This is a small (under four inches) fixed blade made from VG-10 (a high carbon stainless steel) at 60 / 62 HRC. It has an up swept skinner style tip with a full convex grind and no secondary edge bevel and a mirror polish. The handle is made from hard synthetic with soft inserts for grip retention. It comes with a leather cross-draw sheath which has good retention but is bulky for such a small knife. Pictures and more details can be seen in the Nemo and Fred Perrin review.
UPDATE : this version of the knife has been discontinued. The current version is a drop point blade with a full flat grind with a secondary edge bevel, no mirror finish, and the hardness is 59/60 HRC. The sheath is also now Concealex with a six position TekLock.
This blade has a fairly odd shaped handle which seemed odd at first but soon proved very functional. The blade indexes strongly in hand, and the compressible rubber inserts lightly aid security and comfort. However it thins out a bit to much at the top and bottom and thus "hot spots" can be created between thumb pad and index finger and underneath the pinky finger fairly quickly when the knife is used with moderate to high force. A strong positive is that since the handle is fully enclosed, with no exposed metal contact points it is very comfortable in extreme temperatures and should should provide some measure of electrical insulation.
The high hardness of the VG-10 steel allowed the knife to retain a high level of crisp sharpness for extended use. For example After 208 cuts on three sheets of card stock, the knife would shave at about 50% with no pressure, and scrape hair 100%. After 300 cuts it would not shave but still scraped hair a little and continued to slice the stock well. Just eight strokes on a 800 grit ceramic rod were used to reset the edge with an additional two to remove the burr and the Featherweight was restored to 100%. Some additional edge retention work :
In short, the Featherweight showed a large improvement over the AUS-8 knife, but was outperformed by the harder and higher alloy D2 blade. More work :
Again the Featherweight does well. The only functional drawback was that the choil is a bit cramped for actual firm comfortable finger placement, and catches a bit on deep cuts.
Used for light utility work, the Featherweight had no problems with edge damage even though the edge is very thin and acute. However if compared to a more robust geometry, there are differences seen when the cutting becomes harder. In more detail :
In short, slightly harder Featherweight will generally outlast the F1 in retained a crisp edge but does have durability drawbacks.
While you can apply a secondary edge bevel to fully convex knives, they are designed to be sharpened by working the main bevel. The advantage to this method is that it is generally much easier to match the angle (more contact surface gives greater tactile feedback), and the blade profile is maintained and thus the edge doesn't thicken with repeated sharpening. The downside is that since the entire blade has to be honed, not just a small edge, it takes much more time to sharpen.
There are mainly two ways to sharpen such a profile. The first is simple using a regular hone and either drawing the blade back in a stropping motion and rotating it up to match curvature, or working a small hone over the full grind. Both of these seem impossible at first, but a lot of people find that they are actually far easier to master than trying to match the precise angle on a secondary bevel that is only a millimeter or so wide.
The second method is to hone the knife on a medium which will give and thus the curvature is automatically matched. Just about anything that will compress can be used, it just needed to be covered with a piece of sandpaper or loaded leather to form an abrasive. Apply enough force to cause the blade to sink down so the curvature gets matched, and use an edge trailing (stropping) motion to hone the edge.
UPDATE : edge trailing sharpening can produce very large burrs. After the initial honing with the rougher grit this burr can easily be cut off by using a much finer grit abrasive and performing a couple of leading edge strokes at a higher angle, then proceeding to whatever polishing grit is most suitable.
This knife is designed as a hunting / camp knife and it is well suited to all manner of light work due to its thin blade and acute convex bevel. It stays sharp for an extended period of time, and cuts very well due to the efficient profile. However something more rugged like the F1 from Fallkniven, or the Howling Rat from Swamp Rat Knifeworks would be more suitable as a general utility knife.
As noted in the above, the handle was found to be too thin at the top and bottom. The choil was also found to not be overly functional and was mainly a drawback. The up-swept tip does hamper utility work and for a general use knife a drop point style would be a better option.
You can comment on this review by dropping me an email : cliffstamp[REMOVE]@cutleryscience.com .
| Last updated : | Wed May 7 12:24:18 NDT 2003 |
| Wed Sep 1 16:15:55 NDT 1999 |