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The correct way to use your knife. (What you were not told)

I am quite suprised at the number of knife enthusiasts who did not know how to properly utilize their cutting implements.. Myself included. For me, the realization came late. Middle age is a period where your body undergoes considerable change, and not necessarily for the better. I have perhaps one hundred knives in my possession. Maybe 150. I don't know for sure, unless I count them. But that is not important here. What's important is the realisation that I have been abusing most of my knives. By "abuse", I do not mean using a knife for tasks it was not designed for(e.g. as a pry-bar, can opener, batoning, clever, hammer etc) and then putting it away wet. By abuse, I meant reading up on a knife, looking up reviews of it on the internet forums, watching trials and abuse test of it on youtube, etc., and then after procuring it, unboxing it, fondling it and put it away in a drawer or safe, not to be seen again. Personally, I have this incoherent fear that if I were to...
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ROUGH RIDER CLASSIC CARBON SWAYBACK WHITTLER

Go buy one. If you are somehow unhappy with it, it would help to validate the other whittler you own  (and paid 10 times as much for) 3-Blade Swayback whittler, model # RR1741 F inally, RR did the right thing with their steel. Don't get me wrong, the 440 (A?) steel that they use currently in all of their traditional pocket knife patterns is adequate. It is not the crumbly mystery steel you get from Tourist souvenior shops.  The flip top box that the whittler came in was tastefully aged. It even has a piece of waxed paper covering the knife, a-la WR CASE & Sons. Blades came covered in light machine oil. Don't know what took them so long. I only came across them a month or so ago.If you search the web, people were talking about this "Classic Carbon" series as early as January 2018. 3 3/4" Closed. Yellow "Composition" handles. Delrin? Reminds me of undyed cattle bone of old.  Since this "CC" series is all about the...

SURVIVAL KNIFE MODIFICATION: SCHRADE SCHF 9 RE-HANDLE

  One of the series of knives released by Schrade (Taylor Brands) in 2015 that has created some stir, mainly due to their low price and choice of blade steel. Probably also due to their quarter inch thick spine. For this SCHF 9, well two more notables: Recurved edge (love it or hate it) and Flat-ground main bevel.   The TPE (Thermo Plastic Elastomer) handle is held together by 8 individual  Hex bolts threaded into the tang, though it looked like four bolts only.      I noticed that manufacturer who stamped their marks tends to laser them later on their subsequent release. Perhaps to reduce cost? They usually cite material strength issues caused by hard stamps (A stamp applied forcibly on a ricasso may weaken the knife or bend it slightly. Well, for this Schrade, they stamp it where the fuller (blood groove) would have been, so it's not a material-strength compromise we are dealing with here. Looks more like cost issue. Well,...

Carving a Briar Pipe

 This blog entry's content, format, language, and font is optimised for old eyes, like those over 45 years of age.   I am totally sold out on any writing on woodworking. Too busy, too tired.   Took up smoking pipes. Hard to get real tobaccos here. The sundry stores stock aromatics mostly, in the likes of Captain Black, Borkum Riff, Dutch masters, etc. The closest I've come to real tobacco is Erinmore Flake.     Anyway, from Greece, an ebay seller offered a kit that will eventually finish as a bent Billiard. Kits like these are supplied with the heavy lifting done (chamber, draft holes, tenons, heat bending, etc) so that on can focus on the design, not construction. See below:   I have other plans. I've always been partial to Cherry Wood (the name of the pipe shape, not the material Cherry) and Pokers. So much so that I cannot resist bidding on a real cherry wood pipe by Ropp (France). Bark intact, mind you. Panelled too. Rust...

ONTARIO RAT MODEL 1 : MY TWO CENTS WORTH.

      This review does not include a cut test because: 1. How sharp the knife comes from the factory have very little to do with how well it is designed. I could sharpen mild steel until it will slice paper. 2. Production variables (this includes heat-treat consistency) will null any singular test done on just one knife. 3. I believe every knife user must know how to bring a edge to his/her satisfaction. 4. The best place to hear about Ontario's AUS 8 steel's performance is from forums, from multiple people cutting a myriad of material, and their comparison to other steels. "..comes outta box raazorr sharp! I mean really..really sharp!..." another: "..this steel is crap..don't hold an edge..", "..in between 440A and VG10..IMHO..", you get the picture. Take the average feedback. You won't be far off. Here I am, saying what I really think of this knife. Trying not to cover what was not already covered, which is...little. Very li...