My friend, Scott

His name is Scott.  I’m proud to have him as a friend.  My wife and I met him because our circles of interest include shooting, knives and adventure.  We aren’t drinking-buddy-close but I always looked forward to seeing him at the range and at activities like Camp Perry and knife shows.

I always thought our friendship would grow tighter and I’m still convinced that will happen.

Scott’s on a rough stretch of road now.  This patch looks rougher to me than the others he’s told me about.  

Nobody knows what God’s plan is for any of us.  We don’t know at the time what difference will come from the million trivial decisions we make everyday.  We just put one foot in front of the other and think we know where we are going.  Sometimes we need a little help.

Please keep Scott in your prayers and thoughts.  It doesn’t matter if you don’t know him or me.  It doesn’t matter if you read this today or in ten years.  Your thoughts and actions are known by the ultimate score keeper.

I cast my bread on the waters and trust.  That’s enough.

Knife Show March 3-4 2012

Just a reminder.   We’re coming up on one of the two big Northeast Ohio knife shows.  The Western Reserve Cutlery Association is sponsoring the Dale Warther Memorial Knife Expo on March 3^rd and 4^th at the Dover Armory.  The armory is at 2800 N. Wooster Ave. in Dover, Ohio.  The doors open at 9:00 both days.

Here's a link to a website with a little more information:

http://www.iknifecollector.com/events/the-dale-warther-memorial-knife-expo

Knife shows have a different feel than gun shows.  Everything seems a little more relaxed and everyone has a real interest in knives.  The truth is, I like gun shows, but knife shows have a special place in my heart.  It’s hard to explain, but the vendors and customers seem to have more in common and are friendlier.

You can find a link to the WRCA on my sidebar.

I hope you make it down there.  Parking is free and admission is $5.  I believe the Lions have the food concession.  Here’s a hint:  Come for the knives, but stay for the sausage sandwiches…..  

I’ll see you there…………….

Knife Talk

I just got several new knives in for an upcoming show at the Medina Fairgrounds.  I see each knife as a ship that passes by in the night.  I get to see them and handle them and then they’re gone (at least I hope) to a new home.  They may not be what I would choose to own, but each one has a charm of its own.

Bryan Baker makes a simple peasant knife from high carbon Swedish steel.  Modeled on a popular form from Bavaria in the 1600s, he gives it a modern twist with brass adjustable screws and a polypropylene handle.  The knife is made in New Zealand and based on how knife rights are circling the drain, it’s only a matter of time before some bureaucrat decides it’s too dangerous for the common peasant of 2012.

Simple knife doesn't mean only simple applications!

The 3-inch high carbon steel blade is hand ground with a water cooled stone giving it a convex blade.  Carbon steel always reminds me of flint and fire making.  The pattern is simple and reliable.  The knife is held open by your hand. 

It’s not really an attractive knife, but if I had a hunting lodge or was backpacking up north, it’s the kind of knife I’d want tucked away safe and sound, just in case.

I also got a Benchmade Bone Collector folder.  The photos don’t do it justice.  The blade is made from D2 steel and the green and black micarta handle is deeply grooved.

Benchmade Bone Collector

It’s a little thicker than some, but it’s well proportioned for the size of the blade.  It has Benchmade’s axis lock and I simply love them.  The lock is so easy to use and it helps make Benchmade one of the nicest opening knives on the market.

Most Benchmade's are set up for tip up carry.  This one can also be set up for left or right carry.

If you haven’t held one, do yourself a favor and find one.  I think you’ll like it.  My best friend took a look at it and said, “They sure know how to build a knife!”

So right!

PS: Don’t forget.  The Dale Warther Memorial Knife Expo is coming up March 3^rd and 4^th.  It will be held at the Dover Armory.  Parking is free and admission is $5.  No matter the type of knife, new, collectible, factory tactical, or custom made, you’ll find it there.  It’s one of the few pure knife shows in Northeast Ohio.  I hope you can make it.

Rules of Engagement

Had a chance to talk to two different military men on temporary leave from Afghanistan at the gun show this past weekend.   They didn’t know each other but they each told the same interesting story.

We’ve all heard about rules of engagement.  They define when a person can open fire in a war zone.  The rules are designed to help the military create goodwill with the population.  

Some make good sense:  Only women can search women.  Our police try to follow that rule as well.  Other rules, well, I can only shake my head in confusion.  For example, troops can fire at an insurgent if they catch him placing an IED but not if insurgents are walking away from an area where explosives have been laid.

Given these complex rules, you can imagine many Afghanis know how far they can push it with impunity.  

Traveling in the bazaars or between locations you’re likely going to be confronted.  The Afghans know when you can and can’t shoot, but you don’t know how far they want to take it.  However the rules say nothing about being cut with a knife.

“The sound of a switch blade opening alarms them,” the first told me.  “If you want to protect yourself and not get into a fight carry an auto knife.  They hear it and most of them will back off.”

Worth its weight in gold

The other said the same.  “They come up to you and put their fingers in the muzzle of your machine gun.  They know your limits from the rules of engagement.”  The second man shrugged.  “But take out your Beretta or knife and they’re not so sure.”  He gave me a wolfish grin. “See, the rules don’t say anything about knives.”

So if you’re heading to Afghanistan, get a quality automatic knife to carry with you.  You might want to add a good fixed blade.  A fixed blade will always be faster, surer and stronger, but it’s silent out of the sheath. 

Sub hilt fighter - custom made by Torson

There is nothing like the comforting clack of your auto locking open on a dark night.

Benchmade Auto Rift - doesn't look like an auto, but pull back on the axis lock....

Of course, you’re in harm’s way so you may have to use it.

New Edges and Observations

Speaking of sharpening….

I picked up an Eze-Lap diamond hone for work.  I use a rubber mill knife to cut rubber hoses and belts at work.  Many of these products have Kevlar fabric which can be cut but ruins the knife edge.  My co-worker has been using a cheap ceramic pocket sharpener in which he has ground a flat spot.  The diamond hone works better, but I noticed a “thunk” at the end of the sharpening stroke.  Of course, when you work with microscopes it’s easy to take a look. 

 

I found a small bump at the edge of the hone.  I don’t think it will affect the sharpening, but it gives me the shivers every time I make a stroke.

Eze-Lap coarse with bump at the edge

A new Spyderco has arrived.  It’s the Balance.  The closed knife resembles an equal arm balance, the favorite of classical analytical chemists.  That’s not me, but still it speaks to me.   

Spyderco Balance

Open, it’s a mini- gurkha knife or khukuri.  The knife is less than 3 inches closed and weighs 1.4 ozs.  That’s less than two first class pieces of mail!

 

The handle is carbon fiber and the steel VG-10.  The small clip can be moved to any of the four positions: tip up, tip down and right or left.  

If you look at it and ask what’s it’s for, well sorry, but you’re not a knife person.  Sometimes they are just for the heck of it.  Other times you have a specific need that a knife fills in a specific way.

I had a knife on sale on eBay, a byrd Meadowlark from Santa Fe Stoneworks in spiny oyster.  

byrd knife with Santa Fe Stoneworks spiny oyster grip

 
Somebody got a very good deal, but that’s beside the point.  It didn’t want to sell here so it sold somewhere else.  The thing is, the winning bid came in the last 12 seconds.  Was it sniping software, fast reflexes, or just good timing to get the bid in so late that nobody could counter bid?  

As a seller or buyer, I’m not sure I approve of sniping software.  But if you really want something, bid your maximum in the last 15 minutes.  eBay will auto bid to your max against incoming bids.  You’ll either get it or not at some price including your maximum.  But you will not fall victim to a sniper while trying to get a deal.

Sharp Conversation

After dinner she put down her glass and looked over to me, “How often should I sharpen my knife?”

I looked at her and then over to my wife.  We had just finished dinner and I was sharpening our guest’s pocket knife at the dinner table.  Clearly some sign was needed before I carried on.  I got it.

“If you wait until it’s dull, you’ve waited too long.  It’s always easier to touch up an edge than to bring a dead edge back to life.”  

“What about electric sharpeners?”  She asked a good question and I had half an answer.

“Depends.  Some people press too hard, leave it in contact with the rotating stones too long and heat the blade up too much.  That will damage it.”

There’re really only a few things to remember about tempering and steel.  Tempering is actually a softening step.  The martensite that forms from austenite can make steel so hard as to be unusable.  Tempering allows other softer structures to form and make the steel usable.   Too much tempering, too soft to hold a good edge.  Too hard and the blade snaps too easy.

Almost all the structures that give steel its incredible properties are diffusion based.  Diffusion is driven by time, temperature and moderated by distance.  Heating a knife blade at the thin edge will affect the steel more than heating the spine the same amount.  And the effects of heat cycles are cumulative. 

So how often should you sharpen and how?

I believe you should sharpen when the edge seems to be getting dull.  If you’re butchering a deer you may want to touch the blade up often.  If all you do is cut string and open paper envelopes, you can go a long time.

In the kitchen you should touch up the blade of your chef’s knife before you use it.  The sharpening steel doesn’t sharpen the edge, it draws the wire edge out.  That’s a good thing, as the wire edge is the really the source of sharpness.

You’ll find it easier to keep a sharp knife sharper than resharpen a dull knife.  And I learned that the hard way.

Last summer was a time for “trench warfare.”  I was running underground cable to my soon-to-be-built garage.  After it was up I got a lot of help from my friend Rick with wiring the garage.  With all the cutting and trimming my favorite work knife, a CRKT Crawford Kasper folder, became very dull.

How dull?

So dull it refused to cut anything.

I could have taken it to a professional sharpener and had it re-edged, but as penance and hard luck lesson, I resharpened it myself with my Spyderco sharpener. 

Spyderco Sharpmaker

 I’m still working on it.  I get it sharp, but as soon as I need it for some job it slides toward dull.  I haven’t been able to spend enough time to push it from sharp to very sharp, which is where I prefer my knives.

I also use the Lansky system.  The ability to hold each progressively finer grit stones at the same angle is a gift from the knife gods.   

Lansky system

The downside: it’s a lot of work to set up properly just for a little touch up.

Benchstones. I’ve got more than a few.  The key to good benchstone sharpening is reproducibility and cleanliness.

Gunk up the natural pores in the stone and it will not sharpen.  So use a good oil and clean it off when you’re done.

Holding the knife edge to the same angle through each stroke is critical for a sharp edge.  We can all get better at it, but some people are gifted at it.  I’m not one of them.

Years ago I bought a Buck Honemaster to help me sharpen my knives.  

Buck Honemaster  

You can see a dull strip of metal towards the edge sitting on the wood.  That's metal wear from sharpening blades.

 It clamps on your blade and holds it at the angle you select.  The angle isn’t very reproducible between sharpenings, but you can get a fine edge with it.  Of course, as you wear metal from the knife edge, you wear metal from the Honemaster.   It’s a strange sensation knowing you’re destroying the means of making a great edge while you’re making a great edge. 

Buck Honemaster holding my Commando Cutlery on the fine side of a benchstone

On the whole, sharpen your knives before they get dull.  They’ll work better, faster and easier.  A sharp knife reflects well on its owner.

Christmas Knives

Christmas knives are often new, exciting slivers of steel and polymer (yes, Virginia, unless you have stone or bone handles, it’s a polymer) that catch our attention for a few moments around the tree. 

“Oh! Helen,” he said, over the sound of wrapping paper being shredded.  “It’s a hand-made tactical friction folder from Frantic Forge!  It’s just what I wanted.”

Her comeback was not entirely unexpected.

“Oh, John!” She managed to be heard over the kitchen timer and the sound of bubbling pots.  “It’s just what I wanted!  A hand-made bread knife combination turnip carver from Kitchen Dungeon Forge.”

This scene is played out in front of Hanukkah candles and Christmas trees all around the world.  Trust me, I’ve had a few of these moments myself.

While we’re lost in admiration of our newest knives, there’s a few knives from Christmas past still hanging around.  If, like Marley, I’m forced to drag a chain of knives with me through the next world, I hope these are attached.

Electric carving knives, one of mankind's most enduring inventions

That’s my brother-in-law carving a turkey.  He’s mastered the art of carving a bird.  When I try that my results look like I used a hammer.  I always enjoy watching him make short work of a bird.

If I had one knife to symbolize family and friends it would be a knife like this.

What would a holiday be without family and friends?  I’m sure countless men and women in our armed forces could tell us from past experience.  It makes my eyes water when I think of all of them overseas, so far from family and friends with only their comrades near.  It’s an imperfect world, but I believe the Man Upstairs has a special mark by each of their names in His Book of Life. 

God bless and keep ‘em safe.

The Cold Steel bread knife:  good for cutting bread and fighting ninjas

My wife loves to bake bread.  Could there be anything more fundamental to the human condition than bread?  We break bread with friends.  We welcome new members to communities with bread, and we give bread to loved ones departing on long trips.  “I packed you an extra sandwich,” mothers used to say to sons, daughters and husbands when they departed on a journey.  It’s something I miss.

Christmas spirit – the short version

Whether or not you believe in Christ as Redeemer, can there be any question that his message of peace, love, harmony and forgiveness has value for men and women then and now?

Everyday we hear the Siren song of the modern world.  For a few days at Christmas be like Odysseus’ sailors and pour wax in your ears and ignore the material world just a little.  Enjoy the real Christmas values: Peace, Home, Family, Friends, Harmony, Love and Forgiveness.

Merry Christmas to Everyone!

Bread Knives and Knife Rights

The Dexter Bread Knife

My wife has acquired a new bread knife.  She has a short story about it, but it is more of a precautionary tale than a story about a knife.   You can read it at http://tactical-talk.blogspot.com/. 

There’s also a link on my sidebar.

Knife Rights under Attack

It’s not often I recommend an article about knives in an NRA publication.  Some of you may see a distinction between the knives you own or collect and a handgun.  There really isn’t one.  Knives can be used in a very deadly fashion.  Just watch any Cold Steel video as they slice and amputate with single strokes of their knives.  Knives can be clearly more dangerous than handguns. 

Our government’s response to anything is to pass laws.  It is the only thing, other than spending your money, they can do.  Few laws are passed for one specific reason.  The bill, its supporters and the author may tell you it has only one purpose, but there’s always more.  We are way too complicated to do much of anything for one single reason.

For example, Boston is considering requiring businesses that sell knives to be licensed.  It was pointed out to the city council that stores operating in Boston are already licensed and regulated by law.  They are restricted from selling any knife with a blade 2 inches or longer to anyone under 18.  This made no impact on the city council because “The modern way of approaching these issues is to go after the source of the items rather than the criminals themselves.”  Remember, we’re not talking about drugs or white slavery, but pocket knives.

That do you think? Is Boston interested in protecting you or raising money and making businesses more easy to manipulate?

Knife laws are passed not to protect you, but to control you and make you dependent on the government and its agencies.  I have a blog about the British government telling Boy Scouts not to carry their scout knives when in uniform (http://knifesearch.blogspot.com/2010/06/hells-angels-and-boy-scouts.html) .  Seems those friction lock knives with can opener and awl are just too dangerous.

New York has declared war on any knife that locks open, can be easily opened, and clips in your pocket.  England lost their knife rights through the usual tactics of separate, divide and conquer.  

Read “Will Knives Fold?” in the NRA’s December 2011 issue of America’s 1^st Freedom and you’ll see a history of those tactics continuing to this day.  You’ll find it on page 38.

You may not like the NRA, but they will tell you a different side of the story.

Benchmade Auto

The knife business isn’t all edged steel and handle choices.   There’s a lot of basic business involved.  Determining demand, placing orders, overstock, profit margins and, of course, dealing with mistakes.

A Benchmade Auto-Rift (9555SBK) arrived the other day.  I have a customer who has been waiting quite some time for it.  Unfortunately Benchmade shipped my wholesaler the black serrated blade, not the black plain edge he ordered.  The wholesaler just assumed it was the right order and shipped it to me.

Benchmade Auto-Rift  Model 9555SBK

 I was so happy to see it, I didn’t check it either.  My wife caught it right before we finished packing it up.

I checked with the customer and I’m ordering him another knife.  I can send it back to my wholesaler, but I’d really like to save myself from jumping through flaming hoops to return it and get all my shipping back.

I’m going to try to sell it locally.  It’s a nice knife and the picture in Benchmade’s catalog doesn’t do it justice.

Want to find out more about the Auto-Rift?  Here’s a link: http://www.benchmade.com/products/9555

I just keep telling myself it’s all part of the adventure of life.

Reflections on Veterans Day

By the end of the War-to-End-All-Wars, the cream of Europe’s best was ground into hamburger and the Spanish flu pretty much ended any nation’s ability to field men.  To celebrate not having any more men to kill, the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month of 1918 was declared Armistice Day.

Following the war, President Woodrow Wilson celebrated Armistice Day by inviting 2000 soldiers to dinner at the White House.  The main course?  Ravioli, the canned fad food that was sweeping the nation.  Hey!  It was 1920 and canned food was so new and novel, it was almost as good as the second coming.  Woody’s meal started the now forgotten tradition of eating ravioli on Nov 11.

Sweeping changes don’t always start on the west coast or in trendy New York discos.  Alvin King, the owner of a shoe repair shop in Emporia, Kansas, was the epicenter of Veterans Day.  

“Why not,” I imagine him thinking, “remember all veterans on Armistice Day?”  Alvin did more than just think about it, he acted.  The following year President Eisenhower, a veteran himself, signed a bill May 26, 1954, making Nov 11 Veterans Day and a Federal holiday.

Since Ike, world wars have been called police actions and I can’t begin to recount all the places American service men and women have been stationed at and therefore died in.  Despite their sacrifices the theaters of war have expanded.  It was called total war and now we call it asymmetric war.  But it means the same; each of us has a stake in the outcome and duty to participate.

Clausewitz codified most of it in the 1830s.  Clausewitz observed that conflict causes an erosion of separation between the military and the civilians.  He wasn’t the first and he isn’t the last.  The battlefield has arrived and is living in our parking lots.  The woman in the bunker with an M-16 has only a few degrees of separation from the woman pushing the grocery cart down the store aisle.

Law enforcement, in all its facets, is only one degree.  The average citizen who picks up their phone and drops a dime on suspicious behavior is another.  The fireman who goes into a burning building looking for victims or the postman who notices mail building up at the home of the elderly and acts, all soldiers of the conflict.  They are all part of the total war.  Our national character forms from our behavior and willingness to be involved.  Each of us sacrifice some, some sacrificed all.

It isn’t a perfect system.  We let strangers feel us up at airports for the illusion of safety.  Politicians pimp to voting blocs.  Citizens sell their votes and freedoms to the empty promise of safety and security in an unsafe world.  

So if you sit down to an Italian meal tonight, enjoy your ravioli. Spend a second remembering all the veterans, who have, are, and will stand up and be counted.  Think about how every day we need to act to preserve our freedoms and way of life. 

Cambridge Show 2011

I attended the Ohio Classic Knife Show in Cambridge last weekend. The low attendance let me stop and kibitz with the sellers without feeling I was interrupting commerce.

Outside the show a blacksmith demonstrated his skill.

Wide aisles and few people gave you room to have conversations.

Kathy Bone was engraving ivory and we talked about how hard it was getting to buy ivory. She does very nice work on knife handles as well as small jewelry pieces.

Engraving ivory, not for the faint of heart.

She had a money clip with Ulysses S. Grant engraved in ivory. It was very nice, but since I seldom see Grant on any of my pocket money, I passed. You can reach her at WVscrimshander@yahoo.com if you’re looking for a special piece.

I stopped at Bill Johnson’s table (WCJohnsonknives@gmail.com). Like many custom makers he had a lot of fixed blades. I especially liked one of his green bone-handled blades.

With all the wonder materials available to modern knifemakers, isn’t it odd that some of the most ancient materials are prized the most? Perhaps it’s some ancestral memory, some prehistory hand/mind link that draws us to the materials used to make the first tools. And maybe we treasure them because they are so different from ubiquitous modern materials.





I spent all my disposable cash at Joseph’s Designs and Buckeye Custom knives. All I can say is, it’s a good thing I didn’t have more money on me.

Joseph’s Designs specializes in flint knives. (http://www.collectorcabz.com/) No, not the blade but the handle. He gets his flint from Flint Ridge in Ohio, thought to have some of the most colorful flint in the world.

Joe replaces the handles on different knives with an almost semitransparent flint, rich in color and pattern. I found a nice Tree Brand Boker with an etched main blade. The flint handles have a pattern reminiscent of wood. The colors include red, black, white and brown giving it an almost pinkish glow in the translucent stone. I’m not much for friction fit knives, but this one spoke to me.

Flint, in case you’re interested, is a fine grain form of quartz (beach sand). Strictly speaking, it’s classified as a ‘chert’, but it seems to be found only as inclusions, sometimes very large inclusions, in limestone. Flint has two interesting properties. One is hardness. Flint is about 6.5 on the Mohs hardness scale. Quartz, found in almost all dust, is 7. This means flint will scratch from normal use so care needs to be taken. The other is flint will strike a spark from iron even when wet. Despite the relative softness of the stone, flint will take a fine polish.

I also bought a nice fixed blade from Pete Winkler (http://www.buckeyecustomknives.com/) . The handle is a nice slab of wood called Pacific Madrone. The brass pins and green dyed, stabilized wood gives it the look of polished stone. The 4.25-inch blade is A2 steel with a Rockwell “C” scale hardness of 58. This is the first convex or ‘appleseed’ grind I’ve owned. Pete assures me that with normal use it will not need sharpening, just a stropping with a nice piece of leather he provides. This will be interesting. The knife has no bevel to speak of as the steel flows continuously to the edge. As a result it doesn’t look sharp, but don’t make the mistake of testing it with your thumb, unless you want to be called Tommy Split-Thumb.

Man shapes steel and steel shapes the man.

More bits and Pieces

I was at a gun show last weekend.  The weather was too nice and the only people inside were tire kickers and the vendors.  If I had my druthers I would have been outside too!

I saw something I don’t like. Fellow was wearing a phony police badge on his belt issued by some collectors group.  I’ve seen similar things in gun magazines for CCW.  It’s not knife related, but it’s worth mentioning.

Don’t be a strange ranger, a wannabe police officer.  Having a phony star doesn’t get you a better table; police aren’t impressed that you’re imitating them and everyone associates phony police ID with child molesters. 

At the show a fellow came up and was admiring the American made knives.  He kept repeating, “That’s good. That’s good,” as he inspected each one.  Then he picked up a Spyderco.

“These made in Japan?”

“Yes sir, they are.”

“I thought these things were suppose to be $35?”  It was clear he expected the Japanese knives to be significantly less expensive than American knives.

I knew at that point he wasn’t going to buy anything.

“That was in the 70s sir.”  Talk about sticker price shock.

I don’t refer people to other publications very often, but sometimes people say things better than I.  Check out the Jan 2012 issue of Blade.  Doug Metzer’s editorial “The China Syndrome” is worth reading.  You can read all of it at http://knifeshowcase.blademag.com/   Click on the forum tab.

I agree with Doug on several levels.  “American consumers will never pay for a knife made in the USA.  They vote with their wallets.  Demand for union wages, regulations in the steel industry and more have driven business out of America.”  Here’s the chilling part: “The consumer will not sustain the inflated prices of U.S.-made products.”

Tool or Membership Card?

I get many customers at my table looking at the American-made knives.  Only a few buy.  The given reason in many cases is “It’s more money than I’m prepared to spend.”  Can’t argue with that, but it does cause me to scratch my head wondering if I’ve missed something when I see them buying from the “2 for $5” pile at another vendor. 

What I think I’m missing is, I see knives as tools.  Tools I’ll use to make my life easier, safer and possibly to protect and save it.  I want a quality tool.  Others see the knife as a club token: I have a knife so I’m one of the boys.

ESEE-3

The UPS man just delivered a box of knives.  I have to wonder what he thinks about all the knives that arrive.  It’s only human nature to try to form a picture of a person based on what little you know or at least what you think you know.  

I remember reading about an OSS (Google it!) training drill in which you searched a room and based on what you found, construct a picture of the unseen occupant.  One trainee found a blond wig and a hypodermic needle and announced the occupant was a transvestite drug-user.  Turned out the drill was a test to see how you use your imagination.

I wonder if the UPS driver thinks of me as a human porcupine brisling with edges?

One of the knives that just arrived was an ESEE-3 from Randall’s Adventure.  It’s a nice knife.  8.25 inches of 1095 carbon steel with a greenish gray micarta handle.  A fine line of green separates the micarta  from the epoxy-coated steel.  Very tastefully done.  The blade is 3.75 long so you have enough handle to use the knife.  I was surprised to find the false edge wasn’t!  About half of the top of the blade was razor sharp.

It's a nice looking knife and felt good in my hand.

  

The green layer adds a touch of color to an otherwise dull gray handle.

I like stainless in guns, but more and more I find I like high carbon steel in knives.  The carbides in the iron make bigger and more sparks with a ferrocium fire starter rod than stainless does.  Of course, carbon steel rusts, so the blades are often coated with epoxy or other finishes, but you still need to take care of them.  I just wish they would leave a little one-inch saddle of uncoated steel on the spine.  It bothers me to have to use the blade to generate sparks.

I really like the sharpened false edge.  More and more of my knives sport a sharpened false edge and a dull spot I can press on for more force.  Of course you really have to think that through.  Slipping onto the edge will injure you and complicate whatever you were attempting to do.

I wanted to compare the look and feel of the ESEE-3 to my DPxGear HEST knife.  The HEST is a little specialized.  The handle is hollow with just enough room for a couple fish hooks and monofilament line, maybe a lead shot sinker or two.  The blade is shorter than the ESEE but thicker.  A reflection of anticipated prying needs.  It too is a single piece of 1095 steel.

Never will be twins separated at birth, but maybe distant cousins.

The HEST is a sweetheart for me.  I met the designer (and author) Robert Pelton.  Read his book “Dangerous Places.”  I found it riveting and not all the places are in third world countries.  Some are just a state over from you.  His goal was to produce a classic “bug-out” knife.  One that could be used to make little cuts in people surrounding you trying to pick your pockets.  Not much more than paper cuts and still pry a lock off a door, pound through a plaster wall, discourage your enemies and still open a beer bottle with your friends.

It’s a lot to ask of a knife.  But if you have the skills, then the HEST has the chops.

I hate both sheaths.  The ESSE has a pukey tan Kydex sheath called coyote.  The HEST has a nice but wide Kydex sheath in black.  Both come with molle adapters.  Both can be lashed onto a strap or other things  and neither has a system for a belt loops.  Yuck!  I belt-carry more then I molle-carry.

Sure you can lash both to a belt.  Who knows?  Maybe there is some advantage to being able to untie a knot and let the knife and sheath slip away quickly and without any fuss.  I guess it’s hard to proclaim that you’re unarmed and peaceful when they find a fixed blade knife sheath on you.