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I am completely impressed with how well the O1 steel in the Bushcraft holds it's edge :D A Scandinavian grind in my limited knowledge would be demanding on a blade material :confused: The O1 treated by Spyderco takes an edge and keeps extremely well :D

I've been hogging on this piece of dry scrub maple for the past hour, taking out huge chips :D Even got down to the harder wood towards the middle when I parted it. The Bushcraft still shaves hair with ease :D

Made the mistake of putting a microbevel on the Bushcraft in the past. I remedied that and put the original scandi back on a couple of months ago.

If you have a Bushcraft sitting in storage I would recommend you take it out and cut some wood with it.This knife feels like the energizer bunny, it just keeps going :D

Nice knife! I have an O1 Enzo Trapper that is similar. I agree that it cuts better with no microbevel, but if you cut anything other than wood, I recommend putting a small one on it. Otherwise, it might chip.

Nice stuff Charlie :) .

That's one grind i have zero experience with. You basically just sharpen it freehand on stones right? What's the advantage over other grinds? Seems to me the idea is that you have a giant primary bevel, so you can lay it visibly flat on almost any flat stone and sharpen it.

Pretty much, yeah. It's also rather beefy, which might be an advantage if you want to chop, I suppose. It's also quite easy to make.

Evil D wrote:That's one grind i have zero experience with. You basically just sharpen it freehand on stones right? What's the advantage over other grinds? Seems to me the idea is that you have a giant primary bevel, so you can lay it visibly flat on almost any flat stone and sharpen it.

Exactly David :) Sharpening is a breeze :D After I was through with the wood I just sharpened on an Arkansas translucent for about 60 seconds and it was pushcutting phonebook paper with complete ease :D What's really impressive to me this traditional tool steel keeps it's edge with this grind and configuration. It wanted to keep on cutting :D

The Scandi grind seems to excel at cutting wood. The slope of the actual edge is quite shallow ~20 or 25 deg.. With a sharp edge it seems to almost anticipate taking out large chips with ease :D

I can see why this material is favored by bushcrafters :D You can fashion your tools and implements with the Bushcraft and use the same knife to prepare your dinner without having to sharpen :)

I don't feel good about the original handles going south on Spyderco However I very much appreciate the knives with damaged handles being offered as seconds. Mine looks a bit used with scratches on the blade and sharpening marks on the bevel. For sure this knife is one of my favorites :)

Pockets wrote:Nice knife! I have an O1 Enzo Trapper that is similar. I agree that it cuts better with no microbevel, but if you cut anything other than wood, I recommend putting a small one on it. Otherwise, it might chip.

I love the Enzo trapper knives too. Although it seems not a lot of people know about them, so glad to see your mention of it.
I have the Spyderco Bushcraft as in the photo, but it is in my collection rather then a user. On a lot of these ibuy 2 one for the collection and one to use, but was short on money at that time.

Mine came new with a slight microbevel on it, but I have not had the need to sharpen it yet (other than stropping).
I might be missing out... so I may need to put it to a full Scandi past the micro bevel.

That could take some elbow grease. One disadvantage of scandi grinds is that you have to remove a lot of metal when you sharpen if you don't have a microbevel.

MachSchnell wrote: I might be missing out... so I may need to put it to a full Scandi past the micro bevel.

There is a group of people advocating that putting a micro-bevel on a Mora guts the performance. That is fantasy and has to be for a number of reasons, the first two obvious ones are :

1) When you sharpen on a benchstone are you really sure there isn't a micro-bevel as I would bet strongly you are not going to see an exact and continuous 10 degree (or whatever) right to the edge. It is simply reality that movement across the stone is going to have some variation.

2) The influence of cutting ability has to be fractional and dependent on the change in the edge bevel as compared to the portion of the edge bevel that the "sees" the material being cut. Now a micro-bevel is about 0.1 mm wide and most material being cut is about 10 mm or so deep (the cuts) so you would expect to see something of an effect on the order of 0.1/10 mm which is about 1 %.

Even when you are cutting material which is very shallow, say your cuts are 1 mm deep, and you microbevel at 15 degrees which is 50% more you would expect to see a difference of 50% * 0.1/1 or 5%. It would be very difficult to see this even with careful measurement.

Now of course as the bevel starts to thicken and you can see it, then you will start to see an influence on cutting ability and ease of sharpening so in general if you are using a secondary bevel you want to work the primary on occasion, just use the coarse stone, there is little benefit from polishing the entire bevel.

IMO, whatever (if any) benefit is gained from having no microbevel, is more than compensated for by having a knife that doesn't chip as easily.

Appreciate Cliffs thoughts and the rest of the feedback :) It's quite enjoyable for me at least to enjoy this traditional material with it's traditional grind

I appreciate the logical thinking going on :) but for me the traditional grind and material seems to cut extremely well :) Again the Bushcraft is the sharpest edge I own :D

If they work for you, enjoy your edges wherever you choose to take them :D :D

Also, O1 is a great steel. It's not corrosion resistant, which you probably know, but it has nice edge retention.

dbcad wrote: I appreciate the logical thinking going on :) but for me the traditional grind and material seems to cut extremely well :) Again the Bushcraft is the sharpest edge I own :D

If they work for you is the final say, regardless of what is in theory, or regardless of what holds for other people, it is the knife in your hand and your experience which matters. Some people are really fond of the wide flat bevel because of the greater feedback in sharpening and it removes a lot of the frustration out of what can be a very aggravating task. If that is the case then use it regardless of what anyone says or finds. The only thing I would say is that it isn't really a hard thing to sharpen a narrow bevel and once you get past the feedback issue then you will notice how much faster a narrow bevel is to sharpen.

The Bushcraft is an exceptional knife and O-1 remains one of my favorite steels. I've had some 1095 knives that performed like real dogs but I've yet to encounter one like that in O-1. They've all been pretty good so far.

I do like it in folders. It's not a supersteel but it does a great job at cutting, is tough, and has decent wear resistance for it's class. I like it typically at around rc 60-61 for most knife uses. It sharpens very well.

I prefer it over any of the 10 series, on up to steels like A2, itself an excellent steel. For me it falls behind only steels like Cruwear/vascowear, 3V, etc. in preference for my uses.

Super Blue I put in a different category as the high carbon and other stuff make excellent slicers but lack the toughness of O-1, and A2 which makes them better at the larger type knife uses. For folders it's plenty tough at rc 62 and the edges it takes are amazing. Decent wear too.

The Mastiff wrote:I've had some 1095 knives that performed like real dogs but I've yet to encounter one like that in O-1.

1095 gets a horrible name as it is used in some extremely cheap knives and thus often gets extremely cheap performance. Have you used any carbon steel from a decent ABS guy, or any custom maker who is sensible with it. Ideally try it at the max torsional peak which is about 65-67 HRC for a fairly unique experience in a cutting tool. There are no large carbides, the edge forms exceptionally sharp almost trivially, no significant burr formation, very hard, resists rolling very well, but yet no alloy carbide so it works readily even with basic stones.

Cliff Stamp wrote:1095 gets a horrible name as it is used in some extremely cheap knives and thus often gets extremely cheap performance

It's also used in some not so cheap knives with excellent performance. I have a bunch of Great Eastern Cutlery slipjoints using the stuff, and they do a good job with it. ESEE for fixed blades, and other companies... I don't think any of them go up to that RC 65 level, though.

Easy to put a good edge on, holds it decently, forms a nice patina, tough... 1095 might not be the sexy steel of the week, but it's dependable, and from a good maker with a good heat treat, won't let you down.

Yeah, I have a Junglas from ESEE, works well there, extremely tough even in extreme uses will just tend to dent, and in non-extreme uses will easily last a long time wood working without any issues. I have easily bucked up 100 pieces of 2x4 sized wood and still can easily trim and cut grasses.

Carbon steels most definitely have their place :) The turn of the century knife works just fine :) Carbon steels definitely have their advantages :)