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.