Review of EKA Knives - Swede 88 Wood

[Squidders]

The knife
EKA Knives - Swede 88 Wood
Blade Length: 2.75" / 69.85mm
Overall Length: 7" / 177.8mm
Blade Thickness 0.059" / 1.5mm
Blade Material: Sandvic stainless steel
Heinnie Price £20.95

Getting the knife
Ok, first of all, I'd like to say that ordering from Heinnie Haynes was about as painless as it gets. I didn't order from their web site as I have a catalogue from them that has LOADS more in it. Everything arrived when they said it would and it had good packaging that was free. They now come highly recommended.

The blade
The knife arrived at work on Friday morning and was very sharp, not razor sharp but easily sharp enough for working with.

I immediately set to cutting the hell out of a load of triple walled card board boxes and making feather sticks out of a broom handle, after this I kinda ran out of office items to cut.

Maybe because of the steel, or the edge sharpness or even both, the blade maintained the same good working edge. Now, I admit, this wasn't asking a lot from a knife but I pretty much reduced a broom handle to shavings and 5 card board boxes (Fridge freezer sized) to fine strips and it's a very thin blade - much thinner than I initially thought when ordering it. It bends very slightly when provoked but not enough to worry me in any way. After all, it’s a folding knife I wanted as an every day carry for small jobs, not cutting trees down with.

I'm going to give it some more abuse this weekend and see how it copes.

The lock
With the screw tensioning the blade opening, the operation is smooth and just stiff enough. When fully opening the blade, there is a satisfying, quality clicking noise of two well machined and mated parts working in harmony. I’m thinking about ordering a few more and filing the locking tooth down on one to make it a non locking knife. Not entirely true… I will have it click a little but close under moderate load, this should make it legal as the blade is under 3”.

Other than that change, made purely for legal reasons the mechanism is very slick and feels comfortingly safe and secure once open. Closing is a doddle and during use the release button was not the issue I thought it would be, although on the top of the handle, normal use did not slightly move it.

The handle
The handle is, as you can clearly see… wood… I would tell you what wood but I don’t have a clue. But it’s been made from one piece that has been well machined and finished. The surface is not slippery in any way, even after submersing in muddy water. All of the rivets and the screw tensioner fit the handle perfectly with no alignment problems, they sit very slightly proud of the handle but do not affect use in any way.

The handle shape is nearly perfect for my hand size and shape, requiring no real effort to keep it securely in the right place, It feels surprisingly light which has put a seed of doubt in my mind about how robust it will be but it feels quite hard at the same time. I guess only time will tell. The lanyard hole is ok, it’s the right size and really, how wrong can you go with putting a hole in something?!? They do provide a strip of leather to use as a lanyard which is a nice touch for something this inexpensive.

In summary
I’m feeling really smug and pleased with myself, I think I’m going to order a few more to give as gifts and to play with and one will definitely be carried with me each day. If you are looking for a nice looking, nice feeling light/medium use folding knife that doesn’t cost the earth… Give this one a try.

I hope someone finds this useful... Please feel free to offer any advice on writing knife reviews bearing in mind that I do not have any metallurgy training

Joe

 

[JakeR]

Nice one Joe, i like the sound and look of the knife. Great review too mate.

:biggthump

 

[TheViking]

Great review there Joe! :biggthump It has a nice layout. :You_Rock_
Looks like a nice knife, but IMO I think the handle is perhaps a tad to big?

 

[Squidders]

TheViking,

For my hand the handle seems to be perfect and being a folder it's always going to look a little larger because of the hinge location. The handle is 9mm longer than the closed blade.

I would still be able to use it if the handle was 10mm shorter but any smaller than that and I think it would feel fiddly and end up cutting my clumsy hands to ribbons.

 

[alick]

Thanks for a neat review Joe. The Swede looks exactly the same as the Masur I've just bought, except that the wood is different. The very slim and strongly curved blade is quite different from my other knives. I'm looking forward to using it. It is warm and comfortable in the hand as everyone says and though quite deep - giving a good grip - it is very light and not overly wide. It couldn't be less "tactical" if it tried. :thumbs_up

 

[tomtom]

Great Review Joe :biggthump

 

[BIG-TARGET]

What is the strength of the slabs and pins????

 

[Squidders]

please define strength, slab and pin please?

 

[alick]

Slabs are made of oak - better than pine, not as good as steel ...
Pins out of brass, better than ally, not quite upto d2 tool steel standard ...
Screw together pivot is better than push fit ...

10 year warranty so you could always get one and test it to destruction for us :biggthump

Sorry, just being silly but what can I say - it's better built than an opinel and maybe stronger than a SAK. It isn't going to eat anything by Extrema Ratio

 

[Squidders]

being as the handle is still one bit of wood... is it technically still slabs?

As with most things asking how strong something is, would mean performing a finite stress analysis and recording metrics for torsional, compressive etc... and you'd get the results in newtons and it would still not mean anything.

Alicks answer is about as good as it's going to get in the real world... until someone asks how strong ally is and you say "less so than brass".

PS: let me know what you think of yours when it arrives Alick, I think it's identical to mine but yours has nicer handle material.

 

[Stew]

Nice review but would you take a photo of it in your hand please. I just want to see how it fits.

 

[Bagheera]

Hi guys,

The wood that EKA uses is a tropical hardwood called Bubinga.

The Eka Masur uses Masurian Birch which by some process is made twice as dense as normal making it wear resistant but not as much as the handles made from Bubinga.

The Eka Bubinga handled knife is about 40% cheaper then the Masur Birch handles one, well at least over on the continent

I once inlaid an Eka bubinga handle with a Scouting World Jamboree pin (the Dutch World Jamboree) and I had a very hard time even with my Dremel and hard metal cutters to remove the exact amount of wood so the pin fit in.

Best Scouting wishes from Holland,

Bagheera ack:

 

[alick]

Cheers Joe - yes I'll pop some pics up later tonight.

A point though - in keeping with the low key design. I decided to use the hangmans noose style lanyard on this exactly as shown on the chris reeve site.

I used the leather thong supplied, but it's very hard and difficult to manage like you found. My answer is to pull the thong through a piece of sandpaper a dozen times to knock off the sharp edges and soften it; then to pour a fine veg oil (I'm a real champion of Japanese Camelia oil - nearly as bad as Jake and his Starkie !) into my hands and work the thong until it's well lubed with the oil. At that point you can form the lanyard relatively easily and it's the perfect oil for working over the wood and metal of the knife too.

I'll post a pic in a couple of hours. Love the shape of these knives. The masur birch one uses a figured wood that has been mechanically compressed to make it harder and denser but cost me an extra tenner odd from Bagheera than yours did. Still a good deal in my opinion. :biggthump

 

[alick]

Hah ! Near simultaneous post. Thanks Bagheera, I didn't know that !

 

[Squidders]

and work the thong until it's well lubed with the oil.

Blimey Alick... i'm shocked the mods didn't jump on that one!

Seriously though, Jake has kindly offered to send me a sample of his lanyard so I can have a look. (I owe you one Jake).

I'm also going to try to put some oil on the leather and see how it goes but I'm not sure how my knot tieing is going to improve with slippery fingers ):

Stew: I'll get Eloise to take a photo tomorrow morning... I don't think i'll be able to operate the camera whilst holding the knife... I have enough trouble walking AND breathing!

 

[alick]

I wasn't going to go there .... ! (least, not in public anyway )

But I promised some pics so here you go.

Knife :

Spine :

Lanyard :

And a design for a lanyard / zipper pull :

Nice kit. They can also be had from a UK seller on evilbay for £30 plus P&P though I haven't dealt with them.

 

[BIG-TARGET]

use/stres durablity!! :biggthump

 

[alick]

:rolmao: :rolmao: :rolmao: :biggthump

 

[Squidders]

That looks really nice Alick... I'm semi jealous :roll:

I attacked mine with a dremmel today and it is now no longer a locking knife... it does open fully but closes without the release being depressed, works quite well.