Thread: Worthington, Elmax test

This is a knife made by John Worthington thats pictured above in Hamish's pics (the middle one with the orange handle).

First up I have to say that the knife is beautifully made, and the workmanship is very difficult to fault. Even the exposed tang has a beautiful taper to it (this puts the balance towards the front of the handle, where it should be). The brass bolster is nicely fitted, with the slightest gap between the bolster and the blade sealed by a very tidy soldering job. So no blood or water can seep into the tang eraea.

I received this knife to test via a couple of hoons (Hamish and CraigC). They had given it a good abuse, and had used it for one deer, but then they had to try to sharpen it on a steel...nah...that was like running a good edge over a judder bar. Elmax is one of the hardest knife steels (Like, 61 Rockwell), and trying to steel it is just asking for trouble. Elmax requires stoning and stropping. A completely different approach to chattering it down a steel. The consequence was that the hoons chipped the edge. Just little chips, but chips none the less. It was still sharp enough to do a deer, but I wanted to change the profile of the edge anyway, and that would deal to the little chips (just a couple) at the same time.

The great thing about Elmax is that it doesn't need to be sharpened very often. Maybe only once every several deer, and then a light strop will bring it back to razor sharp. Just keep your hoon mates away from it though. This is a Ferrari, let them use use a Toyota.

The first thing that I did was to change the edge profile from a V to a micro convex. This brought the edge from passably sharp to a razor. You can see what I did to it in the pics. I used 1000 and 4000 grit water stones, and then stropped it with Bark River black and then white compounds. Its now as sharp as any knife is.

CraigC shot a whopping big stag and managed to get it out to the chiller, so this presented an opportunity for us to try the knife out. It pretty much broke down and boned out the whole animal, plus helped me with mince and cutting steaks at home. The edge was nearly as sharp at the end as when it began. No chips, no rolls, no damage. When I got home it took about one minute to strop it's edge back to where it started. Untouched it would have likely done a couple more.

The knife is quite long (5") which I like, because in the field a short knife can be a bugger when taking the hind legs off. Maybe 4" would suit me better. But I'm sure John could make one in what ever configuration you would like.

The only thing I could fault really was the original V edge which didn't allow the Elmax to show its full potential of getting sharp and staying sharp.

I think this is John's first trial with Elmax. He's done well. Its a bit of a specialist steel and won't suit everyone because it takes a bit to sharpen. But once it has an edge it is stunning. For those who can't be bothered, but still want good steel there is still O1 and various other high quality steels to use that sharpen easier and last the distance ok.

I will keep using this knife, and make updates here.





CriagC doing some knife work...