A fun new woods chopper--Friedrich Dick "Italien Messer" cleaver!

[FortyTwoBlades]

Got a selection of fun knives from Friedrich Dick Cutlery Corp. of Esslingen, Germany in last weekend just in time to head down to my family's camp with 'em. The "Italien Messer" cleaver was especially impressive, and I pretty much immediately made the decision to keep one for myself. There was a fair bit of rain that weekend (and this week!) so I spent most of the time just relaxing indoors but I managed to get out and snap some beauty shots and a little chopping with the 2.5 lb brute. Given all of the cleaver mods that I've seen folks do to convert them to a bellied and pointed shape, I figure I'm probably not the only one excited to see something like this actually available on the production market.

First, some overall and in-hand shots.








Now the pretty ones.







More in the next post!

[FortyTwoBlades]

It's one heck of a heavy-duty chopper! 7/32" thick at the base of the blade with nice distal taper, soft satin mirror finish, and a convex grind. It's a whopping 4" wide at the base, so it really concentrates a lot of its mass right behind the edge. It would do nicely as a hatchet replacement while doing "big knife" duty. I hope to do a video on it now that I have a camera again--it just needs to stop raining, darn it!

[TreekillerX]

Impressive.

[leaf and lightning]

that thing is an friggin beast

[FortyTwoBlades]

Isn't it though?

[Mtnfolk Mike]

oh man.. that thing is cool.. wow..

[FortyTwoBlades]

Now just imagine it with a leather piggyback sheath with a 4" paring/utility knife in the front pouch for fine work. Might be a while until I can make that concept happen but it's in the works.

[FortyTwoBlades]

Did a little demo today.

[PaulK]

F. Dick knives and cleavers fetch a pretty penny. I would sell it and get an axe.

[FortyTwoBlades]

Actually their professional/industrial knives are pretty inexpensive if you look at price vs. performance! And their cleavers are dirt cheap for what they are. If this were made by a sporting/hunting/tactical knife company exactly the same way it would cost double, easily. And this isn't an axe. If you need an axe, use an axe. This thing is more like a knife-shaped hatchet. It does knife-like tasks while handling medium-heavy chopping and splitting tasks--and in a very small package, if not the lightest one.

If I don't feel a knife is a good value, I won't carry it in my shop. These I most certainly am!