Thanks to our resident Viking HD I managed to purchase a Ratmandu. There are many who like this knife here and I can see why. Mine is the top one in this photo



It came with the Urban Grey coating whose thickness you cannot easily see from the photo and also a great Rainwalker sheath. The knife is a great size and weight for general bushcrafter work...I don't think HD had sharpened this one as it was pretty sharp from the factory....I honed the edge with a leather paddle and some green compound and it came along great....a lovely razor edge. I was contemplating leaving it painted but felt that a knife like this just has to be able to be used with a ferro rod and put to some comparison tests with some of my Scandi Bushcrafters and knives of similar size. The knife feels so good in the hand you just know it is going to do well at this sort of thing....so I decided to strip it and lose the thick coating.

After doing the strip job this is how it looks -



It came out great! There are no rough tooling marks at all and I have not lost the swamp rat logo on the blade. Best of all there seems to be a secondary coating under the paint which is akin to a double cut type of coating. It is not removeable with thinner but you can sand it down to the metal if you wanted. For my purposes this is fine....a real bonus infact....except that because of the coating properties you still cannot use a ferro rod to strike sparks where the coating covers the metal.

Now I don't want to use the edge for this task as it is too good to simply blunt like this. So my question is where would you take the coating off for a feero rod strike?

Being a bit of an admirer of the asthetics of the coating I don't fancy running a dremmel sander just part way along the spine for this purpose and taking a bit of it down to bare metal.

I could put the clip point which has been angled for a false edge with a small spine running down the middle of the clip....perhaps to assist in batoning so that it would not cut into the baton as easily....to the belt sander and polish up and sharpen the clip like a proper Bowie Clip. This would give me the edge for the ferro rod and would look better than removing coating from the spine in part.....the only down side is that the clip edge would cut into any Baton.

However having said that...the baton would still work....and lets face it...the clip being already there albeit with a false edge still would eat into a baton somewhat.

The other option I thought of was to run the dremmel sanding drum around the inside of the finger choil and free enough bare metal perhaps to enable it to be used on the ferro rod for a strike. This would leave the blade quite covered asthetically speaking and gives a sharp edge near to the handle for controlled use with the ferro rod. But it might knarl the edge a bit making for an uncomfortable choke grip with your index finger feeling the sharpness of the edges catching on the rod?

So which do you guys think is the best means to proceed? How do others use their ferro rods who have Ratmandu's? Do you all carry a seperate striker?
I would personally like to be able to use the knife...it works well on my other knives....admittedly using the spine...and I don't want the knife to be unable to compete in a testing session on this type of task.

So what are your views?

First off congrats on the RMD! It's a sweet knife.

I wouldn't use the RMD as a striker. I personally don't use the edge for obvious reasons. I'm not 100% sure if the RMDs are differentially treated, but I'm pretty sure it is, which means the spine is softer. It's a high carbon knife so it'll definitely work, but possibly a few strikes with the spine and you'd smooth it out.

I always carry a dedicated striker, and many people make strikers out of hacksaw blades and they're suppose to work wonder.

Looks very nice, but I'll keep mine original.

+1 ! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

SF, I would just lightly sand the coating off the swedge and use that part for making sparks. That way only the final edge and the swedge will be shiny and the blade will still look good. BTW, my newest RMD doesn't have the swedge.

It really isn't hard to carry a small piece of hacksaw blade along with your ferro rod to use as a striker. It won't take up any room, and you don't have to worry about sanding any part of your RMD to bare metal. It just seems to make more sense to me to carry a dedicated striker.

If you are dead set on using your RMD as a striker though, I think the choil area idea is a good one.

Interesting predicament SF, Vic's idea sounds like a good one. I hate using a nice sharp edge on a firesteel unless I just have too. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

Ok thanks! That's why I said wasn't 100%, I knew some SR knives were through-hardened.

I really want a few of those.

Well I think I will try H.D.'s suggestion on sanding the swedge first and if there is not enough edge there to get a good strike I will give it a bit more thought as to what to do next....either look at the choil or sharpen the swedge....

I have tried carrying a striker for the ferro rod but for me they get in the way if you attach a ferro rod loop to the sheath and catch on clothing. They work fine in a tin.....but I usually like to keep one with my knife.

I will let you know how I get on and thanks for the help.

Well after sanding the swedge and finding that although it looked good there was not enough "bite" from the false edge and tapered sides to give a good strike on the ferro rod I decided to sharpen the swedge. Here is how it turned out -



The sharpened swedge makes all the difference on getting a good shower of sparks off the ferro rod and for me looks good on the knife. Here is a better picture to see the full knife -



If you compare the knife to how it was previously -



with how it is now it still has the same form and balance of the Ratmandu....it was not really a radical change....but it had me nervous of doing it. I did it with a 1 inch belt sander....took my time alternating strokes on each side and using a 320 grit belt which was not too aggressive. I will do a follow up post on how it works on some tasks at the weekend.Got to say that the RMD is my favourite small fixed blade Bussekin Knife....it takes a hell of an edge and is so nicely balanced in your hand....very robust as well....decided to make it my avatar! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Now that is a proper swedge, SF. It looks great. Only a lunatic with a belt sander would do something like that! Nice little Bowie. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

nicely done

Cheers guys....particularly chuffed for a thumbs up from HD...would'nt be done without your goodself as an inspiration...now I know why it is best to do this grinding/sanding outside...your sweating so much incase you [censored] up a brilliant knife!

It looks very nice! The only potential problem I could see with this is that two sharpened edges could arguably make it a "dagger", and thus banned in quite a few places. I'm not sure how much this worries you.

We don't have laws like that here in the U.K......any fixed blade is potentially illegal to carry unless you have a good reason....only a slip joint knife under 3 inches can be carried as an EDC. If you have a good reason such as bushcraft practise or gutting animals after shooting them then you are legal for any knife....if you were able to have a reason such as martial arts or war game re-enactment or whatever....swords and daggers can be carried...the onus is on you however to be able to give a good reason....it is one of our very few laws where the burden of innocense is past to the accused and you are pressumed "guilty" if the police wish to charge you....normally it is for the prosecution to determine the "guilt" of the accused.

I have heard that you folks have a lot of trouble with knife crime over there in the UK, though... How recently were the knife laws as you describe put into place?

The law I refer to is s.139 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988...so it is 20 years old....we have had these laws quite a while but they are only as good as the enforcement of them. New laws seem to be brought out just to make the public believe the government is doing something about the "newspaper" led knife crime campaign....in 2006 they introduced a law changing the legal age to sell a knife to a teenager from 16 up to 18 years of age. It makes no difference....

We have always had adequate laws....just an inadequate system. Then to cover up the inadequacies bad laws get written which in the end only affect the law abiding....this type of law is a good example....it can easily create a very stressful trial for a law abiding bushcrafter or hunter who gets charged because the police are under pressure to enforce the law and make the court determine if the reason for carrying the knife was lawful.

Whereas with a young offender....kids who are carrying knives because of gang membership or because they are involved with drugs and crime....they are too young to receive a custodial sentence and don't care what the law says...yet they are the prime offending category for knife crime. At best they get probation and are never taken out of circulation....so the system does'nt work in stopping this problem....and kids being stabbed by other kids is getting much more common as is kids stabbing adults....hence the press have been jumping on this and starting a campaign but they don't have any answers.

Well, just to come back on topic with the Ratmandu, I have been using this and a few other similar sized knives around the kitchen for a few days just to see how they feel on food preperation. I was cutting some white cheese (Wensleydale) with the RMD and noticed a dark mark on the cheese. It looks like the powdered coating under the paint can come off onto the food....so it looks like I need to clean the coating off the sides of the blade. I think you can leave it on the handle and the spine safely .... but after a fair bit of use I think the coating on the sides would be removed anyway...so no problem there.

The RMD works really well though...the edge is great and the thickness is not such that you cannot slice food thin.