Utility knife by Al Massey

Specifications

This is a drop-point knife with about six inches of sharpened edge and a very long choil, about two inches. The blade weighs 310 g with the center of balance right in the middle of the guard. The knife was forged from O-1 high carbon tool steel and came with a satin finish. The edge is hardened to 57 HRC. The handle is Rose wood and is shaped with finger grooves. The guard is steel and the butt is bronze. It came with a very robust leather sheath. A shot :

The knife is about 1 1/8" wide with a full convex grind. It came with a secondary bevel which was decently acute which was then blended back into the primary edge bevel to raise cutting ability. After the grinding the profile was as follows :

Thus the knife edge is formed by a bevel of under thirty degrees included which sweeps back strongly and is under 20 degrees included by the time it reaches the thickness of the secondary edge bevel on most knives.

Initial use

The blade was used for a variety of tasks to examine the functionality and scope of work.

roughing wood stock

Because the sharpened edge starts out so far in front of the handle, to cut efficently the knife has to be used in a choked up position. Carving some dense wood using the Camp Tramp from Swamp Rat knife works as a reference, with both knives choked up grips, the performance was similar when light force was used. However with heavy cutting the narrow choil on the custom induced a torque disadvantage as the spine isn't fully supported by my hand and thus the blade gets pushed back on an angle into the start of the cut. On the much wider Camp Tramp the thumb can be positioned little in front of the index finger and thus more efficietly push directly into the cut.

Since the choil on the forged custom is so thick, almost a half an inch of steel, and decently rounded it is much more comfortable in a choked up grip than the Camp Tramp. However the guard is very thin and the edges squarish and thus generate high pressure contact points quickly. While it is functional in extended use with such a high grip for longer than the Camp Tramp, but both would want use of a glove fairly quickly. Using a dremel, the edges of the guard was taken back to thicken it, and rounded heavily. This greatly aided in comfort and ergonomics.

As a quick check of the cutting ability of the profile, the custom from Al Massey and the Camp Tramp were used to very lightly chop into some cedar baseboard. It was readily obvious that the forged custom could get the same penetration as the Camp Tramp under much less impact, thus showing the more efficient cutting profile. For heavy swings the Camp Tramp can generate more power which increase its penetration significantly.

As for edge retention, normally carving wood doesn't do anything to tempered steel as normal grades of wood are not that abrasive, however this wood was painted, many layers in fact, and the paint was breaking apart around contacts with the edge during fairly fast and heavy cuts which does make it a lot more demanding than on clean wood. The Camp Tramp and custom were both lightly blunted, both could not shave but both could slice photocopy paper stright down.

To restore the edge, the Camp Tramp was stropped 20 passes per side on CrO loaded leather and was again shaving sharp. The custom was hit with 30 passes per side and not greatly effected mainly because the contact pressure is very low on the custom due to the full grind. A 4000 grit waterstone was used reset the bevel, about a minute or so. This was followed by a light 10 passes on CrO and then another 10 on plain leather, and the knife was now back to full performance and could push straight into the paper.

The custom did have some areas of edge damage about a tenth of a millimeters deep. This doesn't mean however that the steel is inherently less durable, the edge angle is slightly more acute for one, but also the wood was used could have contained grit as it was lying on the basement floor for a few days.

in the kitchen

For most food preperation, the knife worked fine but was behind dedicated kitchen knive due to its greater thickness. This was not a signifiant issue on meats and soft foods, but on thick and rigid vegetables the custom could often break slices instead of cutting them, however it was simply enough to chunk even the hardest to cut foods up into pieces for a stew.

Where the blade stood out was the ability to choke up around the large guard and thus gain control of the point. This made a very large increase to the control of the tip and thus a large increase to the functionality of the knife. Comparing it to the Camp Tramp for cutting up a couple of small chickens, both knives had no problems separating the legs and wings and chunking up the body, however the custom was much better able to make precise cuts and avoid the bones.

Overview

The current profile should prove to be solid for the majority of utility wook and especially be a nice wood working blade. The finger grooves might be a problem as they are a bit too far apart for my hand. I would estimate for them to be dead on you would want about 3.25-3.5" between the center of the knuckle of your index finger and pinky.

Stock cutting tests

The custom was used for a variety of specific cutting tasks in a decently controlled manner to better quantify its performance.

manilla hemp and hardwood cutting

With the knife sharpening to a fine shaving finish using waterstones and finishing with CrO loaded leather, it took 29-31 lbs to do a rocking push cut through 3/8" hemp near the base and 27-29 lbs through the tip. Whittling points on one inch hardwood (basswood) required 6.8 +/- 0.3 cuts.

Tip penetration and strength

The tip penetrates well into soft target, getting 695 (24) pages into a phone book on a vertical stab.

chopping

blade reference

The Camp Tramp was much better due to a heavy blade and military tip getting 864+ pages of penetration. For reference, the Camp Tramp required between 31-33 lbs to cut the hemp near the tip, and up to 41-43 lbs near the base, and pointed the hardwood dowel in 7.9 +/- 1.0 slices.

Design

Some comments on various aspects of the design.

Choil

The very large choil puts the start of the sharpened edge far infront of the hand in a hammer grip. This creates a torque disadvantage and thus increases wrist strain, how much of an effect depends on the hand size, the wider your hand the smaller the decrease in torque, about 55-75% would cover most adults. The argument could be made that you can simply choke up to remove the leverage disadvantage, but there are ergonomic issues with this grip.

However the large choil gives several of the advantages of a much longer blade while retaining the precision cutting ability of a smaller one. In chopping for example it behaves similar to an eight inch blade in regards to power and has the same reach. However this would also be possible if the extra two inches of choil were two extra inches of handle, and that would make a more comfortable grip. The choil space however does allows directly deeper cuts.

guard

The guard goes out straight and then slants up, working with the knife in a choked up position, this geometry fits very well inbetween the fingers. The guard does prevent a number of reverse grips because it is so thin at the point, one about a millimeter thick and thus digs readily into the palm, it is very difficult to use for paring type cutting for example. Removing the guard more grips would be functional, but would sacrafice grip security. The guard however could be reduced in length and made much thicker to improve ergonomics.

handle shape

The handle finger cut outs make for a very user specific grip and can be uncomfortable if the hand doesn't well match the profile (it doesn't match mine well, and for some work like the heavy stabbing I found the grip thus very uncomfortable aned insecure. Such a highly indexed shape also limits grips as holding the knife with the points towards the cented of the palm is very uncomfortable regardless of how well the grip works in a hammer position.

Overview

Comments and references

You can comment on this review by dropping me an email : cliffstamp[REMOVE]@cutleryscience.com or by posting in the following thread on Bladeforums :

• Some comments on a blade from Al Massey, ABS Journeyman Bladesmith

There is also a web page for Al Massey which can be visited for more information.