Svord EDC Hiker

Many of you may have a Svord knife, or at least heard of the brand, Svord is a New Zealand knife company/forge owned by Bryan Baker who got into knife making full time when the engineering company he worked for went bust and Bryan decided to turn his knife making hobby into a full time career.
Well he has done so successfully, after a few false starts and produces lots of different knives out of his Waiuku forge, he makes several different levels of products, from cheap but cheerful folders to very high end blades done in presentation cases and everything in between, including some excellent hunting and skinning knives.

Svord predominately uses carbon steel, although a few stainless models have slipped into his lineup recently.
Carbon steel will rust but holds an excellent edge and sharpens easily, Svords heat treatment puts a scale on the blades that resists rust but where the edge is placed the scale gets ground off so it needs a good coating of oil or wax to keep it rust free - or you can place the blade in a pickling jar overnight and have a nice rust resistant patina on your blade.

http://www.nzhuntingandshooting.co.n...attach/jpg.gif

This blade is a very small fixed blade knife with an overall length of just over 15 cm, 17 in the sheath, half of which is blade, the other half a skeletonised handle which has been wrapped in bright orange paracord, the knife weighs just under 50 grams and the leather sheath adds another 17 grams, there is no belt loop, instead the sheath has holes to make it into either a neck knife or it can be tied to your pack or belt, or just dropped into a pocket.

The blade comes sharp, and it took very little work to turn it into arm hair shaving sharp, the back of the blade strikes nice sparks off of a swedish fire steel and it took to battening chunks of seasoned pine with no damage and very little effort.

And it sliced into meat like a dog chases cats!

On the downside the handle material stains quite easily, and while I like bright orange, it might not be everyones cup of tea.
The leather sheath, closes with a nice dome which keeps the blade looked into place but the leather is very soft and there is a lot of flop to the sheath.
The grind, at least on the two I examined before buying mine is a little uneven in that the black scale is longer on one side of the blade than the other, but this does not effect the actual cutting edge as it meets perfectly at the sharp bit.

This little beaut cost me $69, but I have seen it online for as little as $52 and if you are after a small fixed blade back up knife, or even are just into minimalist camping then this may fit the bill. Plus its New Zealand made, can't get much better than that!

I have no affiliation with Svord, nor do I get paid for this review, I just happen to like knives and thought I would share some thoughts with others who may be interested. Also I am attempting to upload some photos but am not sure if I am doing it right, ignore this if they appear, if not I will keep trying!

Shelley