He wept!! I have a D-2 steel Randall from Ontario knife which is near me that I would bet my life on. Too heavy to take canoe tripping though.
Turtle
 
Whatever you decide on, don't buy it without holding it in person. I've bought a number of knives online only to open the box, check it out, cut a few things with it and then end up selling it on Ebay (loosing money) a few months later. Reading the dimensions just doesn't work for me. I need to feel them and see them first. It was a tough and expensive lesson for me.
 
Glenn, blade shape and intended uses aside, I’m going to focus on only #4

4. Low maintenance, especially around water. I have little interest and great neglect for cleaning, sharpening and polishing.

You know your care and maintenance routines better than anyone. If you are not going to clean and sharpen the knife, the blade material becomes an issue worth serious consideration. Are you at least going to routinely clean and oil the knife after a trip? Especially after salt water trips? Stainless steel would seem a likely candidate. Or not.

Stainless steel can present a sharpening issue, or at least (for me) more so than carbon blades. Are you, the man who didn’t own a clamp, going to buy a diamond stone for stainless? Or make the effort to sharpen it with silicon carbide sandpaper? What are you going to do when the blade (any blade) loses its edge? Using a dull knife is poor risk avoidance behavior.

If you go stainless how do you tell good quality stainless steel from the rustable stuff that should not have the word “stainless” attached? I have some inexpensive SS rescue knives. I bought lash tab knives for a families worth of PFDs and went the cheap route. Byrd Cara Caras (Spyderco’s price point Chinese line). Essentially these:

https://www.spyderco.com/catalog/details.php?product=589

What utter crap stainless steel. Badly rusted junk after just a couple of trips. Actually, worse than junk; once they rusted they kept rusting despite better attention, and a rusty folder is pure dangerous junk.

If you opt for low maintenance stainless steel look for a recommendation from someone who has carried and used that particular manufacturer’s stainless, especially if you paddle salt water.

Mora seems to have a lot of relatively inexpensive choices, including stainless. A question for MadMike or anyone who has a Mora stainless – how rustproof is Mora’s stainless? Actually that may be a better question for someone who disregards knife maintenance and paddles salt water.

A question for Rippy or other knife pros – is there some designated code for variations of stainless steel. As in some letter/number code to look for that indicates higher quality stainless?
 
I've been watching a lot of video and reading reviews. Random thoughts so far (but no decisions):

Hatchets are ruled out. I can do much more versatile cutting, limbing, lopping and batoning with my golok machete than any hatchet. But I want something shorter and lighter for canoeing.

I like the Fallknivens but I'd definitely get the 5" S1 rather than the 3.9" F1, which isn't that much longer than my Benchmade Osborne folder. I also like the Zytel sheath option for the S1 a real lot. Pricey. Not sure I'd be a good learner for sharpening the convex edge, and my local knife sharpen guy doesn't like to do it either.

I also like the Benchmade Bushcrafter. Very aesthetic and has my favorite S30V stainless steel. By "low maintenance" I'm including features such as no rusting, long edge retention, and low potential for chipping and rolling the edge. S30V steel with the Benchmade high grind has those features. I have have the Benchmade 940 Osborne folder with that same steel and grind. The problem with the BM Bushcrafter is that it's a 4.5" blade, which I'm thinking is a little short. BM does give lifetime sharpening on their products (and you can get great prices directly from the BM site if you register as law enforcement or military).

I have no doubt that fixed blade knives can baton 3" hardwood, as I've now seen enough video reviews that prove that. But I think the blade should be 5+ inches and thick. The popular Mora Black Bushcrafter is a little short at 4.3" and the Mora Pathfinder may be too long at 6.75". Plus they are both carbon steel, which I don't like for corrosion reasons, and I don't like black coated knives. Those Mora's are also 3/4 tang rather than full, but they both do well anyway in batoning tests. And the Black Bushcrafter is inexpensive.

I don't need a PFD knive. I have a Spyderco 79mm Rescue folder with VG10 stainless steel for that.

I don't need my fixed blade to be a fine carving or woodworking knife. I don't do that stuff, but if I did, I can do it with my Benchmade Osborne, my Benchmade Mini Griptilian 555 with 154CM stainless steel, or my Kershaw Blur with Sandvik 14C28N steel -- all having different blade profiles for different uses.

So, I'm zeroing in on a quality stainless steel knife with good edge retention in the 5"-6.5" blade length, full or 3/4 tang, with either a Scandi, flat or convex grind.

I'm still not clear on grind pluses and minuses. It seems that convex would be best for chopping, but I don't see myself chopping with a knife (and think those video chopping tests are ridiculous). My Bahco Laplander saw, which I always carry, can go through logs much, much quicker than chopping with any 5"-7" knife. Some people, like Hoop, seem to like convex for batoning while others on YouTube say they like Scandi for batoning. Really sharp Scandi's, like the Mora's, do seem to shave the best on the videos.

Still thinking.
 
Maybe so Turtle, maybe so.

About your knife, I've got one probably just about like it, stays in the drawer. Why'd I buy it? Gee.....sure looked neat! Obviously, more money than sense. I've been looking at Cold Steel's Bird and Trout Knife, about all the way to the other end of the spectrum from my big clunk from Ontario knife. I think the Bird and Trout knife would get a whole bunch more use!

Best Wishes, Rob
 
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