Next in the Series...........Harm

[Poolshark]

The knife arrived safely and was waiting for me when I came home today. It is a nice looking knife. I haven't had a chance to do much with it yet. I'm going to try to figure out how to keep this sharpened first.

[Frstr8]

The knife arrived safely and was waiting for me when I came home today. It is a nice looking knife. I haven't had a chance to do much with it yet. I'm going to try to figure out how to keep this sharpened first.

Good luck

I sharpened it the best I could after I did my review (posted soon), but it isn't easy to sharpen.

[Poolshark]

Knife is off to its next stop.

[Frstr8]

Knife is off to its next stop.

Thanks for the update!

The list in order is,

Poolshark

Nocheese4u

Parker

littlejoey

sled

[nocheese4u]

Just received today! Awesome ergos and incredible retention in the sheath.

[Frstr8]

Thanks for the update!

[nocheese4u]

First chance I had to finally use the knife was today.
I didn't have a fresh kill so I worked on plants instead.
Worked better than expected with such a beautiful grind.

[Frstr8]

First chance I had to finally use the knife was today.
I didn't have a fresh kill so I worked on plants instead.
Worked better than expected with such a beautiful grind.

[Poolshark]

Alright. Time to throw in my two cents on this knife. My worry when seeing pictures of this knife was that the handle would be uncomfortable. But actually the edges of the handle are radiused and quite comfortable. The knife is weighty and substantial. It is an attractive knife.

It took me a while to really get started "testing" this knife because I could not get the damn thing sharp enough to really cut anything. I was able to run the tip portion of the grind over my strop and get it polished up enough to cut paper without tearing it. I was unable to strop the belly portion of the blade. It took me several days to finally locate my small, fine stone but even that did not give me much contact with the blade. I was afraid that if I too vigorously stropped or honed the knife that I would blur the grind lines. Attachment 90977
I ended up using the side of my stone in an attempt to polish up the belly and just didn't have the time to really work it enough.
I spent some time cutting rope with the knife and I found that it was actually easier to cut the rope with my pocketknife. If you look at them you will see that the trapper has a longer blade than the belly portion of the Harm knife. Trying to cut through the rope I couldn't use the full length of the knife to cut with. It held up where the grind changed. I don't think that would have been as big a deal if I had been able to get that belly area decently sharp.
Attachment 90978
I ended up using this knife as if it were two smaller knives. The tip for slicing through paper and the belly for more aggressive cutting of rope and cardboard. I look forward to seeing what this knife can do after it gets into the hands of someone with more skill at sharpening this grind than I have.Attachment 90976

[Parker]

Ok, the knife is at my business address currently and I'll pick it up this afternoon.

I look at this as an entirely different animal - it's an intended defensive weapon versus a chore knife in my eyes, so we'll see about giving it a look from that viewpoint. The serious positive-included angle/ recurve should do nicely on a hunk of meat, which indicates I'll be doing something with a pork shoulder for dinner on Sunday, but I want to see how it flows from cut to cut, as well as how it works on soft targets as well as how well it indexes into a stick. Sat and Sunday will be fun days, yay!

My guess is that the sand/ strop block I use on all my knives at this point will do fine on the recurved edge, we'll see how that works out.

I'll also take it for a run tomorrow morning and see how it carries - after all, a defensive implement is useless if it's not with you when you need it. I've found over the last decade and a half that a run with your intended tool is an excellent method of determining whether a carry system is practical and useful versus something which K Robinson or Dwayne Carillo would come up with while playing dungeons and dragons.

As a furtherance of this, I MAY try to give it a whack as an daily carry knife - I'm wearing a suit again a couple days a week and if I am in a suit, we'll see about hooking it up under my jacket. If it's chilly this weekend, maybe under a sweater or light jacket.

Back at youse Devils later - oh, and are we doing a five-way reward for this when the pass-around is done?

[Frstr8]

Thanks for the update sir

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

[Parker]

Okay folks, I have had it for a few hours and my first impressions are that this is a fairly purpose-driven and specialized knife. Whether this is a positive or a negative I'll leave up to the reader or potential owner of this knife.

My initial visual impressions of the knife have been borne out, this is a defensive knife before all else. The blade grind, while exotic, has a point which drops naturally into a target, at least for me, when I'd like to contact said target with the point and the forward portion of the blade has a rather heavyweight but still highly effective profile for both cutting soft mediums as well as being shaped to puncture hard and soft mediums well. The point drops just below the wrist, and it indexes very well either poking or cutting on any angle of attack I've manged to try.

The mid-read blade grind, the secondary grind reminiscent of a "Strider Nightmare" grind, I'm working on a theory about the "why" and I'll share this theory later in the weekend or Monday/ Tues evening, whenever I've had the opportunity to experiment with it. I'm fairly certain I know what it's supposed to to and why, I just want to give it a whirl and see what may come.

The handle is as advertised very comfortable and secure in the hand, and yep, this is a pretty heavy knife for it's size. I've not measured the blade stock, if I can find a metric ruler after having moved in the past two weeks I'll do so, but I bet this is the 6.0 mm stock and it feels overbuilt and over-heavy for it's purpose at the moment. I'll drive it around this weekend and see if I change my mind on that.

The handle and blade both seem very comfortable and capable with any grip I've tried out as well as edge orientation. It is very much an edge-out sort of blade, but if you felt the need to play at pikal grips, the knife does not seem as though it's going to quibble.

Now the sheath is an interesting bit - again, as discussed, excellent retention, but it also gives up the knife very quickly and smoothly. I don't know if I love the attachment method for the belt loop, and we'll see if the loop actually fits my Liger belt in the morning or if I'll be rigging it with a bit of P-cord for a five-miler in the woods. That said, the belt loop will carry it SOB/ IWB for a very efficient and discreet carry and for me at least put the knife in a great position for a quick retrieval. Downside of the kydex loop is that if you fall while wearing it SOB, you are gonna feel it and how. I prefer a soft mount for an IWB, namely a piece of P-cord around my belt and I have pics for you sheathmakers HOW to do this properly so that the knife moves WITH the wearer instead of being locked in place AGAINST him as he moves about his daily grind.

Oh, Poolshark and nocheese did have an interesting set of grinds to work with if they were going at this with a strop and stone - I suggest a sand/ strop block for sharping this grind or one like it. It took me about ten min to clean it up more or less, and I figure another ten min or so in the morning and I'll be happy with the results. It's lots sharper than when I got it, but again, the guys were right about this, it is an interesting sharp-up. If it were something that I sharped regularly, I suspect I'd have a lot more proficiency with this set of grinds. I bet in the am we can have this to where I'm ok with it.

I have to say that while a lot more specialized and singularly-purposed than what I normally carry, I like it. It does have the appearance of something Worf would carry in between outings with that big sickle thing of his, but so what? It has enough length, heft and dexterity that while it is a damn far cry from the Mad Dog Panther I'd prefer in the event of a social occasion, I'd not feel as though I was left to fend for myself with only fingernails given this as a substitute. In my current location and political setting, something more discreetly packaged may be a better bet for the defense lawyers, but fuck em, I hate most lawyers anyway.

Stay tuned, Devils, more on the way as I have it.

[unreconstructedgordo]

Doesn't look anywhere near the Polkowski Kasper Parker donated and I won on auction for a dying child's charity benefit. Remember THAT knife Parker when you compare this! The Polk.. is thin and nasty with no harpoon profile or other weirdness. Just saying. :ross

[Frstr8]

Good write up Parker! You set the standard. Are we gonna get some pictures?

[nocheese4u]

Man! I was just getting ready to write my review! After reading parker's review I feel a little humbled. I did not have an oppurtunity to use it for defense or offense. I just used it like I would any knife I carry. The front belly of the knife worked much better than I expected for slicing. It was easy to keep that part of the knife doing the work. The recurve part I never used. Sorry! No throats needed slitting during my week! I loved the aesthetics but, I think the extreme recurve took away alot of the usefulness of the knife. I understand it is a defensive knife and one knife can't do everything. I just think the grind extremely limits it's uses. I apologize for the edge I did not have much time with the knife.