Thread: Bushcraft, Scandi grinds and Condor Bushlore review

Kid is in bed sick and I have brickies out the front working so I thought I might do a review of a new knife, and add a few thoughts too, might be a long one...

So bushcraft, is probably quite an old skill, but with a modern meaning, I think all our old bush type skills could be lumped together into bushcraft or bush skills, when a hunter/fisherman/tramper gets lost the police usually say if they have good bushman skills or not, but what does that mean?

The ability to survive, or even flourish in the bush is based on certain things, knowledge, attitude and equipment being key, one can survive for three minutes without air, three hours without shelter (being warmth - clothes can count), three days without water and three weeks without food, add some equipment and knowledge to the mix though and aside from the air bit you set for an indefinite period, you can find examples of vets lost in the jungles who have survived for years, never knowing the war was long finished before being found.

Our skills may have been diluted a bit due to the quality of modern equipment, fairy down had been producing good equipment without much competition for ages until an American arrived in Christchurch and started MacPac and Wilderness clothing, which later amalgamated into just MacPac - a good bit of completion and the result was that both macPac and fairy down lowered their prices and produced really good equipment for a long time (later the two companies joined, then were bought out by another company and the quality has gone down hill), nevertheless whilst this rivalry was going on we could get good and light stuff that far surpassed the stuff out folks used.
I remember my uncle taking me hunting once, he had an old metal framed pack (maybe a mountain mule), a dacron filled sleeping bag, and a tarp for us to sleep under - I had a MacPac internal frame pack, a MacPac down bag, a therma-a-rest and a bivvy bag which everything went into, well my uncle poo pooed this until one morning when I was up starting the fire to cook breakfast and he tried my gear, after that I had to fight to keep it and once we returned from the trip he went out and bought everything I had and a new MacPac microlight tent too, his old stuff went to the salvation store...

Modern equipment is lighter and better than the old stuff - I now use a hammock and fly if out on my own but have a couple of tents if family camping, and I have a GPS but still know how to use a compass and read a map, I have a Zippo lighter but also carry a firesteel and am trying to learn how to make a fire-bow and I know how to crap in the woods!

Bushcraft seems to be something of a renaissance particularly in the UK and USA, less so here but its still has a presence and a website, so what is it and how does it differ from bushman and bushwoman skills? Well it seems to be harking back to the skills our ancestors used, its a subset of self-reliance, and is based on going bush, whether hunting or camping but used a mix of old and new equipment, primarily a tarp instead of a tent (this can be made of modern material or the really nice ones are made from oilskin), or building a bivouac, a wool blanket instead of a sleeping bag (the Hudson Bay ones are the most sought after), building a raised bed from wood and covering that with leafy material instead of a therm-a-rest and using a fire instead of a gas of white spirit cooker, and sometimes on older style pack as opposed to a modern one, although a modern pack is used by a lot of them - they are just so much more waterproof and comfortable, going for wool clothing instead of polypros, and in the states some have also swapped out modern rifles for old style bows or black powder guns.

Also they take a nice knife and often a small axe or hatchet, partly because a lot of what they are doing involves wood - chopping it down to build a shelter, a raised bed, a wind break/fire reflector, a big long fire to keep warm and then to sit around on and carve spoons...ok maybe not all the time but practising wood skills and carving seems to be part of it.

Now all of this hasn't evolved in a void, TV has played a big part and Bushcraft has its share of superstars, the Bear Grylls, Les Stroudman and SAS authors and maybe most famously of all Ray Mears.
Ray Mears is an interesting chap, failed to get into the army due to poor eyesight instead he learnt bushcraft skills, and made it into TV where he got a job of traveling around, living off the land and hanging out with indigenous people learning their skills or retracing old historical trade routes and the such, he also know has a line of equipment which sells for an arm and a leg, most famously is his knife, of which he designed two.

The first was a total flop, the Wilkinson Sword survival knife, and its big, unwieldy and horrible, more suited to a boat anchor than a useful knife.
The second knife he designed was a hit, he contacted a chap he had met earlier who was a british knife maker - Alan Wood - and asked him to make a very specific knife: it was to be made from high carbon steel (for ease of sharpening, edge retention and strength) - O1 was chosen, it was to be full tang (to allow it to be battened), to have a fairly short and straight blade blade a lot like a kitchen utility knife (11 cm was chosen), the same size handle with reindeer slabs, and to be 4mm thick. It was to have a leather pouch style sheath with attachment points so the knife could carried baldric style under the arm in arctic conditions, and finally it was to have a Scandinavian or Norwegian style of grind - a scandal grind (this was to aid in ease of sharpening and to lend the blade strength as you are not moving much metal to make the grind). It was slo to have no guard, just a slight swell to stop the hand sliding on to the blade and a drop point.

After a coupe of goes the knife was made to Ray's satisfaction and the Woodlore was born. Ray hade a lot made for him and his crew and he had extras made to give away to the people he filmed with, Alan started getting orders coming in for copies from the public and now its a booming business, such that it costs hundreds of pounds for a blade and there is a ten year waiting list, and thats with Alan farming the sheath making business out, the popularity caused Ray to authorise another knife make, SW Cox to produce a near clone, which also ow has a massive waiting list and cost.
Well the popularity caused other custom knife makes to offer versions of the blade, and even caused one guy who was not prepared to wait to make his own and made it so well that he became a knife maker in the process, Jacklore knives - the irony is that he is now so popular that he too has a waiting list.

Well the commercial guys wanted in on this too and started making copies as well, ESEE, TOPS, my other have made versions bit the best has been done by Spyderco, the Spyderco UK Bushcraft, the was made in collaboration with Chris Claycomb (a custom knife maker and the UK Bushcraft forum who provided lots of input into the knifes creation).
The Spyderco version is a 8.75 inch drop point O1 steel 3.5mm scandi knife a four inch blade with a leather sheath and the most amazing spalted maple handle slabs on a full tang (although skeletonized) ...the problem came with the wood, it was supplied to spyderco and was supposed to have been stabilised, but it was not and so almost every single knife handle cracked, Spyderco did a massive recall and then released version two, the same knife but with G10 handles that do not look as nice but are impervious to the elements and so are stabilised by default, as an aside the handle is the most comfortable of any knife I have ever felt (and no I do not own one) - the only problem with the knife is that it is very expensive and the handles are skeletonized and I have seen one break (on the internet where all things are possible mind).

So the full tang and carbon steel are all very normal but the Scandi grind is bit different and I personally had never seen one in the flesh, so I did some research:
Well the grind is actually very old and simple, just lay the blade on its side and grind off a bit the the blade and repeat on the other side, unlike a full flat or saver grind or hollow grind or any other you are taking just a little material away meaning that the blade can be kept strong or made light without compromising strength, and thin blades tend to cut through a lot of media well (as long as they are not too thin or they twist). The blade is also ver easy to shape just lay the blade on its side, angel it up until the angle is right then pull along the stone or strop, because its constant the sharpening is easy, the only problem is that the edge can be very thin and so can chip easily depending on what angle the knife make has made the grind on (most are between 18 and 30 degrees).
The advantage of the blade shape is that it carves wood beautifully, its like a chisel or plane blade and eats wood with ease - but then so will most other grinds if the blade is kept sharp, but its a lot easier to sharpen than say a convex grind in the field and a lot stronger than say a hollow grind.

But like anything opinion is divided, some people say they are the bees knees, other that they are weak and chip, sorting through this was getting me nowhere and so I decided to try one out, I thought about the customs, but the waiting list put me off, the Spyderco was my next option but the price was a bit steep for a bade I may not want in the end so I ended up with the Condor Bushlore for $84 dollars which has 4.3 inch 1075 coated steel blade, an almost 5 inch walnut slabbed handle (there is a more expensive micarta version), the blade is about 2.5 mm thick and come with a really good (although not traditional bushcraft shaped) leather sheath, this is actually the Mark 2 version (the mark one was a flop), and is designed by an America who usually designs machetes, Joe Flowers.

Its also made in El Salvadore. The Condor company was founded in Solingen, Germany in the 1600's and went on the make may blades for my people but trying to keep up with demand proved difficult and so they opened up factories in other countries (shipping in those days was a bitch). Today they mostly make machetes but the staff have excellent German machines and the operators (some of them) are trained in Solingen, Germany (apparently).



This gave me the option of a scandi grind without spending a fortune so if I did not like it I could flick it, it really is a little longer than I would have liked, four and a quarter inch blade and the same length handle would have been perfect but you get what you get and you don't get upset as I tell my kids.

I sanded down the handle and then treated it everyday for a week with linseed oil, and slightly reprofiled the handle to the shape I wanted (a tad roughly, I may go back and make it nicer later), and stropped the blade.

Well its hair popping sharp and cuts curls in soft paper when held up, 1075 is a high carbon steel but with less carbon that 1095, this makes it a tad softer, but a tad easier to sharpen, just as prone to rust though. The blade (but not the grind has some form of protective coating on it, like an ESEE knife or Spyderco DLT, a bit like gun blue, and the construction is full tang.

Oh, and it hogs through wood like a fat kid at a sweet shop, dices onions well and slices meat very nicely, I have not yet decided if thats to do with the thin blade or the grind or a combination of both, it also survived a battening session with no damage and chopped though some tee tree with no damage, the spine is sharp and it strikes good sparks off of a fire-steel and the 90 degree spine also scrapes tinder off of a branch, feather stick are a breeze, the blades just need a quick strop again to be hair popping sharp after some work, it does need a bit of care or it will stain or rust, but with some oil it keeps the rust away and staining is no real problem on a cheap blade, easy to clean up too.

So is it a good blade and a good grind?
Its light in the hand and on the hip (153 grams in the hand, 229 in the sheath) and on the wallet.
Its got a lot better sheath than say a Svord, the grinds are even and its not too big or to militaristic looking to scare people.
And it cuts well - I am keeping it for the meantime, but am looking now at a thicker scandi grind knife to see if its the grind or the thinness that makes the difference, in the meantime the jury is still out.

Shelley