To me, this is absolutely a tactical or personal defense knife. I won't ever be cutting wood or brush with this.. hopefully it never has to be used, but if it is, it won't be on wood, brush or boxes. Nice modifications tho, I prefer the fully serrated edge for reasons stated earlier, but also cool to see you take the weight out of the liners. Nutnfancy recommend they do they in his review years ago. They dropped the liners in the g10 version signed by the knife maker. Cost a lot more, and has slightly diff handle. It removes steel liners for g10 while increasing strength but I am fine with steel liners and an oz and half difference. Cheers, nice knives great video
I forgot all about Nutns milled liners suggestion but hes the one who planted the knife moding seed in the first place so t he idea was probably there in my subconsciously all along! It took years of edc carry before I shaved down the liners but I only somewhat notice the difference in pocket however in hand I really prefer the weight forward balance change. I dig the Lynn Thompson special edition but just not the price tag or serrations. I don't mind fully serrated especially when specifically for tactical only but the CS "bare claw" serrations are so difficul to serice I just can't like them. My perfect CS Spartan would have the Tompson G10 hanles and ffg blade but simple serrations tucked just in the recurve portion like my most recent Spartan custom. As it is I highly suspect that the bd-1 and Aus-10 steels would've made held up better over the Aus 8 that I ruined, I have mildly tested the bd1 with some chopping where it did just fine.
I’ve always used a regular stone for my Spartan just gotta use the apex of your stones 90* angel on the recurve and then the flat face for the belly and tip with practice it will be easy and save you money since you don’t have to invest in honing rods unless you have serrations
I’ve never trusted myself with stones for a really perfect edge. I could always get a working edge that could just shave some hair off my arm but not a true hair splitter. That’s why I use a consistent angle sharpener but also the edges of my free hand stones all had chips in the edge of your stone which I could see easily dinking up the recurve edge. I have Developed a system that I can do a free hand. Starting with the harbor, freight belt sander, then going to a steel rod for the rough work, then the for finishing I use the edge of with a car glass window, and finally a basic 2 sided sidded stropping. The unusual part is the window. Although it’s bulky, I keep a loose car glass window from the junk yard so that I can use it’s myriad of shapes around its radius to match the different edge possibilities flat, recurve, hollow and Scandi etc. It’s no good for a mirror polish, that’s for damn sure, but it does give me hair shaving edge on the first pass every time. It has kind of pushed my fixed angle, sharpening system into obsolescence, unless I am putting a mirror polish on a particularly expensive knife more for an aesthetic purpose then any functional reason.
To me, this is absolutely a tactical or personal defense knife. I won't ever be cutting wood or brush with this.. hopefully it never has to be used, but if it is, it won't be on wood, brush or boxes. Nice modifications tho, I prefer the fully serrated edge for reasons stated earlier, but also cool to see you take the weight out of the liners. Nutnfancy recommend they do they in his review years ago. They dropped the liners in the g10 version signed by the knife maker. Cost a lot more, and has slightly diff handle. It removes steel liners for g10 while increasing strength but I am fine with steel liners and an oz and half difference. Cheers, nice knives great video
I forgot all about Nutns milled liners suggestion but hes the one who planted the knife moding seed in the first place so t he idea was probably there in my subconsciously all along! It took years of edc carry before I shaved down the liners but I only somewhat notice the difference in pocket however in hand I really prefer the weight forward balance change. I dig the Lynn Thompson special edition but just not the price tag or serrations. I don't mind fully serrated especially when specifically for tactical only but the CS "bare claw" serrations are so difficul to serice I just can't like them. My perfect CS Spartan would have the Tompson G10 hanles and ffg blade but simple serrations tucked just in the recurve portion like my most recent Spartan custom. As it is I highly suspect that the bd-1 and Aus-10 steels would've made held up better over the Aus 8 that I ruined, I have mildly tested the bd1 with some chopping where it did just fine.
I’ve always used a regular stone for my Spartan just gotta use the apex of your stones 90* angel on the recurve and then the flat face for the belly and tip with practice it will be easy and save you money since you don’t have to invest in honing rods unless you have serrations
I’ve never trusted myself with stones for a really perfect edge. I could always get a working edge that could just shave some hair off my arm but not a true hair splitter. That’s why I use a consistent angle sharpener but also the edges of my free hand stones all had chips in the edge of your stone which I could see easily dinking up the recurve edge.
I have Developed a system that I can do a free hand. Starting with the harbor, freight belt sander, then going to a steel rod for the rough work, then the for finishing I use the edge of with a car glass window, and finally a basic 2 sided sidded stropping.
The unusual part is the window. Although it’s bulky, I keep a loose car glass window from the junk yard so that I can use it’s myriad of shapes around its radius to match the different edge possibilities flat, recurve, hollow and Scandi etc. It’s no good for a mirror polish, that’s for damn sure, but it does give me hair shaving edge on the first pass every time. It has kind of pushed my fixed angle, sharpening system into obsolescence, unless I am putting a mirror polish on a particularly expensive knife more for an aesthetic purpose then any functional reason.