ArfinGreebly
Moderator Emeritus
Having recently procured yet another full-sized folder, I set about doing what I always do, to wit, putting it through that most grueling of tests: kitchen work.
It's not a particularly fair test battery for a number of reasons. For one, it depends on my mood which actual tests will be run. For another, the materials constantly change in quality and availability.
Yes, I know what you're thinking, that it's just asking too much of a knife to perform well in the chef's domain, that I ought to be testing in on tactical targets like stabbing dummies, slicing through thick rope, slashing through bottles of water, batoning logs, chopping 2x4 boards, and so on. Well, that's all fine for those wimpy outdoor applications like camping, hunting, and survival.
But you know, in your heart of hearts, that the hard work happens in the harsh and hostile domain of the prep cook, the chambers of cuisine, where the most stern critic of cutlery abides: the kitchen. Sure, you can skin three elk cows with that knife in a single afternoon, but would your wife choose it to slice tomatoes? Hmm? Chop vegetables? See? Hack up stew meat? Not so easy now, is it?
Today's test is the dreaded salami slicing suite. Three pound chub of Columbus Italian Dry.
Contestants are the following:
Lined up in the order we will test:
Beside the imposing bulk of a whole pound of Greater Spotted Italian Salami.
Buck 110 (1992, pre-420HC)
Buck 346 Vantage Avid in 12C27 Sandvik
EKA Swede-92 as Normark American Hunter in 12C27 Sandvik
Case XX Sod Buster (large) in "Tru-Sharp" stainless
Benchmade NRA Outdoors Steigerwalt 3-blade in 440C
I took a picture right after the test -- or thought I did -- with the knives lined up in the order of performance. When I offloaded the pics from the camera, however, that pic was not there. Rats. However, the results are below.
Basically I wanted to see which knife would slice easily through hard dry salami, giving uniform thin slices without the blade wandering off-line, binding up in the "work," or requiring extra effort to control the blade or force the cut.
The best performer (and, yes, this was a bit of a surprise) was the old Case Sod Buster.
This was followed by a near three-way tie for second. The Buck 110 would bite into the work very easily and slice through effectively, but required a bit of "English" on the cutting angle to get a straight slice. The EKA/Normark would bite into the work almost as easily, required no angular adjustment to get nice even slices, but the broad blade tended to bind just a little from "clamping" friction due to the greater flat surface area. The Benchmade/NRA cut easily, needed very little angular guidance, exhibited little friction, but required a little more effort at the bottom of the cut to make a clean slice.
I will award second place to the Benchmade/NRA because the overall slicing action was consistent and required no "extra skill" to get a good, even, thin slice, even though the last stroke needed a bit more force to complete the cut.
Similarly, third place goes to the EKA/Normark for not needing any extra attention to the cutting angle to get an even slice, even though a little more force was needed to overcome the "caliper" friction on the flat sides.
Which leaves the Buck 110 in fourth place. This is hardly fair, really, because it was clearly sharper than either the EKA or NRA, but the hollow-ground blade cross section makes an even slice difficult without managing the angle of the blade through the slice. It's just that, without the extra expertise to manage that angle, the cut becomes clumsy, and you get slices that are tapered, even incomplete.
In last place for this exercise is the newest piece in the bunch: the Buck 246 Vantage Avid.
Understand that "last place" is all about small fractions. It was fractionally less sharp. It had fractionally more friction resistance. It needed fractionally more effort to keep a slice straight. And, most unfairly of all, it required a bit more vertical force for the simple reason that it's not quite as long as the others. Funny what a quarter inch of length one way or the other will do.
Now, to be fair, last night's encounter with the veggies was very favorable for the Buck Vantage. I was actually expecting it to be the one to beat on the salami.
Oh, there is one other little factor: the Buck Vantage is the only one of these that still has the factory edge. All the others have previously been touched up on a diamond steel to obtain just a that little extra zing. I imagine that after a few strokes the Vantage will zing, too.
The surprise was how facile the simpler blade shape of the sodbuster is for routine jobs. That same simplicity is found in the NRA Steigerwalt blade, which is really very close to the sodbuster profile. Both of those blades were very easy to use, producing uniform results with minimal effort.
Next time I'll have to include the Opinel #8 to see how its simplicity and edge zing hold up in a side-by-side with these others.
And immediately after the salami exercise . . .
Oh look! The mail's here!
Looks like the Birthday Fairy is a whole week early!
It's late, so I'll post those pictures tomorrow.
It's not a particularly fair test battery for a number of reasons. For one, it depends on my mood which actual tests will be run. For another, the materials constantly change in quality and availability.
Yes, I know what you're thinking, that it's just asking too much of a knife to perform well in the chef's domain, that I ought to be testing in on tactical targets like stabbing dummies, slicing through thick rope, slashing through bottles of water, batoning logs, chopping 2x4 boards, and so on. Well, that's all fine for those wimpy outdoor applications like camping, hunting, and survival.
But you know, in your heart of hearts, that the hard work happens in the harsh and hostile domain of the prep cook, the chambers of cuisine, where the most stern critic of cutlery abides: the kitchen. Sure, you can skin three elk cows with that knife in a single afternoon, but would your wife choose it to slice tomatoes? Hmm? Chop vegetables? See? Hack up stew meat? Not so easy now, is it?
Today's test is the dreaded salami slicing suite. Three pound chub of Columbus Italian Dry.
Contestants are the following:
- Buck 110 folding hunter
- Buck 346 folding EDC
- EKA Swede-92 (aka Normark American Hunter)
- Benchmade's "NRA Outdoors" hunting/skinning folder
- Case XX large Sod Buster
Lined up in the order we will test:
Beside the imposing bulk of a whole pound of Greater Spotted Italian Salami.
Buck 110 (1992, pre-420HC)
Buck 346 Vantage Avid in 12C27 Sandvik
EKA Swede-92 as Normark American Hunter in 12C27 Sandvik
Case XX Sod Buster (large) in "Tru-Sharp" stainless
Benchmade NRA Outdoors Steigerwalt 3-blade in 440C
I took a picture right after the test -- or thought I did -- with the knives lined up in the order of performance. When I offloaded the pics from the camera, however, that pic was not there. Rats. However, the results are below.
Basically I wanted to see which knife would slice easily through hard dry salami, giving uniform thin slices without the blade wandering off-line, binding up in the "work," or requiring extra effort to control the blade or force the cut.
The best performer (and, yes, this was a bit of a surprise) was the old Case Sod Buster.
This was followed by a near three-way tie for second. The Buck 110 would bite into the work very easily and slice through effectively, but required a bit of "English" on the cutting angle to get a straight slice. The EKA/Normark would bite into the work almost as easily, required no angular adjustment to get nice even slices, but the broad blade tended to bind just a little from "clamping" friction due to the greater flat surface area. The Benchmade/NRA cut easily, needed very little angular guidance, exhibited little friction, but required a little more effort at the bottom of the cut to make a clean slice.
I will award second place to the Benchmade/NRA because the overall slicing action was consistent and required no "extra skill" to get a good, even, thin slice, even though the last stroke needed a bit more force to complete the cut.
Similarly, third place goes to the EKA/Normark for not needing any extra attention to the cutting angle to get an even slice, even though a little more force was needed to overcome the "caliper" friction on the flat sides.
Which leaves the Buck 110 in fourth place. This is hardly fair, really, because it was clearly sharper than either the EKA or NRA, but the hollow-ground blade cross section makes an even slice difficult without managing the angle of the blade through the slice. It's just that, without the extra expertise to manage that angle, the cut becomes clumsy, and you get slices that are tapered, even incomplete.
In last place for this exercise is the newest piece in the bunch: the Buck 246 Vantage Avid.
Understand that "last place" is all about small fractions. It was fractionally less sharp. It had fractionally more friction resistance. It needed fractionally more effort to keep a slice straight. And, most unfairly of all, it required a bit more vertical force for the simple reason that it's not quite as long as the others. Funny what a quarter inch of length one way or the other will do.
Now, to be fair, last night's encounter with the veggies was very favorable for the Buck Vantage. I was actually expecting it to be the one to beat on the salami.
Oh, there is one other little factor: the Buck Vantage is the only one of these that still has the factory edge. All the others have previously been touched up on a diamond steel to obtain just a that little extra zing. I imagine that after a few strokes the Vantage will zing, too.
The surprise was how facile the simpler blade shape of the sodbuster is for routine jobs. That same simplicity is found in the NRA Steigerwalt blade, which is really very close to the sodbuster profile. Both of those blades were very easy to use, producing uniform results with minimal effort.
Next time I'll have to include the Opinel #8 to see how its simplicity and edge zing hold up in a side-by-side with these others.
And immediately after the salami exercise . . .
Oh look! The mail's here!
Looks like the Birthday Fairy is a whole week early!
It's late, so I'll post those pictures tomorrow.
