EKA W12

Disclosure of material connection: I was provided with a free sample from the manufacturer for testing and evaluation purposes. The comments in this post are 100% my own opinion.

Picture from eka-knivar.se

First impression

Wow, it's heavy! When I pull the sheathed knife out of the box, the weight hits me. But when I hold it as supposed to, it's not that bad. The balance is good, some 1½-2 centimetres behind the stopper, and it feels rock solid. The 4 millimetre thick blade gives a sturdy impression and I just want to go out in the woods, grab a log and start carving. Some heavy carving. Or maybe splitting wood :)

The kydex sheath is nice as well. I have been looking at kydex for some time, planning on making my own sheath of it. Now, I don't know. My curiosity has been stilled for the moment, but I still like the material. I might very well get going on my own sheath for a knife soon, but the urge isn't as strong any more.

Design

The scales are a nice orange colour without being intrusive. The option with G10 is a really good choice from EKA. It feels nice in my hand and the grip is good. The size of the handle is about the same as for the older W11, but quite a different feel to it given the different materials. I really love my W11 Nordic with the curly birch handle, but there’s something special about this orange colour that I cannot put away. I like the differences in the two, the nature with all its beauty and the man-made orange plastic with its absolute ignorance of what everyone else thinks. Great!

I'm not sure about the finger stop though... As a general rule, I don't like the stopper, on any knife, but this one hasn't bothered me at all. And as a safety feature it's a good one. 

The sheath is a classic kydex sheath. It is rather wide and of course hard and stiff. It has the standard hole in the bottom to let any water out if it comes in for some reason. The small kydex bit holding the sharpener and fire starter is removable if you don't like it. It's fastened with two slotted screws and comes off really easy. 

A first test

I took the knife out in the field for a first test, and I gave it a good round of hard use. It was my go-to tool for splitting wood for the fire, chopping of branches and cutting line. And it performed very well.
I've also used it at home for some carving and splitting wood for the fire place. No complaints. When it comes to the harder use in the forest, it's great! But for the smaller, finer, works I would prefer a smaller knife. 

Further testing

After that, I dissembled the knife for cleaning (see below) and then put it back together again. I would recommend to tighten the screws quite hard, not to have it fall apart... It would be quite un-practical if it did during a trip. Even though the screws are ordinary slotted screws, and thereby rather easy to fasten in the bush, it is still much easier to do it at home, and do it right from the start.

I more often than not like the thick blade, but sometimes it's just too thick. But that's the thing, isn't it. You can't have the cake and eat it. Sometimes you want a thin fancy blade for some carving or cooking, and sometimes you want a thicker, more durable one for that wood splitting.

But this isn't your everyday carry knife, it’s more for your weekend trip to the wilderness. It's not something you take out down town to split an apple in two, that could get you in some trouble with the law (at least in Sweden), this is more of the knife you take out to split a log in splinters. And for the later things, it performs really well.

Cleaning

The screws could be your nemesis in the woods, but when back home they do the trick. Unscrewing them helps a lot when it comes to cleaning the knife. Just undo two screws and the full tang is ready to be cleaned and cared for. Once done, just put the three pieces together again and you're done. Simple enough and you don't have to worry about any moisture sticking around in the edges of the handle. On the other hand, as everyone is able to undo the screws and clean the blade. I guess a lot of people will do so, but not fasten the screws enough afterwards. But once again, this is a give and take, you can’t get it all.

A good thing with the kydex sheath, except for the durability, is the easy to clean ability. Just rinse it off in the sink and leave it to dry. A tip is to either blow dry it, with either compressed or hot air, to get all the water out. Or, of course, to use some sort of anti corrosive spray to keep the both the sheath and blade clean.

Comparison

Compared to the W11 it's 72 grams heavier, 234 vs 162, and it's of course very noticeable.
The back of the blade is also a little bit different, the thumb grip is a bit more rounded and not as sharp. I prefer the new design of the grip. One thing that does bother me, though, is the small ricasso the W12 has got. I cannot understand why anyone would want a ricasso on a knife. Even if the W11 also has a small portion of space between the start of the edge and the end of the handle, it's still smaller than the W12 version. It's not much, but to me it's kind of a thing... I always look at the ricasso. I've seen a lot worse, but I don't understand why not fully remove it. 

Conclusion

So, what's my conclusion of the knife? Would I buy it or recommend it? If you have the W11, I can't recommend you buying the W12, not that it's a bad knife, it just don't fill a hole.

But if you are on the market for a sturdy knife, that will take bashing and carving as well as being used as a chefs knife, you'll be happy with this knife for many years to come. There's only one problem ahead of you, you have to choose a colour for the handle... 

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Fredrik

Lansky Knife Sharpening Kit

When I was about to get me a sharpening system for my knives, I had a look around at different forums and pretty much everyone told me to get a Spyderco Triangle Sharpmaker. As you can understand from the headline of this post, I didn't listen :)

Instead I got a Lansky Knife Sharpening Kit. It contained three stones, honing oil and the angle tool. The included stones are 120, 280 and 600 grits, and in addition to this, I got a finer stone, 1200 grit, as well to be able to really get that extra sharpness. The angle tool help you keep the same angle all the time throughout the sharpening of your knife, and to me, this has been very helpful.

The system is very easy to use, you just fasten your knife in the clamp, chose an angle for your knife and fasten the stone on the rod. Put the rod in the hole for the chosen angle, and off you go. In the beginning it's a bit tricky to get a hang of the use of the tool, but after some five minutes, you got it. It's that easy.

So why did I get this one instead of Spyderco? Well, the major reasons were...

• The price. This system was 450 SEK including the extra stone. The Spyderco was about 750 SEK.
• The Lansky system helped me sharpen the knives in four different angles, the Sharpmaker only two. And besides that, to use the Sharpmaker you have to hold your knife vertical to get the correct angle.

So, what have I used it for? Pretty much every knife in the house :) I gave our kitchen knives a good overhaul, the bush craft knife came out really sharp and the folder on the picture above is now a pleasure to use.

Given the difference in price, I would say this is a really good buy! I cannot say anything about Spyderco, so no shame on them, but for me, Lansky is a very good system and I would recommend it to anyone's on the market for a (new) knife sharpening system.
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Fredrik

EKA Swede 7

(This review was first published on Utsidan.se 2013-05-09)

EKA Swede 7

First impressions
The excitement was high when I saw the package in the kitchen table. A nice little box with the three letters, EKA. Three letters that had come to mean quite a lot to me. I don't know why, but for some reason they have.

I open the box and see the beautiful and robust leather sheath. In itself, or wasn't any news, so I quickly opened it to see what was hiding within. And it was no disappointment. The knife is solid and gives a good first impression with its rather wide metal lining and wooden scales. The blade is centered and easy to open. Actually a lot easier than,my EKA Swede 92. The lock is smooth and easily used, also here quite much easier than the 92. And talking about the scales,  they look really nice. There was some comments about this on different forums and while back, that EKA doesn't quite match the quality of the curly birch. I haven't had any problems with this, on the contrary, my knives has always looked good. Both the Swede 92 and 7 and also the W11.

Carving

Top: EKA Swede 7
Middle: EKA Swede 92
Bottom: EKA Nordic W11

A first carving test was done using an ordinary stick. As comparison the above mentioned Swede 92 and Nordic W11 was used. The W11's a competent carving knife, so the competition was hard, and of course the 7 had a hard time matching it. That said, the Swede 7 still handles the simpler tasks well enough. Compared to the Swede 92 it's not a big difference at lighter jobs, but when I put some force into it the Swede 7, it yields. I don't know if this is meant to be or not, but I don't like it. It made me hesitant to use some more power in my work. But it handles the making of a bbq stick, or similar, without any problems. Another thing I was a bit skeptical about was the big lump in the back, but it didn't actually bother me at all. It took some getting used to, but then it was just a part of it and nothing that I noticed during my work. After a while, I think the knife lay nicely in my hand, but the balance is a little bit to far back, about where my middle finger is. I would like it one finger towards the blade, around the index finger. This is most likely due to the lump in the back, so all in all, I'm not that found of it.

Food preps

With a scandi grind blade, the Sweden 7 should be rather well fit for food preps, and I would say it is. The blade is a bit thinner, 2.8 mm, than the other to EKA knifes I compared it with. The W11 is 4 mm and the Swede is supposed to have 2.8 mm, but I got mine to be almost 3.1. The Swede 7 doesn't split the apple, but instead cutting it. But given the rather short blade, it's not something that will be used for and bigger meal preps.

The looks
My very personal opinion is that this knife is very beautiful. I really like the stainless steel against the curly birch, and the shape as well. And the checkered pattern that EKA has on some of their knifes appeals to me. I know this is not for everyone. My wife, for example, didn't like it.

Others

Top: EKA Swede 92
Bottom: EKA Swede 7

The foremost screws are well down in the scales and leave nothing to wish for. But the rear ones are pointing up a bit in the back. It's a bit hard to explain, but what I mean in that the back of the handle is having quite the slope, and as the screws are fitted in a right angle to the liner this gives two different heights for the screw to match. And this is of course impossible. Not a very big thing, but still something that got me looking twice.

Another thing that bothers me a little bit is that there's no lanyard hole. Maybe not needed on a folding knife in this size, but I still want it. Not very hard to make yourself, but I would prefer if it was done from the start...

Conclusion
I really like this knife. It'll most definitely come with me on some adventures to come. Most of the things I'm pointing out here are minor thing, and nothing that bothers me very much.

Would I recommend it to a friend? Absolutely!

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Fredrik