In an article titled “Sisters Of Steel: Vermont Women Forge Success Making Handmade Kitchen Knives,” initially published on BurlingtonFreePress.com, a Gannett Company, and written by Melissa Pasanen, the story is of Moriah Cowles and Chelsea Miller, both incredibly 30 years old, both slender and both with dark hair. They also both grew up in Vermont with fathers who work with their hands, and now they both live in Brooklyn, where each has built a reputation for making kitchen knives. And neither knew about the other, until recently, yet they’ve yet to meet in person.
Brooklyn-based knifemaker Chelsea Miller (left) fashions kitchen knives from repurposed materials like metal files in her family’s workshop in Peacham. / EMILY McMANAMY/FREE PRESS PHOTO.
Katz three-blade Stockman Executive Drop Point stacks up against the knives of old school.
Most in my age group were raised with a slip joint knife. It’s the knife Dad always carried in his pocket. Being raised with a dad who was a commercial fisherman, I used knives as tools every day—everything from cleaning fish to making fishing nets.
The main blade carved nice curly-cues with great control. The sheepsfoot had a tendency to dig deeper into the pine for thicker curly-cues. The spey was about midway on the curly-cues and depth of cut.
My father, Jacob, always used a three-bladed stockman for working with twine while making or repairing 90-foot trawl nets. It would take him 30 days or more to hand-tie every square in the massive nets. He would always work with the knife’s smallest blade. When it was sharpened down to a nub, he would go to the next blade. The knife would last him five years of heavy work. Then he would put it in his junk drawer and start using a new one. Only carbon steel blades knives were allowed—stainless steel had not evolved to the performance levels of today.
Katz Knives has taken old-school looks and added blades of high-performance XT-80 stainless steel on its Stockman Executive Drop Point. Let’s see if Dad would have approved.
TEST ’EM UP
In a quick sharpness test on 20-pound bond copy paper, all three blades sliced cleanly and smoothly. The shorter blades can be a bit challenging till you get used to them. The sharpening notch/choil caught on the paper during testing.
My wife, Melissa, wanted to play with the knife so I got an apple from the fridge for her to slice. The drop-point main/master blade worked great for sectioning the apple into wedges. Next was the sheepsfoot blade for seed removal and skinning the wedges. (The wedges were yummy.)
The main blade crunched to 74 clean cuts on the half-inch sisal rope before the edge started to slide.
Single-walled cardboard was next. All blades bit into it aggressively. The cardboard got hung up on the sharpening notches of the two smaller blades while slicing. As a result, I had to slow down the slicing and control the edge placement. The master blade made short work of the cardboard.
It was time to make some firesticks as camping season was in full swing and I needed a fire to roast marshmallows. The master blade gave me nice curly-cues with great control. The sheepsfoot blade had a tendency to dig deeper into the pine for thicker curly-cues. The spey blade was about midway on the curly-cues and depth of cut. SAFETY NOTE: Care must be taken while doing heavy cutting with a slip joint. It does not take much pressure to accidentally close a blade on a finger.
To make kindling from end cuts of a fence, I softly batonned the main blade into the slabs. This worked very well and smoothly with no damage to the blade. Again, care was taken to avoid a blade closing on a finger.
The final test was cutting half-inch sisal rope. Only the main blade was consistent during cutting due to its ample enough length giving me the stand-off needed to make crunching cuts. The XT-80 stainless crunched to 74 clean cuts before the edge started to slide.
Melissa uses the drop-point main blade to cut the apple into nice bite-sized sections.
This knife is well-executed in design and manufacture.
REPORT
Using the stockman was a very nice experience and provided good memories. You have three blades to work with, so you should always have a sharp edge on hand. The Katz is a very welcome addition to your pocket.
CHANGES
I love the straight edge of a sheepsfoot blade. I would add a midsize wharncliffe blade instead of the smaller spey.
Stockman Executive Drop Point Specs Company: Katz Knives Blade Lengths/Patterns: 23∕4” drop point, 23∕16” sheepsfoot & 2” spey Blade Steel: XT-80 stainless Handel: Stag bone Bolsters: Nickel silver Liners: Brass Weight: 2 ozs. Closed Length: 3.75” Country Of Origin: Japan MSRP: $181.90
To learn more about the Stockman Executive, please visit katzknives.com
The American Bladesmith Society (ABS) Hammer-In season for 2013 is about to begin with the Great Smoky Mountain hammer-in event in Clyde, North Carolina, on March 15-17. That’s followed in April by the Spring Piney Woods hammer-in at the Moran School Of Bladesmithing in Washington, Arkansas. The ABS Hammer-In Directors have some exceptional demonstrations and special events planned for 2013.
The setting for the Great Smoky Mountain Hammer-In is Haywood Community College, and demonstrators include Adam and Haley DesRosiers, Greg Neely, Butch Sheely, Jason Knight, Scott McGhee and Shane Maust. Click here to download the event flyer.
The repeal of automatic/switchblade knife bans will be one pro-knife effort among several by AKTI in 2016. The knife is the Hogue EX-03.
Increased lobbying efforts to pass knife law reform on both the federal and state levels will be a major focus of the American Knife & Tool Institute (AKTI) in 2016, the AKTI announced in a press release.
At the top of the list of reforms the AKTI will pursue are the Knife Owners’ Protection Act (KOPA), repeal of restrictions on automatics/switchblades, and Knife-Law Preemption.
To increase its pro-knife effort, AKTI is enlisting the services of ADS Ventures, a government and public affairs firm specializing in national security and defense issues with offices in Washington, D.C., and Boston, Massachusetts. ADS has worked with AKTI for several years. The new contract calls for increased efforts to pass KOPA and overturn still-existing bans on autos and pass Knife-Law Preemption in areas that don’t have it.
Patchwork laws related to the ownership and possession of knives, laws that are inconsistent from state to state, county to county and even town to town, are the bane of law-abiding knife owners. AKTI’s efforts will be redoubled to make laws consistent and Constitutional in these areas. “We support reasonable, responsible legislation and measured non-partisan efforts to resolve issues,” said David Fee, AKTI’s legislative chair. “We’re excited to see how we can further this objective in this and coming years.”
“We are confident that through AKTI’s leadership and the work of ADS Ventures, it will be a successful year for the organization as we further our mission to ensure [law-abiding citizens’] right to own, carry, and use knives and edged tools,” observed CJ Buck, president of the AKTI board of directors.
Along with Knife Rights, AKTI is your go-to service for questions concerning any and all knife laws. In terms of laws concerning elephant and ancient ivories, a specialist in such matters is the Elephant Protection Association. For more information, visit akti.org, kniferights.org and elephantprotection.org. To know your rights if arrested for carrying knives, to know what to say and not say in such situations and more, get your copy of Knife Laws of the U.S. by Evan Nappen.
Must see! At a BladeSports International cutting competition in Ellensburg, Wash., on June 20, 2010, Dan Keffeler broke the 2×4 speed cut world record.
