The Brute

[first twin]

This is a knife that Charlie made to test a new heat treatment procedure of CPM 3V. He decided to make one he could use this hunting season and give some real abuse to see how it holds up. Its 5" blade is made of 7/32" CPM 3V and is 1 3/8" wide. It carries desert ironwood handles. He said just because it was a test knife, that didn't mean that it had to look bad. The tapered tang makes it balance on the index finger.

[Crex]

That's classic TB work. Gonna use that armadillo hunting? You fellas still planning on Trackrock? Hope you can make it up. Bring that with you.

Hmmm.......all my test balde handles look suspiciously like duct tape. Hate to finish one I'm going to eventually break. Don't imagine the CMP 3V will suffer a break test (if you could get it to break at all).

[Harry Mathews]

Carl I don't think that we will be able to make the meeting. We have a friend whose daughter is getting married that weekend and our presence is being mandated....if you know what I mean. If this should change I will let you know. Shoot you will likely hear me holler! This will be two in a row that I have had to miss and it is getting hard to take.

Charlie's Brute is going to see some tough use but we don't usually get the chance to use them on armadillos. We call them "self burying" varmints. Shoot the little buggers with a 22 subsonic and they will most times make it back to their burrow.

We will give the 3V a good shot at breaking. We have done some side impact test on knives to help us determine what the blade will take as far as shock is concerned and want to be sure that the heat treat on this one leaves the blade still tough. We know that it has picked up a few points on hardness which should help edge retention; we just don't want it brittle. Got to check that out. We both are making a Brute (mines on the table until after the Guild Show) the decision now is which one we will test. If we can break one, the other is toast too.