ESEE 4, S35VN

[Mannlicher]

I pre ordered this knife from Knife Works, and it showed up today. This is a knife I have wanted for ages. Rowan, the outfit that makes the ESEE brand knives does S35VN as good as any in the knife business.
Sharp as a scalpel, and has a very comfortable G10 handle. It even fits my hand. I could not be more pleased.

[madmaxine]

I look and handle ESEE's every summer at SMKWs.  But I have never pulled the trigger.  It keeps growing on me.  Perhaps this summer...

[wsdstan]

Sam are you going to get one of the S35 VN knives that Tim Olt is working on?

I have no experience using ESEE knives although some of them are quite appealing.  I did have an Izula and one other (a very large knife but I forget the designation) and never used either of them before selling them.  Of course it was not in this steel.

[Sarge]

Very cool!! 

[Mannlicher]

stan,  I am indeed getting one of Tim's S35VN knives.  It  will be a larger version of one that he and I designed years ago.   He is also sending me the O1  camp hatchet and knife set he talked about in a December thread.  I am to do the field testing for the set.  Looking forward to that.

[wsdstan]

Thanks Sam, you will be smiling I bet.

[Icepick15]

In case y'all are interested, and if you haven't seen the videos yet, Randall's Adventure has a couple of videos on their ESEE-3 on their YouTube channel.  One posted on Feb. 2, 2020, where they document breaking an S35VN ESEE-3, and another posted on Feb. 26, 2020, where they test two ESEE-3 knives side by side, one in 1095 and the other in S35VN.
The channel name is Randall's Adventure / ESEE

[wsdstan]

Thanks, will be worth a look.

Well I watched both of them.  The breakage of the S35VN was caused by attempting to remove a stuck blade from a piece of oak by striking the wood on the ground while holding the knife by the handle.  It snapped in half near the choil.  Prior to that it had performed all the tasks including batoning smaller chunks of woods.  Easy answer to this is not to baton with it.  It's advantage is it holds an edge better than the same blade in 1095, at least in an unscientific test of cutting heavy rope. 

For the things I do with a knife (dress deer and food prep) it is kind of a moot point as either steel will perform adequately on those tasks.