Kozuka designed by Knives.com

Every knife starts in someone's mind as a response to a perceived requirement. This knife was designed to do only one thing, cut meat. Its a modern day kozuka, the samurai steak knife/utility.

The very first example was made of balsa wood and sent to Barry by me in 1996. The original intention was to make a kozuka to go with the Dawson Japanese style sword.

The first prototype in steel was mounted in tandem with a Dawson traditional tanto. That was back in 1996. Here it is in our image above. Now in 2002, knives.com have persuaded Barry to start making them for the general public and especially, we think, for his sword customers.

For those not interested in matching it with a sword he designed a simple but elegant kydex sheath which can be adapted to any number of carry options. He can also put a cord wrap on it for you, if you like. And we plan to persuade Barry to modify his sword sheaths so that it can be supplied as an optional extra with his swords.

It has proved to be one of those patterns which everyone who has seen it has a use for. Of three sent to us, a relative absconed with one and a friend with another. One went into a kitchen and the other went up a sleeve to be lashed to the forearm with paracord. The third although slated for mounting with a sword has also been pressed into service. Its just too handy a knife to ignore.

The sheath is such that it would be easy to sew into clothing or lash to a belt or backpack. Its also comfortable stuffed in a boot because of the slim cross section.

The blade is chisel ground but unlike most chisel ground blades the flat side has a hollow grind in it to make sharpening easier. Rubbing the flat side of the blade on a coarse Norton stone brings up a fast edge and is simple to do for the sharpening impaired, as there is no edge angle to maintain. To finish the burr can be stropped or removed with a crock stick from the other side.

The knife handles differently from a symetrically ground blade. It needs to be rotated a few degrees to cut predictably because of the chisel grind. It has plenty of cutting edge for slicing veg and meat though its not a large knife.

Because of the hollow grind and thin edge the cut is very aggressive and care is required for safe guidance. It is a slicer of the first order yet is not suited to chopping as the chisel grind coupled with a flatside hollow make guidance less than intuitive. The knife is too light for chopping anyway. A flat grind on the flat side goes a long way toward giving the knife a more general purpose rating and is available on request and indeed I would recommend this option.

This is a lot of Dawson edge in a small light elegant package The knife has no stress risers and transitions are so gradual that the knife is as sturdy as 1/8" steel gets.

Barry Dawson 10A Town Plaza, Suite303 Durango Colorado 81301 Email:dawsonknives@cableone.net Fax # 1-928-772-1729

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