Fallkniven NL5cxL Damascus Fixed Blade Knife Discussions | Drop

Sep 13, 2020

well... its not april 1st, this is the second day and there is no price change... apparently this is actually 1200$?!?!

Sep 14, 2020

method_burgerYeah, this was clearly made for overly-rich people who don’t really understand knives at all. 3.9 inch blade 6.6 oz weight? That’s 2x heavier than it should be (this is a bad bad things) Damascus steel? Why to look cool? It’s INSANELY inferior to my Vanax hypersteel. This is like a Gucci blade, you are paying 10x more than this blade is worth to produce for the looks/name of it. My 2.7 oz Qc Waypoint is “only 3.3” inches. .6 inches smaller but weighs almost 1/3rd hmm...

Sep 14, 2020

League544for a 4 in blade, i think the weight is appropriate. the weight is supposed to be a working knife, not a 'go hiking and bring a light knife as an after thought.' weight improves handling, and even on 3 in folders, my preferred weight is 3.5 oz, with moras and opinels, being the exception (because of handle designs) but my first fixed blade (and still favorite) was a condor hudson bay, so i'm pretty used to heavier one-size-fits-all knives. also, you're paying for labor for making damascus. vanax is expensive, but no way as labor intensive as damascus. sort of like how you cant compare sword making to knife making. sure theyre all sharp objects, but theres a lot of nuances between the two that most people dont realize also your talking about quiet carry, which is basically marketed as an edc hipster brand. your credibility is a bit diminished when you call out this knife for being gucci lol

Sep 14, 2020

League544also, fallknivens all do sanmai, so the damascus is a cladding. the core steel is cowry x, which is supposed to be amazing stuff, but i take a hard pass on anything higher than 62hrc

Sep 14, 2020

method_burgerI mean, calling it Damascus sort of misses the point anyway. It's Cowry-X. Calling it the ZDP-189 version of damascus steel doesn't really do it justice. Asking this much dough, you'd think they'd at least put Cowry fricking X in the headline as it's one of the most expensive knife steels in the world. Vanax is cool and all but it's not in this league: http://zknives.com/knives/steels/cowry-x.shtml Seriously, selling this knife and not putting Cowry X in the title is kind of like trying to sell your garage without telling folks it comes with a Maybach. Maybe they didn't understand what it is? Drop doesn't seem to run many knives with uniquely Japanese steels. Don't get me wrong it's a numbskull price if you ask me and reflects a rarity that I don't really care about and besides, if the deal is available here, the chances are good that lots of folks have had a whack at it. Drop has a habit of running these extremely expensive high end limited edition Fallknivens and I always wonder who TF is buying that kind of kit from a place like this. It's kinda like buying a Mercedes from Marshall's. Can you imagine spending $1200 on a knife and having to wonder if you're being shipped somebody else's returned item? So I gotta laugh. But the price probably wouldn't seem so nuts to the people who buy knives made out of Cowry X.... https://www.hocho-knife.com/hattori-kd30-cowry-x-121-layered-damascus-chef-knife-gyuto-210mm/

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Sep 14, 2020

reswrighthaha i just mentioned that. i totally forgot falkiven bascially san mai's (not sure thats the correct punctuation) pretty much all their blades. it's a nice touch, something that justifies their higher price point. the real tragedy is, cowry x can be hardened to 68 hrc, and for such a high price point, i think it deserves the highest working hardness it can get. i think drop really lost the knife community these days, with such weird collaboration pieces. the quiet carry collab and that folding-camping-kitchen-knife basically solidified in my mind that they are going more for the hipster knife crowd than the i-want-a-good-deal crowd. the initial ferrum forge collabs were great deals. i think cedric and ada's video on knife marketing tropes really hits the nail in the head https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGWICeixUdU but then again, i'd be perfectly happy with 420hc for bushcrafting lol. oh no a chip, find a flat river rock, 2 min later i have working sharpness. oh no the edge is bent, straighten the blade out with a piece of hardwood. softer steels have some properties are pretty underrated in modern days

Sep 14, 2020

method_burgerI didn't grab the Drop QC IQ but I did pick up one of QC's own. You might be onto something with the marketing argument but I'll say this -- it's a damn good little knife in its own right. I like carrying it. I don't think Drop has really ever had a rock hard grasp of 'the knife community' and I don't think that community has ever really fit in well at Drop as a result. They'll take our money but seriously we ask way too many damn questions for their tastes and we have a nasty habit of understanding when someone's sent us a factory second and saying so. They prefer the folks who are coming here for EDC, twentysomething sons of the city with disposable income looking to define their own personal branding with some cool doohickeys, but not necessarily possessed of deep and intricate knowledge about the things that have captured their attention.

Sep 14, 2020

method_burgerThe added weight is not needed, you shouldn't be using a knife to cut anything to the point where it absolutely needs that much weight you should be there using a saw or an axe at that point, let the blade do the work, not the handle. The point of a fixed blade in a sheath is for quick access normal cutting tasks, once it gets beyond this point you're using the wrong tool. Vanax is BY FAR the hardest blade steel to work on and to heat treat, Sal said he has no plans for creating knives in Vanax steel for this very reason; he doesn't want anything to do with it and they are arguably one of the biggest knife companies of all time and even they have a terrible time dealing with it. I doubt this is even real Damascus, acid etching does no equal Damascus, "layering" this way is a marketing gimmick. Regardless of how you frame it as far as I am concerned quiet carry is by far the best production knife brand right now, their waypoint puts to SHAME every night I've ever held in my hand and I've been a heavy/OBSESSED knife collector since 2013, actually my first knife was a fallkniven u gemini. I've noticed in 2020 the newer companies are blowing these older companies away with quality and value. While these older more established companies DO NOT innovate, and keep putting out 2010 technology in overly thick blades that nobody wants.

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Sep 14, 2020

method_burgerFurther proving my point that this knife is overpriced fake Damascus junk lol.

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Sep 14, 2020

reswrighti just dislike certain marketing which is why i stay away from certain brands. for me, im buying a knife because i like the knife. all of that superfluous stuff just puts me off completely, like cold steel's stab a pig demo. yeah, not for me. i'm not in a militia group that prepares to fight terroists, nor am i a warrior of the concrete jungles. i just like knives, and want to buy good knives because their good knives. and because some random critic on youtube who harshly critiques knives actually likes a knife for some reason. (why i got the qsp penguin for example) i totally get what you mean. massdrop at a glance has a lot of knife forum activity relative to their knife revenue, and their setup is not focused on selling knives. knives were definitely more of an afterthought after their core technology and other lifestyle gear. but then again, this is sort of the expectation of californian companies (and yes, i live in silicon valley) so the mentality is the whole tech lifestyle, which is heavily heavily marketing focused. that being said, i really enjoy the knife community on massdrop moreso than other forums and reddit. it is a much smaller and focused community so we can have really long talks about knives that essentially go no where, other than to explore a shared hobby. also, part of me prefers these really bad descriptions, and low prices, like the massdrop gent. in the initial run, my brain was literally like 'lol these guys just lost money selling this to me' which is what i like feeling when i buy from massdrop. on the second hand stuff, man, i would love a full disclosure on second hand knives. frankly that doesnt detract me in the least bit, and would go back into more of a project mentality, such as when massdrop was selling yarn for example.

Sep 14, 2020

League544you definitely need weight, if anything to counterbalance the blade weight into the handle. and the reason i like slightly heavier knives is because i like something that is good for both chopping and slicing. a very middle of the road compromise. and also i like to sharpen my knives in weird ways, so i dont need something like vanax or anything with high hardness, because it'll take too much time to mod my knife than to use my knife. if i wanted a knife that didnt need weight, i would probably use a razor blade format, like a kiridashi, where the only purpose of the knife are super fine slices. otherwise, it needs to be a jack of all trades. pretty sure all of falkniven knives are real laminates, since theyve been doing it forever. but frankly, laminations arent too difficult to do, if you're doing the grinding and heat treatment of the knife, because it will be safe to assume you already have the equipment to do it. i literally did this the other day with a blow torch, c clamp and framing hammer at home. looked ugly as heck but it worked. but even if it is fake etched damascus, damascus is really for aesthetics (and in this case to protect the core metal). in most cases the edge actually becomes worse because of damascus, with the best case scenario being you have a really toothy cutter thats great for QC, but i'll never know because thats not what i'm looking for. same with cold steel. and frankly on the subject of cowry, if you asked me to pick a steel that i am going to be stuck in the wilderness with for a year, i'm choosing 420hc lol. i can bring that back to working sharpness with a random rock, wood and leather. once any of these high hardness steels chip, theres no way to fix them unless you're lugging around some diamond stones. i would disagree with you on 2020, it's been an interesting year for sure. sog, buck and spyderco are definitely adding a lot of new features to their historically successful models. sure the new tech may not all be there, but these are time tested designs that, were popular before collecting. spyderco tenacious, sog flash were huge in like.... i want to say 2007. these were all hotly debated and talked about knives, and around the time when 8cr13mov first hit the market, and when VG-10 was starting to not be considered a super steel. you forget that there is still a huge chunk of the knife market built on nostalgia, and this whole super steel is arguably a relatively new phenomenon. buck 110 in 420hc isnt going anywhere anytime soon, even with all these new modern models.

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Sep 14, 2020

method_burgerAgreed, that sort of thing's win win. We all know that mistakes slip through QC; we all know people return knives. These aren't shocking concepts so much as they're operational realities. Just take opened stock, have an 'as is' or 'last chance' section of the site where that stuff goes. Sell it 'as is' and give it an appropriate discount considering that you aren't offering a warranty for it. I mean, it makes people like us happy, but that's not really why they'd do it. It's a business sense decision -- quickest resolution, reduces bad reviews they'd otherwise get. The discount ends up usually meaning that the company won't make money on the deal but they DO recoup most of their cost and they DO avoid downstream costs - it ends up being cheaper than trying to overcome multiple bad reviews from pissed off customers and the resultant chatter in knife forums. I think that's something Drop's never gotten about some of us. Most people when they get something that's not quite right from Drop will contact customer service and go through the kabuki song and dance and eventually getting, like, $30 off your next purchase or whatever, and they'll consider that a win. Absolutely no judgment -- I get it. That's workin' for them. And it seems to work for Drop too, because those people aren't leaving bad reviews. But a lot of knife folks don't really feel compelled to go through that exercise; we're more content to fix the problem ourselves if we can, and post about it. You know, part helping others with a 'here's what I did', part telling folks to be on the lookout for a similar issue with their purchase, and part humblebragging that we fixed the knife -- and none of that comes across to Drop. They take that in a very unfriendly light because they think the point of their web community is to create buzz that drives the sale of their items, not to share info that might dampen enthusiasm for those sales, and I think there's no small amount of resentment between parts of Drop and the knife folks that shop here, as a result. ********** "my brain was literally like 'lol these guys just lost money selling this to me' which is what i like feeling when i buy from massdrop" Sounds like most every TwoSun I've ever bought. It sounds like there were some seriously legendary deals in Massdrop before I made it here. But back then the cat was still in the bag about companies like WE and Reate -- and about Chinese knives in general. Now people know -- awesome for us, bad for Drop's ability to score a sick deal. To a certain extent the glory days of yore were probably partially fueled with investor capital and y'all are never going to see those prices again. Likewise, WE and Reate are in a stronger position vis a vis Drop and probably not as inclined to offer them deep deep discounts on their pricing as they may have been three, five years ago. Drop of course is capable of looking around and seeing other OEMs that are getting really good, and sourcing some projects through them - and frankly this is what I wish they'd do instead of running back to WE and Reate for all their Drop branded builds. Start capitalizing on other rising talents for the Drop branded builds. Spread it out a little. They're out there and they're getting damned good and they're probably willing to do deals in order to create a little chatter about them in a crowded market. That gets back to win win for everyone.

Sep 14, 2020

reswrightwhat i dont understand is, why dont they do a 'massdrop community made knife' since they have the complete setup for it? They have an active community, oem, and polls. they could easily go 'hey community, design your next knife, vote on blade shape, size, handle material, etc. etc.) crunch all the results and boom, new knife, in-house design. i know i make it sound easier than it would be, but im sure the oem would help with the details (no one wants to vote on a mundane detail like framelock cutout facing in or out) this way they can have a good poll time to buy time ratio to prevent buyers fatigue. because honestly, a ferrum forge collab every month was exhausting to see sort of like how kizer asked their community to 'submit your multitool design' and picked the best one to manufacture. but yeah, oems that deal with smaller quantities but just the same quality would probably be the way to go. looks like selling one or two thousand would be a decent order to place (the falcon, massdrops first collab sold over 5k). but there are some collabs that barely break 200, which is honestly terrible from massdrop's perspective.

Sep 14, 2020

method_burgerthe real tragedy is, cowry x can be hardened to 68 hrc, and for such a high price point, i think it deserves the highest working hardness it can get I dunno. I cooked professionally for years and intend to cook the rest of my life and I still have no use whatsoever for an ultrahard knife steel in the kitchen. Honestly the point of those single bevel superhard Japanese knives isn't that they cut better, it's that they leave a nicer looking cut edge behind them. Doesn't matter for cooking, matters for visual presentation in a culture that prizes attention to such detail. To me it's gilding the lily so I'm probably the wrong guy to ask about it in general but I like the way Larrin Thomas refers to the high end of hardness ranges for knives -- he notes that that the range tells you what is possible, and that there is a bigass difference between 'possible' and 'recommended'. :) For me the value of a steel that can in theory be heat treated to 68 HRC is that it'll probably be an absolute workhorse at 65 HRC where many other knife steels become too brittle to use. At 68 HRC I think I'd be treating it like obsidian and expecting it to be as fragile. At 65 I'm getting most of the benefit of the hardness without the attendant risks of damage to the blade with sustained use. But you aren't wrong to note that 64 might be a little low though. probably deliberate. From what I read, most Cowry X goes into Japanese chef knives that cost a metric sackload of money and are used by actual Japanese chefs, known for being as sophisticated as it gets when it comes to knife steel. I dunno, they might want it near the max hardness, and they'd know how to use it if it was. Something like this is kinda off brand for the steel -- a limited edition collectible hunting knife -- and you don't need the sophistication or even basic know-how to be in the market for it. Just money. Sending the knives out a little undercooked probably saves them $ in returns because they aren't being bought by Japanese chefs, they're being bought by software engineers and sales team leads and people who inherited wealth.

Sep 14, 2020

reswrightwhat i dont understand is, why dont they do a 'massdrop community made knife' since they have the complete setup for it? They want a community in some ways, not others. They want us to feel free and to feel like we have input and like we're seen and heard and we're valuable and all that song and dance, but I think at the end of the day they see us as a captive market, one they're reluctant to empower any more than they must.

Sep 14, 2020

reswrightSorry for the late responses, I’m still at work, I WILL respond to both of you thoroughly.

Sep 14, 2020

method_burgerSorry for the late responses, I’m still at work, I WILL respond to both of you thoroughly.

Sep 14, 2020

League544=) take your time, i accidentally woke up at 3am my time

Sep 15, 2020

method_burgerI'm trying to figure out what's still being contended. Is it that I said Vanax wasn't in the same league as Cowry-X? It's not really a controversial opinion, and I'm not saying that to dump on Vanax which is apparently a very good knife steel. But anointing it The King Shit miiiight just be going a bit too far:

Larrin Thomas over at Knife Steel Nerds says it's quite good -- but he puts it in the same kind of 'middle of the road' category as S35VN. He, too, makes other recommendations if the corrosion isn't your biggest factor, or if it is but you need a tougher blade (wherein he says to go with LC200N).
Zknives also says it's good stuff - but they note that Bohler thinks it's their third best knife steel and limits its recommended use to high corrosion environments, suggesting that Elmax and M390 are better steels when that's not the case. And they note that we prolly oughtta listen to Bohler about their own steel.
The standout strength of Vanax is its stain resistance. It's strong, but not as strong as LC200N which costs less. It holds a nice edge - but nothing like 10V or S110V. The edge is toothy, but not like M4 or Cru-Wear or Elmax. Even Quiet Carry, who use it in the Drift and Waypoint, note that the primary use case for the Drift and the Waypoint are for folks on the coast or out on the water. That's not to say anyone thinks they're bad -- IIRC Nick Shabazz thinks the Waypoint was one of the best knives to come out under $300 last year and I can't think of a knife guy online whose opinions are more taken for gospel by the knife community than Nick Shabazz. And if you live with salt air or in an extremely humid environment, something like Vanax is what you want. But for most people, stain resistance is not the single most prized asset of a knife steel.

Lest we get all binary, I'm not saying that Cowry-X is the aforementioned monarch of all things dookie, either. Steels are rock paper scissors if you ask me, there's no one single best one for knives. But I'm comfortable saying Cowry-X is well and truly in a different class of steels that are much more rare and cost one or more orders of magnitude more than something like Vanax Superclean, which is a production knife steel. Cowry-X is like a higher alloy ZDP-189 that is in theory capable of attaining 70 Rockwell C hardness, only Daido ever made it, and apparently the alloy mix needs to be JUST right for it to work but if it's just right, the stuff mirror polishes up like quicksilver and makes an insane core for a kitchen knife, which you won't be able to get without spending at least one and usually several grand. Because it's so rare and prized. In fact if what I read is correct, they don't even forge Cowry-X anymore because it was such a PITA. Daido came up with a simpler version. Too much of a pain in the ass for the Japanese: let that sink in a moment. Anyway that's where I'm coming from and to me it all seems pretty self evident. Shrug. Dunno.

Sep 15, 2020

League544lol, take your time. This isn't a race nor is it something really important to contend.

Sep 15, 2020

reswrightVanax SuperClean is a nitrogen steel. And as the following molar mass analysis chart will tell you, it's a little different from the other better known N enriched steels.

As you can see the two major differences between it and the other common nitrogen knife steels on the market is 1) it has more vanadium (about as much as M390, M4, Elmax and and S30V) to give it fine grain, hard carbides and wear resistance compared to the other listed N enriched steels, and 2) it also has a hellapile more N in it than most of the other nitrogen steels. Nitride chemistry is pretty cool in that it can make a semistainless steel act stainless while also replacing carbides, and it's a lot less well understood than carbide chemistry in the knife world simply because until recently it's been limited to being a surface level treatment of the steel. My guess is Bohler Uddeholm is finding a way to nitride the steel while it's in the particulate phase and if so that's pretty cool. Good read on nitrogen in steel: https://knifesteelnerds.com/2018/09/17/nitrogen-alloyed-knife-steels/

Nov 20, 2020

method_burgerI completely understand where HRC-ist biases and their opposites come from but I encourage you to try higher HRC kitchen knives. There are good ways a Japanese Mastercraftsman can overcome inherent brittleness. If you love food, a very hard, very sharp knife can allow you to do some things that you may not have been able to do before. Respect that hardness as it can be a path to unparalleled sharpness. Keep it dry and clean (and away from rage-cooking teenagers if you have any). My chief pair of kitchen knives have a ZDP-189 core. I was concerned a lot more before I started using them. After stropping on dressed but compoundless thick Russian saddle leather, I will cut a carrot in half to expose a flat surface. I then cut a very thin slice of carrot from the exposed end and then slide that thin slice of carrot onto my tongue. If my knife is optimally sharp, I won't taste the carrot so much as a sort of cool, clean, slightly metallic taste, which is testimony to the cleanly-broken and unbroken carrot cell walls being mostly un-torn: most knives 'tear' through your food. This microscopic difference actually affects the pure taste and consisitency of your dish. Ever flipped a flat of boneless and skinless chicken breasts over onto a cutting board and just thinly sliced the mass of chicken gently and without much effort or even real movement of those pieces within that tight mound of chicken? I have made some newbie mistakes. Yes, I've been too tip-aggressive mostly from using knives that might have required such exertion. The tip of this san-mai ZDP 5" petty knife buried in the cutting board and I didn't suspect and I got to hear and feel that "ping" that heralded the loss of maybe 1/8" of the tip. Being a knife guy, I reprofiled, feathering the last inch of the knife into the rest of the edge and convexing it through to 2,000 grit carbide wet sandpaper over mousepad before 3 different strop compounds on flush-mounted and dressed leather, gently finishing with fifteen minutes on 0.5 micron diamond cellulose tape over planed hardwood (around 50,000 grit, lol). I figured it was worth an attempt and that gave me a fair bit of confidence. It works like new but I would be embarassed to share that with this Mastercraftsman by asking for a second knife. (I swear these knives are his actual children.) No issues though. Another early "ping" in the larger knife involved a massive length of edge but it never chipped under my el-cheapo 600X digital microscope. New cutting-board time! Everything from edge design engineering to tempering is like nothing I have encountered. I hope that you do have a good experience with high HRC in the kitchen. Overall, I've had a very good experience with high hardness just from this and my one Rockstead indulgence. I do have to say that I know its place and limits but am otherwise a huge fan of like N690 or VG10 rocking all outdoor tasks at 58HRC or carbon steel sometimes as low as 52-55 in an ultra-tough chopper so we may think alike in a lot of things too. Sorry for the essay! Sleep wasn't coming so...

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Nov 20, 2020

Axeguyread reswright's response on 9/14. he explains the advantages and disadvantages pretty much in-line with my experiences as a cook too. and as someone whos had to sharpen other peoples knives, damn people are picky. everyones got a preference and not everyones is 'as sharp as possible'. the guy doing the garnishes like one way, the drinks another. i basically didnt go beyond an 800 grit after a month of feedback, since most people didnt care for that level of sharpness when cutting every single minute. edge sharpness does not increase edge retention if done correctly (depends on the steel, geometry, etc) pretty happy when i got some no brand name, no steel designation knife to last 2 weeks without a touchup. and that feeling is something you lose when you go to a high hrc. the high retention means you dont spend as much time sharpening and tweaking the edge. but yes, i do have high hrc kitchen knives, but theyre mostly for carving large slabs of steak. i honestly just prefer a thinly ground kitchen knife, since that makes a huge difference in performance, and not hrc. highly encourage you to try out a random chinese kitchen cleaver (whatever theyre called). and get the thinnest one you can find at the store. dont worry about steel (its probably 3cr13), they should cost like 10$ lol. may not have the best edge retention, but the action is pretty laser-like and also more versatile compared to a japanese or german style kitchen knife. especially veggies, which is where it really shines (and no, it is not a nakiri)

Nov 22, 2020

method_burgerYes...I cook as well. And read. And I challenge myself. I am lucky in some ways to have had and continue to use many different knives of different sizes and shapes and alloys, even knives that aren't steel. (Without both carbon and iron, it is not even a steel alloy.) Think of pure or alloyed Cu (Cu, Bronze), Ti, Co, Ni (in SN100), etc., also ceramics, embedded tungsten carbide, CF, even G10, harder thermoset plastics, obsidian, agate, glass(!), fire-'tempered' hardwood, whalebone, tooth, nitrated iron alloys [if N is significant, it is not technically a steel but usually you have carbon there too so we seem to just call the whole shabang 'steel'.]... Ya...possibly tool-obsessed. Out in the world, I've been calling knives tools (because they are). That's what I say if asked by LEOs etc.** It can be surprising how calming that can be around those you might call 'tool-adverse'.… Born backed to the endless woods (as a young me, they seemed such) a knife was just something on-belt or in-pocket from the time your Dad awarded or gifted you one. Times have changed. We all have different experiences and reasons for our knives. Collectors are no less important than the Users: their money (or desire for it) enables makers to innovate and push the engineering, metallurgy, techniques, and decoration of our 'tools'! Use them, make them, mod them, COLLECT ALL TWENTY BILLION!!! (lol...couldn't hold that one in...) Thank you all for an edifying conversation. Cheers! My last project involved attempting crafting a knife from stale jerky. Maybe some day you'll camp with a fork made of compressed jerky. Eat with it and even pick your teeth with it before it softens enough to really chew on... Ya, needs work, especially to meet standards. It'd be better left to an industrial process (and talk about Nitrides starts again). To me, it's just another day here out in Space...🤪😜 ............ **Fortunately, I live in a place with a law on the books that makes it essentially illegal to be in the woods WITHOUT a knife! (more like tools and items necessary for emergencies or survival) Funny tho—like everywhere—it is possible to get more LEO attention regardless of laws, unless you know your rights. A knife is a tool and 'intention' is important.

Nov 22, 2020

Axeguy"Ya...possibly tool-obsessed. Out in the world, I've been calling knives tools (because they are). That's what I say if asked by LEOs etc.** It can be surprising how calming that can be around those you might call 'tool-adverse'" Down here it's literally the difference in some cases between being cited or not. Well, that and your general bearing. I live in a state that has zero restrictions on knife ownership but several restrictions on where, when, how and why you can carry them. The peculiarity of the letter of our law is such that it is illegal to sell automatics and certain other categories of knife, but legal to own them, but illegal to carry them concealed... but legal to carry them in your hand or in an open neck sheath or some other clearly visible manner... but illegal to do so for the purposes of self defense. LEO will chat you up about it at the very least if they see a knife that looks like a switchblade in your hand or in a sheath on your belt , and if you say anything about self defense or even allude to it they'll seize your knife and cite you. Citizens who say 'this is a tool' or 'opening boxes' are safe so long as they don't subsequently use the knife to commit some crime (in which case they get an automatic maximum sentence) so the law might talk some smack but then they will let you go.

Nov 23, 2020

Axeguyfortunately i prefer chopsticks for camping, since it's just 2 sticks. i'm around forests, so all i have to do is make sure it's not poison oak i'm using. also fire-hardened wood knife, rather difficult to accomplish. i keep turning the edge to charcoal, but it's probably my technique more than the wood. sadly theres no good resources in a lot of old-world techniques like firehardening wood or tempering stone tools. on the subject of your jerky knife, i do a bit of leather crafting so this may or may not be related, but i know different areas of skin on the cow provides different properties of leather, for example belly leather stretches overtime, dont use it for belts (lol yup, my first belt, still my go to belt though, nothing like your first mistake). maybe different cuts of meat dries differently, like a sirloin with its denser fibers would be a stronger/brittler jerky compared to a flap with loose muscle fibers and higher fat content. no idea, just spitballing, but slap a knife related thing on anything, and it instantly becomes interesting...... and yeah, these are my favorite cuts, i like maximizing inexpensive things if you couldnt tell LEO is pretty weird. something i used to do overseas was always carry fruit with me, to show i'm just going to use it for food prep as 'intent'. never got stopped so not sure how effective it is. ate a lot of fruit that year. also, 8cr13mov in 20 degree edge is terrible for cutting fruit but wont chip when batoning wood.

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Nov 23, 2020

method_burger @method_burger and @reswright Hahaha! Sounds like the softball bat in my car when I worked in Detroit...with a few balls and a glove... "No, Officer; I was just on my way home from practice." Thus, the power of Intention and thinking ahead (which IS our only real or reliable self-defence). Cheers! ***** (Shout out to Detroit! I didn't know what to think of you when I landed there from away but I grew to love your people: y'all got Heart! And good Hockey!)

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Nov 23, 2020

reswrightAn acquaintance told me that a LEO let him walk with his supposedly-restricted balisong. Apparently the officer caught sight of him and asked him to "Show me that knife, please?" (It's Canada... I'm not sure what would happen if people stopped saying, 'please' or 'sorry'. Habit or Politeness? Whichever it is, it never fails to reduce the temperature of encounters...) He then proceeded to slowly open the knife one scale at a time and, clumsily latch it then hand it to him all newbie-style. The officer smiled, closed it, and returned it to him. If it didn't happen quite that way, I've seen enough to know that it's consistent with what we've all observed about 'Intent'. I respect the kind of situations these LEOs find themselves in and never want to be between them and their duties or, especially, actually BE their 'duty' in any way, shape, or form. I am fortunate to be in a place where their services are not often required.

Nov 23, 2020

method_burgerEXACTLY!!! Form a compound word with the words 'knife' or 'cutlery' or preface it with 'tactical' and suddenly your strange idea is actually interesting to the 'tool-obsessed'! Lol! Meat-knife Flesh-knife Tactical Jerky-knife …

Nov 23, 2020

AxeguyPS. Can that perp soften and swallow his Tactical Jerky-knife before the Police arrive...? Tragically, that's compressed sirloin at RC62...not single-press brisket or cobalt-brisket at 46...!

Nov 23, 2020

Axeguy...or HAMASCUS with layers of ham, sausage, and centre-cut porkchop—all hammered and showing in beautiful layered effects...! (Bacon has nitrates just like N-based 'steels' not carbides ;)

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Apr 1, 2021

AxeguyLet’s just get this set straight, Vanax is the king of knife steels, not Cowry-x. 💜😎

Apr 3, 2021

method_burgerI just did the research and Vanax crushes every steel except for Maxamet on sisal rope at 580 cuts, even beating S110V, S90V, M390/k390 and definitely s35vn/s30v. It’s also one of the toughest knife steels ever, in the top 5-10 for sure at a score of 6, the best being at 7. Cowry-X must cower to Vanax after getting Vansmacked, the tests speak for themselves boys. I also agree Quietcarry Waypoint is the single greatest non-custom edc knife of all time. I could of sold my Waypoint for 450 on eBay and I didn’t think about it. This is a 800-1000 dollar edc in 300 msrp price tag.

Apr 17, 2021

League544**Sigh** Do I even have to admit to having Maxamet knives and preferring their wretched patinated faces to Vanax? (I think the cutting tests you lorded over @method_burger even backed that up.) There is more to this fictitious "crown" you want to put on Vanax than any cutting test you could ever want to push. I also prefer well-done D3, A11/10V, and even D6. There are amazing steel alloys out there so complex that there is barely 60% iron in them, if that... When convoluted treatment cycles and grinding woes are religiously heeded and ignored, respectively, the crown is worn by possibly more steels than you can count on all fingers and toes—all coming down to specific environments and usages. My half-inch thick D6 dagger beats your vanax sandwich bisector as an icepick. One guy's whalebone shiv beats some other guy's vanax staple remover. If your knife/tool journey is over with your vanax whatever, good for you, really. Most of us that care, don't ever stop experiencing and learning in this field because there is no endpoint to this race...ever.

Apr 17, 2021

AxeguyIronically you said “Sigh”, I have to sigh myself. You’re bringing up exception to the rule arguments, I swear this is like 90% of arguments people make on the Internet they always bring up some exception or some extreme. Bottom L I N E Vanax is the best, as claimed by even Uddeholm themselves, overall knife steel, period, end of discussion. Please, PLEASE give me a better overall knife steel, with better TOUGHNESS, Edge retention and obviously anti-corrosive properties, your garbage D6 rust prison knife is an insult to an Apex level steel like Vanax, it’s like saying your garbage 1970 Dodge Dart is faster than my Bugatti so therefore the Bugatti is not the best car. 😂😂😂😭 Thank you for the entertainment.

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Apr 17, 2021

League544Well, I am glad you were entertained. I'm not half-bad at that. I am excited that you have found your Holy Grail. You do realize that a 'cutting test' can certainly tantalize but is highly likely to be an argument from exception in some way, as well; right? I assume you made sure that each knife was in all aspects identical save for the alloys used and their attention to their individual optimal treatment protocols. Likewise, the amount of pressure used and the testers couldn't be aware of which alloy they were testing, etc., etc, and when you account for all the variables, as you must have—then you must have wondered whether you could get the best of each of these steels by using the exact same grinds on each? Of course, you knew that some alloys really shine or are better than others at certain grind angles—a product of carbide size and volume—and at higher heats or different atmospheres—because different processes and environments need cutters, too. Argument from exception is a disease that we should all be fighting and this is not just as intelligent wordsmiths. We could both do better. I really shouldn't have made fun of you or wasted your time or mine. I won't bother you again. You get to wear the crown for a bit here in this moribund knife forum. Drop has dropped us anyways. I keep hoping for mechanical keys and headphones in the shape of knives. Alas, no. My tears could corrode Maxamet. Don't shed a tear. I'm not worth it. There are other educated but more humble makers, ex-soldiers and collectors populating all sorts of knife forums that need opinions and expertise. You won't find me there. Just keep an open mind and be patient with them.

Apr 17, 2021

AxeguyHonestly just watch BBB’s toughness video on Vanax and you’ll be shocked. It’s one of the toughest steels on Earth with top 5 edge retention and #1 for corrosion. It’s just a star in all respects, all technicalities aside. And it being a new-age steel this isn’t surprising, whereas D6 has been around for 15-20+ years commonly. Before I paraded Vanax I was an S110v guy and had a Nakamura 484 m390 too back in 2012 that I lost like an idiot after 3 weeks rip, then from s110v I went on to lc200n and then Vanax. I just prefer versatile do-it-all silver steels/nitros/chrome and Neo.

Apr 17, 2021

League544So...you haven't lost the hunger for good steel. Good on ya. I will watch that video. Thx