Helle Eggen Knife

First off, 3 stars is only due to some of the fit and finish. The blade itselft is amazing, it holds a great edge and feels very comfortable in my hand and came highly polished and razor sharp. The handle is beautiful. The only complaint is that the wood shows some cracks and had some pitting. It feels solid and I am not worried about failure of the handle. Damage appears to be cosmetic only. I used this knife to cut up some shaving to start my BBQ smoker as well as whittle some trap parts. Am looking forward to getting out this summer and really enjoying it.

The knife handle is absolutely beautiful. The brass end cap accentuates the wood grain and the handle conforms to my size large hand perfectly. Better than just about any knife I've ever held. The index finger groove feels deeper than most so it effectively prevents your hand from sliding forward on a thrust.

You will need to treat the sheath leather with a sealer if you want it to be waterproof and resist stains.

In most cases, all you need to do is strop the edge to regain sharpness. If you need to do more than that, Tri-laminate requires that you sharpen with a wet, i.e. with oil or water, stone to avoid damaging the inner steel's temper.

There's no choil or jimping but it doesn't feel like you need either when you hold it.

The sheath is also a work of art that fits the knife closely, has high quality stitch thread, and nice subtle accents pressed into the leather. Some of you may not like that the leather is thinner than average. I measure it at right about 3/32 of an inch thick.

The knife steel is very high quality and has a mirror-bright finish. The edge, out of the box, is wicked sharp.

Why did I give it 4 stars? It's too pretty to do anything ugly with it.

I love this knife but I am never going use this for bushcrafting. With the burl wood handle and a pin tail tang, I'd be afraid of damaging it. Oh, I'll take it car camping and maybe hiking. But, I'll probably pull out one of my beefier knives for when I hike and camp.

You're going to want one just to watch your friends' eyes when you show it to them. Yeah, they are going to envious.