What makes a good bushcraft knife?blade shape/size ect

[CLEM]

Now i freely admit i am no bushcraft expert or expert on knives ect,more like a broke the surface and right keen to learn semi novice so iam interested to know/learn what makes a good/ideal bushcraft knife as regards to blade size and blade shape?

 

[Neil1]

Everyone has their own opinion on this one!
It is very much a personal issue, what I call the perfect bushcraft knife will be very different to someone elses view.
A good way to go is to get a long to a meet-up, everyone brings different pointy things along and they are a good chance to try out some of the designs available.
A good choice until you have found the perfect blade, is one that I use most often and recommend to anyone new to the craft - an Opinel No7 (attached with cord to your belt loops and kept in your pocket along with a firesteel, a keyring light and a whistle) and in my daysack a traditional scandi (a Mora, or Issakia, or my Lauri PT).
The Opinel takes care of about 80% of my cutting needs (food prep, cutting cordage, harvesting plants, etc), the scandi get used for carving, splitting and making feather sticks.
Very few knives will excel at all tasks, what is great for carving wood is rarely good for peeling veg or spreading jam!
Give it a try until you find the perfect knife (for me the F1 comes closest, but every once in a while, something new and shiny shows up and a waver for a while) and then I fall back on the No7 and my Lauri!
Neil

 

[Ogri the trog]

...so iam interested to know/learn what makes a good/ideal bushcraft knife as regards to blade size and blade shape?

Yup, Neil1 is right,
But what it is not, might be easier to answer.
Not Rambo-esque,
Not too big
Not too military looking
Not too fancy
Not threatening to the sheeple

Then comes the things that it might include;-
Well made and pleasing to the eye - especially its owner,
Just big enough to do most of the jobs you'd want to do in your normal Buchcrafty routine,
A good blade made strong by virtue of its profile and grind, as opposed to "looking" tough,
Small enough so that if the worst comes to the worst you can have a valid reason for it being on your person ( I must qualify this comment by adding that it would be easier to explain carrying an Opinel No 8 with a locking collar, than a "Psyco killer death machette with compass and fishing kit").

Think about the jobs you'll be doing and try out as many as you can, you could use a £5 knife and love it to bits just as easily as a £250 one that doesn't quite fit your bill!

Me, I use a second hand Puukko, or a kit made Nordic from http://www.brisa.fi/index.html or any one of a number of SAK's, Opinels and other small folders.

ATB

Ogri the trog

 

[CLEM]

Thanks for your replys Gents.

Well up untill this afternoon i had two knives,a Swedish Army issue Frosts knife and a Swiss Army knife on my key ring(i think its called the Spartan) well i happed past the local surplus shop as you do and they had what they called the current issue German army knife(they allso had the current Germany army pocket knife-Mauser which looked pretty good too).It looked a decent size,nothing fancy and the blade shape looked sensible,well atlest it did to me anyway and was cheap enough.Any of you know this knife?

I bought it from a shop called www.Surplusandoutdoors.com

 

[Hoodoo]

I tend to think of a bushcraft knife and an outdoors knife as two separate beasts although related. IMO, a good outdoors knife should be more optimized towards butchering and food prep while a bushcraft knife is more optimized towards woodcraft. Either style though will get you into the woods one way or the other. I think Ray Mears Woodlore style knife or a good scandi knife are excellent choices for woodcraft. The little thicker spine on the woodlore than you see on most scandi knives I think is better for baton use but if you have a decent axe, it's something of a moot point.

For an outdoors knife, I generally prefer a 4-5" blade, thin enough to fillet a pike and long enough to slice bread and scoop peanut butter out of a jar. If the edge is fine, it will do a great job of woodcarving as well. Flat and convex are generally my favorite grinds for this.

Either knife should have a nice robust handle for hard work. If you've ever carved a half dozen tent stakes with a thin handled knife, you'll know what I mean. Lots of hunting knives out there that aren't very good for much more than field dressing because of the thin handle. By the same token, a good hollow ground, thin bladed hunting knife can be pretty impressive if you have a lot of meat to process.

Just my two little cents.

 

[Andy]

*a handle which you can use for a fair amount of time
*something light enough to carry when just pottering about
*fair point control

 

[Shing]

Any one knife for use in the woods is a compromise. For splitting wood by battoning, a strong, thick and heavy knife is best. For food prep including slicing, butchering and skinning, a thin flexible knife would be ideal.

You can carry at least 2 knives, a heavy one for wood work and a thinner, lighter one for food prep. I would suggest a Woodlore style knife for wood working and a large Swiss army knife for food prep and delicate carving.

I also like the idea of using a fishing knife for food prep as they are light and already have sheaths or making a sheath for a paring or short cooks' knife for use on food.