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Charles May Stump Knife Review - Page 2
by Keith A. "Bootlegger" Williams
Although the first model was fairly basic in appearance, this one was completely different. It would have been worthy of anyone's collection, sitting on velvet, and safely displayed behind glass. It was entirely too pretty take out and risk messing up its fragile looking appearance. With this being my mindset, it ended up spending most of its time at my bedside by my clock, so I could reach out and touch it when the urge hit me. I would wear it on special occasions, and show it off a lot, but about the hardest thing I used it for was to cut a few small pieces of rope.
Well such behavior really goes against my grain. I was not raised like that, and the more I thought about it, the more it annoyed me. On my next trip to my hometown in Florida, I took the knife with me. When I’m down there, I usually have quite an abundance of landscape maintenance to do, which threatens to impede on my "bumming around in the woods" time. With this in mind, I figured that other than my ever-present Case Trapper Pocket Knife and Ontario machete, if all I packed with me were the Stump - it would force me to use it more. Oh, how right I was. During my week down there, I used the Stump to clean fish, cut rope, skin a deer, cut cardboard, partially flesh a hide, whittle trap triggers, and just about anything else that you could imagine. Much to my continuing surprise the knife performed flawlessly, coming through with only a few light scratches to the finish. It was, however, getting a quite dull, though I think it might have been the paint scraping that did that. Don't ask!
Having not taken care of the edge, and lacking the foresight to even pack my diamond stone to do it properly, it was not as easy to sharpen as I’d hoped. Being a carbon steel lover, I was not that experienced with S30V, and had forgotten how tough it was. Since I had to make do with what I had, I ended up using a badly worn Arkansas stone to attempt sharpening this modern steel. I marred the finish up pretty good in the process.
Having a knife that was now truly broken in, after careful consideration I decided to modify it a little (as I am prone to occasionally do). What I did was bring the edge grind down to a true zero bevel, with the blade resting flat on the stone. I completely got rid of the original edge angle. Although this may not appeal to everyone, it is my preference. I feel a knife this size is a CUTTER above all, and I would depend on the steel and heat treat to provide toughness, not the edge geometry.
I have had this knife for close to two years now, and other than blending up some of the scratches on the blade, I have not changed it at all, and continue to be very pleased with it. In all this time, I have yet to encounter a reason to perform any major sharpening. My true zero-grind edge has held up fine. In fact, about all I ever do to it is the occasional light pass or two on a fine ceramic rod, and a frequent stropping on a plain leather belt.
This is truly a wonderful knife, and I would not hesitate to recommend it. I carry it with the piece of mind of knowing that at any given time, it is there ready for anything that I could ever need it for. On top of that, it is beautiful. When all is said and done, what else do you need to know about a knife?
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