Iron will knife, sharp top or no?

[Gli_ryan]

My lovely wife got me this knife for our anniversary. I’m initial thought is it’s incredible. My second thought is how fuckin dangerous that sharp top could be. Can anyone with experience with this knife shed some light on this? I’m pretty positive I use my hand to guide the back of knives into tight areas, but that will be impossible with the sharp top.

Should I swap it for a grip top? Or learn to use this safely?

I’ve had a fillet knife with a sharp top and I ended up just grinding the edge off for safety.

 

[intunegp]

Looks like it would be easy enough to keep your hand away from that part of the spine, but if you're not comfortable with it or don't like it you could either return/swap it or dull the top edge with a sharpening stone. That would allow you to sharpen it back up in the future if you ever want to try it out.

 

[BigCountry344]

For what it’s worth I sliced the hell out of my thumb on the top blade first time I used it and got rid of mine immediately but that’s just my personal experience.

 

[Gli_ryan]

For what it’s worth I sliced the hell out of my thumb on the top blade first time I used it and got rid of mine immediately but that’s just my personal experience.

Can you describe what happened to cause that to happen? Because that’s exactly what I’m imagining happening.

 

[BigCountry344]

Can you describe what happened to cause that to happen? Because that’s exactly what I’m imagining happening.

By habit I’ll put my thumb on the top of the blade to put a little pressure and not use to the blade being on the back and the knife slipped and got me pretty good.

 

[rifletuner]

Firstly, congrats that your wife knows/cares enough about your interests to buy you something that supports your hobby / life style

As a knife user and knife maker, I dont like the idea of a sharpened section of spine on a hunting knife. The maker has clearly tried to compartmentalise a rest area for your finger with the jimping on the rear half of the spine, but I dont see a value-add by having the front half sharp. I can see a lot of down side for the sharp section of spine inadvertently cut into guts, etc or the user when being used in the field.

It would be interesting to know what was intended by the maker for this sharpened section - I am totally prepared to admit I missed something specific in the design.

 

[intunegp]

Firstly, congrats that your wife knows/cares enough about your interests to buy you something that supports your hobby / life style

As a knife user and knife maker, I dont like the idea of a sharpened section of spine on a hunting knife. The maker has clearly tried to compartmentalise a rest area for your finger with the jimping on the rear half of the spine, but I dont see a value-add by having the front half sharp. I can see a lot of down side for the sharp section of spine inadvertently cut into guts, etc or the user when being used in the field.

It would be interesting to know what was intended by the maker for this sharpened section - I am totally prepared to admit I missed something specific in the design.

It's an option. From the maker:

An optional sharp top edge is designed for opening hide while maintaining the knife’s main blade for skinning and deboning. An ergonomic thumb wall and thumb-stop grooves (jimping) provide confident control in wet environments.

You can also choose "grip top" which is jimped all the way down the spine.

 

[sndmn11]

Or learn to use this safely?

My favorite knife has a sharpened spine and that is a big part of why it is my favorite. I've never come close to cutting myself and never come close to cutting something I shouldn't on the animal.

My perspective is that if you are worried about it, you are going too fast, just like the folks who complain about havalon blades being so sharp they are dangerous.

 

[Sam Colt]

If I could get Bradford to sharpen half of the false edge on the top of a Magnacut Guardian 4 carbon fiber, I’d have the perfect knife.