Review Of Valiant Survival Golok

[TheViking]

Review of Valiant Survival Golok Small

Package, delivery & service:
There were some custom issues getting this Golok to Denmark. I don't want to bore you with them, but Wandi from Valiant was very helpful and he was very patient. At one point the post office was going to send the package back to Australia, but Wandi offered to refund my money if they did so or I could make a free order next time. That's what I call great service. Thanks for that Wandi. On the 26'th of April the package arrived in a well protected condition, I had to get past a layer of those foam bricks to get to the knife. The knife was protected with tape and one of those plastic sheets with bubbles. It was well taped, I had to use another knife to get it off, but also take care not to cut the sheath or handle.

Some quick facts:
5160 steel, also called spring or truck steel.
Full convex grind.
33 cm blade (13 inch).
6 mm thick blade at base, but tapers towards the tip.
Water buffalo horn handle with beautiful carved marks and a big heavy pommel.
Fingergrooved handle, they are nice and doesn't irritate.
The tang is inserted red hot to the horn. And no, it's not a full tang. This is better than a full tang as vibration isn't felt through the handle.
Wooden sheath with horn
There's approx. 10 hours of work in one knife.

First impressions:
When I got the knife out of the protecting layers and grabbed the handle I felt: Wow. This is a nice handle. I pulled the knife out and out came a very beautiful blade. It was mirror polished and had a protection coating on it, some sort of oil to prevent rust during transport. This, I consider excellent service. It's a heavy blade, around 500 grams, certainly feels like a lot more. It is well balanced and feels like a real chopper. So I tried the edge with my finger and it didn't really feel THAT sharp, but boy it was, (I was to discover that later on ).
One of my first impressions was also that it's a very beautiful blade, handle and sheath. I find it surreal to be able to make a knife like this for 65 AUS $. There's 10 hours of work in one knife and all is handmade without the use of powertools. The people who makes them doesn't even begin to know how beautiful blades they make.

Quality of fit and finish:
The finish is good on the handle. It is completely smooth and it is generally well made. The blade is inserted straight in the handle, but reaching the tip it is bended just a little. But it is not noticeable at all when chopping. As a matter of fact the only way you can see this minor error is by looking down the blade. The grind could be a little smoother; it's divided into three sections if so to say. This has no effect on the chopping and is barely noticeable without looking carefully at the edge. The sheath is wellmade, not that secure or durable, but it protects the knife and it protects you, and that are the two main jobs of a sheath in my opinion. It has horn on it and is not that straight everywhere, but there's a lot of detailwork. It has a rather small belt device to hang it from a belt. It's also made of horn and is secured with two small nails. The hole for a belt is small though: 3 cm. maximum. I can hold the knife upside down while it's in the sheath and it will stay in there. But once I start shaking a little, it will eventually fall out sooner or later. This is not a bad thing; it makes the knife easy to pull out.

In use:
This is a really really good chopper. It's the most effective thing I've ever seen. Compared to a Cold steel with the same blade length, the Valiant wins by miles. And it's cheaper and more beautiful too. I've done all tests with factory edge and right from the box. I could chop through a 5 cm thick branch with one single chop. Furthermore I chopped down a smaller tree approx. 8 cm thick, in about 6-8 chops. Sometimes the golok was stuck, but it was fairly easy to get it free again. Even after a few hours of chopping and cutting, my hand didn't have one blister, just a little hard skin. The handle is very comfortable and feels good in the hand. It feels like the tang is inserted solid to the handle and is going to stand up for many years of service, from this day. No vibration is felt through the handle, because the way the tang is made. If this knife were full tang one would feel a lot more vibration than now. And yes I'm sure this kind of tang (red hot inserted) is solid, just as solid as any other tang. I believe the convex edge adds to the overall effectiveness, cause it just slips through the wood at impact, if you know what I mean. I'm just starting to learn the draw cut and am getting the hang of it. Jean-Marc advised me to hold the handle lower than the tip. I tried this and boy does it work… Very effective cut as the knife both cuts and slices through the wood.

Conclusion:
I love this knife. It's a beauty to the eye, yet a super bushcraft knife. Most important task for this fellow is chopping and one has to see it to believe it. And it's very cheap. 65 AUS $ for this one and of course insurance and shipping costs is added to that later.

Below you can see some images of the golok in use and some different views of it. If there's anything you'd like me to deepen or an angle of the knife you'd like me to shoot a pic of, let me know.
















Cheers.

 

[Stuart]

nicley done

 

[Ahjno]

You scare me mate - now you only need to grow a beard and you're a true Viking - you already got the sword

Very good review you made there!!
You got yourself a very sweet golok - watch your fingers though

 

[JM]

Excellent, Happy to see you are having fun, they are effectively funny blades, and please stick to the basic safety rules.

http://www.outdoors-magazine.com/s_article.php?id_article=11
;-)

 

[TheViking]

I'll promise. Read that article a dozen times, really good.

Thanks Stuart and Ahjno.

 

[dsgr]

Good to see you finally got your Golok! Great review & pictures, thanks.

 

[OldJimbo]

Excellent! That is right in line with everything we've found over the years.
Now comes the fun of evening the grind with a big sanding pad and emery, then polishing and etching to show the hamon (hardening line). The fun and learning just never seems to end with these blades...
The safety link worked for me - but was slow to load. If it doesn't work for people, please post that. It's vital that the safety instructions are always posted with info on these blades simply because they're vastly more efficent than a machete etc.

 

[TheViking]

Thanks Jimbo. I simply love this blade, it's really amazing.

 

[OldJimbo]

You'll certainly be repaid for all effort that you put into making the edge consistent. You'll see as you go along that the blade is very effective for woodwork and whittling a lot of fuzzies fast.
Best to start with using the blade like a regular knife to take of bark from cut green saplings. You'll see that it works better for this than most knives because you can control the depth of cut easily by leverage because of the convex grind - and because of the length which lets you push the blade at 45 degrees to make long slicing cuts. Take note of the sections of the blade that don't work well, for further work.
Firemaking takes some thought and care in damp climates. A person is likely to get careless if they are in a hurry - and one can never become careless with a blade like that. Splitting wood will work with a baton, but here I have to use dead branches when it's really wet. I choose arm thick branches as long as possible. I have one end of the branch over my left shoulder (held by my left hand at shoulder so it's out of the way) and the bottom over a log. Then I make light cuts into the branch every 10/20 cm. Light cuts at a low angle will then remove chunks of wood which can easily be further split. When I am half way through the branch, and into the driest wood, then I use the blade two handed with the edge at 45 degrees to the direction of cut to whittle very thin and long fuzzies. these may be 30cm long. The key point is that it's easy to whittle a LOT of thin but wide fuzzies very fast. Care is needed not to get too carried away, whittle the branch too thin and have it break and the blade go into body parts! It's essential that this is done with very little force which means a consistent edge.
Then pull apart some fuzzies so they catch easier. They pass flame to wider ones, then feed with split chunks and bigger chunks.

What I'm getting at is that without a saw along or axe, this will be a method that you'll come to. And it's dangerous unless you think it through, practise with a stick first instead of the blade, then use the blade with TWO branches, one to act as a blocker. Besides thought and practise, it's the consistent edge that matters. That will allow cuts that go smoothly without force, even on very difficult wood. Every factor of where you have body parts and where the edge could slip must be figured out in practise.

I use the same method with the steeper convex grind of the Bark River golok, and it works just as well. Like the more expensive Valiants, the grind is extremely consistent when new. The method is more dangerous than might be thought with machetes unless they are convexed from 2-3cm behind the edge. Without that they'll glance when least expected or will demand too much force and lack of precision.

Always lots to think about and consider with effective tools!