Here is the special edition Ultra Lite Bushcrafter. This project started out from something totally different.

We received a call from Blue Ridge and they said they found some more blades we used for the Mini-Special Hunting Knife. Those blades were actually made by Herders in Germany and somehow ended up in a lot that Blue Ridge bid on. They dated back to the 1950s or 1960s and were the German equivalent of 1095 and were heat treated properly.

When the blades arrived, they were close but not the same. They were longer and more narrow top to bottom. The blades looked like they had been heat treated. Here is the interesting part. When the blades were spark tested they sparked fine, but had short spark tails. Not hard enough. We boxed them up and shipped them to our trusted heat treater.

Mike Stewart asked them to heat treat one of them as if it was 1095. The next day they called and said 40 Rockwell. When they Rockwell tested one they hadn't heat treated they came back with 40 Rockwell. That said a lot. Someone else thought it was 1095, so they looked heat treated. They needed to go hotter in the initial hardening stage. They were not 1095. The blades were alloyed steel, they were given the new temperatures for heat, quench and temper. The heat treaters said they would proceed with five and then call back. Mike got the call the next morning and the word was 57-58 Rockwell. He told them to run all of the blades with the same profile. When asked what to call the steel, Mike Stewart told them "Hobson's Choice".

Here is what we do know. In the 1950s and 1960s there were a lot of very good steels, both carbon and stainless that were used by the German makers in Solingen. These blades were not forged like the earlier Herders blades we had. They were die stamped. Whoever had them before Blue Ridge was unable to get them hardened. We got it on the second try. I knew we had real blades that would work well and retain their toughness.

These are light as a feather but do a lot of work.

The Ultra-Lite Bushcrafter comes with a Bushcraft D from Sharpshooter Sheath Systems.