Santoku Bushcraft - and some thoughts on utility

 Why is it that I keep constantly checking on reality? ;-) This is a knife I started some time ago and finally found my resolve to complete. I have worked with some pretty strange steels to date and have followed pretty weird concepts that were more art than artefact-not that they do not work, mind you. Máandevos is as good as they come and rides in my pocket constantly. It has abnormal edge holding capacity, and I also use it to remove grates from other knives, which actually made some jaws drop... ;-)....

BUT.

This is but a study for a prototype. As you well know, I keep experimenting with shape, grind, tempering and fiddle with handle designs to achieve a refinement so that I can one day make a knife that has "the" feel. I have heard that Santoku shape is all the rage at the moment with "tactical" and Bushcraft users and I wanted to find out, so I made one with my trademark Fimbulmyrk handle. I hot-punched the tang and messed up a bit, but this one was just for testers anyway. I took some high-carbon spring steel, nothing fancy, roundabout 0,6-075% carbon, some silicium and maybe some tiny amount of chromium and manganese in it, a steel that most modern-day-knifemakers would not spare a second thought about.

 Spine thickness is 4-1.5 mm, tapering, and the tang tapers, too, albeit not that much. Length is a legal 12 cm. You do not actually need anything longer for everyday camp chores apart from chopping, but I find this length helpful in batoning and even cutting bread. Ever tried to cut a loaf of bread with a 60mm - blade? Then you know what I mean... the same goes for cheese and stuff, so I used up all the length the law had to offer. It´s not that you are not allowed to own anything longer, but you have to have a legal reason to carry it in public, and since I do not want to rely on rights of reason anymore, I tend to play safe. And if you mate it with a small campsite hatchet, you got everything you need for the most of occasions.

The blade is tempered using a three-step-process, with a soft spine, and has a high convex bevel, as is almost customary for me. I find when you do it right, a high convex bevel offers the best compromise between cutting prowess and edge stability. You do not want a hatchet grind, though... it is crucial that the edge has an angle of 15-40°. In this case it has some 20-25°, good and durable still but also cutting well enough.

 I fitted some birchwood burr scales on it, fitted with mosaic pins and a brass tube for a lanyard hole.

 The balance point to date is slightly back of the index finger, but I have to finish the wood still, so that will move slightly more forward. It handles quite dexterous.

And this is the culprit: Having tested and worked it some I can say one thing. The knife certainly is nothing fancy what concerns the materials and is certainly not a work of art. But I can safely say that it will take a lot of abuse and comes back for more. It chops deer antler and carves mild steel rods, and who could ask for more? It even whittles well, can be batoned through knotted hardwood and makes short terms of dicing onions and slicing up tomatoes being held by just two fingers. After all this, it still carved curves in free-hanging printer´s paper. It is a knife that works. On the one hand I am glad that making knives like this costs me less and less effort, so that implies I am on a good path. And while I like making concept knives, sometimes you have to check on your progress and on the sense in what you do. This knife will be a companion you can rely on. Everytime, everywhere. And isn´t this what a knife should do in the first place?

Making art knives is a kind of fetish thing. You tell stories, and that is okay in a world that is devoid of stories, and if storytelling is your fetish... yap, there you go. But you always have to keep in mind that your knives still have to work. They have to be a companion and a tool, and they have to be reliable. Nothing more, nothing less.

I hope I can manage the crossover between both worlds.

On the bench: Bushcraft Santoku and American Tanto

 Now to something different: I was wanting to do a Santoku bushcraft design from laminate steel. This is in fact a first test on the design I made from Unimog spring steel, selectively tempered, 120x 3.8 mm to 2 mm. The holes are punched...unfortunately one o´them did go a bit awry. But, it should work well enough for testing. Blade and tang are tapering for balance. The balance point should be on the index finger if all goes well.

 The testing as I did to date shows great capabilities in kitchen applications and while woodcarving can be done, it is less than ideal... I will further refine the design, I think, to make it suited better for the task. And might be I´d even make some to sell... we´ll see.

 Another altogether different matter is this tanto design, which actually is no tanto design, but an American adaptation of a kind of Katana (Japanese long sword) tip for a tactical knife. I love to experiment with knife designs and like to go to limits. This is a tactical knife, and I have not yet much liked this style, and still do not much take to the martial concept of many of them. But there is no denying the fact that the American Tanto tip is near indestructible and offers advantages not only in penetration capabilities, but also in whittling. For instance, I have broken off the tip of some carving knives when trying to carve a spoon or Kuksa without a spoon knife. Also, when working with a mason, I used my utility knife to cut the grooves into dry building boards with the tip and dulled it quite a lot. Obviously you use a chisel normally;-), but when there is no chisel at hand, you use what is at hand. So, there is more to the American Tanto design, and I do not believe it actually makes for a better weapon, but for a better tool. I forged this blade from some steel I found in the woods. When I found it, it showed some pattern, but even after 24 h of hardcore etching it shows no patina whatsoever. It slams through mild steel rods and I aborted the bending test at 25°.

 Not that it bends easily with a thickness of some 9 mm at the handle! It then tapers quite radically, as does the tang, which is drilled out for balance, too (yeah, I know I messed up, but it cost me three
!glass! drill bits to get through this material. And this after I thoroughly annealed and deep-froze and annealed once more and I could work it with a file). Not that it was that hard, it just was so ductile that the bore chips came in one long and several short ones. The grates were looking as if someone punched a pudding. Weird.

Also, it carves mild steel, chops antler and penetrates oil cans. If anything is a tactical tool, this steel is. I plan on fitting another no-go: A Micarta handle with red G-10 liners and making a hardened multipurpose leather sheath for it... or maybe I´d even have a go at a Kydex (TM) sheath... we´ll see how it goes. Maybe it´ll get desert iron wood or ebony.... would fit the bill just as well, and I don´t like that special waste on my knives still.

I look forward to it even if it is so different to my normal line of thought. In fact, I do, BECAUSE it is so different to everything I would normally make, and it might help broaden my view and confirm new perspectives.