Lets do some yard work the hard way! Manix 2 bush clearing fun

[Evil D]

So, behind my house is a rather unsightly and overgrown honeysuckle bush, along with a rose bush weaved in and who knows what else. There's a lot of this sort of stuff around this house that I'm slowly addressing when I get time, but this one has had it coming for a long time. Now, any smart man who's about to take down a bunch of bushes would just get out a chainsaw or even a decent wood hand saw or axe and just cut it down right? Well, I am not a smart man, and I don't own a chainsaw so what's the next best thing? A pocket knife! :rolleyes:

My goal here was pretty simple. Aside from taking down this bushes (there are two main trunks next to each other), I just wanted to see how much of this type of work it would take to completely dull S110V, and to show that the Manix 2 LW is no slouch and can take some (reasonable) hard use. I started out this morning by putting a nice new edge on the Manix, which consisted of a 600 degree edge at 30 degrees, followed up with a micro bevel on the Sharpmaker brown rods at 40 degrees. Nothing fancy, just a nice somewhat toothy edge. It was plenty sharp enough to easily pop hair off my arm. Good enough for carving. I am curious though how this would have been different if I had polished the edge...maybe next time.

So, the way I've always done this sort of thing ever since I was a young kid roaming the woods with a slipjoint, was to "whittle" my way around a branch to cut it off. I'm sure there's probably some bushcraft term for this that I don't know of, but the concept is basically the same as making feather sticks. I've cut down branches as large as a grown man's arm this way using no chopping or batonning and it works quite well, though it is a lot of work.

Anyway, here's some pics I took as I worked. Sorry they're all in portrait format, I was working one handed and with gloves on and wasn't thinking lol.

Here's the weapon of choice:


Before I even made it over to the main target, I cut a little weed coming up by my steps and I'll be danged if I didn't hit the blade on a rock :mad: Oh well, most of the cutting would happen closer to the tang anyway.

(check out the quality of those gloves LOL)

Here's what I was up against. For size reference, that deck is nearly 6 feet off the ground.

View from the deck


First objective was to clear some branches and make a path to the trunk of the bush. Nearly every branch you see will end up being cut, even branches stemming off larger branches.












This particular branch more or less ended the edge on the knife. I couldn't even guess how many cuts were made up to this point, but this branch was a solid 10 inches in circumference judging by how much of my hand I could get around it. It took a LOT of work to get through this one, and it eventually snapped under it's own weight, which became a pretty common occurrence after I got through the small branches and moved on to the larger ones.




But, in the end bush #1 was defeated.


Here's a couple gloved hand shots. I threw on some old Mechanic's gloves, which in retrospect were not enough (more on that later). I found the knife extremely easy to use with gloves. The large thumb hole made opening extremely easy, and I didn't have any problems at all operating the lock.



In the end, it only cost me 2 blisters :rolleyes:
One on the webbing of my hand where the spine dug in, and one on the bottom inside of my pinky from the "pinky bump" on the butt of the handle digging into my pinky.



As you can see though, quite a few hot spots, even with gloves. For general EDC, I've never had an issue with the handle's squared off scales or the bidirectional texture, but doing heavy work like this it really does become an issue. Could you bushcraft with this knife? Well, obviously you shouldn't baton with it, but I don't see why you couldn't do just about anything else, but there are certainly better knives as far as ergonomics go. I don't think the ergos are so much about the handle design as they are about those nasty sharp corners. The reality is though, if you're going to do this level of work with just about any Spyderco folder, you're likely going to get a sore hand due to most folders being squarish and thin. What you really want is a rounded/wider handle like the Bushcraft has.

So, to sum this up....The steel held it's own quite well I think. No chips at all, not at least that I can see under my 60x loupe. Even the spot near the tip where I dinged it on the rocks rolled instead of chipping, which kinda surprised me. Honestly though, with just carving wood I really didn't expect any chips. Towards the end of the job, the knife was cutting on pure edge geometry alone, and could likely have cut down the second bush but the effort was noticeably harder and my hand was feeling the burn. I would call the blade dull, but it will still cleanly slice notebook paper, which again I think says more about the edge geometry than anything because I can press the blade into the palm of my hand and draw it and it doesn't cut at all. It's quite dull. Still, there's some amount of working edge there and I bet the vast majority of non knife nut people would still consider it sharp. I'm sure there are millions of kitchen knives out there that aren't half as sharp.

I did shoot a quick video of some of the action explaining how I was cutting each branch...not that it's rocket science or anything.
https://youtu.be/I7TejNTskKs
(may not be available in HD yet)


Bonus material!....I got lazy after the first bush and decided to chop and baton the second one down with my Wildsteer WX. Absolute carnage...I beat this knife until my arm was sore from swinging the baton branch. Still no pivot play and still bank vault lock up. It's such an awesomely stupid knife :D





And now I get to haul off all the brush. My faaavorite part

[OldSarSwmr]

Well earned blisters. Thanks for documenting all of that, that was a ton of work. I have been hard pressed to take my S110V Manix out of my pocket. It's just works for me. Thanks again.

Dan

[Waco]

So, how you do feel about the ergonomics of the lightweight handle vs the beveled edges of the G10 version for hard cutting?

Personally, I would have used my BK2.

[farnorthdan]

Wow...great write up David, that's some seriously hard work with a pocket knife. I recently picked up one of the early spydie saws and would love to try it on a job like yours.

[Evil D]

So, how you do feel about the ergonomics of the lightweight handle vs the beveled edges of the G10 version for hard cutting?

Personally, I would have used my BK2.

I'm sure the G10 version would be a bit more comfortable but like I said when you start doing this much work I think folders like these are all going to give you some hot spots due to being thin and blocky. I'm sure some better gloves would have prevented the blisters too, those Mechanics gloves are really just to keep your hands clean and are designed to give you some sense of touch while wearing them.

[Evil D]

Wow...great write up David, that's some seriously hard work with a pocket knife. I recently picked up one of the early spydie saws and would love to try it on a job like yours.

That would have made my life so much easier. I still need to go in and cut down the stumps so I may get a decent pruning saw.

[Waco]

So, how you do feel about the ergonomics of the lightweight handle vs the beveled edges of the G10 version for hard cutting?

Personally, I would have used my BK2.

I'm sure the G10 version would be a bit more comfortable but like I said when you start doing this much work I think folders like these are all going to give you some hot spots due to being thin and blocky. I'm sure some better gloves would have prevented the blisters too, those Mechanics gloves are really just to keep your hands clean and are designed to give you some sense of touch while wearing them.

Thanks. I'm still trying to decide if I need a Manix LW (2.9 oz) when I already have a G10 Manix 2 and an FRN Endura 4 (3.6 oz).

[Evil D]

So, how you do feel about the ergonomics of the lightweight handle vs the beveled edges of the G10 version for hard cutting?

Personally, I would have used my BK2.

I'm sure the G10 version would be a bit more comfortable but like I said when you start doing this much work I think folders like these are all going to give you some hot spots due to being thin and blocky. I'm sure some better gloves would have prevented the blisters too, those Mechanics gloves are really just to keep your hands clean and are designed to give you some sense of touch while wearing them.

Thanks. I'm still trying to decide if I need a Manix LW (2.9 oz) when I already have a G10 Manix 2 and an FRN Endura 4 (3.6 oz).

Well, the lightweight part is only half of the magic on this knife, the steel is the other half for me. I will say though, this has me really thinking about a blade swap now. The lightness is really nice but I've been carrying my Yo 2 and haven't thought twice about weight. The Yo 2 is 1.2oz lighter than the Manix 2, but if I do a blade swap I plan on tweaking some things and bringing that weight down a bit.

[Waco]

I only care about weight when I'm wearing shorts and the knife is slapping my leg with every step. My FRN FFG Endura works pretty well in that situation. I doubt losing another 0.7 oz would be noticeable.

[SG89]

Imagine the brush you could clear with your knife and the SzaboHawk!

[sbaker345]

I had to laugh when I saw the size of the last branch. That's chopper sized.

I bet If you had left it an even 30 and polished the edge it would have stayed sharp at the cost of some microchipping. I can take mine out tomorrow and see how much wood it takes to dull it.

[Waco]

I want to hear the neighbors' comments. "Look honey, he's cutting a bush down with a pocket knife." "Something's not right with that guy."

[HarleyXJGuy]

I want to hear the neighbors' comments. "Look honey, he's cutting a bush down with a pocket knife." "Something's not right with that guy."

This.

Of course we all knew this already.

I was out today chopping some branches down in the backyard. Except I used a couple of multi tool saws. My trusty Surge and the star of the show a Victorinox Workchamp.

[Evil D]

My neighbors wouldn't look twice. The cop across the street probably has me on his watch list already though lol.

[Donut]

Thanks for sharing.

I wonder how your ergos would change if you were holding it in non-choil grip. The blister between your thumb and forefinger might be from the blade being thinner (than the handle) and the jimping.

[Evil D]

Thanks for sharing.

I wonder how your ergos would change if you were holding it in non-choil grip. The blister between your thumb and forefinger might be from the blade being thinner (than the handle) and the jimping.

I'd say probably 3/4 of the time I used it was spent behind the choil in a full fist grip. Honestly I didn't even notice the pinky hump rubbing my pinky until it was over, the webbing between my thumb and index was burning so bad it had my full attention.

[Nate]

Pretty incredible undertaking man. I hope for part 2 you'll take out those stumps with nothing but a se Dragonfly Salt and a wooden spoon, lol.

If not, I have a steel nursery spade that would pop them out in a couple minutes.

Love me some Felco for general pruning, these have taken out tons of overgrown honeysuckle over the years:

[Donut]

Thanks for sharing.

I wonder how your ergos would change if you were holding it in non-choil grip. The blister between your thumb and forefinger might be from the blade being thinner (than the handle) and the jimping.

I'd say probably 3/4 of the time I used it was spent behind the choil in a full fist grip. Honestly I didn't even notice the pinky hump rubbing my pinky until it was over, the webbing between my thumb and index was burning so bad it had my full attention.

That's cool. Do you think it had to do with the plastic jimping on the spine of the handle or just pressure?

[Evil D]

Thanks for sharing.

I wonder how your ergos would change if you were holding it in non-choil grip. The blister between your thumb and forefinger might be from the blade being thinner (than the handle) and the jimping.

I'd say probably 3/4 of the time I used it was spent behind the choil in a full fist grip. Honestly I didn't even notice the pinky hump rubbing my pinky until it was over, the webbing between my thumb and index was burning so bad it had my full attention.

That's cool. Do you think it had to do with the plastic jimping on the spine of the handle or just pressure?

I think just pressure and the squareness of the handle. The jimping would have been an issue bare handed but I think the glove had it covered. I went at it pretty hard the entire time, I don't know if honeysuckle wood is a hardwood or what but it's not the easiest stuff to cut, it seemed really dense almost like cutting thick plastic. The slices didn't "peel off" the way most wood does when you carve it which created a lot of resistance if you tried to cut too deep, and the grain structure was such that it wanted to pull your cut down in the direction of the branch and sort of split the wood instead of carve out of it. I've definitely whittled softer wood that's for sure.

I still need to clean up the brush, and there's quite a bit of it. I may let these blisters heal and go at it with another knife just to compare it. I've been thinking about getting another G10 Manix 2 so maybe I'll do that and have a comparison between the two.

[usar]

Pretty Cool never thought a knife can be used in lieu of an AXE !