ECOS Knives recurve 5 inch review

[bigjim]

One of our forum members here that goes by the handle of ECOS recently let me pry a 5 inch bladed recurve fixed blade from him.

The knife features a deeply recurved flat ground blade. This was a prototype knife and is not ready for public view in terms of looks so I will not post pictures.

Instead I want to praise this design. Almost everybody is making nothing but
THICK knives with edge profiles better suited for axes. ECOS is focusing on thin knives with great geometry and awesome cutting ability.

I just ran the knife through a 2.5 lbs tri tip that had a thick layer of hard fat and membrane on one side. I was sliceing against the grain and cutting it into 1 thick steaks.

This little recurve just out sliced my expensive Wustoff Chiefs knives by a WIDE margin. One slice per steak no extra cuts, no sawing, just one smooth draw and off dropped the steak.

Next I did some veggies, peppers and onions and mushrooms for a quick stir fry to go over some rice and to dress up the steaks. Once again awesome control and great sliceing.

All in all very refreshing and a good reminder about a high performance knife design can do.

Watch this knife maker guys we are gonna see good things.

Best

Jim

 

[Valkman]

Nice review - way to go ecos!

Now I'm hungry.

 

[fistful]

The recurve does seem an intriguing design, but I've never had one.

Does Mr. Ecos have a web site for his ka-nives?

 

[bigjim]

Fistful this is the first recurve I have used...I have a few but they are safe queens. I am in awe.... that back edge cuts like CRAZY when you draw the knife back. Holy crap!

I am sure Ecos will pop in here soon. I am unaware of a web site. But I am sure he will let us know.

Jim

 

[ecos]

thanks for the for the kind words guys. im glad the knives are working out for you jim!

no website yet. i had planned to have a website up this month but things kept coming up and ive sold most of my knife inventory already. now im moving to a new house/workshop mid oct. and i am busy packing up everything. the move is setting me back right now but once the workshop is up it will really help with production. hopefully by the end of oct the website will be up but i wouldnt be suprised if i dont get it done untill nov. i could throw up a quick one but i want to have a lot of content...personally when i go to a site, if its fairly empty i tend not to go back. on the site i plan on having standard models shown, available pieces, links, info about me and the business, info on knife designs, steel, handle materials, etc, plus some videos/pics of me making the knives and some of the testing i do. o yeah and i am making the site myself so im learning macromedia dreamweavr ms (computers are not my forte)


im a fan of recurves. originally i thought they were a neat looking design but i didnt think it would add much performance to a knife. that all changed when i was using a factory knife and took a nice sized chunk out of the edge of the blade. i roughly reground the blade into a recurve instead of tossing the knife. suddenly the same knife was cutting much better. i did some reading around and read people saying the added performance was from the extra length on the cutting edge. im sure this is partially true but to me it didnt account for that much of a performance increase.

it was years later when i was into weight lifting that i came up with this theory. i was reading about weight training to fatigue and doing "negative reps" . i learned the human body is much better at HOLDING weight instead of MOVING weight. in weight lifting terms this means u can lift a heavy weight a few times but then suddenly halfway through a rep you cant move it an inch further(due to muscle fatigue)....but you can hold the weight at that point for a limited time and resist the weight as it pushes against you much longer than you can move the weight.

applying this to a recurve knife design it means that when you are slicing hard, starting at a point near the handle the object being cut slides down into the recurve area and your muscles automatically adjust to the material being 1/4" further up into the knife. once you reach the lowest cutout portion of the recurve the material being cut has to work its way up a incline. your body has already adjusted that the force being pushed against it is 1/4" back and now instead of just you pushing against the material it is pushing back against you. your body is designed to resist being pushed so a deeper cut will happen as opposed to a straight edge.

it also has a lot to do with angles of the cut. im sure weve all noticed different materials cut better at different angles and the recurve will be hitting at many angles during a slice.

the downside to recurves is they can be harder to control than a straight edge in some circumstances.

as i said this is just a theory of mine. im not a scientist or anything and its just based on my life experiences. im not the best at wording things so it may make no sense to you lol.

thanks again,
-jason