New Knife hits FeeBay - Outdoor Life

[old4570]

I ordered one - Not this one ...
Same knife different seller and around 50% less $$

 

[old4570]

1st = My cam batteries blow chunk 's ( Getting old ) The cam battery gave out ! I used to get 45 minutes of recording from a battery . Now it looks like the cam battery is throwing in the towel around 10 minutes .

Outdoorlife - Camping Chef Knife

Product code - OL-FIX0020GN
Blade steel - 7cr17mov ( 6" ) Full Tang , Flat Grind
55HRC file bites / 50HRC file skates
Dual injected nylon fibre handle
Nylon fibre sheath
Limited Lifetime Warranty ( ? ) Limited ? ( Limited to what ? )
Made in - China
Price - FeeBay = $100 Aus region / Xhunter = $60 Aus bananas .

First impressions

The knife is very light , this might be because of the ( Thickest part of the blade is 2.7mm and tapers from there down ) relatively thin blade . I am quite easily able to flex / bend the blade with my bare hands ( much like a Mora blade ) . The grip is plastic / nylon material with what feels like a rubberised centre section . It is quite comfortable to hold in the hand . The spine of the blade is quite terrible at ferro and throws minimal sparkly material for fire starting .

The knife fits the sheath rather well , there is no slop to speak of . I would like to see the knife lock into the sheath a little better . As for the factory edge ? It did slice paper ok , but even to the naked eye it looked a little ? I resharpened the knife on my guided knife sharpener and then stropped it . Edge is now at 20 degrees , and the factory bevel looked to be maybe 18 degrees . ( Chefs Knife )

So next I will have to see how it goes with the guided 20 degree edge at the rope. ( 180 grit diamond )

 

[old4570]

Ok , the 20 degree guided knife sharpener edge hits the rope !

A) It never felt good , honestly , it felt like a butter knife from the start .
B) Yeah , it was a fail at 50 slices , that's not good at all .
C) I put the knife the the wet stone grinder and put a 60 grit ground edge on it .

With the 60 grit ground edge the knife feels slice 'y .
Back to the rope we go , with hopefully a better edge . ( hopefully - I mean , some people want $100+ bananas for this knife )

 

[old4570]

Lets get right to it - a 350 slice fail ! ( 60 grit ground edge around 20 degrees )
That is only 300 slices more than the guided knife sharpener edge !
What the parking lot ? That is a huge difference of around 600% ( Actually its 700% but 600% more )
That's huge !

Is it because the blade is so thin ? and it might be flexing ?
On the wet stone grinder I use very little pressure , so there would be little in the way of flexing if any .
Or was there bad steel ? That then got ground away ?

Cant say ! Without LAB equipment , guess and speculate away !

But , $60 Aus banana knife is good for a 350 fail , and the edge strops back , but not as well as other knives .
It was a tricky edge that took a fair amount of effort to strop back ..

Edge was ground as near 20 degrees as possible .. Might be a little less but not less than 18 degrees .
Since the edge did not appear to roll , can we tighten the bevel ?

Is the knife worth $60 bananas Australian , I would say sure .
As long as you have a way to squeeze decent edge retention from the knife . ( 350 is very decent )
But would I feel the same way paying $120 bananas Aus for it . Not really .
It's bolted together on the budget side . Nylon this N that , 7cr17mov steel . = Budget !
So it should be budget priced .
It's comfortable to use , I had to grind the spine of the blade to make it ferro friendly .
I had to tweak the sheath a little to make the knife Uber snug like a bug in a rug !
The blade is thin and flexible ( flexes a lot when stropping ) .
These things are not deal breakers ..
But the knife is very budget built ! & if it's not budget priced ! ( That rhyme & reason thing )
At $60 Aus Bananas , I would call that the upper limit of perhaps what you should be paying ( that's just my opinion from owning this knife )

 

[old4570]

Processing some wood ..
A) The blade is too flexible ..
B) The knife does roll a little in the hand ( maybe due to the flex )
C) It is comfortable to use

Yeah , I think if this was you only knife .. It would be ok for light duty ( like a folding knife )
Not particularly good at wood processing , didn't roll the edge or anything ( which is good )
I did sharpen the spine on the grinder , so it throws ferro now .
Also scrapes the wood really nicely ( spine )
Over all , maybe a slightly Ho Hum knife for Bushcrafting .
But might make for a decent meat processor .