Every day I bring you an item on Amazon that I personally use or has been purchased by many members of the audience and I have researched enough to recommend.

Today’s TSP Amazon Item of the day is the Outdoor Edge Razor Bone Knife.  A few years back I found the Outdoor Edge Razor Blaze Knife and picked up it primarily for skinning as the swapable replacement blades just made so much sense.  You can read my original review here.  I really loved this knife and have gotten a lot of use out of it over about 3 years now.

Then not too long ago I saw an ad from Outdoor Edge about their new longer 5-inch blades, these guys.  They drop right into the knife made for the original 3.5″ blades and work fine used that way.  The knife can’t safely close with them in it though (see the video and this will all makes more sense).  I have been using them for filleting fish, it makes for a great, always sharp fillet knife.  I always thought, “man I wish they made a bigger frame but I guess this is fine for what it is”.

Recently I have been getting ready for my annual trip to Sanibel where a lot of surf fishing happens.  We eat fresh fish almost every day of the 10 days we are on island.   Translation I clean a LOT of fish there.  So I figured I’d grab an extra pack of the long blades.  While I was doing so, I started looking for replaceable blade fillet knives and lo and behold found the Outdoor Edge Razor-Fin.  A cool little blue handled number made for the 5 inch blades, better yet it has a pocket clip so you can carry it like any old knife.

My only concern was the extra blades.  Their solution to putting the 5 inch blade on the original 3.5 knife and needing to store it is a little box.  It works okay, I am willing to settle for it if I am using the longer blades with the shorter knife in a stop gap fashion.  I was looking at the Razor-Fin thinking why don’t you come with a sheath like your little brother where I can just store the extra blades in it?

So on a whim I checked the Outdoor Edge Amazon Store and found the Razor Bone and after checking it over the difference between the Fin and Bone is functionally, well, nothing.

In reality the difference is mostly marketing and accessories.  The Fin is blue because fish live in water and we think of water as blue.  The Bone comes in either Blaze Orange or Gray.  I chose gray, the orange one is 5 bucks less, by the way.  The Bone also comes with the sheath I wanted but that costs you about 10-15 dollars more depending on the color option.  So if you don’t want the sheath go for the Fin vs. the Bone.

The premise of all these knives is simple your blade is always razor sharp because when it gets dull, you toss it out and replace it with a new one.  New blades cost about $1.60 – $2.00 each depending on the type. The blades are made with an inexpensive steel called 420 J2, which has poor long term edge retention but sharpens very easily and is extremely resistant to corrosion and rust. This steel, until these knives came out, had two primary uses.

1. It is used by many high end knife makers as liners, springs, etc in their folding knives, due to high corrosion resistance.
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2. It is used by many makers of surgical scalpels. Generally scalpels must be incredibly sharp and are used one time in surgery and deposed of. Inexpensive steel that stands up to harsh chemicals for sterilizing and gets incredibly sharp easily is perfect for this application.

Given the above I think 420 J2 is perfect for what Outdoor Edge is doing with these knives.  Personally I don’t toss them as soon as they start to dull, I use a sharpening steel and given how soft J2 steel is 3-5 strokes brings it right back.  You can do that for about a dozen or so major fish cleanings and then it is just easier to toss it out and replace it.

This is great and it opens up things like being 80% done, starting to lose that edge and just going to a new blade then sharpening both after you get cleaned up and have a drink in hand.  When I am sandy, tired, ready for a margarita and a shower, I just want to be done with processing, not sharpening my knife.

This version in particular is marketed as a blade for boning out larger cuts of meat.  I recently used these longer blades with my smaller frame to de-bone and part out this back leg from a 500 lb pig my friend gifted to me after shooting it on a hunt.  Yea 500 lbs that cutting board is 3×3 feet for scale.  I can tell you the longer blade is perfect for what it is marketed as, it works beautiful as a boning knife.

When you think about it though what are you doing when you fillet a fish if you are not de-boning meat?  So how do you choose here?

Personally I love the Blaze for what it is, I am glad I bought it three years ago, and I do recommend it for those that want the smaller frame and blade.  Personally if they had all these options when I got it though I would have went right to the Bone and not purchased the smaller frame version at all.

Again I find having the sheath nice for storing extra blades, I don’t know that I will carry it that often but I will when hunting.  When fishing I will likely keep it in my tackle bag as a safe way to keep the extra blades always on hand.  I also love the pocket clip and I am sure I will use it a lot that way too. If you don’t mind storing your extra blades some other way, by all means get the Fin and save the extra 15 bucks.

No matter what you pick, The Smaller Framed Blaze, The Razor Fin or The Razor Bone, I think if you give Outdoor Edge a shot you will be pleased.  Take a look at the short video below to learn more about all the options.

If for any reason the above Odysee Video doesn’t play smoothly for you the back up YouTube Version is here.

Remember you can always find the TSP Amazon Item of the day by just going to TspAz.com

P.S. – The Gray Version is low in stock and will likely sell out when this review runs.  They have full stock for now though on the Razor Bone in Orange, they are the same knife just in a different color.

Additionally they have a ton of cool options in the Outdoor Edge Amazon Store and one that really looks like a decent little EDC knife is the 3.5″ RazorLite EDC – That one looks so useful I may order one just to review it for you guys.