To further answer Jeff's question. Illustrated here is a copy of the Hammond Flesh Eater. The maker asked permission of James Hammond to produce this knife. It is a super fighting knife designed to allow four ranges by shifting your grip. Whether that makes it a better knife or not is questionable. But it is a very formidable knife in the right hands. The handle on this one is a little too fat to make the best use of grip changes. That could be quickly remedied with a belt grinder. The blade is sharpened on the back edge. Recurved blades are one of my favorite designs and this one is quite graceful. Hopefully the CRKT version is as good as it looks. The quality of their products has risen with every passing year.
The book,
War of the Flea, is one of my favorite books on guerilla warfare. There is a lot of wisdom contained within the pages of this book. It takes various guerilla action over the last 100 years and analyzes which ones worked and why, and also the other side of those who did not work. The small booklet,
On the Edge, is our mini-manual of knife fighting written for classes I teach on demand.
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2 comments:
Thanks, Dave!
CRKT also makes a rubber training version of the flesheater, which will make it possible to do very effective training with that exact style knife.
I watched the hour long training video for the CRKT FE on you tube and I finally realized some of the benefits of a recurved blade. Among other things, I saw that the recurved portion of the blade permits it to be used for certain trapping techniques, and if the trappee pulls away, he receives a very deep cut. I assume it is also highly effective for sentry takeout across the kneck. Yikes!
One of the commenters on youtube reports that the knife can't be sharpened, which sounds pretty weird, but he probably meant it doesnt come super sharp from the factory and so you have to sharpen it and he wasn't capable of doing it. Sharpening is definitely an art form and I haven't mastered it, I need to find a local person who can really do it. On the other hand, it might come from the factory just fine, and the commenter might just be a perpetual grumbler. No way to know wthout plunking down $375 and ordering it from CRKT.
I like the Williams knives that CRKT offers, but they are made from untreated tool steel, which means you have to keep up with oiling them or they rust. I'm not good with that kind of routine maintenance. I am sold on getting the FE 9, just have to assemble some coin first.
Thanks again!
Recurved knives are even more difficult to sharpen than straight edges. Stainless steels are near impossible to sharpen and I prefer that old carbon steel that rusts. I do like the idea of a matching trainer. The purpose of the curved back side of my Cobra fighting knife is for trapping, and the ugly little teeth makes sure the trap holds and rips if they try to pull away.
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