Richard Bucker

Review Schrade SCHF37

Posted at — Jun 4, 2016

Most reviews I have watched lately compare one thing to another thing, however, I believe that bushcraft or camping knives can be a very personal thing. They say that in the worst of times it’s the knife that can get you out. (or something like that).I’m going through my knife collection one at a time… and in no particular order:The SCHF37 was supposed to be my workhorse. When I made the purchase I was going to use my ax and saw to bulk cut my wood. Later I though the ax was over rated. Then the time came to prepare some wood and light a fire and I noticed a few things:feathersticks are requiredax is still requiredbatoning is not for all blades and is hard workgassification stoves need 2 - 4 inch sticks. Processing will take a while because you have to get the wood to a sufficient length and widthand so about the SCHF37it’s heavy which makes the last stage of processing easyif it’s not sharp the hacking requires a lot of energythe coating severs to increase friction and seems to cause the blade to jump when making find feather sticksbecause the blade is so heavy fine feathersticks are hard to makethe spine is 90 degrees but does not shred wood very well unless it’s an edgethe diamond sharpener is okthe fire steel is ok but using the spine of the knife took some time and the sparks were not as big as I’m used tooGiven the length, weight and balance of the blade I found myself using the knuckle position on the blade itself and the section of the blade closest to the hilt.  The few times I was hacking I used the back hand position and the middle of the blade. Given my use case a point was not necessary (YET).The sheath is made out of nylon strap with a plastic insert for the blade. I could not remove the insert to inspect it but there are some structural issues like getting sand or other junk in it; it simply does not clean well. The belt loop means not having to take your belt off and some cordage will prevent it from flapping. The snap used to keep the blade in the sheath is cheap and is already loose.If I had to do all over again I would not make this purchase.