A shot of the Safari Skinner from Swamp Rat Knifeworks :
Copy from the Swamp Rat Knifeworks website :
The Safari Skinner enters the Swamp Rat family as the second offering in our "Through The Hands Of The Master" series. Master Knifemaker, Mike Thourot, has designed the "Safari Skinner' to be an excellent choice for an everyday carry knife as well as an efficient skinner for the hunter. Made from D-2 tool steel and coupled with the toughness and durability of full tang construction and canvas Micarta handles, the Safari Skinner will quickly become one of your favorite blades.
The review consists of :
The Safari Skinner from Swamp Rat Knifeworks is ground out of 0.135" D2 full hardened to 60-61 HRC. The blade is 3.05 centimeters wide, 10.3 centimeters long with 8.2 centimeters of sharpened edge. The primary grind is full flat, tapering to a thin and acute edge. The blade is 0.022-0.027" thick behind the bevel which is ground at 16.2 +/- 0.6 degrees per side. The blade weighs 175 g, balanced handle heavy (center of mass is 1.4 centemeters behind blade), and is 240 g in the leather sheath. The overal length is 22.3 centemeters. Fit and finish is high, the transition to full stock near the choil is achieved by a very smooth blend and the only detail of consequence is some glue seeping out from under the handle slab on one side in the front.
With the initial edge, the Safari Skinner took 39 (1) lbs to push cut 3/8" hemp, no aggression on a draw which is to be expected given the score on the poly.
Carving birch hardwood flooring, the Safari Skinner made a point in 13 (2) slices.
With partial grip around the end of the handle, the Safari Skinner was compared to the Green Beret and found to have 44 (2) % of the chopping ability on 1x4 inch lumber. Using the known performance of the Green Beret, the perforamance can be extrapolated to compare to the Wildlife hatchet from Gransfors Bruks, which gives17 (3) %.
The point on the Safari Skinner is decently acute and gave solid penetration. With a 50 lbs push it sank 168 (5) pages into a phone book and with a hard vertical stab penetrated 590 (27) pages.
The Safari Skinner works very well on meats, the neutral balance allows the blade to have low fatigue in hand, and the handle is secure and comfortable even when coated in blood, fats or oils :
For preparing vegetables, the Safari Skinner is far better than heavy tacticals, but behind a dedicated kitchen knife. Specifically cutting medium turnips, a Japanese utility knife needs 5-6 lbs for a slice while the Safari Skinner needs 10-16 lbs and the Green Beret requires 20-30 lbs and tends to break the slices. On smaller vegetables the force is far less for all. Cutting up carrots for example the Safari Skinner only needs around 7 lbs and the utility kitchen knife 4-5 lbs. On softer vegetables little difference is noted and the Safari Skinner works very well :
While it does have a guard it is not so obtrusive that with the extended choil, full cuts can readily be made to the cutting board, the knife thus easily makes neat and thin slices and peels potatoes deftly. The only large negative about kitchen work is that more blade length is required for some work. For example slicing thick breads is problematic becuase the blade simply can reach all the way to the bottom, same for really large vegetables, cuts are forced to be made partially. This of course is why most utility kitchen knives have around five inch blades.
Trimming woods to shape, for pointing stakes, carving bowls and spoons, or making notches for making jigs and traps, the Safari Skinner does well. The tip profile is a little less than optimal for the digging aspect though as a drop point profile is better suited. However the thin and acute edge geometry allows a high cutting ability, as reflected by the performance on the hardwood dowel, and the ergonomic and secure handle allow extended cutting with comfort and grip stability. One of the main uses of carving is to make tools which reduce the load on the knife. For example the Safari Skinner is easily capable of rough off thick bark from rounds, the upswept point is a bit problematic, a drop point would be easier to control, but the large belly compensates :
In general bark is very dirty as it gets a lot of debris from wind so it can be abrasive on a knife edge. If a lot of bark has to be removed a bark spud can be carved by the Safari Skinner from a cut stick :
A bark spud is just tapered at one end to allow it to be worked under the bark and leveraged free. The process is a lot faster if the Safari Skinner in supplemented with a small folding saw or decent chopping tool to remove the waste stock, however in about ten minutes it can carve out a useful tool :
The fine tapered end on the right is slim enough to be worked under heavy barks, and can easily be sharpened to a finer profile for working under thin barks like birch. The point on the other edge is suitable for breaking apart packed dirt and prying up rocks and sods to again save wear on the primary edge of the knife.
It isn't a powerful chopping tool, being relatively light and handle heavy in balance, even with a rear two fingered grip around the back of the handle to generate more power on a swing, it takes some time to work through a 1x4 inch piece of board, 30-40 chops. It has similar chopping ability to the Mora 2000, a bit better but still in the same class. To be productive when felling a baton has to be used, care needs to be taken to avoid overstressing the upturned tip. In general, if the blade was to be relied on for such tasks, it would be well matched with a larger blade or quality saw for heavier wood cutting.
For similar reasons splitting is heavily assisted. Splitting wood is often necessary to enable it to burn as it may be too large, or too wet, however the inside can still be dry to make shavings to start a fire. If the wood is small the Safari Skinner can be baton through directly :
This piece had a series of bad knots so the split was started from the other end and the wood pulled apart rather than to try and chisel cut through the knots. If this isn't possible it can be broken by using another stick as a leverage bar or pounding a rock in the crack :
As the wood gets much larger the knife isn't long enough to split it directly unless it is split in pieces which takes a long time. It is in general more efficient to use wedges. To start the crack for the edges the knife can be batoning into one of the edges, or hammered poing first into the face of the wood and then pulled down to open a cut. If the wood is really dense, twisted or knotted, this may have to be repeated to get a decent enough start :
The split was then finished with wooden wedges which are readily chopped and darved to shape with the Safari Skinner :
The same process can be used on larger woods, wedges are like tinder, make much more than you think you need. They work better if they are nice and tapered as otherwise it takes too much force to drive them into the wood. The short and thick one in the picture was used to force a crack after several highly tapered ones started it :
If a knife is not available then wood can also be split with a saw, make cuts into the side of the wood and weaken it until they can be cracked off with a baton, or just by slamming them off of a rock. The harder and more twisted/knotty the wood the closer the cuts need to be :
That pieces had a ring of knots at one end so the wood was split around it and then it was cracked off once it had no support :
This is however a really slow process and it is many times faster to use a knife to baton or create wedges and split directly. In the above piece which isn't even hard to split, the cuts had to be made one inch apart, and it took 1-4 impacts per section. Direct batoning is a seconds to minutes type of comparison. In general direct batoning is usually much faster than wedges initially, however once you have a decent set of wedges and especially if you have either really nice seasoned hardwood ones or fire harden the edges, wedging will be faster on larger wood. If the knife isn't capable of taking really heavy hits while leaning on the handle, wedging is even faster on smaller woods, many times over.
As a general utility tool, the Safari Skinner worked well as an ice pick which can be useful for getting ice to melt to drink, allow a fire to be made on dry ground, or cut through ice to fish :
On slicing 1/8" ridged cardboard with a coarse edge from the medium Sharpmaker rods the Safari Skinner and Agent were used with cuts made on a 45 degree angle through three centimeters of edge. The primary edge angles for both blades had been reduced to 10-12 degrees per side. The carbboard cutting continued until the blades had visible difficulty in making clean cuts. The sharpness was measured by push cutting light thread and slicing 48 lbs hemp. The average of three runs :
| Model | Initial | Final (36.3 m) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 48 lbs hemp | thread | 48 lbs hemp | thread | |
| cm | grams | cm | grams | |
| Safari Skinner | 0.23 (2) | 106 (9) | 1.62 (59) | 350 (31) |
| Agent | 0.25 (4) | 111 (3) | 1.26 (16) | 334 (40) |
The initial sharpness was near idential for both blades, it was also checked on the hemp with 200 grams of tension to see if there was a difference, there was not. It was 0.61 (5) and 0.75 (4) centimeters with the Safari Skinner and Agent respectively. No significant difference in edge retention was noted however the variance was a little high. Another run on on 1/4" cardboard was made, this time over 12 meters were again cut using similar constraints :
| Model | Initial | Final (12.1 m) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 48 lbs hemp | thread | 48 lbs hemp | thread | |
| cm | grams | cm | grams | |
| Safari Skinner | 0.65 (10) | 138 (10) | 1.86 (29) | 472 (31) |
| Agent | 0.63 ( 6) | 111 (10) | 1.75 (33) | 475 (26) |
Again both blades were similar in initial sharpness and no difference in edge retention. As a final comparison, the two knives were used to push cut 90 meters of 1/8" ridged cardboard using two centemeters of blade with the edge produced with the fine Spyderco rods set at 20 degrees per side. Two runs were made with each blade :
| Model | Initial | Final |
|---|---|---|
| grams | grams | |
| Safari Skinner | 115 (6) | 469 (18) |
| Agent | 125 (6) | 460 (21) |
No signficant difference noted in in initial push cutting shapness or edge retention.
The initial edge was uneven so that the Sharpmaker hit the shoulder of the end on one side of the 20 degree slot. The edge angle was reduced with a belt sander and then resharpened with waterstones. The new profile was only slightly more acute in total with a 25-27 degree edge included compared to the initial 31-33 degrees, primarily just made more symmetrical to allow easier honing on the Sharpmaker and other v-rod devices.
The edge was later reduced further to 10.0 (3) degrees per side and was 0.026 (2) thick on the narrow side. The edge was slimmed out mainly to promote ease of resharpening. Though the steel is very abrasion resistant, there was no difficulty in obtaining a high level of sharpness. D2 often issues with carbide breakout, but requires more acute edges.
Some extreme work with a Safari Skinner has been made available by Swamp Rat Knife works including heavy hammering and prying.
Finger grooves, while leading to high security and ergonomics in specific grips, often tend to limit grip versatility overall by making certain grips impractical due to discomfort, as was found with the Green Beret . However with the Safari Skinner the cutouts on the spine add to the control of the point and blade in choked up grips with the thumb or index finger along the spine. The finger scallops in the grip are also not so sharp as to prevent reverse grips, though they of course favor hammer style grips.
There are however a couple of areas which could use improvement. The guard is a bit sharp at the front and will press into the index finger in a choked up grip, such as when heavy roughing of woods. The Micarta slabs could also be more rounded at the front presenting a more comfortable contour for the finger to wrap around also in a choked up grip. Both of these issues were addressed with some sandpaper. The spine could also be fully rounded.
The Safari Skinner comes with a leather sheath with a fold over belt loop. Tight and thick stitching, the blade is held securely in place, though there is no secondary retention system.
In terms of class of blade, the Safari Skinner was ground thinner at the edge than the Howing Rat and is made from slighter stock and thus in general is more adept at most cutting chores. The Safari Skinner is also made from a more abrasion resistant steel and thus works better cutting around bone and on harder materials. This means reducing damage from light contacts, not trying to chop through a heavy piece of bone or pound the knife through a nail. For those uses and in for general prying, hammering and pounding the Howing Rat is a better choice.
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More information can be obtained at the
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| Last updated : | 03 : 01 : 2006 |
| Originally written: | 03 : 01 : 2006 |