Intimate Review: The NativeSurvival Knife

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http://nativesurvival.com

Tags: bushcraft,tool,nativesurvival,review,walkthrough,rundown,woodcraft,pathfinder,woodlore,scandi,bevel,scandinavian

Video Transcription

how's it going this is Mitch with native survival school I've been asked to show a more intimate review of the native survival knife that just got released so stay tuned

[Music]

so this vowel knife is a blade that I designed with couple key features a lot of details it's been worked and reworked and really a labor of love it's actually quite warm today in the woods it's like 40 [Applause]

used to punch you behind me as a coatrack thank you sir okay got my blade in here so first off I'll show the sheets real quick comes with a hand-stitched fully handcrafted leather sheath vegetable tan sheath from JRE

quality is just astounding excellent stitching

does a great job he always has felt loop in the back with a dangler dangle is also suck to be removed without being cut or destroyed as well if you like it that way

goes out of the way just for a single you know normal belt carry fella rod and is the neatest wobble phone rod fits right on the sheath and stops at the top of the sheath the same height really tight retention on the phone rod and here it's like tight here's a close-up of the knife four-inch blade three thirty-seconds thick which is like almost 4 mils in between 3 and 4 mils few European guys speaking the European has a european-style coke bottle handle with the fishtail swoop and the slow decline to the front transition the all-important transition on a knife comes with LT Wright's logo on it he's the guy who hand makes these for me is my logo on the other side so the Heron made in the USA using oh one high carbon tool steel which is a traditional favorite and bushcraft and it's my favorite personally it has great edge retention it's it's very strong to hold an edge but it's soft enough to be sharpened like perfectly oh one also I think it's better than 1095 or else I would have chosen 1095 I like o1 far better oh one also just grows a patina and doesn't seem to it doesn't rust like 1095 does in my experience at all it doesn't go crazy on rust it just gets a nice patina and also oh one throws amazing sparks off of rocks like a flint steel he's a piece of Flint

he's piece of chart piece of dowel sight piece of quartz anything with a hardness of over six and a half and his steel was throw sparks something I used to do a lot on my my my go handles natural micarta in this particular version of the knife as time goes on we're going to offer other handle compositions my Carter it has a nice textured finish to it so it's not slippery when it gets bloody and it's impervious to water swelling and all that has range of green liners

and this blade is designed to not just be comfortable in the forehand grip but also in chest leaver so when I'm in chest Weaver a pommel is long enough to reach just past my hand instead of digging into my hand it's just past my hand and it just it just locks in feels great on Scandinavian as well which is like a reverse chess leaver chess leavers blade out Scandinavians blade in that's for carving towards yourself you know scoid carving spoons and cooks ooze and things like that carving downhill okay so that's the close-up specs the overall design aesthetic of this knife was a puku design scandinavian design on the blade itself puku design with a

coke bottle handle that's not an easy combination to find I like coke bottles a lot it's the most popular handle shape and bushcraft knives made famous I believe by Ray Mears with his would lure I own one a lot of people make these kinds of handles their version of it and I've owned quite a few over the years and I've used quite a few over the years like Jack lures adventurer sworn Adirondack wilderness you know kind of like everybody makes these coke bottle handles I wanted a puku blade his is not puku at all and I really like that narrow Scandinavian design it's just excellent in my opinion for bushcraft excellent and the bevel isn't very tall I didn't design it really high up because a tall bevel means that the thick part the face part of the blade isn't the majority of the blade which is the strongest part of the blade and once you get into the bevel you have more surface area that you're sharpening because it's a taller bevel it's more bevel to sharpen and also can chip out and cause problems with Scandinavian bevels

because a longer bevel means it's thinner for a longer amount of time and it can chip out especially when you're carving through not snotty grain you're carving through your cuts you're drilling to make bold roll kits and to make pipes and whatever it is you know it can chip out from that and so digging arrows out of trees that's very common so I designed a short bevel to give it strength now if this was a very thick blade

cuz it's 3/32 right in between three and four Mills like 3.3 Mills something like that this was a very thick blade I couldn't have a bevel this short because it would be coming from a thick stock and then right away having to get to a bevel and it would be too steep it'd be too steep so it wouldn't have good slicing power be pushing the wood off kind of like a scant a to call that light like the K bar has that's oh that's a terrible bevel it's like absolute junk what do they call that you know it's like the Scandinavian then you have the secondary bevel I don't even know anymore I can't stand that bubble anyway so if I think of it I'll say it somebody say in the comments please but yeah so anyways it's too thick so because the stock is thinner okay I'll back up so if it's real thick stock then to get to the proper 22 degrees you have to start way back and really come a long way to get that nice thin slicing bevel so it's not as steep to bring it down to be thin enough yet to start way back I'm cut really far in and I don't have to do that because this is fin enough where I can have the best of both worlds to me this is like I engineered this thing like you wouldn't believe

so it has a bevel that has a stock thin enough so it slices like a dream so the bevel can be short enough to be strong yet still retain the proper angle a has to to be a nice thin slicing carving edge

I worked real hard on that nothing is that Laura Kaas oh the plunge where the plunge starts right there is very close to where the liners are the tolerance is at Elte are fantastic I made sure he had that

right up to the line it's very close very important because when it starts further back now the closest I can carve stead of here is over here because my plunge line is so far out that means I'm carving here and that causes my blade like a seesaw and it causes wrist fatigue but if I can put the workpiece as close to my hand as possible I have tremendous control of my bevel all these things are absolutely key in a bushcraft knife also the bevel horizon is unbelievably important where the bevel is in relation to a your first finger is so right here the lowest point where my first finger is and where the bevel actually is in relation to that see that mine has a positive a positive bevel horizon of no more than 1/16 that's see that's the the design a positive double horizon of 1/16 very important because if you have a blade and your bevel starts down here because it has a huge curve and then and then the blade starts very common in knives actually where the bevel doesn't line up with your hand it's actually way up here when you're carving like my mind my brain everything is is with my hand but I'm cutting down here and it's like using an axe if I try using an axe to make feathers the bevel is so far down that like it's wobbly you can't you can't control the edge as you're going down and if you can move that bevel horizon close to your hand it's money

and I chose in my opinion the best bevel horizon is 1/16 word of the hand so when I'm holding it it's a hair's breadth in front of my hand my ligaments my a my understanding it's just the closest possible right in front of my hand as I carve I know where that bevel is all the time so my work piece that I'm carving is as close as possible to my hand and it starts 1/16 passed my hand you want to talk about being locked in money right there again really good on chesil ever because the piece can get so close and it lines up with my hands my bevel isn't out here because that causes like a wobbly action trying to cut through I want concise conciseness I want perfection has to be perfect I want my carving you know to be innate I want it to be second nature muscle memory I can just car for days and not even think about it and so I had to design a knife that I could do that and also when I'm in chess leaver

like I said with that being long enough to reach it gives me more power more purchase for longer amounts of time I can power through sticks easier because it locks in because it goes it curves around my hand I'll show you an angle that right along the palm because of that it's cushioned it doesn't bruise my hand and I can carve for hours and it's so tight there's no wiggle there's no play it's just like I carve a lot of spoons and cooks --is I use them I give him way his gifts I sell them on my website I caught bows and I needed a knife I could do that for me I've had a lot of knives in the past and I just wanted a knife that did that closer to what I needed it to do so powerful man powerful nice clean cuts let's see break this down a bit you know just wrapping this little see the strength of that that bevel holds a design that way it's sharp but it's a strong design it's not strong it's not sharp and weak I think just hogs off wood it creates incredible facets see the nice concise lines precision precision man have nice slow control over Chester's graph a lot very strong see the roll so feathers would incredibly well a lot of control in the bevel you can see also has the ability presidents bubble design being on a horizon that's so close that it has great control and so I can also really snug up and do some finer curls

again because of the Bel horizon being so tight to the hand just in front of the hand and the smallest virtually the smallest increment possible 1/16 of an inch it allows a very delicate touch and I can still have the control of knowing where my bevel is let's take some of these delicate curls putting the tips in the middle grab my need a survival fowl-run my bleed also has a nice sharp 90-degree edge

oops

broke through the bark didn't I when I push down to plant my flower on all right okay

gee little crows like easily make sure this is out it is excellent nice 90-degree edge

allows some good spots to be thrown you can see bobbum in lava be full-tang very strong you know obviously the time with it as well oke it's like the iron of the woods not to be confused with iron wood of course

little oak and pine file a ready to go I hope you've enjoyed this intimate look at the native survival knife again four inch blade oh one high carbon tool steel Scandinavian edge in a puku design with a coke bottle handle Ranger liners Ranger green liners natural micarta handle it's available on our website of course a native survival comm comes with a leather sheath handmade knife handmade sheath

both made in the USA it's my mitch with the native survival school appreciate you views you call them to support hit the like button subscribe if you're not a subscriber you can get notifications of our new videos hope you enjoy the blade that I've designed for the world this is for you guys it's for me it's for us all who love bushcraft take care you