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Showing 1 of 180 reviews about:
slonismo
17
Nov 1, 2020
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mdeousA knife’s out of the box sharpness is equivalent to the amount of gas in the tank of a car when you buy it. Learn to sharpen your knives
mdeous
230
Nov 1, 2020
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slonismoI'd see it more like expecting that the car I just bought has properly inflated tires, but anyway, I think I said it was an easily solved problem, didn't I? (edit: because I feel like you're that kind of person, yes I didn't say "easily", still...)
(Edited)
reswright
3850
Nov 1, 2020
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slonismoI know how to sharpen my knives and I still pay a lot of attention to how sharp the edge comes to me.
A knife's out of the box sharpness is a trailing indicator of how well other things were done on the knife that aren't as immediately apparent as the keenness of the edge. If you have to put an edge on a knife that just came out of the box, not just because you reprofile everything but because the edge needed work.... the chances are good that it will need more work than just on the edge. It might not all be work that you can do as well as sharpening. More to the point, if someone doesn't even have enough pride in their knife to make sure it's going out the door sharp as hell, when that's immediately visible -- what other corners were cut with, say, material storage and handling and so on? Will this steel start corroding earlier than it should? Is one of the internal screws overtorqued to the point that it's distorting the frame? Was the lockbar insert properly heat treated? Were the liners? If you can't trust in their instincts as craftsmen, you can't trust in their work.
So I mean, feel free to point out that knives can be sharpened, but don't discourage people like OP from reporting that it could have been sharper out of the box. To me, that's useful info even though I know how to put a mirror edge on steel.
slonismo
17
Nov 2, 2020
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mdeousLol I appreciate the snarky assumption, but no, I am not "that type of person". I was just commenting how I don't think slightly sub-par out of the box sharpness is worthy of a one-star reduction. Despite the fact that I'm kinda pissed at your uppity attitude, I will give you kudos because the tire analogy is probably better than my gas analogy.
slonismo
17
Nov 2, 2020
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reswrightI see what you're getting at but I just didn't think out of the box sharpness is something that is super important on high-end knives. In fact, many custom Japanese kitchen knife makers give the option to sell their knives unsharpened so the owner can put their own edge on them. In my head, higher-end knife manufacturers have the same idea. I definitely appreciate OP's mention of the fact but I think that especially considering the edge was still serviceable and shaving-sharp, it didn't merit a one-star reduction.
(Edited)
reswright
3850
Nov 3, 2020
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slonismoI think it’s safe to say that the expectation in the pocket knife industry is that new knives will be sharpened by the manufacturer before sold. The more you pay for labor the better the edge should be. It is a different industry than selling four and five figure knives to people who know as much about the craft of sharpening as one learns in Japanese cuisine (which is to say, a metric shit ton) and who own specialized manual sharpening gear which they learned to use via apprenticeship.
I’ve bought a couple Drop knives in S35VN. They come sharp, but “not as sharp as an Osborne” is a legitimate characterization. Part of it is blade geometry and part of it is steel choice and the rest is that companies like Benchmade and Spyderco still have an edge over companies like WE in terms of sharpening science and art and not cooking any metal while doing it. It won’t last much longer but for now they still have that working for them.
I dunno that I’d knock off a star just for it not being ‘scary sharp’ either but OP also mentioned other issues so being fair, neither did they.
YMMV
mdeous
230
Nov 3, 2020
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slonismoI don't get why you're focusing so much on that sharpness thing. It wasn't the only reason for the missing star, the main reason being the misalignment of the backspacer and the scales curves. You could argue that this is also a small thing for a missing star I guess, but to me 5 stars equals perfection.
slonismo
17
Nov 3, 2020
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mdeousI agree. I apologize as well for coming out of the gate strongly. Really no point in arguing over this especially when there's nothing to argue over lol
reswright
3850
Nov 3, 2020
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slonismoIt's all fair commentary. Good to see it stay polite.
It's worth pointing out that most people have never held a properly sharpened knife in their life. Even those of us who know a few different ways to sharpen a blade up and are used to being able to improve on most manufacturers' 'factory edges' and our knives are waaaaaay sharper than average and we get bragging rights among our friends - there are still people we can hand our knives to that will hand them back not just sharper but so much sharper that it'll take us aback. Indeed, people tend to think they know what 'scary sharp' means until they see their first actual honest to god scary sharp edge at work and then they realize why we use the word -- it can be a little alarming!
People go 'well how do I learn how to do that?" And the answer is "Wanna spend the rest of your life learning and all of your money on gear?" You start getting into precision machinery and advanced materials research on ways to snap off the burr and by the time you're done learning about it, you realize that as a profession it's simply taking things further than an amateur can take them. It's well past anything I do with a Worksharp, let alone a Sharpmaker and a leather strop and it's something I have mad respect for, these guys with thirty years of muscle memory in their forearms who can freehand an appleseed grind and get an edge below 100 BESS on a pocketknife blade.
http://bessex.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=185
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- while the blade was shaving sharp, it was not "crazy sharp" like other knives can be (my 940 was sharper than that out of the box, for example)
- it is really sad that the curves of the back spacer don't match the curves of the scales, this would have really been the ultimate detail that would have made it perfect (sharpness can be fixed, this can not)
That's still a very nice knife, and it's beautifully made. Totally worth its price.