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Adamantinepiggy
82
Oct 5, 2017
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Just got the red handle version of the knife today. Overall an OK knife for the price, but there are a bunch of design problems and a sharpening QC issue though. I have always really liked VG10 steel for the fine polished edge it will take without tons of work. Obviously, being easy to sharpen means it doesn't hold it's edge as long as some of the newer super steels, but since I'm always near a sharpener, it's no biggy. I prefer easier sharpening over hard-to-sharpen super-steel.
So for my complaints:
1. The handles screw heads and clip are bright polished stainless. Well that doesn't match the dull finish of the pivot nor the thumbstuds . Just looks wrong.. I'll hit the studs and pivot with my polishing wheel to make them shiny, or hit the shiny screws and clip with some 1000 grit to dull them down. Haven't figured out which yet though.. Easy fix, but I wish I didn't have too. You can't tell from the pictures on this website since whomever took the pictures of the knives, did a TERRIBLE (or perhaps "great" for Massdrop sales in deceiving the customer) job taking pictures of how it actually looks.
2. The blade came very sharp from the middle of the blade to the tip, and not very sharp from the middle to the handle from a poor sharpening job. Required some work to make it all sharp, but another thing I shouldn't have had to bother with from the box.
3. The blade stop is the thumbstuds against the frame instead of the back-end-of-the-blade against a stop pin. Had I known this, I wouldn't have bought it, but I'm too lazy to return it. I like to take out one side of the thumbstud normally (so only one side has protrusion), but since the thumbstuds also act as the blade stop, I can't do it. Plus opening the blade (even slowly) with the thumb always gives a meatier and satisfying "click" with folders with a blade that stop against a stop pin. Thumbstud stops always sound mushy when opened slowly. With this particular knife, if it stopped against a pin instead of the thumbstuds, I would have taken the thumbstuds off completely as the groove in the blade makes for a nice thumb-catching position by itself and the blade would look sleeker without the ugly thumbstuds.
4. I wish they had not coated the blade. VG 10 is stainless as heck, so a coating isn't really necessary anyways. Plus VG10 polishes beautifully and with the blade polished up it would have been even sexier looking, than the dull Titanium grey. Even a non-polished, but non-coated blade would have looked better since it would match the rest of the bright stainless hardware color better.
5. More complaining about the thumbstuds as a stop instead of the back of the blade against a stop pin because if you look at the jimping on the back of the blade, it serves ZERO purpose since when the knife is opened, the spine jimping is recessed BELOW the handle's jimping! WTF!! If they had raised the back jimping area of the spine so that it matched level with the jimping of the handle, it would serve a grip-area purpose, AND it could have also been used as a blade stop. Get rid of the thumbstuds, get rid of the divots at the forward edge of the handle, and it would have been MUCH sleeker. Just poor design thought by Mr Kim Ning..
If you search the reviews on this knife, some dude pops up in a bunch of places with the same negative review complaining about the VG10 heat treatment on the Bolt. Maybe he got a dud, because the VG10 on this one seemed hardened just fine from the feel I got when I sharpened it up and it didn't roll the edges like butter as he claimed.
Later Edit for some Positives:
1. I very much like how the handle metal is recessed into the back of the G10 for a slimmer profile for a more-pocketable build, while still having full metal-support on both sides.
2. I like the shape of the blade (which is what attracted it to me in the first place) as it has an interesting profile along with the looks of the groove. Too bad the ugly generic thumbstuds. Like I mentioned earlier, the groove would have made a decent thumb catching opener by itself.
3. For the complicated patterns on both G10 scales, they match perfectly in contours.
If they fixed my complaints, this knife would be friggin awesome.. unfortunately, it's merely OK..
Another edit from a few days later.. The lock on this knife is crap.. Serious QC issue. The linerlock only engages with a tiny portion of the knife rear at the bottom visible corner. The rest of the liner does not even make contact. This knife's lock fails even a "light" spine whack on a soft surface. Now I am not a proponent that spine whacks are a good indicator of a liner lock's holding ability in normal usage, but it should not fail a very light one on a padded surface (foam mouse pad on my wood desk in this case). Since the lock is the heart and soul of a folder, this knife is dead to me as I value my fingers much more than anything else about this knife.
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Oct 5, 2017
DDro
390
Nov 11, 2017
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Adamantinepiggyagree on coating -- unnecessary...
that lock problem is really scary...
Nov 11, 2017
MichaelHeartless
127
Feb 12, 2018
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AdamantinepiggyGreat review. Definitely made me change my mind about getting one.
Feb 12, 2018
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