old4570
Flashlight Enthusiast
[FONT="]Muela Elk[/FONT]
[FONT="] A long time ago I spied this knife and now after ? how many years , I have one . The knife is very well made , is not overly large or small . Pretty much in the sweet spot for a belt knife me thinks . Nothing to complain about except the usual .
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[FONT="]Factory edge : It was sharp out of the box , so I had some expectations . 50 is a pretty poor showing I must say .
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[FONT="]Whetstone Grinder / Knife Sharpener : This machine really puts down a nice even straight bevel / edge and shows up a bad grind right away . The machine puts down it's own edge ( straight ) and does not follow the original grind . Even a guided knife sharpening system can follow a bad grind . So it took some effort to remove about 99.5% of the bad grind . I don't go crazy removing steel , who wants to remove , say 5 years of normal use in one grind session ? ( You might have to , but do you want to ? ) Essentially I remove as little steel as possible to get my fresh edge . Ok , so maybe a little bad ju ju is left behind . But it should not overly affect the knives performance and after a few sharpening sessions it will go away . The result was 350 ! ( A 300 slice increase )
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[FONT="] At 350 slices this knife is a keeper . I don't know exactly what steel is used , but I think it's some sort of CrMov ( proprietary ? ) . Still , the steel seems to work well and you get a decent amount of knife for your money . Though that factory grind was nothing to brag about , one does hope everyone will be able to put down a decent edge onto the knife for good performance .[/FONT]
[FONT="] Edge Maintenance - At the end of the video I strop the edge back . Of course it was not 100% for the video , but once I turned the camera off another half dozen passes had the edge back slicing paper without issue . ( Just wish it had done it for the cam )
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[FONT="] Do I recommend this knife = Yes , I would score it about 8.5/10 . For me it's a good useful size that works well . Generally large knives are a PITA for most camp chores and completely unnecessary , but the Elk seems to be about right . [/FONT]
