What really makes the Horace Kephart knife the Excalibur of campcraft knives? 

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We tend to over complicate the way that late 19th and earth 20th Century men processed tool selection. The classic Kephart knife is essentially a butchers knife that’s full tang, thick spined and able to cross-perform from hunting/butchery to the camp kitchen & processing kindling. In an era when people didn’t own hundreds or even thousands of possessions men like Nessmuk & Horace probably went with what was ubiquitous, inexpensive and most of all, robust

The cover of this video captures it so well!! I ve been a knife nut goin on 40 years. To have an excellent knife at any one task, gonna have to male a sacrifice some where else. The kephart, i wouldn't think make a great stabby knife lol but other than that, very versatile. That scandi looking area by the handle conxed does great on wood right where we normally notch at. The tip is thinner more sliceee... Just rambling. But I think this simple design is genius

Mr. Kephart wrote about my GGGrandpa in his book "Our Southern Highlanders". His name was Babe Burnette, he killed a revenuerHal Rose in the 30's.A lot of these knives were basically butcher knives and cut down corn knives ,the mountain machete. I am 63 now and still have an old one. My grandpa was a blacksmith/Preacher Grade W. Burnette, he made a lot of tools and tack . Swain Co. Bryson City NC. Great Smokies PS my peeps say ol Horace would drink some shine and he liked the mountain folk.

Thank you for the video. And thank you for being as Into this subject as myself. ..nerd

I got the Becker one and I love it, that knife goes with me on every camping trip. I think the design is great.

This man is a incredibly smart. He knows you focus on the tip.

Another excellent video that helps me understand why I like my Kephart so much. Its one of those made from an Old Hickory butcher knife, and its the only camping knife I've ever owned that stays out on the desk so that it is at hand when I need a knife. All the others would be packed away with the camping gear. I guess you could say its a day to day user.

I found your channel while researching the BK62. I learned more about camp knives in 25 minutes than my last 50 years!! I like how you explained the mechanics behind the design and why they apply to the knife's intended use. New subscriber, looking forward to enjoying your other videos.

I had two Kephart style knives made here in the Philippines by a local blacksmith, I give him the specs and he makes it, they are both pretty close to the original Kephart knife and I payed under 20 dollars a piece.👍😁🇺🇸

Very interesting , informative historical , and usefull facts with regard to blade shapes and knife uses . Thank you . Cheers

I fashioned my own Kephart rendition from an old Utica Forge Hammered butcher knife. The finished product weighed in at 3.8oz. even with the red oak scales. I tried to follow the Kephart specs as he described them the best I could. I absolutely love carrying and using it!

This is a fine tutorial on using various blade shapes to their best advantage. At the very least, I learned a good bit about using the tip, belly, and whole edge of a blade for tasks.

That was quite a bit of interesting history. I ordered the Becker version which could arrive tomorrow. Here in Canada we have an oddly shaped knife that got a design award in the Smithsonian Institute called a Canadian belt knife.

Very good video. Loved your explanation of the various blade shapes. Thank you

Best description of the Kephart knife I seen yet. Thank you

Well done thank you for all your work and preparation on giving the information without any bias. I really enjoy your videos they are rich on information and you share your thoughts and opinions in a honest way

Very nice explanation, very insightful, thank you sharing.

Ethan Becker of Becker Knife fame, Kbar carries his line, owns an original Kephart, possibly tbe only one known in existence. He manufactures Kephart knives very closely to the original he has in his posession. I own one, as I collect Mr.Beckers knives, thus earning me rights to be called a Beckerhead. I have one of the earliest models Mr. Becker manufactured. The knife you show as a Kephart is exceptionally close to the original and likely made to appear to be a used original. I applaud the maker. Becker had to make very slight improvements in the design, knowing that it would actually go into use by his customers and followers. He uses reliable and respected 1095 cro-van steel in all of his knives. Thank you so much for your discussion of this style knife, not much is said about it on youtube. I appreciate you sharing what you know about Nessmuk, Bowie and other old reliable knives. I just subscribed and look forward to more of what you have to offer. Thumbs up ! Oh, by the way, Kephart knives were still manufactured by an old knifemaker in North Carolina. It is said that he has a long waiting list but that he either has the original specs or has completely memorized them. Apparently, he was connected to the original manufacturer of Kephart's style of knife. I do not know if he is still alive or if he had an apprentice or students. His facility was in the mountains of North Carolina and open for tours as an attraction. I know little about him and he never gets mentioned by anyone that I know. An investigative reporter did an interest piece on him and his shop on television and was the only way I knew anything about him. He was still using the old knife making equipment of the period. I am from the mid section (Piedmont) region of NC. Well, good luck to you ! A friend always !

Excellent job of transferring Knowledge, well done!

Very interesting breakdown! 🙌🏻

Great information. Thank you!

Enjoyed you video a lot. Good explanation.

Well done brother! Loved the opening, it has been awesome to watch your progression as you have progressed in the channel.

Very interesting vid. Thanks for sharing

It is a knife. Just a knife. It has an edge; it has a point.

this is my favorite type of blade. from very young age, I'm a fan of this blade design. after growing up, I have been looking for this blade- it's name, etc. first impressions were made from different movies, later the swiss knife. since now I've tried (searching for on internet) massai knives, machete, drop point, spear point, and most recently found this kephart !!

I carry a Tops D Fly 4.5 that is very Kephart like in its design, which is why I love it and carry it every day.

The knife looks amazing and you presented it wonderfully! The only thing that’s slightly wrong is where you mentioned that this double convex was meant for splitting. Splitting wood with a knife is a modern concept and would never have been risked in those days. You don’t really see this concept coming about until well into the 20th century. What it WAS used for is separating meat during butchering. The double convex helps the blade not get stuck since it has a bit of relief near the spine. This was somewhat common on high end butcher knives of the day. Thanks for sharing the knife with us!

very informative

Great video. Great information and I just love the beginning of this video. You should start all your videos like that well. God bless. From Glenn CATT in Massachusetts.

Great video.

THANK YOU

Well done, Mr. D! I love your archeological explanation of a (if not the) classic outdoor knife. Especially the comparison of the other common outdoors knives and their abilities of cutting. You gave a brilliant description of the difference between the kephart and nessmuk , and the more hunting/bushcraft styled knives. Most of which are more designed to appeal to another audience. Since I've run into the kephart and his writings, I've wondered why BSA chose the western, short of cost. The kephart style offers a handier example of a Scout knife, folders are designed to be more of an experts hand. The western is more of a compromise between a slicing and caping knife , more hunter/trapper use. I know my wife enjoys her kephart. It's always on her hip when we step into the woods. As usual an excellent video! Keep them coming, Brother!

With the double belly design of the Kephart it makes it really easy to gut animals. The tip being spearpoint it's far enough away from the spine to keep you from nicking a gut. And allows you to push through the skin on the belly of the knife-edge which acts just like a zipper. While never owning a true Kephart I have modified Old Hickory butcher knives into Kephart style blades. Between those and a Old Hickory boning knife with a Green River camp knife I found at a flea market for $5 these are my go-to knives.

When feathersticking, I think most people start with the part of the blade close to the handle against the wood.

I just found your channel a couple of days ago. I'm a new subscriber because you have excellent content. I've got a couple Kephart style knives, along with a couple Nessmuck style knives in my collection of tools. Your thoughts are right on target in the videos and hence why both outdoorsmen used multiple tool/knives in their outdoor activities.

Little late to the party on this one, mostly because I don't make a lot of 'outdoor' knives, primarily I do kitchen cutlery and some butchering knives. But a customer was wanting a 'Bushcraft' knife and that's led me down to a bit of a rabbit hole of all manner of madness going on in the modern camping and hiking scene and I really stopped doing that about 30 odd years ago for various reasons. Back then I would go out with a small puuko and sometimes a bowie if I needed to kill larger animals with it up close, but being in Australia we didn't do a lot of woodworking. Reason being most of our timbers are hard and dry like bone so if you're having anything to do with them, you start with an axe and after 5minutes you'll also wish you'd brought a chainsaw. But because the customer is in the northern hemisphere and they do tend to use them for woodworking a lot it seems, I'd ended up in a mix between the more contemporary 'Bushlore' style spear point with a scandi grind and the Kephart style, my inclination was not to make a Bushlore as there's a number of problems with a scandi grind for processing 'everything else' around a camp site and at the same time there's probably a bit too much information out there by a lot of people saying that a high flat grind + bevel or a convex + bevel is no good for woodworking. They don't like it, but as a professional knife maker- its kind of madness! I'm going off what I know about geometries and how having enough metal behind the edge or too little can affect some things, so when I saw you working away with the convex edge and not having any difficulty it was actually really good to see. I know there's a little bit of my own confirmation bias there, but I've also seen dozens of other videos which went against what I thought would be the best edge geometry solution for these types of tasks, having enough practical use that its not just a chisel people have that's vaguely knife shaped. Interestingly, the Convex knife shape around this period was quite common on a lot of knives because they were still being handmade, I've got an heirloom Scottish horsemans knife from the 2nd Boer war era which has convex-spear pointed blade on it which are very similar to the Kephart knife and it is quite a large knife with a 4" locking blade on it along with all the other cavalry tools. The other interesting things I was also noticing about contemporary styles and practice of bushcraft knives is that in some ways they're either wildly divergent profiles that in some ways seem impractical, like fishing lures designed to catch fisherman, or they're kind of trying to hit the old guard side of things with tradition. Then there's a secondary layer which is aimed at being 'easy to sharpen' because apparently sharpening a convex profile is too complicated for modern mankind to deal with, so they need a scandi grind- but having sharpened way too many knives over the years to the point it makes me sick: sharpening a convex grind with a little bevel on the final edge really isn't hard compared to a scandi grind which is actually quite hard to do well. Anyone can do it badly but you might end up with no knife left after long enough. The real kicker though on basically nearly every video I've watched is that at some point, someone will stick the knife on some gnarly bit of wood and start whacking the crap out of it with a log or a hammer and fair enough, sometimes people do that to their own tools. But the knife maker in me is going 'why are you not embracing the convex geometry?' as its literally, if done right. One of the strongest blade edge geometries out there. Lastly on the layer of production knives being tested, abused and beaten up is that while they might be adopting modern and conventional designs of knives, they'll have a kydex sheath (which is a great material) and a composite or synthetic material hand (which are also great material), then at some point you notice that its some crappy steel. Now to some extent there is a tip-in for price point and processing costs going onto the customer and final sale price of the item at the end of the day, but when a production manufacturer is buying steel by the tonnes in cold rolled plate- they're skimping out and buying really cheap steel. Like I'm definitely a fan of carbon steels and I reckon a good 80% of what I make is with them. However, I spend the little bit more to get a good carbon steel with some heritage and documentation, there is a limit to what you can expect out of them in terms of hardness, edge retention and stability. There are alternatives in the modern high alloy tool steels that do mean you sharpen it, come back after a week of hard use and it'll still be shaving sharp or at least functionally sharp-enough and I think people are getting kind of robbed a little in the production knife sales. Anyway, thanks for the video I did find it useful. Its also probably of some use to go back in and look at the handle on the Kephart knife because its actually worth some attention, it has an interesting swell and then concave up to the end of it which can make for a much more comfortable knife to hold than some designs. It's also a design typical of the era as well you can also find on old butchers knives.

We just peel a strip of bark off of a green branch, double it in half and wrap it around the nut so you don't hit your fingers with the mallet. You could also make a permanent one with a strip of innertube.

Well explained. I never knew the exact purposes of all the different blade shapes and designs. I just always used what seemed to work best at the time. I have always tried to use some of the bushcraft knives I own to process camp veggies and stuff. Some worked better than others. The only knife I found really useful as a bushcraft knife and food processor was the Mora Kansbol. I will start following your channel now. I just ordered the ESEE PR4 and was looking for reviews on it when I came across your channel. I am glad I found it. Thanks!

Ive never made feather sticks like that. I normally use the edge closest to my hand. I fund i have better control this way, closer to my fulcrum.

I have a knife that looks exactly like the one you had made same size, but it’s got John Wigfall hand forged Sheffield 1843 stamped on it. Any ideas or advice? I got it from my late mother and it was her mothers. I’m from the UK.

Interesting theory, I have a Kephart knife and like it. Spearpoint has always been a good design.

Inexpensive knives that are of the era are the Russel Green River knives. Green River were used by buffalo hunters and their skinners. A close design to Kepharts blade is the Dadley now just called the classic drop point. I have a Kephart style that is excellent but the Green River clip point is as good. That is if you don't use the point as a pry bar. They are also sold in kit form so you can put the scales on and shape them yourself. They are from $19-$22.

In Wayne Godards writing, he explained a very similar geometry being the strongest way to forge a knife. A distil taper in the tang. Then progressively thinner again out towards the tip Flexible overall when finished due to partly to heat treat/tempering. Thickest part of the knife being the middle of the knife. .. bothe ends tapered. Profiled in a way that allowed parts of the blade to be straight parts to have curve.. but jn reference to the handle, a continuous angle. I dont explain it well I m sure. But it possibly genius. Possible just well thought out by men tha spent a lot of time and love on the situation. Rock star guitar players will all tell you they were Obssesed With playing, years before making good money doing it. Men and women that leave legacy are gonna do their thing regardless what anyone says or does. Be authentic. And follow your heart Librarian to writer to bushcraft legend with a museum display... says a lot.

Recently found a very old knife that resembles that one

I believer the Kephart knife, is a modified version of the old Green River Dadley knife, that was popular back in the early to mid 1800's, during the Mountain Man era. Put them side by side, and the only real difference is that little "Stop" on the Kephart knife. And the Dadley knife is still being made in the USA by Russell Green River, out of 1095 steel, and it will run about 22ish dollars. No sheath, but I make leather sheaths.

Nicely done demonstration and description. I describe my Kephart as "A jack of all trades, master of none." Hope you don't mind, I'm going to email you a picture of mine.

Ya I just had to watch the beginning of this video again. It's great. You should do all the beginning of your videos like this one. Then we can see what was in the box. I don't know. It just fits you to do it. And no one else is doing it.

The Kephart is a variation on the 1800 "Dadley" design... like the Price SanFrancisco Bowies..

ok, so the kind of grind is rombus style like some of the northern european knives,right? very nice informations, top notch

I remember several years ago there was a knife maker, I believe it was MP Knives out of NewYork, made a statement that Kephart's knife could have originally been a drop point but years of sharpening changed the the profile to spear point.

The Kephart also very much resembles a german sailor and boat knife, which is still in use with the german navy to my knowledge. The sailor and boat knife is a bit bigger but the blade shape and overall design looks very similar.

The best explanation and demonstration of a Kephart style knife I have ever seen. Thank you.

My esee pr4 is my edc .

Some time back I read the kephart knife was a copy/adaptation of someone else’s knife.

Okay I learned a couple of things from this video, the design of the original Kephart knife may have actually been a happy mistake and there is a method of making feathers I haven't EVER done with any knife style or any grind. I am going to try it out but it strikes me as extremely inefficient and very limited to a particular type of knife.

❤

Mr. Dryer, I would take a stab at making. reproduction. Where can I get the best Kephart knife drawings?

cool hat !!!! Where'd u get it ?? Maker ??

Question, what is the shirt you are wearing? Thanks!

Why did kephart dislike the bowie knife

I like the Lt Wright Genesis

I have never seen anyone cutting tip to base.

sailors knife, same shape

Im sorry kepharts knife is a flat grind I'm sorry your are correct called a convex

that's a flat grind though?

It is my opinion, and you know what they say about opinions, lol, that the best knife for a individual person is a knife that works for their needs, there is no need for all the videos telling people to buy this or buy that, what works for one person might not work for another, people, do your own research and find the best knife you can afford and does what you want it to do. Some of these knives can be very very expensive and there are some awesome knives out there for under 100 dollars that perform just as good as the 1000 dollar knife. Money is pretty hard to come by these days so don't let these videos talk you out of your money for a knife that you just don't need when you can get a much less expensive knife that will do the same job just as good and maybe even better

Your holding the blades way to flat on the feather stick no one cuts like that

Your version is not an accurate reproduction of the handle profile.....been slightly modified.

Do you know which museum has his original knife? I figure it must be near Bryson City, NC.

Tip to back just makes no sense when working wood / making feathers. It keeps for hand too far from the wood.. too much tension and work of the hands…. Just use the belly close to the hand.. then using your arm/elbow/shoulder strength instead of hands…. Not to mention it’s dulling the entire knife.. ALWAYS save the tip for precision work..

I’m guessing what we have here is your cell phone in a box

Your knife was a nice rendition but I need to say.....everyone that copied this knife was wrong. Your version had a recurved handle and blade. Ethans version used bolts in the handle.. why not make a version that is correct with the picture that everyone has seen, and for the love of God....make the sheath accurate too.bark river makes a copy that the steel is too thin. Nobody in my knowledge has made a duplicate that is totally accurate

Who really cuts wood tip to heal though… seems like a stabbing accident waiting to happen.

Sorry but I call BS. There's nothing scientific about either the Kephart or Nessmuk knife other than models being used in Europe for centuries. The French trade knife and even the Bowie have their origin in Europe. Kephart and Nessmuk were writers and used what was available with maybe some modifications. That's all.

"Always want to cut tip to back", Nothing credible about what you said.

I have never seen a more awkward wood carving technique in my life

Any bushcraft knife is better than this.

why the goofy clickbait shock face? Not necessary

Soy face thumbnail.

Great video.