Posts: 8,310 Location: Montreal,Quebec,Canada
Sun 13 Mar, 2011 1:40 am
Received the knife on Friday and I'm very pleased with it and here is a bit of a mini review of it:
Total length: 16"
Length of blade: 11 5/8", measured from end of bolster the edged part is 11 1/4"
Width at it's widest ( Shoulder ): 1 1/16"
Thickness of blade: 1/8" approximately 50%
distal taper to point.
Weight: 6 oz measured on a food scale.
Very nice knife and very pleased with it, although light and multipurpose I think it would be very effective " in period " for self defence: Good reach and razor sharp after a couple of passes with a white ceramic hone. Very much like a
huge SCARY scalpel, light but seemingly not fragile with a certain amount of stiffness in the blade with good distal taper.
The blade does flex under pressure but not as much a thin fish filleting knife.
I will certainly put it to use in the kitchen but in won't go into the cheap knives drawer to rattle among those .... good kitchen knives should not be jumbled together and should either have individual scabbards or put into a kitchen block for ready use.
These By-knives do look very much like kitchen knives but would work very well in a hunting or survival situation and are so light they wouldn't be a burden in a soldiers pack.
As a fighting knife there is a lack of a true guard that could make a thrust a little dangerous but if one grips the handle so as to have the palm of the hand/little finger on the butt of the knife one could have a secure grip: I would for this maybe round the corners of the handle that is presently cut square, but this is an easy fix if I wanted to do it or something I would recommend Michael to do if tactical use is " theoretically " envisaged.
As a cutting instrument the long hair popping edge " not exaggerating here " compensates a great deal for the low mass and it would be wicked in a draw cut.
The scabbard looks just a good as in the pics in my previous post and is nicely moulded to the knife's blade and handle profile for a very secure grip on the knife without a retaining strap.
The scabbard is of tough but thin leather but uses a double thickness of it and the back seam adds some stiffness to it.
Because how sharp an edge this knife can hold I think it a good idea to pay some attention in putting the knife into the scabbard so as to not cut it but if one makes sure to have the back of the blade in contact with the scabbard and one doesn't bend the scabbard I think only an over fast scabbering by someone really clumsy could make this an issue ( With a duller blade I don't think it would even be worth mentioning.
The blade has a perfectly flat ground blade and the edge is unsharpened or butter knife sharp for the first inch or so of blade past the shoulders and then transitions into razor sharpness.
Although I like fighting knives more in general these " civilian " period knives are fascinating and attractive in their visual and functional simplicity. ;)
Anyway, excellent work and these simple By-knives are a great value for the money and the aesthetics of the whole package is fantastic.