Fallkniven SK2 Embla

For a while now I’ve been considering buying one of these knives, Fallkniven’s SK2 Embla. The SK2 has a number of features or design elements that I find valuable, it’s made by Hattori in Japan which I really highly value, and I happen to think the elegant simplicity, very high fit/finish quality, and high quality materials combine to make it one of the best-looking knives I’ve seen.

Also, after giving my uncle my Fallkniven S1 for his birthday last fall, I was missing having a Fallkniven to use. And I’ll probably end up getting more in the future, I do very much enjoy the overall Fallkniven style of knife. Thick blade, very thin primary grind, mostly classic shapes of handle and blade, nothing too out-there, and all made by Hattori. I really like it, there’s nothing else like them on the production market and still very unique even among high-performance custom knives. I think Hattori is one of the greatest modern knifemakers of the last 40 years, he’s got a long history of some of the best quality knives available, regardless of price.


A few pictures, it just came in this morning:

























The features or design elements I found desirable:

- Nearly neutral handle shape

- Straight overall shape

- Short but still functional guard

- Edge goes pretty much right up to the handle

- Large sharpening choil

- Desert Ironwood handle, one of the most durable and beautiful natural materials

- Good quality leather sheath, no need for anything aftermarket

- Simple, straight, drop-point blade shape with plenty of belly for skinning

- Very high cutting ability without need for modification or custom work

- Stainless steel




The one feature or design element that I’d change if I could:

- I would prefer a simple stainless steel, rather than the COS high-carbide stainless, just for ease of repair. But it’s not the end of the world, the wear resistance is valuable for game processing and I do have a number of pocket sharpening stones that can grind the steel very easily.

This being my only real criticism of the design, I decided it wasn’t significant enough to outweigh the many other high points I mentioned above.

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This will be carried as a utility knife for outdoor stuff like camping, doing work on my hunting property, small game hunting, shore fishing for trout, etc. I’ll do a bit of wood carving and cardboard cutting with it over the next week or two and post back with observations on handle ergonomics, relative cutting ability, and how easily it re-sharpens.

Any questions, feel free to ask.

Looks very nice





This svord is a good option for a similar sized knife in basic steel and a thin stick option

I personally prefer thinner knives as over the long span regrinding and Sharpening is less work to keep the original cutting profile

What will you use the knife for mostly?

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cKc (Kyley Harris)
I personally prefer thinner knives as over the long span regrinding and Sharpening is less work to keep the original cutting profile

That’s definitely true in the sense that you can keep grinding just the edge bevel and it won’t thicken as quickly as the Fallkniven/Hattori profile will, no doubt.

For these, I really have to regularly maintain the primary grind. Basically the primary grind is the edge bevel, and you just apply a microbevel to sharpen/apex it.

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cKc (Kyley Harris)
What will you use the knife for mostly?

Mainly for skinning, butchering, or otherwise processing smaller animals like squirrels, rabbits, birds, and some fish species. I have a larger knife (6 inch blade) that I really prefer for deer, but this should (hypothetically) do really nicely for smaller animals, as well as just being a good strong utility knife for outdoors work where I want a fixed blade and not a folder.

This makes me want to finish my Bushmonkey Knives Bowie project. I feel a little ashamed now.

What project? Haven’t heard of that maker.

Ryan,
That looks like an awesome knife. I am going to put it on my to buy list, I really like the looks of it, and I have always wanted to get a Fallkniven knife.

He’s done as far as I know. He made some pretty good designs but he was very antagonistic to anything more complex than a Scandi grind. He had a 7” blade clip point design with a sharpened top edge that I thought was very nice. It’s only issue was it was too thick. 10 to 12 degrees per side Scandi grind on 3/16” stock. I want to make a copy out of an old blade with reasonable thickness, but I can’t bear to break down my old Cold Steel machete to do it. His blades were 1095, O1, & other bush crafty type steels, typically in 1/8” stock. Some were thicker and that’s where his designs would loose me especially when I tried to explain the improvement in cutting ability possible. A 1/8” blade 1” wide with a Scandi grind and a 1/4” full flat ground blade 1” wide have roughly the same cross sectional area but very different cutting ability and stiffness. One also takes a lot more work than the other.

Search Bushmonkey on blade forums and knife dogs. It’s a good read. 3/32” would be about perfect I think for the design.