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October 2004
Reprinted by permission
Blade Magazine
TRIPLE-TEAMING THE WOODCRAFT
by MSG Kim Breed
The Marble's Woodcrafl knife patternb goes back almost a century. The classic blade shape, along with the stacked-leather handle, is still one of the most eye-pleasing and comfortable packages on the market. It's made for skinning, whittling and general field/woods use. Marble's Outdoors has changed a couple of things with its contemporary Woodcraft model on the material side, but has stuck with the classic shape and feel. I was lucky enough to have a good friend of mine visit my shop for a week of general playing around—a little knife work, a little gun work and a lot of story telling. Roger Jones, a.k.a. "Mudbone" Jones, is an Ohio bladesmith who can make almost anything from steel and is equally versatile embellishing knives. Most of all, he likes to collect older knives and just happened to bring an old Woodcraft along with him. I asked him if he would like to help with the testing. It was a no-brainer question. My buddy, Gary, also participated. As a result, the new version of the Woodcraft would be tripleteamed! After a quick safety check—i.e., "If you cut yourself, it will be included in the story"-we were off and cutting.
Test Time
Roger was first and cut long, thin strips from two squares of cardboard. The Woodcraft didn't roll the edge of the cardboard or tear out pieces of it midway through the cuts. The knife still had a skin grabbing edge afterward, so we progressed to the next level. I cut a branch from. my hackberry tree in the backyard for whittling, but Mudbone had the Woodcraft and wanted to cut some trappmg stakes. Being a trapper from wav back he grabbed a seat and started cutting. He noticed that the contemporary Woodcrafl has the same control and feel as his older model. and that it s very comfortable to use. After heckling each other for a little bit, we moved on to cutting half-inch sisal rope. I was first in line and started push cutting the knife through the sisal. Using the original factory edge, the first round lasted only 10 cuts. No problem! I used a fine diamond hone and put a fresh edge on the Woodcraft.
I doubled the cuts to 20 before the edge started to slide. Roger's turn produced 14 cuts and then he switched to his older Woodcraft. He more than doubled his cuts to 31. Even though the old knife is well worn, its blade out performed the newer one in rope cutting. Using the diamond hone, Gary changed the angle of the contemporary Woodcraft's edge a bit and got 22 cuts on the sisal rope. The Woodcraft is one of several factory knives I've seen that performed better afler a couple of sharpenings. It stems from the thickness of the edge during heat treatment and the temperature during the tempering. If batch heat. treatment is used, sometimes the blades in the front and the end of the line will differ by a couple or points on the Rockwell hardness scale. Many factories use multiple hardness checks in the quality control process to catch such things. During normal knife use the difference isn't noticeable, but during heavy use you'll have to touch the edge up more frequently. It takes only three or four passes on a sharpener to reproduce the factory edge.
The Sheath
We compared the differences between the sheaths. The one for the old Woodcraft is all leather with a snap strap around the handle. The likelihood of the knife poking through the sheath is high because the leather is worn and weathered. With the sheath of the contemporary Woodcraft, a thermal plastic liner eliminates the chance of sheath failure.
Instead of the standard slab configuration, the newer model is a pouch style with a wraparound, dog-leg snap strap. It eliminates the problem of the knife sliding up until the guard hits the strap and exposing the edge. It's a 100 percent improvement on the old sheath design and construction. Great job!
Overall
The Marble's Outdoors Woodcraft will provide the average woodsman with years of good service. Those who push their knives to extremes will need to do some sharpening during use.
Recommendations
More testing afler heat treatment as a quality control measure would help Marble's pinpoint the occasional models with blade hardnesses that aren't uniform.
For more information contact Marble’s Outdoors, attn: T. Lauermar, Dept. BL10, 420 Industrial Park, Gladstone, Ml 49837
906.428.3710
www. marblesoutdoors. com.
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