Month: March 2019

La Sportiva Akyra GTX

  • After a year of daily use, I’m reluctantly retiring these.

La Sportiva markets the Akyra GTX as an “all weather running machine” and I can’t disagree.

These shoes have a welded TPU upper, an aggressive “Trail Rocker2” outsole, a La Sportiva “Ortholite” insole and a waterproof and breathable Gore-Tex lining.

After a year of slogging through streams, hiking in mountains and malls, facing snow on the trail and icy runoff in parking lots, I’m still a fan of this shoe. The sole grips well on everything but wet rocks and the tread compound holds up well over time.

I much prefer a shoe with a long-wearing tread compound that slips on slippery things over one that only sometimes loses its grip but wears down and soon needs replacing because the lack of any meaningful tread makes it begin to slip. It makes sense to me that I may slip on slippery things and I plan my route and speed accordingly. Even sticky soles slip, and often when you are least expecting it; I don’t like those kinds of surprises.

Gore-tex and I are not always on the best of terms. It’s almost always kept water out, but my issues have always revolved around how much dampness it keeps in. Through much experience, I’m a skeptic of the breathability claims of any fabric.

My feet sweat. A lot. After years of losing battles to athlete’s foot, several years ago I switched to wearing wool socks. All. The. Time. Problem solved. However, Gore-Tex footwear can still keep my feet uncomfortably damp at times. These shoes were the exception to my usual experience. My feet stayed dry with minimal dampness no matter the activity; the obvious exception being when water, ice or snow managed to get into the top of the shoe. Wool socks help with that too.

The Akyra fits well, has stayed stiff where I want it too (primarily the heel), grips underfoot well, is waterproof and vented my foot moisture adequately. It was a great shoe and I highly recommend it.

I’ve replaced the Akyra’s with La Sportiva’s Lycan GTX shoe, which I’ve read good things about. If it proves as comfortable and stable as the Akyra, they have another winner on their hands.

Details: Benchmade 940

Tools that work well are beautiful. Tools that almost work well are irritations. Sometimes the difference between the two can be measured in hundredths of an inch.

I’ve been carrying a Benchmade 940. When the knife is open the blade length and shape are perfect for what I ask of it, it’s small and locks securely. In fact it was perfect for me with one exception…I couldn’t open the damn thing. My thumb would consistently slip off the stud, resulting in a blade that sometimes would open halfway, sometimes would open just fine and sometimes wouldn’t deploy at all. Tools that work well are beautiful, but my 940 was not.

Not wanting to give up on it, I searched the inter-web for a solution. In some obscure knife forum posting that I have since lost track of, someone had a similar complaint about this knife–their large thumbs didn’t play well with the thumb-stud. What’s more, this was not the typical “I’m just here to complain” posting because this guy had a solution. He took the wider and larger thumb-stud from a Benchmade 950 and put it on his 940. Problem solved.

Hmmm. But unlike this poster, I don’t have a seemingly endless supply of every knife produced by Benchmade.

So I emailed Benchmade and politely asked two things. If they would be kind enough to send me a deep carry clip for this knife (because I like how their folding knives ride in my pocket with this clip) and I also explained my issue with this almost perfect tool and asked to purchase a thumb stud for their 950 model so that I could change it out.

Shortly thereafter I heard back from Katherine at Benchmade who said she would put both parts in the mail to me, no charge. Great customer service from them, again.

Fast forward a week later and the parts arrive. I install the deep-carry clip and thumb-stud; the knife and my thumbs have been in sync ever since.

The new stud is oh-so-slightly wider and has a constant diameter all the way to the end unlike the original, it’s black (the original was silver) and stands proud of the sides of the knife (the original was narrower than the scales). So aesthetically, maybe it’s not as nice as the original. However, my 940 now opens every time I ask it to; that is a beautiful thing.

Learning

I recently came across a few articles in long-ago editions of Fine Woodworking on Shaker furniture. The simplicity, solid construction and good looks spoke to me.

The final finish coats are going on my attempt at Chris Becksvoort’s Shaker stool (Fine Woodworking issue #231). Making it with hand tools, as Chris suggests you do, was humbling.

Sawing a straight line is surprisingly difficult. I feel no shame admitting that I’m still not there. My lines meander. They slope. They feature a multitude of angles that are not supposed to be there.

I conversed with myself in French when chiseling the 1/8″ deep dados. Cutting two shallow grooves into the bottom of a board. Such a seemingly simple thing that requires patience, practice and persistence. I’m still working on the first of those.

I understand why a coping saw has that name. In shaking my head at my attempts to saw a curve, I found myself smiling and occasionally laughing out loud. The piece that eventually fell from the first leg resembled half of a shark’s jaw. The second was much the same. Please don’t tell Chris, but I cheated here and used a spindle sander to smooth the curves. (I’d do it again too.)

When the glue was dry and the clamps came off, the block plane came out. Crooked joints, roughly hewn mortises and angles that approached–but never quite reached–the intended 90 degrees were forgotten. Time stopped with the subdued swish, swish of wood shavings falling to the bench. I picked them up and held them, marveling at tenon shavings of translucent end grain.

Holding the stool, I can note the progression of my improvements. One dado has sharper shoulders than the other. Each piece of corner bracing showcases my progress towards my someday goal of sawing a straight line.

My wife said “It’s beautiful!” when she saw my stool. In writing my thoughts down today, I realize (again) that she’s right. It is. We all have flaws and loose joints. If only it was as easy to fix our imperfections as it is to acquire the skills of a master woodworker. Again, in writing my thoughts down, it occurs to me that perhaps it is: with patience, practice and persistence.