Helle Mandra Neck Knife

The new ‘Mandra’ knife from Helle was designed, developed and tested with Les Stroud of ‘Survivorman’ fame during an expedition in the Carpathian Mountains. ‘Mandra’ means ‘proud’ in Romanian.

Of a full tang construction, this neat little neck knife comes with a leather belt sheath, but with the addition of a neck thong is small enough and light enough to be worn hung around your neck in comfort. The 80mm handle offers a ‘3-finger’ grip, which is surprisingly comfortable, and while the review sample handle was not heavily figured, I have seen some examples where the curly birch handles were very attractive.

The 66mm long drop point blade is made from triple laminated stainless steel, where a hard carbon alloy steel is sandwiched between two layers of tough (18/8) stainless steel. This combination gives a cutting edge that is capable of taking a superb and longlasting sharpness, but which is protected from corrosion and breakage. This laminated steel is unique to Helle and has proved very effective over many years. The leather sheath has a simple but effective wrap-over strap fastened with a press-stud to secure the knife, and the leather has a doublesewn welted seam and a plastic insert to stop the knife-edge cutting the leather.

During testing I used this knife extensively and tried it out on a wide range of tasks and on many different materials. It was used for everything from food preparation to wood carving, on hide, meat, veg and wood ranging from green sycamore to seasoned oak. In all circumstances the Mandra performed well and needed only stropping to return the edge to razor sharpness. Overall, the Helle Mandra is a neat and effective knife, and while it is not designed for the heavier tasks a bushcraft knife may be called on to perform, it punches above its weight and proved very useful.

The ‘Mandra’ is the second knife from Helle to be designed in collaboration with Les Stroud, the other being the Temagami, and the two would make a good combination of tools.