Knife Review Pass? Review and Pass to next.

[1967redrider]

[keithlong]

Hey Guys,
Please pm the address of the next in line for Rocky, so that I can pass him along. I have not had the opportunity to give him a test drive due to family illness. I have been traveling out of town for the past 7 weekends, and dont know when these trips will end. My father in law has had a real bad stroke, then fell nd broke his hip. Had hip replacement surgery last sunday, and now is in a nursing home for rehab. He has a long way to go. I will put him in the mail, either tomorrow or tuesday. Sorry for the delays guys. Keitg

[keithlong]

Hey Guys, Finally got back home and have father in law settled in with my wife's baby sister after his hip surgery and a few weeks stay in a nursing home. Got a chance to review ole Rocky this morning and I will be sending him on his way to john here in a little while. Although I never got to use him to skin a rabbit, had my brother to butcher them while I was away. But i did manage to get him out and take a look at him and here are my thoughts.
1. The knife is off balance, the handle is too heavy for the blade.
2. I think that the blade is too thick for skinning, and not built for a skinning knife, at least for small game.
3. It is however built for a nice all around camping knife.
4. Needs a better ground edge on it.

These are my personal thoughts only. I believe that with proper sharpening that it would be a decent user knife. My biggest problem is with the handle.

I appreciate the opportunity to give it an observation and I sincerely apoligize for the delay with this test and reply.
I Thank You very much and again I am sorry about the delay. Headed to the post office now to send him on to John.
Keith

[jerryd6818]

Thank you very much Keith for your effort & observations. Sometimes life gets in the way of living.

[treefarmer]

Jerry,
I'm next on the list, rifle season starts in earnest on Dec.10 but probably won't really get going till January when the rut come to life here in the Panhandle. If others care to test Rocky for a month or so I would maybe have more of an opportunity to use it later on, as I did on the review of "Griz",the Case we followed a year or so back.
Treefarmer

[jerryd6818]

Philip, so what I'm getting out of your post is after the first of the year in early January would probably be best for you.

Mike (SteelMyHeart85420) I still don't have your mailing address.
Edit: Never mind. Got it. Thanks Scott.

[TripleF]

Just PM'd you Mike's addy Jerry....sorry for the delay....

[TripleF]

Shall I post my thoughts as this appears to be over?

[jerryd6818]

Please do. I don't think it's over, over but the lack of enthusiasm makes the time ripe for your comments. I don't think they will influence anyone one way or the other. Seems like everyone already has their minds made up about ole Rocky without even touching him.

[rangerbluedog]

Preview.jpeg (10.9 KiB) Viewed 7280 times

Still rootin' for ya Rock - even though I threw the first punch.

[TripleF]

First let me begin by saying I'm a HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE fan of Estwing hammers, axes and hatchets. Probably the best lonest lasting American made work tools available!

The knife was a mistake IMO.
Awkward.
Not sharp.
Heavy.
I used it to make some fatwood slivers but had to spend 30 minutes getting an edge on it. Out of the package it didn't cut
paper......it crushed it!

Still a huge fan of Estwing....just not this knife!

[SteelMyHeart85420]

As the second person to offer to review this knife on 9-21, I've waited patiently to see if it would come my way. Sent my addy to Scott on 9-24, who forwarded it along to jerryd on 11-29. Read the other reviews of it, and since it doesn't seem like it'll make the journey to WI anyway, I'm bowing out. That was fun.

[1967redrider]

Taking Rocky to the farm for Christmas here in a minute. Hopefully it won't be like when your parents took your old Yeller to the farm. Will post lots of action shots!

[jerryd6818]

As the second person to offer to review this knife on 9-21, I've waited patiently to see if it would come my way. Sent my addy to Scott on 9-24, who forwarded it along to jerryd on 11-29. Read the other reviews of it, and since it doesn't seem like it'll make the journey to WI anyway, I'm bowing out. That was fun.

Mike, you have a PM.

[1967redrider]

Gave Rocky an introduction to farm life this morning.

First he got a lazy man's quick sharpen with 3 pulls through the Smith's sharpener. Then onto my work belt, very slim profile and I didn't even notice he was there. Very light weight design. First order of business - feeding hay by cutting some bailer twine. I also have videos which I'll need to upload in order to post here at some point. He took to one handed twine cutting like a hot knife through butter.

More to follow, Christmas is calling . . .

[treefarmer]

When 1967redrider gets done with "Rocky", I'll be ready to give it a try. The rut has begun!
Treefarmer

[1967redrider]

Next challenge for Rocky, cutting. Managed to cut pretty thick cardboard left-handed and unsupported while taking pictures. Rocky also had enough toughness to cut through a truck tire sidewall.

Challenge 3 coming up . . .

[TripleF]

You're certainly givin' him a workout~!!~

[1967redrider]

Next challenge- how good of a camp knife would Rocky be? Could this be his Ivan Drago?

For chopping, Rocky is on the ropes in this area due to his light weight. Not really much of a chopper and he wanted to slide out of my hand when hacking on a decent sized piece of white Oak while wearing a leather glove. For batoning kindling Rocky did somewhat better. He is plenty sturdy for this task but a longer blade would have given me a little more working room. Still, I think he handled the batoning challenge pretty well. The wood being sliced was red Oak.

Then back to the box cutting to test sharpness, still razor like results and I have not resharpened intentionally to see how long he keeps his edge. Once again the box slice was done left-handed while taking pictures and unsupported.

As posted earlier, I have videos of these tasks but will need to YouTube them or something before I can post them here.

[1967redrider]

Here's some associated videos of the Rocky challenges;

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evD6-JI8Sh8[/youtube]

twine cutting

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPqSkD5lVJU[/youtube]

box cutting

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maL2JeRm_ng[/youtube]

water jug puncture

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ufaBI-xu7M[/youtube]

kindling batoning

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGzeN_bgGqc[/youtube]

box cutting revisited

Next up- the Rocky kitchen challenge.

[jerryd6818]

You've put in a lot of effort on this project John. Thank you very much. It's appreciated.

[1967redrider]

Thanks for the opportunity, Jerry!

My last challenge- the kitchen. Rocky actually helped with the Christmas turkey and peeling an orange and did an excellent job with both tasks. I think Rocky would handle any kitchen cutting with ease. I also used Rocky to cut a boiled turkey neck into 6 pieces but didn't have anyone to take pictures. One of my sisters helped with some of the below pictures.

On a side note, the Butterball Electric Fryer did an excellent job as well. I went with an Old Bay dry rub. Moist and deeeeeeeeeeeeeeelicious.

Rocky vs. the orange first-

[1967redrider]

Rocky vs. Christmas turkey-

[1967redrider]

In review, I think Rocky handled everything I threw at him with the exception of chopping. I've chopped with larger camp knives before with way better results. I think his downfall in this challenge was due to his light weight. But for backpackers his weight would be a plus.

One thing I didn't get to test was his ability to function as a can opener. But with his blade thickness I think he could do it, especially after the truck tire sidewall puncture test. I should also mention Rocky was able to spark a firesteel, a necessity in wilderness survival situations.

Well, Rocky should be shipping out to Chipley, FL tomorrow. I'm interested to read what the next user thinks about his current sharpness, which I only touched up a little on Day 1. Hope you enjoyed my posts.

[jerryd6818]

Hope you enjoyed my posts.

Well I certainly did.