Thanks HD. On the FBM how did the grove lines on the blade turn out? Did you smooth them in? Athestically I preferred the true flat shape of the FFBM and hence my choice. Allowing for maybe buying early.....and hind sight....I think I would perhaps have been better served with a DFLE on weight. Toning the satin finish down can be done with a sand blast finish and taking the crinkle off later with grit paper. I did that on the Vought knife and it worked well. I think it would work well with the DGLE. Quite fancy one of these...but short on time now to wait for one.

I will check out the Skinny Ash 1 as I believe they are available from the Company Store. The others would have to be forum purchases and my time is nearly up at home (recovering from an operation)....so once back in the saddle I won't have the available time to stay on long enough until a DFLE comes up and the ASH should be a good alternative. In all your other posts I find I am agreeing with what you say so will follow your recommendation.

The stripping process done by many for the FFBM if I wanted a dark satin finish is something I would also like to look at but I have to say that would probably have me buying a belt sander and involve a lot of practise....your edge profiling though is giving me inspiration to do this.Using stones is very time consuming and for a convex edge I can only do this with a grit paper/mouse board combo and that is even longer and not as precise (allowing for practise with the sander).

If the Satin LE versions were not so much more I would have gone for a Busse FFBMLE and simply toned the glare down with grit paper....but that seems silly to pay more for a finish and then take it off. Although after some heavy use I don't like the look of the marked coated blades.....you can restore a dark satin finish. I like my kit looking cared for as it should be.

I much prefer a satin finish for exactly the same reasons.
Those fat FBM's are much much better looking than the lined ones but they are heavy.

The game warden seems the perfect companion to the BM's.

I love the old SHBM's but they are to expensive for users but a great deal can be had on the ergo handled BM's. I just got a user ergo Steel heart for well under 500$.

I would definitly keep an eye out for users. I saw a FBM in decent shape go for 350$ on BF.

I got a great looking dull satin on my SS4 in minutes using a dremel and a 80 grit flapper wheel. A 120 grit would be finer.

Take care overseas I think you make a fantastic member of our little community and you would be sorely missed. I know us Canadians are kind of looking forward to the US laying the law down to those northern paki provinces like Waziristan so the Taliban can't just run over the border and keep regrouping.

Also if you need anything over there let us know. I helped get Tyger his DFLE in Kandahar although admittedly the Canadian airforce did the heavy lifting.


I love companion blades for big knives and actually tried to answer about it on the wrong thread (the batman one) <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/doh.gif" alt="" />

Hi Unsub,

Thanks for those warm words. I have had a great welcome here and benefitted from a lot of advice. I have bought a Skinny Ash1 as per HD's suggestion in Desert Sage and Black Micarta Magnum with a Kydex sheath. This comes in at 14oz and is light enough for a second web knife and can fulfil the role of my diving knife when I alter the sheath. It is light enough for leg carry/swimming without being off putting and will enable me to sell my present knife which again is rare and no longer made. This is it -



It is a Berger Patriot designed by Blackie Collins and the steel is 440 B I think. The clip point serations I had custom done for fishing line cutting and the sheath is excellent for diving and inverted carry. It is Jump Certified for this and for freefall jumping it should work well as a cut away knife ( so far so good.....never needed it for that).

My first try for a replacement for the Vought knife was a Chris Reeve Project 1. I had a very early South African Jereboam done by Chris and this knife worked well but had his custom eye on it and on the heat treat. After seeing the Noss test on this I will move it on. I try not to duplicate my carry knives anyway...to expensive...I did some simple leatherwork on the sheath to attach a flint and Eze Lap and a small pouch for a Silva marching compass. The sheath is well designed for a quick release from the webbing and I fancied a one stop shop for the important gear. Anyway here is a pic -


Not sure what has happened to the CR knives since he left S.A. but it looks like the heat treat is not as it should be.

I will also sell the Enterek Dissapointer as HD calls it (LOL) and the Badger....no point in having something which is secondary to my Busse System. If I need substitutes the Vought can come out of retirement until I get a replacement.

I saw a FSH on the forum for $520 shipped and at 19oz and a 8 inch blade it is the exact spec of the Vought. I was sorely tempted at this as it was already stripped and had a nice convex edge profiling job. I decided to wait out until the FFBM arrived.....if it were simply a matter of a credit card entry and not all the faff of e-mails and extra postage calculations I would have gone for it. However, I want to give the FFBM a good roll of the dice. Heavy is'nt too bad if you know you have the performance. The FFBM is a bit like the .50 cal...you can probably use a .338 LM for much of the time but when you need it.....there is no point crying because you have to hump it.

All the best.SF.

I checked out the Entrek today. I knew I had thinned it out a lot. I wasn't sure if it was too thin for that 440C. It might break or roll on hard wood. So I took it, my reprofiled Camp Tramp, and reprofiled Kershaw Outcast out back for some tough love. Neither the Kershaw nor the Entrek had impressed me as very good choppers. I knew the CT was good to go, reprofiled or not. I brought it along as a control to compare the others with.

This maple has proven to be very hard. A knife that can chop this can chop most any wood.

So far, no damage. The Destroyer did not self-destruct. It definitely chops better than it did before.

The Camp Tramp chops better, taking deeper bites, but the Entrek is much improved with the new edge.

The Outcast is very much improved. It does tend to bind or stick in the wood, though. I have read that D2 is not a good steel for choppers, but at least this time it chopped! The edge was undamaged.



Back to the Entrek, I did some slashing of light vegetation and some slicing, and it did just fine.

I flung it at a Black Gum tree and THUNK! Lucky throw.


I would call the weekend sharpening projects successful!

Very nice HD, thanks for sharing.

You must be happier with the Entrek now HD because it is no longer the "Disappointer".

Nice pics <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I've hand honed for years and am now using Global water stones of 240, 1000 and 5000 grit. I get pretty good results. I've tried hand honing a convex edge using the mouse pad/sandpaper method with mixed results. Like any hand honing method I guess that it takes practice and I'm not there yet. I recently purchased a 1x30 belt sander and will be trying that out as soon as the belts I ordered arrive. I figure that I'll experiment using my old Collins camp axe. It has a similar blade configuration to some of the larger Busse-kin blades. It's the only blade I own that I'm not too worried about screwing-up.

This might sound dumb, but try practicing on your lawnmower blades. Not only will it give you something to practice on, but you'll be productive at the same time.

ohhh.. this is question kinda suits this thread...
how sharp should lawnmower blades be preferably.
like... split hair sharp... or just barley scrape your fingernail sharp?

It won't hurt them to be razor sharp although it would be best not to hit rocks.
I think they are mostly supposed to be squared off at an exact angle rather than sharp but they are cheap so why not make them razors and see if they cut different?


I found a new(to me anyway) kind of edge I really like. The old Busse asymmetrical
edge was perfectly flat one side and a nice appleseed convex on the other.
It is very sharp and not much harder to take care of then a normal convex on one side and then a perfectly flat bevel on the other. It is wicked sharp and also cool and different.

My first intro to the asymmetrical edge was an older SJTAC. I really like it. It looks a little weird at first but is very easy to maintain. Since then I picked up a Basic 7 which also has the asymmetric edge and it too is amazingly sharp. I'm a fan <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" />