Wilderness Model 1 "Leuku Bushcrafter"
My wilderness knife Model 1, more commonly known as the leuku bushcrafter - has been my most commonly ordered blade to date. It is a well balanced and mature design for general outdoor use, survival, woodslore, and hunting.
Most commonly I make this blade from .095 15N20, though I have occasionally done other steels. With the spine thickness set thin, I do a flat profile blade to a convex scandi style grind. A scandi grind is a flat bevel at about 9 to 11 degrees all the way to a zero edge. The convex scandi is a similar type of grind but done in a convex bevel, like an apple seed shape. This provides an easily maintained and very durable cutting edge. Blade length generally varies from 4.5 to 6 inches. Handle lengths generally range from 4 to 5 inches. I tend to stay close to 4 3/8 inches.
The knife has a full tang with a variety of pin and lanyard tube setups. Handle scales are most often ipe or osage orange, varying to canvas micarta, ironwood, even lignum vitae - anything I have or can order is fine, but I prefer to stick to durable natural materials.
The standard sheath provided is the Expedition Model
Design Considerations:
Ergonomics as it is commonly used in modern industry seems to be a way to take a perfectly good tool and make it necessary to have 4 tools to do the same job with less dexterity. I don't subscribe to this. When I talk about ergonomics on a knife I mean being able to move around the handle, use different parts of the blade, and generally EXTEND the usefulness of the knife.
This all starts with the handle. I make this knife with a nice thick handle, fully rounded, without sharp corners of any kind. The goal is for a hand filling grip that doesn't require contortions or over tight fists to grab onto. The thick and rounded handle also improves handling with gloves. The handle length sometimes seems short to some people, but the design consideration here is primarily in the ability to get the palm heel behind the knife, so the butt can press into the hand. This is great when drilling, push cutting, or "poking". The handles are long enough, without being so long as to reduce the utility of the butt as part of the handle. There's a gentle downward curve through most of the handle with a drop off at the rear end. This helps keep the knife in your hands, gives you a bit of hanging space for doing extended grip chopping, and it provides a tactile reference for where your hand is on the knife.
The blade has had a lot of thought go into it, for all the simple look. That straight spine? It makes draw cutting and scraping easier, whether you poke the point into a block of wood or not. I've had drop points and clip point slide out of wood blocks when I was draw cutting, but not one of these, since the spine is a 90 degree angle to the direction of force. The straight spine also extends the belly. The belly is generally very full, extending in a smoothly flattening curve almost all the way back to the ricasso. (or in some cases, all the way back). You've got a lot of belly cutting ability with this design, and with the change in the curve, chopping ability is maintained. The blade has a flat profile, and tends towards a fairly large amount of breadth (depth)- this improves tracking in deep slices and baton work. The flat profile also makes slicing more efficient. And without an edge, it's just not a knife! The convex edge on these is done in the style of a scandi edge, with the whole convex grind forming the edge bevel. Cutting performance is quite good this way, and dulling seems to take a lot longer than most other geometries. The convex edge also gets more obtuse as you get closer to the choil. A more obtuse angle right by your index finger makes for a stronger edge for power cutting with the leverage you get near the handle. This is traditional in leukus, and I've kept it as it works well. The blade is often longer than is traditional for a "bushcraft" knife, and works very well for a lot of tasks. With the lightness of the overall knife, the longer blade doesn't add a weight penalty, and it's very handy for chopping. Given the geometry of the blade, it is very easy to choke up and grip the sides of the blade itself for some work, including small game cleaning.
