7th DragonKnifeWorks Mini Bowie
May 24, 2017 7:40:21 GMT
Post by Razor on May 24, 2017 7:40:21 GMT
7th Dragon Knifeworks: Mini Bowie
By Ray Harrington
Introduction
Michael Kerley, owner of 7th Dragon Knifeworks, asked if I would like to review his bowie. Of course, I said yes. Michael sent the knife to me with instructions to beat the crap out of it.
Full Disclosure
I'm not affiliated with 7th Dragon Knifeworks, I didn't buy this knife nor was it given to me. This is my first time having any experience with a 7th Dragon blade.
Initial Imperssive
The bowie was wrapped in Saran Wrap and put in a box stuffed with newspaper. When I opened the box and saw the bowie for the frist time, I thought to myself, "Boy this is a small knife. How am I going to beat the crap out this?" After the Saran Wrap was taken off and I played with it a little bit, I really liked it and thought that this is a nice little utility/fighting knife.
Statistics
Blade Length: 5 3/4"
Handle Length: 4"
Overall Length: 10"
POB: 1/8" under the blade
Wheight: 4 1/4 OZ
Thickness Above handle: 4.64mm
Thickness 2" from handle, at the begining of clip point: 4.17mm
Thickness 4" above handle: 2.20mm
Thickness 1" from tip: 1.05mm
Thickness at tip: .49mm
Blade
The blade is made from a coil spring that has been folded over on itself a couple of times. The blade is razor sharp and has a clip point that is 3 7/8" long that has not been sharpened. Michael told me that the blade doesn't have a super high level of finish. I can see the grinding marks on the blade and it came with some black on the blade that I thought was paint. Michael told me that it's the finish left from the heat treatment. Looking at it in better light, where the black is on the spine it is actual divots in the blade.
The bowie has a full tang. On the back of it by the bolsters, I can see there is a crack or the metal is seperating. It is also cracking/seperating on the bottom of the tang as it can be seen in the pictures.
Handle
The handle is 5/8" and 1" wide and the bottom and tappers to 3/4" wide at the bolsters. The bolster is made out of ebony and is 7/8" long. The rest of the handle is made of cherry 3 1/8" long. The handle is sacured by four brass pin, two in the bolster and two on the cherry wood.
This handle is comfortable, and I can hold it easily in hammer fist and in saber grip. I really like how the handle feels, and I can track the edge easily with it.
Handling Characteristics
This bowie is light and handles very well. I hope it can perform well and survive test test cutting because this would make a awesome fighting/utility knife.
Test Cutting
Now the fun part of the review. The bowie is under the ABS specificaton so I didn't want do the ABS test. Since this is a bowie knife I decided to do more of a fighting knife test than a utility test, but I did do a test that a utility/camp knife should be able to do.
It cut through the water bottles and soda cans easy, but with the blade length I did have a problem with not going deep enough with my cuts. I didn't cut all the way through one bottle and the diet Pepsi. Also on :48 I had bad edge alignment on saber cut #4. This failed cut was my error, and had nothing to do with the knife at all.
I like doing the rib test on knives to see how the tip does againts the rib bone. The thrust is the most lethal and efficent way to us a knife, especially small to medium knives. The bowie didn't perform the way I would of liked it to perform thrusting into the ribs, and the point bent, causing 1/16" of the tip to snap off. One issue could have been the very thin tip. I have seen some antique knives and swords have the same problem with thin tips. As seen in the video, the blade cut through the t-shirt with ease, and it did bite and cut into the rib bone. The part of the blade that cut into the ribs lost it's razor edge, but still was very sharp and could easily slice through newspaper.
When batoning with the knife and using it in more of a utility approach, it preformed very well and did better than I thought it would. In the video, you can see me shaving hair off my arm on the same part of the blade were I used to split the wood.
The beef femur was more extreme than batoning and there isn't anymore to add to the video except pictures of the chipped edge added below.
Conclusions
The handle is comfortable and fits nicely in my hand. It handles quite well, almost like it's not even there. I Like the contrast between the cherry and ebony that was used for the handle and bolster.
This is a bowie, and a bowie is a fighting knife. Unfortunately, it didn't perform on what I consider to be an important technique for small to medium knives.
By Ray Harrington
Introduction
Michael Kerley, owner of 7th Dragon Knifeworks, asked if I would like to review his bowie. Of course, I said yes. Michael sent the knife to me with instructions to beat the crap out of it.
Full Disclosure
I'm not affiliated with 7th Dragon Knifeworks, I didn't buy this knife nor was it given to me. This is my first time having any experience with a 7th Dragon blade.
Initial Imperssive
The bowie was wrapped in Saran Wrap and put in a box stuffed with newspaper. When I opened the box and saw the bowie for the frist time, I thought to myself, "Boy this is a small knife. How am I going to beat the crap out this?" After the Saran Wrap was taken off and I played with it a little bit, I really liked it and thought that this is a nice little utility/fighting knife.
Statistics
Blade Length: 5 3/4"
Handle Length: 4"
Overall Length: 10"
POB: 1/8" under the blade
Wheight: 4 1/4 OZ
Thickness Above handle: 4.64mm
Thickness 2" from handle, at the begining of clip point: 4.17mm
Thickness 4" above handle: 2.20mm
Thickness 1" from tip: 1.05mm
Thickness at tip: .49mm
Blade
The blade is made from a coil spring that has been folded over on itself a couple of times. The blade is razor sharp and has a clip point that is 3 7/8" long that has not been sharpened. Michael told me that the blade doesn't have a super high level of finish. I can see the grinding marks on the blade and it came with some black on the blade that I thought was paint. Michael told me that it's the finish left from the heat treatment. Looking at it in better light, where the black is on the spine it is actual divots in the blade.
The bowie has a full tang. On the back of it by the bolsters, I can see there is a crack or the metal is seperating. It is also cracking/seperating on the bottom of the tang as it can be seen in the pictures.
Handle
The handle is 5/8" and 1" wide and the bottom and tappers to 3/4" wide at the bolsters. The bolster is made out of ebony and is 7/8" long. The rest of the handle is made of cherry 3 1/8" long. The handle is sacured by four brass pin, two in the bolster and two on the cherry wood.
This handle is comfortable, and I can hold it easily in hammer fist and in saber grip. I really like how the handle feels, and I can track the edge easily with it.
Handling Characteristics
This bowie is light and handles very well. I hope it can perform well and survive test test cutting because this would make a awesome fighting/utility knife.
Test Cutting
Now the fun part of the review. The bowie is under the ABS specificaton so I didn't want do the ABS test. Since this is a bowie knife I decided to do more of a fighting knife test than a utility test, but I did do a test that a utility/camp knife should be able to do.
It cut through the water bottles and soda cans easy, but with the blade length I did have a problem with not going deep enough with my cuts. I didn't cut all the way through one bottle and the diet Pepsi. Also on :48 I had bad edge alignment on saber cut #4. This failed cut was my error, and had nothing to do with the knife at all.
I like doing the rib test on knives to see how the tip does againts the rib bone. The thrust is the most lethal and efficent way to us a knife, especially small to medium knives. The bowie didn't perform the way I would of liked it to perform thrusting into the ribs, and the point bent, causing 1/16" of the tip to snap off. One issue could have been the very thin tip. I have seen some antique knives and swords have the same problem with thin tips. As seen in the video, the blade cut through the t-shirt with ease, and it did bite and cut into the rib bone. The part of the blade that cut into the ribs lost it's razor edge, but still was very sharp and could easily slice through newspaper.
When batoning with the knife and using it in more of a utility approach, it preformed very well and did better than I thought it would. In the video, you can see me shaving hair off my arm on the same part of the blade were I used to split the wood.
The beef femur was more extreme than batoning and there isn't anymore to add to the video except pictures of the chipped edge added below.
Conclusions
The handle is comfortable and fits nicely in my hand. It handles quite well, almost like it's not even there. I Like the contrast between the cherry and ebony that was used for the handle and bolster.
This is a bowie, and a bowie is a fighting knife. Unfortunately, it didn't perform on what I consider to be an important technique for small to medium knives.