Ceramic knife lightest per inch?

They are extremely brittle and do not tolerate any wedgeing motion on the edge. Drop it on something hard and it likely will break. I believe they can only be sharpened with a diamond sharpening stone. I question if it would stand up to field use.

Ditto on the brittle comments, you definitely would NOT want to use this as a general purpose knife (you’ll likely wedge it cutting wood) and relgate it to cutting food only.

I’ve been going over knives of late and this is interesting. The ceramic knife would be good for slicing tomatoes or cleanig a trout, but that’s about it.

I’ve gone over a few dozen knife makes and models over the last couple weeks and have landed on the Scandanavian Mora knives as being the best blend of usability, cost, and weight. You can get a decent knife with a plastic handle, stainless blade, and a spartan plastic sheath for under $20.

From there my choice jumps up to fat bladed full tang knives like the Becker series. The only advantage I see in them is the ability to be used for all-out survival techniques and the ability to be used with a wood baton for splitting wood and chopping through large diameter branches, prying, etc. They aren’t light and they aren’t cheap and they jump over the fence to Rambo tools.

Somewhere in beween are folding knives with safe locking mechanisms. The better brands are quite expensive and heavy too.

If you want a good light knife for cooking, you can get stainless steel paring knives for a few dollars and they weight just a couple onuces. Victorinox makes some and you will find a lot of choices in any decent cooking store.

Thanks for the feedback; Ill continue to carry one of my Gerber LSTs and leave the ceramic in the kitchen.

ceramic knives are very brittle and break easily and are hard to sharpen and dont hold an edge well. They are not worth the trouble. Stick to a good high carbon steel pocketknife instead. High carbon steel is the best knife steel there is…sharpens easily, holds an edge good and wont break. It rusts but that just means you have to maintain it.

I have owned two Gerber knives and they were very brittle and I broke the tips off both of them by accidently dropping them. One I broke the tip off by accidently dropping into a bathroom tile sink in Philmont Scout Ranch base camp. Ridiculous…those knives cost a lot of money and broke so easily.

Gerber is overrated anyway…

Vlad

In my continuing research on “The Perfect Knife for UL Hiking” I found that Schrade has gone out of business and Chinese made knives are being sold under that brand name. There are a bunch of the US made Schrade Old Timer Outfitter “Safe-T-Grip” models out there for sale cheap. They have a non-slip rubber handle and a good stainless steel blade. They are selling on Ebay and eslewhere on the web for $15. Of course, no one lists the real weight, but I’ll have one in a few days and post the scale weight.

Update: this is a big knife, but that is what I had in mind. 9.25″ long, 4.25″ blade, 4.6oz/130g for the knife and the nylon sheath is 1.6oz/45g.

After reading last months Backpacker magazine and their toture tests on knives, I switched from a Gerber Paraframe that has seen better days to a Buck 281BLX. It weighs 2oz and is partially serrated. The blade is 2.75″ long with a 4″ handle which isn’t a great length, but plenty long for my needs. After two months of fairly hard use, it is still razor sharp. I have been very impressed with its durability.

Thanks for the tip. It looks like the perfect replacement for my old Scrade, now that they don’t make them anymore.

A nice medium size folding knife is the Al Mar Falcon Ultralight.

3.15 inch blade, 7.15 inches overall, 1.25 oz.

I bought this after loosing a spyderco delica on the trail :(

I really liked the spyderco, it weighed like 1.8 oz or so and was a nice size, but the newer version (series 4) has increaded in weight up in the 2.5 oz range or so.

Dan

Take a long hard look at the AG Russell Featherlite One Hand Knife. http://www.agrussell.com/knives/by_type/folding/locking.html

It's available in AUS-8 or the superior ATS-34 steels. I like the General Purpose Blade in ATS-34. It has FRN (fiberglass reinforced nylon) handles which make it tough and light, although Coral Ricarta handles are available if you're so inclined. It, as the name implies, opens with one hand. It's available with a kydex neck sheath, and it's only 1.5 oz.

They did a couple of very positive reviews over on Outdoors-magazine.com and batonned it without any problems. Very impressive!
http://outdoors-magazine.com/s_article.php?id_article=148
http://outdoors-magazine.com/s_article.php?id_article=150

Moras are also very good lightweight fixed blade knives that cost next to nothing and perform exceptionally well.

Excellent choice– the stainless steel model is only $35. That's a bargain.

Another favorite of mine is the Tool Logic SL3. It has a firesteel in a compartment in the handle, a whistle, and a 3" stainless steel straigh/serrated blade. It is 2.7 ounces, which is 0.75 ounce less than a very light folding knife (CRKT Wrangler), whistle, and firesteel. It even has a special knotch for stricking the firesteel so you don't mess up the blade. http://www.toollogic.com/sl3.htm