What's your favorite knife, blade, and/or saw?

[D.B.D.Participant 889]

I’m well familiar with yellow label Stihl chains and some hedge trimmers but I’ve rediscovered some old kitchen knives I have from Germany and their particular sharpening techniques. It’s impressive how they can shape up after years of abuse and slice through a tomato without effort. A honing rod and/or whetstone…but it’s a slow and delicate process.
Mgtow topic; It’s interesting how most chefs are men.

[D.B.D.Participant 889]

Damascus steel and hand honed blades are excellent.

[AussieParticipant 2509]

I love knives. Probably because I am not allowed to own guns.

Checkout this cool Russian sharpening rig.

http://tsprof.com

" I feel threatened "

[D.B.D.Participant 889]

Aussie wrote:

I love knives. Probably because I am not allowed to own guns.

Checkout this cool Russian sharpening rig.

http://tsprof.com

‘Very interesting… Please explain your situation.

[Anonymous 43]

Twenty year old Victorinox pocket knife I used every day while I was living in a tent. Best use was chasing a migrant worker out of my tent when he tried to steal my daughter’s My Little Mermaid blanket from me.

Knife now resides in my range bag.

[Silver FoxParticipant 2766]

Favorite all-purpose knife, from hunting to opening boxes… Gerber Gator drop-point:

https://www.gerbergear.com/Knives/Folding/Gator-Knife_06064

Favorite chainsaw, during the summer when I’m a sawyer on wildland firefighter crews… Stihl 460 Magnum with full-wrap handle:

https://www.stihlusa.com/products/chain-saws/professional-saws/ms461r/

"Are you loosed from a wife? Do not seek a wife." --Apostle Paul

[Anonymous 0]

I use a Mora knife for camping and Mora hook knife for hollowing out bowls.

Both knives are fantastic for whittling. Swedish made. Excellent quality. Both are extremely sharp so you have to be careful. They come in a ton of different varieties. Very reasonably priced. Mine was around $25 – $30 Canadian Dollars. Purchased it five years ago and haven’t felt the need to sharpen it yet but my usage is fairly limited.

[Branched offParticipant 10926]

That is such a hard question. I have prized ones and every day ones.

By use -Mora carbon steel knives, will do everything, will get wickedly sharp and you wont cry if you lose one in the woods. However the Scandi grind which works so well on wood really falls down jointing a carcass and blunts fast. For this best use a butcher’s knife unless you are far from home.

By long association an old Helle Harding laminated steel knife that somehow has just refused to get lost on 3 continents but the stainless blade takes far longer to sharpen than the carbon and the wooden handle is harder to clean than the mora plastic.

Blade -for historical association 1854 pattern infantry sword.

Under the bed -Chassepot sword bayonet shaving sharp

For personal association -a short sword and spear my late wife’s father gave me when we were married.

For work use -British Devon bill hook

On an axe -Gransfors Bruks

Saws -oh here the intended use is everything. Handsaws -Silkys every time. You can’t beat a Zubat silky for a great deal 330 or 390 mill depending on use.

Chainsaws -again use is everything but also availability of spares is important to consider
Top handled -Stihls
Small to medium forestry saws -Huskies because they are just faster
Big beasts -stihls -like the 880 but the new 660 is a beast too. Never use a bar that is longer than you need. Never use thick chain when you can use thin, always sharpen perfectly -Pferd filing system will get the rakers at the same time, maybe finish with a diamond file.
Fuel with Aspen or its equivalent. Your health is worth it.

A woman is like fire -fun to play with, can warm you through and cook your food, needs constant feeding, can burn you and consume all you own

[D.B.D.Participant 889]

Aussie wrote:

I love knives. Probably because I am not allowed to own guns.

Checkout this cool Russian sharpening rig.

http://tsprof.com

Wow, that’s impressive. Thanks for sharing man.

[D.B.D.Participant 889]

Silver Fox wrote:

Favorite all-purpose knife, from hunting to opening boxes… Gerber Gator drop-point:

https://www.gerbergear.com/Knives/Folding/Gator-Knife_06064

Favorite chainsaw, during the summer when I’m a sawyer on wildland firefighter crews… Stihl 460 Magnum with full-wrap handle:

https://www.stihlusa.com/products/chain-saws/professional-saws/ms461r/

Does that Gerber sharpen pretty easy? That Stihl 460 is in beast category. I use an old 026 with a Farm Boss bar. It’s been a fine saw but sometimes 50cc’s can barely pull 20″ of yellow label chain through harder woods.

[D.B.D.Participant 889]

Branched off wrote:

That is such a hard question. I have prized ones and every day ones.

By use -Mora carbon steel knives, will do everything, will get wickedly sharp and you wont cry if you lose one in the woods. However the Scandi grind which works so well on wood really falls down jointing a carcass and blunts fast. For this best use a butcher’s knife unless you are far from home.

By long association an old Helle Harding laminated steel knife that somehow has just refused to get lost on 3 continents but the stainless blade takes far longer to sharpen than the carbon and the wooden handle is harder to clean than the mora plastic.

Blade -for historical association 1854 pattern infantry sword.

Under the bed -Chassepot sword bayonet shaving sharp

For personal association -a short sword and spear my late wife’s father gave me when we were married.

For work use -British Devon bill hook

On an axe -Gransfors Bruks

Saws -oh here the intended use is everything. Handsaws -Silkys every time. You can’t beat a Zubat silky for a great deal 330 or 390 mill depending on use.

Chainsaws -again use is everything but also availability of spares is important to consider
Top handled -Stihls
Small to medium forestry saws -Huskies because they are just faster
Big beasts -stihls -like the 880 but the new 660 is a beast too. Never use a bar that is longer than you need. Never use thick chain when you can use thin, always sharpen perfectly -Pferd filing system will get the rakers at the same time, maybe finish with a diamond file.
Fuel with Aspen or its equivalent. Your health is worth it.

Man thank you for sharing all that priceless info. I’m gonna be busy looking up all those products and such.

[Branched offParticipant 10926]

D.B.D. wrote:

Mgtow topic; It’s interesting how most chefs are men.

Yeah it is interesting that. It is also interesting that domestically most cooks are women. Every woman I have lived with has done the cooking. None of them from my mother onwards could sharpen a knife well and some never even tried to sharpen knives. Knife sharpening just does not seem to grab women.

Since sharpening has been mentioned, its hard to resist putting in my two pennies worth.

There are lots of ways to skin a cat and so it is good not to get too critical of what other men do but the principles remain the same and it is good to start from the basics. You need the right grind for the job at the right angle (and experience will be the best tutor here) and axe or billhook will need a very different grind to a skinning knife. The steel you use will also dictate the angle of the grind. There is no perfect knife steel or rockwell hardness. Steel, hardness, grind and intended use must all come together. Carbon steels sharpen a lot easier as a rule than stainless. The hardest steel rarely sharpens well and often chips, so it is rarely a good work knife steel.

For practically all sharpening, shaving sharp is a good bench mark -it is not sharpened if it does not shave. It can feel a bit anal taking this to an axe but a really sharp hatchet is worth having, even if a felling axe need not actually shave.

Your coarse work is the most important work in sharpening. Set the bevels right and bringing your knife to razor sharp on finer stones alone (no stropping necessarily needed) is no hard business. Get the best coarse stone you can buy. Never be afraid to take a file to a badly damaged blade -but do so with great care. If you are wearing out a coarse hone trying to get a nick out of an edge you are using the wrong tool. Use a coarser hone or even a file until the nick comes out easily. The grind wheel is only for the very skilled and bold. It is so easy to over heat an edge and lose the heat treatment.

I have tried most hones over the years and my personal system is corinox file (for great damage) and the full selection of DMT 8 inch full diamond stones for sharpening (thought the extra fine is a bit overkill for most use). The extra coarse one is a wonderful thing and worth the hefty price tag.

Oil on the stones is not needed, it is a myth! Oil on the final stone actually makes the edge blunter they have found through using electron microscopes.

I used to always strop blades but now rarely do. Wipe a blade firmly on some rough cloth or paper once it has been fine honed to remove any lose metal and then take a polished steel (a polished steel rod with absolutely no serrations or roughness at all) and run the blade backwards over it several times. This aligns the “fin” of the razor edge and makes it last a bit longer. You can also sometimes bring a knife back to shaving sharp several times just by repeating this. I have a wonderful German butcher’s boning knife that will joint a deer and then shave again several times after treated this way.

A knife that cuts wood wants the most perfect edge that has as few microscopic faults as possible. Wood is hard and the small flaws will get torn into bigger ones with repeated use. This will accelerate blunting. This is why a chainsaw is best finished with a diamond file. You would not sharpen a wood plane or chisel with a file! Yet is not a chainsaw just a set of small planes and chisels on a chain? Few men realise this but your fuel consumption will dramatically fall when you do.

A knife that cuts chord (and muscle, skin and ligaments are made of fibres) needs micro serrations to work best so you want to get shaving sharp with some micro serrations. This is a bit of a skill and may involve switching straight from extra coarse to fine stones, so that you leave some serration in a shaving sharp edge. The old cavalry men knew how to sharpen a sabre so that its “invisible teeth” cut on the draw stroke and it is worth researching this if you want to sharpen awesomely to cut rope or meat. The angle you use your extra coarse stone will make this difference with the “invisible teeth”.

A woman is like fire -fun to play with, can warm you through and cook your food, needs constant feeding, can burn you and consume all you own

[Yojimbo RockfordParticipant 348]

Bk7. Mora companion. Both high carbon steel for easier sharpening. I use the BK7 for heavier work with wood, and the Mora for animals. I have a Sven Saw 21 inch.

On a whim, my brother got the Hawkechete to see if it was as gimmicky as it seemed. That f~~~ing thing was awesome. Cleared out a half acre of brush and foliage in no time.

I think next on my list is a Kabar USMC just to have it.

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