Can I Use a Lock Knife for Bushcraft? Share it! Is a lock knife any good for bushcraft? Photo: Paul Kirtley.“Can I use a lock- knife for bushcraft?” is a question I’ve been asked many times. The answer is “it depends”. It depends on the peculiarities of the knife and the techniques you want to employ. A good quality knife. Just to give you some background, I’ve been using a lock- knife for more years than I quite remember. At a time when I had big, cheap survival knives made out of soft steel, I saved up and bought a Winchester lock knife from my local gun shop. I think I was 1. 3 or 1. My Winchester lock- knife was the first good- quality knife I’d had. It was certainly safer to use than anything else I’d been using. I’d had some really dodgy sheath knives, with really flimsy sheaths as well as some very cheap pen- knives (the sort of thing you’d be able to buy at the seaside or paper shop back then). I actually used the Winchester for many years and took it with me when I started undertaking more serious hiking trips. One of its downsides though is it’s heavy. It always felt heavy in my pocket. For this article I weighed it and it’s 1. We’ll come back to that a bit later on. Folding knives have an inherent weakness. A lock- knife is still a folding knife and all folding knives have an inherent weakness at the hinge. Moreover, because they hinge there is a risk that they will close while in use. Of course this may be down to user- error but it is still a risk. It’s also a risk that is removed when using a fixed- bladed knife. A move to fixed- blade knives. When I first became interested in what we now call bushcraft, I bought a Normark knife very similar in size to what we would now call a ‘bushcraft knife’. It was the nearest thing I could find to the specification laid out in Ray Mears’ Outdoor Survival Handbook. It felt lighter in my hand than the Winchester lock knife I had been using. Again I’ve weighed it and, with sheath it’s 1. Many of the Mora knives, which are now ubiquitous, are a similar weight too. Normark knife and a (very well- used) Woodlore knife. Photo: Paul Kirtley. So with the availability of fixed- bladed knives that were a similar weight to my folding knife, and an increasing interest in bushcraft, I transitioned to using a small fixed- blade as my primary knife. 1. What will be if you delete the locker? 2. What will be if you rename that “private” folder into another name? 3. How advanced users can bypass this method and. Driver Toolkit - [License Key + Crack] - [100% Working Free Download] ( Updated September 2017). Then in 2. 00. 1 I received an Alan Wood Woodlore knife as a present. It wasn’t until quite a few years later when Lars Fält introduced me to the Fallkniven TK4 that I considered carrying a lock- knife again.
I liked it because even though the overall size was smaller, the blade size was similar to my old Winchester. It was also a damn sight lighter (the TK4 weighs a little over 5. It also had a lanyard hole – very useful for securing the knife to your person. My old Winchester lock knife and my TK4. The TK4 is less than a third of the weight for a similar sized blade. Photo: Paul Kirtley. The TK4 also has an added benefit in that it works very well as a striker for a Swedish Firesteel. This is not without peril though, as I discovered during a canoe trip in Canada. I had been scraping up some birch bark to accept a spark so had the TK4 open. I then turned the knife around and scraped the Firesteel down onto it, using the back of the knife. Somehow I depressed the release of the locking mechanism. The knife had closed hard on my right index finger. Not a great injury to sustain in the middle of nowhere when you need the use of your hands. I was concerned I might have cut a tendon but my finger seemed to be working OK despite the pain. Now, a couple of years later I have some numbness in my finger below the cut due to some nerve damage. This accident was down to my error but it’s possible it wouldn’t have happened if the lock release was further back rather than in the middle of the handle. Either way, the solution isn’t to shun this handy little knife but to use the back of the knife on a Firesteel when it is folded closed. Can you really do much with a small lock- knife? While the small handle size and secondary bevel mean you are limited in how powerfully you can cut with a small lock knife such as the TK4, you can certainly use it for larger tasks that might surprise some people. Gralloching and skinning a deer with this knife is perfectly feasible for instance. Skinning a fallow deer with a Fallkniven TK4 lock knife. Photo: Paul Kirtley. But note lock- knives can be harder to clean than fixed- blade knives. The locking mechanism and the nail nick on each side of the blade can tricky to clean and therefore be a potential harbour for bacteria. What about carving and other woodcraft techniques? As long as a small lock- knife is kept sharp, it will be good for light whittling or carving. But as soon as you start putting more force into it, you are increasing the risk compared to a fixed- bladed knife. Another, slightly larger lock- knife I’ve been testing out is the Spyderco Paramilitary. It has an overall size similar to a Mora knife. This is a US- made Spyderco and so relatively expensive. It’s well made and the blade steel is CPM S3. V steel, which I find much easier to sharpen than the Fallkniven 3. G steel. I liked the pocket- clip and I was attracted by the one- handed opening – handy in some circumstances. There are some other features different to the Winchester and TK4 type of lock- knife, primarily a liner- lock. In fact one of the few direct similarities is a lanyard hole. Fallkniven TK4 (top) and Spyderco Paramilitary (bottom). Photo: Paul Kirtley. What about a knife review? Now, I’m sorry if I offend anyone here, I don’t intend to. It’s more a point about terminology than anything. To me, a knife review is not videoing yourself receiving it in the mail, taking it out of the box, and talking about what you think of how it looks. Unboxing videos in general can be informative, whether you are buying a laptop or a knife, but it’s not a review of the item’s function. It’s a bit like reviewing a CD (remember them?) by filming yourself unwrapping the cellophane wrapper, opening the case, pulling out the booklet and leafing through it, admiring the artwork and commenting on the shine of the disc itself. You can’t review a record unless you listen to it. And you can’t form an opinion of a knife (for a particular purpose) unless you have used it (for that particular purpose), preferably for an extended period of time. I’ve been using this Spyderco for over a year and only now am I coming to a fully- formed view of it. But that’s one of my afflictions, if you like; I’m thorough. The steel is sweet for carving green wood such as hazel. When I first used it I knocked out some nice tarp pegs with precision in no time at all. This type of green wood carving is one of the Spyderco’s consistent strengths. It’s also pretty easy to keep sharp. The Spyderco knife made quick work of simple tent- pegs. Photo: Paul Kirtley. Does it work with a Firesteel? Sadly not. The CPM S3. V steel is not as hard as the 3. G steel which, incidentally, makes it easier to sharpen. In fact I tried quite a few times with increasing force (knife was closed) and all it really did was mark the steel on the back of the blade. But a Fireflash comes with a striker so it’s not the end of the world. So I thought I’d try some other tasks the similar sized Mora would be up to. What about batoning? Whoops. I placed the knife on top of a round of wood, tapped it into the top. Once it was embedded, I hit the tip of the knife while pushing down on the handle (standard batoning technique). As soon as I hit the knife, the liner lock disengaged. I tried it again. Same thing. I tried it again with less force. Same thing. The first time wasn’t a fluke. It did it every single time. I didn’t need to tap the tip of the knife very hard at all to get the lock to fail. Here, then is the possibility of guillotining a finger (in my opinion). Attempting to baton with the Spyderco Paramilitary lock knife. Photo: Paul Kirtley. The Spyderco liner lock failed and the knife folded. Photo: Paul Kirtley. OK, so batoning doesn’t work with the Spyderco. It’s not something I would consider with a TK4 either because it is too small and the blade is too short. But the Spyderco is larger and the blade length is similar to a typical ‘bushcraft knife’. Assuming you can split some wood (either from smaller diameter or with an axe), what about making some feathersticks? Given the keen edge and the performance of the knife in carving small- diameter green wood, I thought the knife stood a good chance of making half- decent feathersticks. How to Make the Perfect PB& J Sandwich. Growing up, food writer Priya Krishna ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at every school lunch for eleven years, and in that time she (and her mother) refined the recipe to its ideal, such an ideal that she still eats them. Krishna has five tips for the perfect PB& J: Spread the condiments evenly over the entire surface of the bread. Use preserves, which have chunks of fruit, instead of jam or jelly. Stick to strawberry and raspberry, not blueberry or anything funky. Cut the sandwich diagonally. Wrap it in foil, not plastic wrap, so it’s less sticky. We’d personally like to add: Toast your bread. It adds some crispness to a potentially soggy sandwich, and it makes it easier to spread crunch peanut butter. Another way to avoid sogginess is to put peanut butter on both bread slices. Krishna tells some charming stories about her PB& J history, which make it clear that she’s aware there are other lunches out there. But why keep looking when you’ve found The One?
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