Winkler Knives

Decided to go out late the other night and beat up my Field Knife a bit, get a feel for edge retention, etc.

Best way to do this that I could think of? Chop a 3" wide, very hard, well seasoned Hazel sapling. HARD wood, and very difficult to cut into.

I have successfully chopped through this very same piece with a couple of other (albeit, larger) knives before, so I went ahead and gave it a go.

Maaaaan oh man, what a workout. The Field Knife has a little bit of mass for light wrist flick type chopping, absolutely perfect for limbing a green sapling or the like, but cutting through a decent size limb of seasoned hardwood? Nope.

Took me a good 5-8 minutes of continuous chopping to get through it. By the end, my forearm was cramping.

But I did it, and the edge made impact a good few hundred times. A solid test, IMO.

And let me clarify here, I only chopped with this knife to stress the edge. Not because it's efficient.

Made a HUGE mess.





Splits like nobodies business.





Also did a little cross batonning. No problemo.




I also decided to make a new bow drill spindle, so I chopped out a section of 3/4" thick seasoned Maple, pointed one end, rounded the other, but don't have any pics of that at the moment.

To the touch, I could tell the edge had lost a bit of bite from its initial state, but decided to try a couple of feather sticks on the quartered Hazel I had just split, using the same portion of the edge that had been used to chop with. Not a fresh, unused area.

It surprised me.





A few pics of it before cleaning it up.








My mirror edge had taken some obvious scratches from debris in the bark, and subsequently, also caused a few slight flat spots.

Save for these flat spots, the edge had suffered no damage at all, only slight dulling.

The rest of the edge would still reliably cut paper, but would no longer shave. I ran it over my black compound maybe 10-12 times per side and checked the edge again.

It absolutely blew my mind. The flat spots were still there, but the damn thing would shave again. Just like that.

Color me impressed.

 

Did a little work on my Field knife the other day, made it more to my liking.

I'm a fan of smooth micarta, so I made the micarta smoother (400 grit), and hit the rest of it (the steel) with some 0000 steel wool.

I usually dislike any type of coating on my knives, but this Caswell stuff is alright. Especially when you take the excess off. It leaves a nice antique looking finish.

 

How are they? I want something designed by JK so bad

 

They need welders down there?? Haha

 

Stopped by my local gun shop today out of boredom. Over the last few years they've really stepped up their knife game. They picked up Medfords and Striders a few years ago. Today they had 3 Winklers in the display case. A belt knife a hunter and I believe an operator.

Pics of these knives have never really done much for me, but, man oh man, that belt knife felt AWESOME in hand. Guess I need to add one to my list

 

They really have to be handled and used to be appreciated. A lot of thought went into the designs, and it shows when you get them in hand.

 

@Menace ivr got a couple I’m listing. Just need to get some pictures of them.

 

I had a hard time walking away from the every carry. I did walk away with this.

 

I was on look out for you but never crossed paths. I was redlined at 8000 RPMs from the time I went up the elevator til we left! Sensory overload is an understatement!