Design Theory and Specifications:

I was lucky to be a participant in the Pass-around for the JK Handmade Knives / Cooper Woods Crooked Creek fixed blade knife, and as such, following is my review of the knife and pictures I have taken of the knife in my two weeks with this very nice companion knife.

I believe Cooper's idea for this knife was to have made a slightly larger knife; one that had a larger handle and could be used with greater leverage force on the blade for cutting frozen meats etc. This knife is 11 inches overall with a 6 inch blade length.

The Blade is 1.25" tall at the choil and tapers to a graceful, sharp point.

11" overall length
6" blade length
1.25" tall at choil
3/32" thick at spine, with full flat grind and subtle distal taper.
Knife can be made in either 3/32" or 1/8" thickness in your choice of John's rugged
K-Treet 01 tool steel or either of two stainless steels (154CM or CPMS30V)
Scale treatment - Black canvas micarta with large solid stainless steel pins.

The blade has the thinnest grind I have seen John craft to date, and it has a very nice subtle distal taper which adds to the cutting abilities. The stock started out at 3/32" and John did a beautiful job on the grind. The spine is also beautifully rounded, reminiscent of Chris Reeve knives, and adding to the quality look and feel of the knife.

The handle is thick enough to get a good grip for even larger hands, but is also rounded to be comfortable even for smaller hands.

The knife has a gentle arc from the tip of the blade upward to the choil area and then back down to the butt end. This gentle arc gives the knife excellent ergonomics as the blade and tip are positioned to attack the work when the handle is held in a hammer/handshake grip. You don't have to strain your wrist as awkwardly as you would with a straight handle. This feature is something that you don't know you need until you handle a knife with the better ergonomics, such as this knife.

Think the Busse Ergo knives that Jerry Busse designed after he suffered an injury to his wrist and hand. Other knives that benefit from this arcing design are the ESEE Izula and the Spyderco Massad Ayoob folding knife. All, in my experience, are excellent cutters and the ergonomics of the arcing design loom large in making these knives comfortable to use. Such as it is with the Crooked Creek.

So How Does It Cut?

At the mqqn house, one very common task is cutting steaks from a beef tenderloin roll, so the CC was pressed into service in kind.

MY photographer had a little trouble with the camera, maybe because the Crooked Creek was so versatile and intuitive in hand I was able to move very quickly. ;^)

For a larger knife, the Crooked Creek is surprisingly nimble at the tip, and I attribute this to the fine grind and the wonderful ergonomics mentioned previously.

Of course slicing is just what the Crooked Creek loves to do....

No problem. I like this task as it allows me to compare a knife to all the other knives I have used for this task. The Crooked Creek is the best I have used so far. I was able to remove the silver skin as if I was using a smaller knife, and yet I could slice through the thick roll with the knife because after all, it is a large knife at 11 inches!

Next up, a knife that is used for food preparation has to be able to chop and dice crisp vegetables. In the name of science, my wife and I made home made pizza so that we could test out the chopping and dicing capabilities of the Crooked Creek. I also had opportunity to slice up fresh mushrooms, which will show off the slicing abilities nicely, as a thicker knife or one that has too blunt an edge will have a hard time with soft mushrooms in my experience.

Mushrooms? No problem!

Neither onion nor green pepper posed any challenge. The knife just works well!

By this time the knife is starting to take on a little patina, as 01 Tool Steel will do. I like the iridescent patina that a well used JK in 01 takes on, but if that is not your thing, you can get the knife in John's two other steel choices, both stainless as mentioned above.

The knife still makes curlies, I had not sharpened the knife since I received it from Sean.

May as well show a picture of the pizza we made! It was delicious .

Next up, we were making tacos, so I had a couple of nice tomatoes lined up for the festivities.

But, before I do that, let's go outside and do some chopping of LIMBS!!! :eek: :foot:

WHAT??? LIMBS??? With a thinly ground knife like the Crooked Creek!!!! YES!

I know what John's 01 can do, and I was very confident in the abilities, even though this is the thinnest grind I have seen come from Mokena.

I had my christmas tree waiting in the back yard and so I used the Crooked Creek to chop some of the lower limbs from the trunk. The limbs were about 3/4" diameter for the largest, and a little smaller for the others. The knife is not designed to be a chopper at all, but since it has a nice 6" blade and good sized handle, you can get away with the task if necessary.

After chopping 6 limbs from the tree, I checked the edge. Not a chip, roll or even any noticeable marks at all, just a little pine tar and some wood residue were the only indicators that some monkey had used the knife to chop limbs. I knew it, even though this is a thin knife, you can use it with complete confidence.

Ok - so it chops, did it hold it's edge?

Yes, yes it did! It would still shave hair from my forearm, and of course it did well at onions and tomato for our tacos.

Wrap Up:

In closing, the Crooked Creek is perfect for kitchen duty and even heavier camp and food preparation in the bush. The knife strikes a beautiful balance between a nimble, thin slicer that still has the brawn to take on larger tasks, and even will take abuse if you find yourself needing to do so.

This example came with one of John's brother Bob's very nice leather sheaths, which would function well to keep the knife on your hip for hikes and camping.

For the money, it would be hard to beat an 11" handmade custom fixed blade with a sheath, full flat grind with distal taper and hand formed canvas micarta handle treatment.

Finally, if you are interested, you can email John Kiedaisch ("Kay-dish") via the following address - jkiedaisch@sbcglobal.net

John's web site is found at the following link -

http://www.jkhandmadeknives.com/

best regards

mqqn