Woodsax Hand Forged High Carbon Steel Tanto Knife with Solid Wooden Handle & Leather Sheath | Bushcraft and Collector Gift | RK-662

Nine and a half inches overall, a four and a half inch blade and a five inch wooden handle make the Woodsax a handy all round tanto. It is hand forged in high carbon steel with a broad single edged blade, an angled tanto point and a solid wooden grip, and it is equally at home on a kitchen board, at a camp fire and on a shelf. Two big single edged knives, two different jobs, compared in seax against bowie.

The tanto shape is simple to read. The spine runs straight to the point, and the edge turns up at a sharp angle to meet it, so the tip is backed by a lot of steel. That makes it a hard point to snap when you push it into wood, hide or packed cardboard, while the long straight edge behind it does the everyday cutting.

Every Woodsax is forged from bar, heat treated, ground, handled and finished in the Czech Republic. Shipping inside the United States is free, processing takes one to two weeks, and returns are accepted within seven days.

Specifications

The tanto point and the etched flat

The front of the blade is ground as a separate flat, and the line where it meets the main bevel runs across the blade near the tip. That second bevel is what gives a tanto its strong point. Along the flat of the blade runs an etched wave band, and the steel carries a satin polish rather than a mirror finish.

The grind, and why it suits both a board and a fire

A tanto profile gives you a long, almost straight cutting edge that turns up at an angle to meet the spine at the point. On a kitchen board that straight run is what lets the whole edge contact the surface at once for push cutting, which is exactly why chef knives and cleavers are shaped the way they are. A curved belly, the thing hunting knives are ground for, is worse at this.

For bushcraft the important part is the spine. Four and a half inches of blade with a thick square unsharpened back gives you a batoning surface, a thumb platform for controlled carving cuts and a striker for a ferro rod. You cannot do any of that on a double edged blade or on a knife with a rounded spine.

The last piece is the height of the blade. A broad blade means the bevel can run further up the flat, which produces a thinner, more acute cutting geometry for a given spine thickness. Thin behind the edge is what makes a knife feel sharp. Blade width is how you get there without a fragile edge.

Why high carbon steel and not stainless

The blade is 1095, a simple carbon steel run to 54 to 58 HRC. On a knife you intend to use in a kitchen and outdoors, this is a better choice than mid grade stainless for two reasons that are easy to test yourself. It gets sharper, because a fine grained carbon steel takes a cleaner apex than a chromium carbide heavy stainless does. And it comes back faster, so the knife spends more of its life actually sharp rather than waiting for you to find the time.

The cost is honest and it is real. Carbon steel reacts. Cut a lemon, an onion or a tomato and leave the blade unwashed and you will see grey and blue marks within the hour. Wash and dry it and that will not happen. Over months of use it develops an even grey patina, and that layer is a stable oxide that protects the steel underneath. Cooks who use carbon steel deliberately build one. Stainless never rusts and never sharpens quite as well, and the trade off is laid out in full in Damascus versus stainless.

The wooden handle

Five inches of wooden grip is generous for a four and a half inch blade, and it is deliberate. A longer handle lets you shift your hand position, which is what makes this knife work for a pinch grip on a chopping board and a full fist grip when you are batoning a stick. It also puts a little weight behind the blade to keep the balance near the front of the handle.

The wood is shaped and sanded by hand and finished with oil rather than lacquer. That is the right finish for a working knife. Oil can be topped up at home in five minutes with a rag whenever the wood looks dry, while a lacquered handle chips and then has to be stripped before it can be repaired. Give it a light coat of food safe mineral oil once or twice a year, more often if it is used in a kitchen and washed frequently. Never soak the handle, never leave the knife standing in a sink and never put it in a dishwasher, which will destroy a wooden handle faster than years of ordinary use. The method is in wooden handle care.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel or the handle. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us whether it goes on the blade or the handle. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. This blade has a generous flat above the edge, so a longer rune line fits here than on the smaller knives in the range. See the engraving page.

Care and sharpening

Hand wash only, in warm water, and dry the blade immediately including where the steel meets the wood. Wipe a thin film of oil on the steel before it goes in a drawer or a block. Do not leave it wet, do not leave it in a sink and do not put it through a dishwasher. Rust spots lift easily with fine abrasive and oil. The routine is in steel care.

Sharpening is the easy part with 1095. Find the existing bevel, keep the angle, work a medium stone then a fine one, then strop. A few minutes every month or two will keep this blade permanently sharp rather than letting it get dull enough to need real work. Full walkthrough in sharpening with a whetstone. Do not use a pull through sharpener, which tears a hand ground bevel apart.

Made in the Czech Republic

This piece is made by hand in the Czech Republic, in a workshop that still works the old way. The steel is forged, ground, heat treated and finished by smiths who learned the trade from the people before them, and the wood, horn and leather are cut and fitted by hand rather than pressed out on a line. That is also why no two pieces come out exactly the same.

Ransack Viking is a United States company. We import these pieces ourselves, check every one when it lands and ship from our warehouse in Chicago, Illinois. Engraving is done here in the United States after the piece arrives, so your runes or your own design go on before it leaves for you.

A note on handmade variation

This knife is hand forged. It is not machine made and it is not bulk produced, so what arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph. The grain, colour and figure of the wooden handle, the finish on the blade and the exact line of the spine and the grind vary from one knife to the next, because each is worked by hand from natural materials. The dimensions, the steel, the hardness and the build are the same every time. The character is not.

Frequently asked questions

Can I really use this in the kitchen?

Yes. The long straight edge suits push cutting on a board, and four and a half inches is a handy size for smaller kitchen jobs. Wash and dry it by hand every time and it will be fine.

Will it discolour food or taste of metal?

A clean, properly patinated carbon blade does not taint food. Freshly ground bare steel can leave a faint metallic note on very acidic ingredients until the patina establishes, which happens within the first few weeks of use.

Can I baton with it?

The thick unsharpened spine is designed to be struck, and a four and a half inch blade will split small kindling. Strike the spine over the wood being split, not over the empty air past the end.

Does it come with a sheath?

Yes. It ships with a black leather sheath that closes with snap fasteners.

How is this different from the bowie knives in your range?

A bowie has a clip point with a sharpened or false edge cut into the spine and usually a guard. This has a plain thick spine you can put your hand on and no guard in the way, which is what makes it better for carving and board work and worse for thrusting.

What is the delivery time?

Processing is one to two weeks because each knife is forged to order, then shipping inside the United States is free.

What is in the box

• One Woodsax hand forged high carbon tanto knife
• Black leather sheath
• Protective packaging
• Forged and finished in the Czech Republic

Explore the range

Related collections: Tanto Knives, Chef Knives, Bowie Knives and Hunting Knives. Steel, grinds and sharpening are covered in the guides.

Other pieces in this group

For a straight comparison, see the Blockbreaker chef knife, pattern welded Damascus. Worth putting side by side with this is the Kitchenskald chef knife, pattern welded Damascus. In the same category sits the Bluecleaver chef knife, pattern welded Damascus.

From the same corner of the shop, there is the Mosaicsax Viking seax. Nothing here exactly right, build one to your own spec on the custom hunting knife page.

Buying for groomsmen? This piece also comes as a matched set of 6, 15% less than buying six singly, and each one can carry its own engraved name.