Disclaimer: This is going to be a long post. It´s also the first post for me in quite some time so I have a huge back log of stuff I want to say. Sorry! Also, I'm not a native english speaker.
Introduction: Just the other day it was finally time for that terrible but also fulfilling (and larder filling) slaughter of this years lambs. Or at least the tups. The usual method we do it by is first a blow to the head with a captive bolt gun and rather hastily after that I cut the carotid artery. I try to collect the rapidly flowing blod from the throat in a big bucket, mostly just not to mess up the place where we do the slaughter, but also because it is bad form to let it go to waste. I've been slaughtering my lambs myself for a few years now. I started doing it myself rather than driving to an abattoir with the lambs because of cutting down on the herd and increasing costs at the slaughterers. And the slaughteres themselves weren't that nice persons.
As it happened I got a delivery of a new EDC folder, an NOS american made trapper knife, I actually wanted a stockman but due to latenight betting on a famous trading site I accidentally got a trapper. Not the first time something like that happened, nor the last I reckon. Unfortunately for me the blades turned out to be stainless. Yuck. Clip point and spey blade. I thought the spey blade looked interesting. Turns out it is meant for castrating bull calves and skinning small animals. And somewhere here I decided to put it to test. But to get a reasonable judgement I decided to test all my EDC I have in rotation to see how the would perform in actual slaughter, disembowelment and skinning of livestock. I hadn't used a folder for this kind of work since my late teens when I used an EKA swede folder for processing a roe deer with terrible result, so I thought it would be fun. So without further ado I present to you:
The big test to see how ordinary pocket folders perform in processing small livestock!
Meet the teams:
Team swiss/swede pro: This is included as a reference group. These are my ordinary working tools for processing meat and fish for human consumption. The consist of knives from victorinox (the one in the photo is a deboning knife that I most often use on cutting the carotid arteries) and frost. They are commercial grade knives, meaning they don't have any fancy steels or handle materials, nor any fancy shapes. They are very ergonomic, doesn't conduct any heat (important when working long days in cold rooms), they are easy to clean and take a keen edge, even though the typically don't hold it too long. I usually have to resharpen them quite often. Both on a wet stone, and on a steel. For disemboweling and skinning I have corresponding knives. There is nothing that screams amateur so much as a cheap and cheerful "hunters butchers kit" in sh1tty chinese sink stainless and colourful handles. Most hunters I know are utter sh1ite at both skinning and butchering. Even worse shots. I hunt, but sort of dislike most hunters. Weird position to be in. I digress. And will probably continue doing so.
Team England: Represented here by a farmers knife by no other than Sheffields own A Wright and sons. Bought in 2006-ish. Great knife. Been in my pocket most days since I bought it. Blade in C70 carbon steel (if memory serves me right), takes a wicked edge, incredibly sharp. And easy to sharpen too. Scales in rose wood, 3 inch lambsfoot/farmers blade. Can't praise it enough as an EDC.
Team France: A typical Laguiole-type knife. But not really typical. A few years back I loaded up wife, kids and dogs in my rusted out pickup and put a rooftop tent on it and drove to northern france. It was delightful. In a small market I found a knife maker who sold his version of laguiole-knifes, he said that the actual brand laguiole had ruined the knife, it was overpriced junk in his opinion and his knives were much better. The blade is in some stainless steel, and the scales are horn. A nice knife, is quite easy to sharpen, doesn't develop the burr that is typical of cheap stainless. A good user. But an aquired taste in terms of blade shape and style I guess. Funny side note, the laguiole and the spanish navaja are very close in shape and form, the navaja turned in to the texas toothpick when the spaniards eventually came to texas. Which is evident when you look at them side by side.
Team US: Here represented by a trapper from schrade. Typical trapper blades consisting of a clip point that is too short to be useful, and spey blade which I had never used before. Steel is typical mediocre stainless. The clip point was dull as a ping pong ball when delivered, the spey was actually pretty sharp. Scales are made of acrylic. Fit and finish were quite good though.
I ground, honed and stropped all blades except the speyblade of the american trapper. I chose 20 degrees edge bevel angle, all single bevel ground. I tried to test all of them and they were sharp. But later, I started doubting if I actually tested the clip point of the trapper. Yes, I am very aware that none of these knives are very hygienic in food processing, but the meat from these animals are intended for me and my close family.
Slaughtering
The setup was fairly straight forward. A friend who also have sheep came to help me out. I had the lambs in a pen, out of sight from the lambs I had prepared a space for the actual unaliving, and then a few paces away behind a tarpaulin I had a 2X4 between to uprights on which I could hang the bodies to let them bleed out the very last drop before taking them to a actual abattoir which I borrow from a farmer friend. And at that second place I do the skinning and disemboweling. That space is certified for producing food so I can actually sell meat processed there.
After a bit of cleaning of the captive bolt gun it was time to lock and load. My friend came with the first lamb, and I chose to use the trapper.
Team US: Well, the clip point was certainly a disappointment, it struggled with the wool, and I had to use quite a lot of force to get through the skin. Mind you, the lamb is clinically brain dead after the bolt gun, so there isn't really any rush, or wellfare objections, I know some of you lot were starting to think about it. I switched over to the victorinox deboner to get the job done. Big disappointment. Second lamb, I switched to spey blade, it sort of worked. Better at least. Got the job done, and not to messy. But still struggled with the wool, and not really good compared to mr victorinox.
Team France: Third lamb, switching over to the laguiole. This was a bit cheating really, as I have used this knife for this before, once in an emergency on an injured animal (not mine) and once in a planned slaughter. It performs well in these tasks.
Team UK: Ahh, the sharpest of the folders. It cuts through wool, skin and weird tissues under the skin brilliantly, but is a bit awkward due to the very straight blade. Even thought the laguiole isn't anywhere near as sharp it cuts better in this setting due to its edge shape. I mean it gets the job well, but lacks due to it's shape. Handle is very good, good ergonomy.
General toughts, the curvature of the blade is important for this task. And also blade length. In terms of cutting skin, muscle and arteries, and if you wanna do it in one continous motion, lenght is king.
Skinning
After a cuppa and some sandwiches it was time to take down the bodies from the deblooding 2x4 and put them on a trailer and drive the half mile to the abattoir. First to do is to skin the rear hooves and cut a hole between bones and tendons and put a hanger in. After that we hang the hanger on the tail end of a chain from a winch mounted high up above the ceiling. There are stainless steel loops in the tile floor for using chains and winch to skin an animal, but we've experienced that with small animals such as lambs, it is faster to just cut and pull by hand than starting to muck about with chains and what not. But for moose and cows the winch method is faster.
After the travesty with the trapper I decided to give a good sharpening. And now it felt a bit better. I actually sharpened and stropped all knives.
Team US: Again I started out with the clip point of the trapper. And again the clip point wasn't really that impressive. It cut the skin on the legs alright, but it just would give those good runs that a good knife will give you. I had to put to much effort in to every cut. Right around when we got the first animal on the hanger and the hanger on the hook of the winch I gave up and switched over to the spey blade. Lo and behold. It was something of an epiphany. Somehow it cut beatifully! it was so small but so very precise that I could work very fast but without being sloppy. Joy to the world and hallelujah, it felt good working with that little blade. It even kept sharp for unexpected long periods of time! Remember now kids, I'm comparing with comercial grade skinning knives here, and while being far from professional at any of this I have quite a few years of slaughtering and butchering animals, both wild and domestic. This knife was really good at skinning. I could wax poetic for extended periods of time but I will continue on as not to bore you.
Team France: Initially I was sure that this would work really well, unfortunately the very pointy point was a real drawback. It really didn't work very well, it just didn't feel good, and the weird handle shape didn't really help either. I mean, it could have been worse but, nah, not again if not in an emergency.
Team UK: Well, after a stropping, mr Sheffield was ready to go again, and again it went. It skinned pretty well, but again, due to it's very straight blade you sort of have to do a lot more hand movements. So yeah, it skinned well, but not really optimal in any way, this isn't its strongest fields of use. But again, very nice on the hands.
After having tried all the folders I went back to my comercial knives, but found myself feeling that the frost and victorinox skinning knives were a bit too long, and felt clumsy compared to the little spey blade of the trapper knife. So in the end I skinned most of the bodies with the trapper! Note, I skinned and disemboweled one animal before moving on to the next but for structural purposes I separate them in the text. On a separate not, I also tried the spey blade for castrating the already dead tups. A friend who is from the middle east swears that the testes are a delicacy, so I cut a few out for him. It didn't go so easy as I thought, the little blade again struggled with skin. I guess that if I had any freudian castration complex I'm pretty much cured from it now.
Disembowelment
Many hunters around here use what's called a stomach opener which is a small crooked knife meant to cut the abdominal skin and the sternum. I think that is sh1te. That sort of knife is impossible to get proper sharp and cutting the sternum before butchering is bad form really. It looks like a right mess. So I take a sharp knife and cut the stomach open, cut around the rear sphincter, pull that out from the front and then I cut the wind pipe and esophagus loose and empty all of the innards in a for that intended container. Then I go over and trim away most of the tallow (which I save, that stuff is brilliant for leather care, soap making, wood finishing etc). I also trim away all strange glands and other weird stuff. Animals are full of repulsive thingymablobbys.
Team US: I tried, I really tried giving the clip point another chance, but as useless as it was cutting arteries, it was even worse cutting up the stomach and I will not even go near the frustration that occurs when trying to cut around an anus of a dead animal, just to see the tip of the blade bounce around. I hade to go to a frost deboning knife which I have shortened considerably and made very much more pointy. I sure hope that little clip point is a good whittler or something. I then tried the spay blade, and as sure as the clip point would disappoint, as sure was the spey blade to shine. So yeah, that little tipless blade went thru the stomach like a plow behind two good horses. The sphincter cutting match was left to others as the spey blad lacks a tip! But all other tasks were done with excellent result. Especially going inside the abdomen for trimming. It was soo good and fun to use.
Team UK: Again, really sharp, cuts really well. Though the big angle on the tip made the cutting of the rear a bit of a challenge, but it worked out alright. Cutting the abdomen worked really well too, owing to the same angle. Cutting loose windpipe and esophagus was deemed impossible due the short length, which was the same result as the american trapper. Worked well enough, but again, not really good work flow due to the straightness of the blade.
Team France: Well, it worked alright for the sphincter business, but felt too pointy for the abdomen, at this point the stomachs of the bodies had become really swollen as well so I felt a bit like a bomb crew trying to dearm a terrorist bomb. The tip got caught up a fair few times. It shone in cutting loose throaty thingys due to it's length. In total, nothing to write home about.
Conclusions
Just as in life there are no winners in this test. I mean seriously, folders are not intended for processing food for human consumption. They are not really up for it from any point of view, least food safety. But somehow I think we all fantasize about being stranded on a desert island or in a secluded valley with only our trusty EDC or maybe if we hit a roe deer with our rusted out japanese sh1tbox and somehow not get winded up on the totaled car but instead start butchering the animal in the ditch without any hanging time. I do too. And it's a good exercise to see how it works. I would say that all the tested knives would work if no other tool were available, they would just suck at different things. The exception is that little spey blade, from initial contempt and disappointment it rose to become a real alternative to professional tools. Hope you enjoyed my test, I know I did.
Note: all the animals in this test died. But with as little stress and pain as possible from my side.
Introduction: Just the other day it was finally time for that terrible but also fulfilling (and larder filling) slaughter of this years lambs. Or at least the tups. The usual method we do it by is first a blow to the head with a captive bolt gun and rather hastily after that I cut the carotid artery. I try to collect the rapidly flowing blod from the throat in a big bucket, mostly just not to mess up the place where we do the slaughter, but also because it is bad form to let it go to waste. I've been slaughtering my lambs myself for a few years now. I started doing it myself rather than driving to an abattoir with the lambs because of cutting down on the herd and increasing costs at the slaughterers. And the slaughteres themselves weren't that nice persons.
As it happened I got a delivery of a new EDC folder, an NOS american made trapper knife, I actually wanted a stockman but due to latenight betting on a famous trading site I accidentally got a trapper. Not the first time something like that happened, nor the last I reckon. Unfortunately for me the blades turned out to be stainless. Yuck. Clip point and spey blade. I thought the spey blade looked interesting. Turns out it is meant for castrating bull calves and skinning small animals. And somewhere here I decided to put it to test. But to get a reasonable judgement I decided to test all my EDC I have in rotation to see how the would perform in actual slaughter, disembowelment and skinning of livestock. I hadn't used a folder for this kind of work since my late teens when I used an EKA swede folder for processing a roe deer with terrible result, so I thought it would be fun. So without further ado I present to you:
The big test to see how ordinary pocket folders perform in processing small livestock!
Meet the teams:
Team swiss/swede pro: This is included as a reference group. These are my ordinary working tools for processing meat and fish for human consumption. The consist of knives from victorinox (the one in the photo is a deboning knife that I most often use on cutting the carotid arteries) and frost. They are commercial grade knives, meaning they don't have any fancy steels or handle materials, nor any fancy shapes. They are very ergonomic, doesn't conduct any heat (important when working long days in cold rooms), they are easy to clean and take a keen edge, even though the typically don't hold it too long. I usually have to resharpen them quite often. Both on a wet stone, and on a steel. For disemboweling and skinning I have corresponding knives. There is nothing that screams amateur so much as a cheap and cheerful "hunters butchers kit" in sh1tty chinese sink stainless and colourful handles. Most hunters I know are utter sh1ite at both skinning and butchering. Even worse shots. I hunt, but sort of dislike most hunters. Weird position to be in. I digress. And will probably continue doing so.
Team England: Represented here by a farmers knife by no other than Sheffields own A Wright and sons. Bought in 2006-ish. Great knife. Been in my pocket most days since I bought it. Blade in C70 carbon steel (if memory serves me right), takes a wicked edge, incredibly sharp. And easy to sharpen too. Scales in rose wood, 3 inch lambsfoot/farmers blade. Can't praise it enough as an EDC.
Team France: A typical Laguiole-type knife. But not really typical. A few years back I loaded up wife, kids and dogs in my rusted out pickup and put a rooftop tent on it and drove to northern france. It was delightful. In a small market I found a knife maker who sold his version of laguiole-knifes, he said that the actual brand laguiole had ruined the knife, it was overpriced junk in his opinion and his knives were much better. The blade is in some stainless steel, and the scales are horn. A nice knife, is quite easy to sharpen, doesn't develop the burr that is typical of cheap stainless. A good user. But an aquired taste in terms of blade shape and style I guess. Funny side note, the laguiole and the spanish navaja are very close in shape and form, the navaja turned in to the texas toothpick when the spaniards eventually came to texas. Which is evident when you look at them side by side.
Team US: Here represented by a trapper from schrade. Typical trapper blades consisting of a clip point that is too short to be useful, and spey blade which I had never used before. Steel is typical mediocre stainless. The clip point was dull as a ping pong ball when delivered, the spey was actually pretty sharp. Scales are made of acrylic. Fit and finish were quite good though.
I ground, honed and stropped all blades except the speyblade of the american trapper. I chose 20 degrees edge bevel angle, all single bevel ground. I tried to test all of them and they were sharp. But later, I started doubting if I actually tested the clip point of the trapper. Yes, I am very aware that none of these knives are very hygienic in food processing, but the meat from these animals are intended for me and my close family.
Slaughtering
The setup was fairly straight forward. A friend who also have sheep came to help me out. I had the lambs in a pen, out of sight from the lambs I had prepared a space for the actual unaliving, and then a few paces away behind a tarpaulin I had a 2X4 between to uprights on which I could hang the bodies to let them bleed out the very last drop before taking them to a actual abattoir which I borrow from a farmer friend. And at that second place I do the skinning and disemboweling. That space is certified for producing food so I can actually sell meat processed there.
After a bit of cleaning of the captive bolt gun it was time to lock and load. My friend came with the first lamb, and I chose to use the trapper.
Team US: Well, the clip point was certainly a disappointment, it struggled with the wool, and I had to use quite a lot of force to get through the skin. Mind you, the lamb is clinically brain dead after the bolt gun, so there isn't really any rush, or wellfare objections, I know some of you lot were starting to think about it. I switched over to the victorinox deboner to get the job done. Big disappointment. Second lamb, I switched to spey blade, it sort of worked. Better at least. Got the job done, and not to messy. But still struggled with the wool, and not really good compared to mr victorinox.
Team France: Third lamb, switching over to the laguiole. This was a bit cheating really, as I have used this knife for this before, once in an emergency on an injured animal (not mine) and once in a planned slaughter. It performs well in these tasks.
Team UK: Ahh, the sharpest of the folders. It cuts through wool, skin and weird tissues under the skin brilliantly, but is a bit awkward due to the very straight blade. Even thought the laguiole isn't anywhere near as sharp it cuts better in this setting due to its edge shape. I mean it gets the job well, but lacks due to it's shape. Handle is very good, good ergonomy.
General toughts, the curvature of the blade is important for this task. And also blade length. In terms of cutting skin, muscle and arteries, and if you wanna do it in one continous motion, lenght is king.
Skinning
After a cuppa and some sandwiches it was time to take down the bodies from the deblooding 2x4 and put them on a trailer and drive the half mile to the abattoir. First to do is to skin the rear hooves and cut a hole between bones and tendons and put a hanger in. After that we hang the hanger on the tail end of a chain from a winch mounted high up above the ceiling. There are stainless steel loops in the tile floor for using chains and winch to skin an animal, but we've experienced that with small animals such as lambs, it is faster to just cut and pull by hand than starting to muck about with chains and what not. But for moose and cows the winch method is faster.
After the travesty with the trapper I decided to give a good sharpening. And now it felt a bit better. I actually sharpened and stropped all knives.
Team US: Again I started out with the clip point of the trapper. And again the clip point wasn't really that impressive. It cut the skin on the legs alright, but it just would give those good runs that a good knife will give you. I had to put to much effort in to every cut. Right around when we got the first animal on the hanger and the hanger on the hook of the winch I gave up and switched over to the spey blade. Lo and behold. It was something of an epiphany. Somehow it cut beatifully! it was so small but so very precise that I could work very fast but without being sloppy. Joy to the world and hallelujah, it felt good working with that little blade. It even kept sharp for unexpected long periods of time! Remember now kids, I'm comparing with comercial grade skinning knives here, and while being far from professional at any of this I have quite a few years of slaughtering and butchering animals, both wild and domestic. This knife was really good at skinning. I could wax poetic for extended periods of time but I will continue on as not to bore you.
Team France: Initially I was sure that this would work really well, unfortunately the very pointy point was a real drawback. It really didn't work very well, it just didn't feel good, and the weird handle shape didn't really help either. I mean, it could have been worse but, nah, not again if not in an emergency.
Team UK: Well, after a stropping, mr Sheffield was ready to go again, and again it went. It skinned pretty well, but again, due to it's very straight blade you sort of have to do a lot more hand movements. So yeah, it skinned well, but not really optimal in any way, this isn't its strongest fields of use. But again, very nice on the hands.
After having tried all the folders I went back to my comercial knives, but found myself feeling that the frost and victorinox skinning knives were a bit too long, and felt clumsy compared to the little spey blade of the trapper knife. So in the end I skinned most of the bodies with the trapper! Note, I skinned and disemboweled one animal before moving on to the next but for structural purposes I separate them in the text. On a separate not, I also tried the spey blade for castrating the already dead tups. A friend who is from the middle east swears that the testes are a delicacy, so I cut a few out for him. It didn't go so easy as I thought, the little blade again struggled with skin. I guess that if I had any freudian castration complex I'm pretty much cured from it now.
Disembowelment
Many hunters around here use what's called a stomach opener which is a small crooked knife meant to cut the abdominal skin and the sternum. I think that is sh1te. That sort of knife is impossible to get proper sharp and cutting the sternum before butchering is bad form really. It looks like a right mess. So I take a sharp knife and cut the stomach open, cut around the rear sphincter, pull that out from the front and then I cut the wind pipe and esophagus loose and empty all of the innards in a for that intended container. Then I go over and trim away most of the tallow (which I save, that stuff is brilliant for leather care, soap making, wood finishing etc). I also trim away all strange glands and other weird stuff. Animals are full of repulsive thingymablobbys.
Team US: I tried, I really tried giving the clip point another chance, but as useless as it was cutting arteries, it was even worse cutting up the stomach and I will not even go near the frustration that occurs when trying to cut around an anus of a dead animal, just to see the tip of the blade bounce around. I hade to go to a frost deboning knife which I have shortened considerably and made very much more pointy. I sure hope that little clip point is a good whittler or something. I then tried the spay blade, and as sure as the clip point would disappoint, as sure was the spey blade to shine. So yeah, that little tipless blade went thru the stomach like a plow behind two good horses. The sphincter cutting match was left to others as the spey blad lacks a tip! But all other tasks were done with excellent result. Especially going inside the abdomen for trimming. It was soo good and fun to use.
Team UK: Again, really sharp, cuts really well. Though the big angle on the tip made the cutting of the rear a bit of a challenge, but it worked out alright. Cutting the abdomen worked really well too, owing to the same angle. Cutting loose windpipe and esophagus was deemed impossible due the short length, which was the same result as the american trapper. Worked well enough, but again, not really good work flow due to the straightness of the blade.
Team France: Well, it worked alright for the sphincter business, but felt too pointy for the abdomen, at this point the stomachs of the bodies had become really swollen as well so I felt a bit like a bomb crew trying to dearm a terrorist bomb. The tip got caught up a fair few times. It shone in cutting loose throaty thingys due to it's length. In total, nothing to write home about.
Conclusions
Just as in life there are no winners in this test. I mean seriously, folders are not intended for processing food for human consumption. They are not really up for it from any point of view, least food safety. But somehow I think we all fantasize about being stranded on a desert island or in a secluded valley with only our trusty EDC or maybe if we hit a roe deer with our rusted out japanese sh1tbox and somehow not get winded up on the totaled car but instead start butchering the animal in the ditch without any hanging time. I do too. And it's a good exercise to see how it works. I would say that all the tested knives would work if no other tool were available, they would just suck at different things. The exception is that little spey blade, from initial contempt and disappointment it rose to become a real alternative to professional tools. Hope you enjoyed my test, I know I did.
Note: all the animals in this test died. But with as little stress and pain as possible from my side.
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The reason the Spey blade does a better job is the short but pronounced curve/belly of the blade. They cut deeper than the clip, in a shorter area, but as you say, in a more controlled way, because you can be more deliberate. Its what they were designed for. Maximum effectiveness, minimal effort, when cutting soft organic matter. Dont want to cut something you didnt intend to and cause more harm/injury, by needing a longer slice, and thus, excessive damage/wounding. I mean, the animals are alive when using it as intended.
