CUCHILLO AITOR 14" SURVIVAL Olivo A classic collector's knife!

 CUCHILLO AITOR 14" SURVIVAL Olivo. 

A classic "survival knife"  and collector's item!

Aitor 14" Survival Knife circa well before 2010!

A classic survival knife design dating back many years. Plus it looks COOL! Like a real knife.

Today I purchased a knife which I have been looking at for the last three years. The same knife has been sitting behind a window in a favourite shop of mine for probably many years, possibly at least 9/10! It is an Aitor knife made after Pielcu took over Aitor, as it sports the serial number beginning with B, this particular one: B025863.

Yes, it is not from the original Aitor series (they made them with stag, micarta, phenolic and Olive wood handles over the years)  whereby the serial number would begin with "A", none the less, it has become a collector's item as evidenced by its rarity and crazy prices on the internet. To my knowledge, neither the "A" nor the "B" models are in production any more,

so if you want one you have to find one that's been sitting on a physical shelf in some physical store or Ebay etc.

One of my Spanish viewers on BushCampingTools just told me he was issued with this model back in 1980 when he was in the Spanish Special Forces!

The Specifications:

6mm 1/4" spine and tang

The handle is thick enough to actually custom grind it to fit your hand perfectly!

Solid Olive wood scales

Brass lanyard rivet 

Brass and Aluminium riveted scales

140mm blade, partially serrated (like the early PUMA knives), useful for starting cuts, then to be followed by the regular blade.

There is a more than generous lower finger guard.

Deep belly, perfect for skinning (not too long either), weight forward for chopping if necessary 

Spine serrations

Blade serrations 

HRC 55-58

HRC diamond imprint on blade.

There are some interesting deadly sharp serrations of a non-standard design upon the spine edge (this design dates way back to their early designs from Aitor before being taken over several times. They would be very good at fish scaling and cutting cords. The tip of the Aitor 14" Survival has a swedge portion which has been sharpened (this was indeed very sharp out of the box). Having such a design will aid penetration for a thick 1/4" blade such as this. There is also a flat portion for striking a baton against.

Weight (it's not light!) 338grams! or 12Oz.!

Full leather scabbard, stitched and riveted construction, press stud retention strap.

Construction

The overall build construction I could not fault. It has been made very well however, like many Aitor knives today, they come sharp but far from deadly sharp out of the box. Some  minutes on 600, 800 and then 1500 paper (~ 40 minutes or so in total) I had it very sharp. Clearly it had never been in it's scabbard since leaving the factory in Spain as evidenced by the somewhat rigid nature of the leather (just dried out over such a long time under shop air con/low RH). This latter thing is sort of a good thing as no mould has grown upon it either over such a long time in the box.

The scabbard looks "wet" because I just applied some leather treatment to it and now the hair dryer to warm it up a bit.

I  had to treat the leather scabbard with some quality leather waterproof wax, softener, to "stretch" it a bit to be able to fit the knife, as the leather had shrunk slightly over all those years unused.

Can it cut? of course it can, shown here some wild mushrooms, onions (later garlic, not shown here etc.)

Field test coming soon!

BCT