Blades are essential for Bushcraft and wilderness survival, here is my collection of knives, hatchets, saws and axes along with thoughts on how these blades should be best used. Enjoy!

Let's start with the saw. I bought this Bahco Laplander folding saw on Amazon 5 years ago for 20 dollars. The Laplander is compact, light weight, and very efficient at sawing wood that is under 4 inches in diameter. The diamond carbide teeth on this saw is very durable, after 5 years of regular use, I have not noticed any major declines in sawing efficiency.

Next we'll move on to the knives.

9 years ago, I bought this Bahco Stainless knife in a Bait & Tackle shop in Pennsylvannia for 7 dollars. I put a 90 degree edge on the spine of this blade to make it throw sparks with a fire steel. The blade is shaving sharp and pretty agile. The knife's handle is easy to grip and has no hotspots. The rubberized grip is a great safety device when the handle is wet. I use this knife for fine carving tasks, cleaning fish and for general food processing tasks. Now, this knife's tang only goes about a quarter of the way into the handle, so battoning with it is risky. With that said, I have done straight grain battoning with this knife several times with no issues. The main advantage of this knife is that it's stainless steel blade is highly resistant to rusting. My only gripe with this knife is that the edge dulls faster and tends to roll when it hits a hard knot in wood. So I need to sharpen this knife more often than my high carbon steel blades.

NOW 4 years ago, I got the Mora classic #1 from Amazon for $10 dollars. This knife has a high carbon steel blade and a thin rat tail tang. The Mora Classic really excels at fine carving tasks. The knife is very agile knive and capable of making acute, high precision, cuts. It is also scary sharp. Now I haven't used this blade very much at all. So just a few months after buying this knife, I had an accident. It was a rainy day and the rain drops made the Mora Classic's handle slippery. So when making a cut, my fingers accidentally slid off the handle and onto the blade, and was badly cut. So now I'm leery of using this tool, in fact I have not taken this knife with me on a trip in 3 years.

5 years ago, I got the Mora Companion Heavy Duty for 14 dollars on Amazon. This knife is by FAR the most heavily used knife in my arsenal. It has been my faithful companion on the vast majority of outdoor adventures. The handle is super ergonomic and high traction with no hot spots. The blade strikes a good balance between being thick enough to split wood while still being nimble enough to make acute, high precision cuts. I use this blade for pretty much all cutting tasks from carving, to making feather sticks, to food processing, and to battoning. Speaking of battoning, I have battoned with this knife literally hundreds of times with both straight and cross grain batooning. This is a crazy level of durability for a three quarter tang knife. This knife's high carbon steel edge is scary sharp and extremely durable. To maintain this razor edge, I would strop this knife regularly and sharpen on the stone about twice a year. My only small gripe with this knife is that the high carbon steel blade rusts too easily when I'm out and about in coastal and riverine environments.

So after using my first hatchet for awhile, I became somewhat obsessed with the concept of the hatchet as a survival cutting tool. And I really wanted one of those fancy old world Swedish hatchets. So 3 years ago, I coughed up 83 dollars and bought myself a Hults Bruks hatchet. And so far, this hatchet is worth every dollar. The handle is thin and well balanced. The hafting job is rock solid, the sheath is high quality and durable. But the best part of this tool is the steel quality. The edge must be made of some kind of miracle steel. The edge is hair popping sharp. This hatchet can make extremely high precision cuts, as fine as that from a Mora knife, but then it can also be used to do heavy chopping and splitting tasks. And this edge can do all of these things and still hold it's razor sharpness. I've been using this hatchet regularly for 3 years and only had to sharpen it on a stone once. I even contacted Hults bruks to ask about how they made this steel, but their response was that it's a proprietary secret. So without belaboring the point, there is something a little bit magical about this hatchet.