It's hard to reinvent the bicycle frame and the same goes for proven knife designs

 It's hard to reinvent the bicycle frame and the same goes for proven knife designs!

The "Jessmuk knife"

The moment I laid eyes on the Jessmuk knife I thought immediately about the "Nessmuk knife" and that's saying something for an Australian, as the Nessmuk knife is NOT part of the outdoor adventures of Australia but of North America.

And one could be easily forgiven for thinking this. However, before I start to talk about the Jessmuck knife I need a quick explanation of the Nessmuk knife and it's origins.

Nessmuk is of course a person's name and that person has become a well known figure in American history regarding adventures in the out doors to say the least!

Nessmuk, whose real name was actually George Washington Sears, who lived from 1821-1890, who wrote under the pseudonym of "Nessmuck" for Field and Stream magazine during the 1880's.

Nessmuck was a keen canoeist and outdoors person and helped to popularise these activities. He took the name "Nessmuk" from the Indian name meaning "Wood Drake". The real Nessmuk was the name of an Narragansett Indian who became friends with  Sears during Sears younger years and taught him everything he knew about the outdoors. 

According to a living relative in 1942, Mazie Sear Bodine (a niece), where she wrote an article based upon quotations from Sears' book, "Forest Rune" Sears stated that anything which was his favourite thing was called a "Nessmuk".

 A picture appears in Field and Stream showing what was supposedly Sear's favourite combination of tools he would take into the wilderness.

This drawing appeared in the book titled: "Woodcraft",  in 1884 and can still be found in print today. Apparently, no one knows for sure whether Nessmuk carried such a knife and indeed whether this was his knife at all as there is no reference as to who drew this image.

Note the shape of the fixed blade and it's similarity to the knife design (by Preparedmind 101 ie Chris Tanner) and expertly manufactured by Victor Lin at Work Tuff Gear, shown below.

Now whether you see the similarity of course, is up for debate. No doubt the design, like the Nessmuk is also similar to a regular "butcher's knife", hence the title of this blog!

The design easily sliced into this dead birch wood creating "feathers" with relative ease due to the scandi edge grind and curvature of the blade affords a different section of cutting edge encountering the wood as the knife passes down through the timber. The pronounced belly is of course perfect for skinning, you have a point for piercing objects and the spine is acute for it's useful edge, so a fire steel can be struck against this  surface.

The textured "gator skin" G10 3D milled scaled handle is longer than the blade for maximum control and provides excellent grip in bare hands.

The full tang/spine is 5mm in thickness for a heft feel to this knife.

The full production is about to come out soon this year so if you are interested, I'd keep an eye on the Work Tuff Gear site if i was you.

 The steel is Böhler's K329 stainless alloy, a modification of AISI A8 stainless steel.

 Ok field testing to follow so stay tuned!