| This knife was evaluated while on loan from an friend. The review consists of : |
|
The Roselli puukko weighs 145 grams and is made from forged high carbon steel, just over 1/8" thick. The overall length is 9.4" and the blade is 5.1" in length and fully sharpened. The primary scandinavian grind is 9.7 (5) degrees per side, typical for such knives. The blade also had a light fuller or concave grind which isn't seen on typical Mora knives of similar design. The handle is made from birch.
The puukko features a fairly robust point which tapers on an angle of 5.3
degrees through 0.7".
It
sank to a depth of 169 (2) pages
into a phone book with a 50 lbs push.
As a paring knife the cutting ability of the puukko was very high with the edge
sharpened back to the primary grind. It was easily able to make very fine peels
from a turnip and cut very well with the edge at a high polish. Using it
alongside a Temperance no significant
difference was noted in cutting ability or handling. However both blades are a
little wide for such use and the handle a bit bulky. A Spyderco Delica was much more efficient even though
the cutting ability was a little less as the edge grind is more obtuse, simply
because of the smaller handle and more narrow blade made turning and general
manipulation much easier. This of course really isn't much of an issue on one
turnip, however peeling a few dozen potatoes to make fish cakes it does start to
be a bit of an issue.
Moving on to general utility work, the lack of a guard was an advantage for most
work and the nice upsweep of the blade was an advantage slicing meats. There was
generally an issue with binding on thicker vegetables and a thinner blade with a
higher grind would be of significant benefit. What does stand out as quite
obvious is the very low corrosion resistance of the steel. The puukko actually
rusted visibly during cutting some onions and would actually leave corrosion
deposits on the onions as it was cutting them. Even after just cutting one onion
the blade had visible rust and the fine shaving edge was removed. This was also
causing the blade to take more force on the cuts where the other knives it was
being compared to could still make smooth slices. This behavior is typical of
bandsaw and similar low alloy steels.
| knife | carrots | onions | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| force | rank | force | rank | |||
| lbs | lbs | |||||
| Japanese Utility | 1.0 | 10 | 2.5 | 10 | ||
| Roselli Hunter | 7.0 | 1.5 | 6.0 | 4.0 | ||
| Temperance | 4.0 | 2.5 | 3.5 | 7.0 | ||
There have been some problems reported with some problems reported with durablity, so the work with the Roselli Hunter was kept light.
Sharpening the knife consists of two steps, shaping the main bevel and applying the final microbevel. The sharpening guide from Roselli knives explains this in detail. This is no different than sharpening any knife in general, all that changes is the angles chosen. The main bevel on the hunter is quite wide, 0.38" and ground at 9.7 (5) degrees. This was best worked with a 200 grit silicon carbide stone when necessary. For most cutting it wasn't found necessary to increase the angle as much as Roselli advocates and the secondary bevel was just increased to about 12 degrees per side.
The grip of the hunter is both wide and very thick, shown at the right alongside
a Temperance. The grip is in general very
comfortable, especially in extended use. The main advantage tends to be in very
forward grips as handles like the Temperance
have ergonomic issues with grips in the choil, with the guard facing the palm,
or with the thumb around the front of the handle. The hunter has no sharp or
squarish contants points and thus works well in all these grips. Of course the
large guard on the
Temperance does increase security on stabs
and such. A laynard on the hunter can be used as a substitute to increase
security in extremes.
The Roselli like most knives of the scandinavian grind performs shallow cutting very well with the edge maintained as formed by the primary grind, or kept at least very thin. It does have some issues with wedging on cuts through rigid material as shown on the vegetable cutting and in general is more suited for working with meats. The grip is very hand filling and comfortable in extended use and there were no issues with security in spite of the smooth surface. However there was no stabbing or hard thrusting performed, such being otuside the scope of work of the knife.
Comments can be emailed to cliffstamp[REMOVE]@cutleryscience.com or posted to :
More information can be seen on the Roselli website.
| Last updated : | 08 : 15 : 2006 |
| Originally written: | 08 : 15 : 2006 |