Anyone edc a 108mm?

[Waterlander]

Oh nice another Saw test.  What/Whom comprised the Dutch Jury?  Is it time for you to give us your official verdict?

Was there really any difference between the lumberjacks?

Yes major difference! Please hold on a little longer. Just got home from work
and I need a beer first! 

[Waterlander]

Here are some of my thoughts.
First of all let me say that I'm a cabinet maker by profession, so I know how to handle a woodsaw. Twenty years of woodworking and doing rockclimbing as a hobby, has given me strong hands. So it's fair to say I don't get fatigue quickly. This is importent, because it effects the test results. Ofcourse the saw blade itself also plays a major role how it performs. But the handle is just as important. In general I found that a boxier shape works best. It lets you grip the knife secure with thumb on top. This will help greatly keeping the saw blade straight all the way through the cut, effortless. It is far less effective, far harder to control and far more fatigue holding the handle in a pinch grip between thumb and indexfinger. When doing cross cutting, you get the straightest cut without binding if the blade is rigid. If it's too flexible for sure you have to watch this. On the other hand you want a nice thin blade, so this is a trade of. A dedicate hand saw for precise cross cutting solves this by putting a rigid piece on the spine of a thin saw blade (hand saw in the picture with orange handle). Let's just forget the shape of the teeth for a moment (all Vics are the same except for the 108 and Elinox). I like to mention that SAK's need relative large teeth to be effective because only short strokes can be made.

Now, for the test... (back after the coffee)

[Waterlander]

Cutting medium is a long broom stick, clamped in a vice, 10 slices with each saw blade.
Reference I used a Bahco Laplander and Opinel Folding Saw. 

At first place:
- Victorinox Rucksack (111mm, ironwood, 3 layers)
This SAK has been fitted by me with desert ironwood scales, mildly contour shaped to my liking.
The handle shape and lenght is the best of the bunch. 3 layers on the 111mm frame are excellent for comfort and grip. I must add that wooden scales are my prefered handle material. But the standard nylon scales are great, better then cellidor on a worker. The keyring eyelt (at the back end) has no sharp edges and doesn't hinder at all, nor do the backtools. The saw blade is the longest and thus fastest cutting with the least effort. It's also a little thicker and substantial stronger than on the 91/93mm. Prefered to take into the woods.

Second place:
- Victorinox Spirit (stainless, multitool)
We all agree how nice the curved handles on the Spirit are if you open them up for the pliers.
Handles closed with the saw out and the feel is fantastic too. Unfortunately rather slippery as well. But the rigid saw blade, the easy of keeping it straight, the speed of cutting without much effort, the weight of the multitool helping, makes it functions very well. Build like a tank and it locks too, that's a bonus. Prefered to carry every day.

Third place:
- Victorinox Officier (91mm, blue cellidor, 5 layers)
The reason why I've put this SAK on third place over the Farmer, is because I find the extra layers helping (saw blades are exactly the same). My hand gets tired sooner with less layers. You need to make more small corrections with your hand muscles and you need to grip it tighter. My 5 layer works easy, fast and well, considering it's blade lenght. It is a mod, and the back is rather flush without backtools getting in the way. The keyring-eyelet is grinded off as well. If you go 3 layers, you will find the corkscrew and keyring under your thumb which doesn't help.

Fourth place:
- Victorinox Farmer (93mm, blue alox, 3 layers)
It's a close fourth. The flush backsprings and the textured alox scales clearly win over cellidor. The Farmer does everything well, and nothing poor. I have a 2 layer alox Woodsman as well, but the boxier shape of the Farmer works better for sawing. Easier to keep a loose grip and let the saw do the work. I do have one big issue with the Farmer, and that is the sharp eyelet at the backend cutting in my handpalm. This clearly has it effects on prolonged sawing.


I probably forgot a bunch to say, and please do chime in, but next up the Lumberjacks...

[Waterlander]

Lumberjacks:
All of them have nice and flush backsprings. On all of them the lanyard attachment sits at the tang of the saw blade. At least the vintage Elinox has a bail that folds away unlike the other two modern versions with sharp ring. The saw blade on the Elinox differs as well, it only cuts on a backwards stroke. Not bad, but it ends at sixth place overall.
The boxy blue nylon Lumberjack performs not bad for such a small package. The alox scaled Lumberjack on the other end is much too thin to handle well. You get fatigued quickest and sawing is ackward to keep it straight upright and smooth going, compared to the other contenders in this test. The alox Lumberjack is often used in a PSK, and it does its job in a pinch. But I feel in a survival situation when your hands are cold, frozen etc. I would rather have the big 108 GAK in my pocket, although it ended at last place. The aggressive saw blade on the GAK binds halfway through the cut, almost impossible to do. You have to turn the wood and cut from several sides to make it work.
That said, if you take it into the woods and use it in a more aggressive manner on green woods it performs better. Like cutting a branch halfway and hit it on a rock to split along the grain. Or make a quick forcefull cut and snap the rest off.

JMHO

[AimlessWanderer]

Thanks for the rundown  Very insightful 

Interesting to see the slightly shorter Spirit edge out the longer 91/93mm saws. Interesting also to see the 108 as the choice for a survival kit over all the other options Is that due to taking other things into account such as weight etc?

[Waterlander]

Thanks for the rundown  Very insightful 

Interesting to see the slightly shorter Spirit edge out the longer 91/93mm saws. Interesting also to see the 108 as the choice for a survival kit over all the other options Is that due to taking other things into account such as weight etc?

Spririt blade is just a hinge shorter, that doesn't effect much.
Sorry, but I did NOT say my prefered choice for a survival kit is the GAK 108mm.
I said that in a survival situation I rather have the GAK in my pocket then the alox Lumberjack.

[AimlessWanderer]

Thanks for the clarification 

[Waterlander]

no worries 

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Once again great test, thanks for taking the time to do it for us

[enki_ck]

Well 50ft-trad kindly donated a 5 layered (pliers take up 3 layers) 108mm Mil Tec GAK to keep this tests going so I'll try catching some sunny weather this weekend and go do the green wood saw tests. I'm really interested to see it the added layers for better grip do any difference here.


The saws are similar but not the same. My Croatian MP GAK (right) has that longer first saw tooth for keeping the saw guard in place. The teeth are a tiny bit bigger and cover a few millimeter more space (bottom and top) so I'm interested to see how they work.

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

I'm looking forward to the results mate

[enki_ck]

And here it is. My battery died at the repeated GAK test but I gave up on it shortly after the battery died anyways. The 108mm saws were again the worst. Getting stuck, not clearing the sawdust and getting clogged up, ... the Mil Tec with pliers was even worse than my GAK, I can see now what troubles 50ft-trad had with that saw. I'll do the whole write-up later but for now, here's the video:


! Private video

[AimlessWanderer]

We can't watch it mate - it's set to private 

Also the struggles I had was with the Vic saw (Safari Trooper to be precise), I never tried the Mil-Tec 

[enki_ck]

Uuups, how about now?

[stealth007s]

Great video, informative and interesting. Also, I'm not a tree hugger by any means but that poor tree     

[enki_ck]

Great video, informative and interesting. Also, I'm not a tree hugger by any means but that poor tree     

Yea, but the crowd demanded it. It gave its life for "science"?! It's a hazel tree and there grow fast and in abundance here. I used to make bows out of it when I was a kid

[enki_ck]

So in short, if I'm going into the woods, I'm not taking a 108mm. At least not for the saw. It sucks to say the least. If you compare the cutting action of the other saws you can see them clearing sawdust from them, it flies around very visibly. The 108mm saws just clogged up. I had to dig out some of it out once i got home with an utility knife. The main difference between the 108 and all the other saws was its thickness and one directional teeth. The thickness is almost twice as wide as the other used saws, with the exception of the Spirit (and that one performed ok). I was very pleasantly surprised by the Leatherman Juice saw. Really a great cutter. The winners of this test? I'd say the 111mm Outrider and the 91/93mm Ranger/Farmer. The 91/93mm use the same saw so the choice is weight vrs tool selection. And the added grip of the extra layers of the Ranger. I prefer the Ranger for the tool selection and doing great in both green and dry wood tests. All the other saws (with the exception of the 108mm) did good. Even the small 85mm Wenger did a lot better then some bigger fellows. You would be good taking any of them into the woods for simpler work. Just don't take the 108mm. My forest setup still remains folding saw + Mora Clipper but the added features of the Vic Ranger make it a great tool to take into the woods.

[AimlessWanderer]

Cheers Nikola 

That 108mm design really is bad  Looks like Victorinox managed to get it working better than Mil-Tec, but not by much. I'd certainly agree that pretty much any other Vic or Wenger would be a better choice as a wood saw  My favourite folding saws are the Bahco Laplander and Opinel 120, but I'd rather take any of my other SAK's or MT's into an outdoors environment than a 108mm Vic

I'm sure I'll be letting my Safari Trooper and Pathfinder go now as a result of this confirmation 

[ICanFixThat]

Some great tests! 

Looks like I need to update the wiki and try to link to this thread.

 

[Gareth]

Those GAK saws really don't do very well do they.   Cheers for taking the time mate.

[Mike, Lord of the Spammers!]

Thanks for burning out your biceps for us mate

[enki_ck]

Thanks for burning out your biceps for us mate

No problem I needed a work out anyways And the surroundings was much better than the original tests on dry wood in the workshop in the middle of the summer. It was nice to get some forest time finally. It's only a 10 minute walk from my house and I spent a lot of time in there as a child but it changed a lot in the last few years. Some of it is owned by the state but most is owned by locals and with the prices of heating going up as they are lately, people are going back to wood furnaces so quite a few trees that I used to use for orientation are no longer there. I went in pretty deep in cause I wanted to get away from the noise of a tractor mowing down the grass around the power lines but I think you still can hear some of it in the background. (I think that was the first time they did it in a decade, so I chose the "right" day to go out filming). Funny thing is the tree I was doing the test on had a long piece of wire wrapped around the bottom of it. I think someone had a trap set up there. poachers.