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reswright
3850
Sep 1, 2019
Kubey KU212 D2/G-10 If I had to guess I would say Kubey is a company that relies upon the manufacturing base of other companies. I have bought several and they don't tend to have a central ethos to them -- instead some Kubeys are a lot like SRMs, some are a lot like Bestechs or maybe Ganzos, some look like Albatrosses and here, with the 212, I have one that looks a lot like a TwoSun Reaper. Kubey also makes a few knives like this model but with anodized Ti and S35VN, and I've thought about picking one up to see if it's good -- so when I saw this, I decided I'd buy it and see what's what before I dropped the money on the more expensive version. This was under $30.
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I said it reminds me of TwoSun, but does that mean the same manufacturer as TwoSun built it? Very hard to say. The more I learn about how the Chinese knife industry works, the more evidence I encounter that there's a lot going on I don't see or understand. Westerners are always dealing with third parties to some degree when they engage with Chinese manufacturers, and the brands are still 'black boxes' when it comes to analysis -- at the end of the day unless you are inside the industry, you don't know whether a company is rooted in its own production facilities, is just buying production from other facilities, is buying the same designs from a whole range of different facilities, is just getting the cast offs from some other line of knives -- you really in many cases don't know if the 'company' meaningfully exists below the retail level, and many do not.
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Analysts struggle with these things because it's easy to go out on a limb with limited data, but if I had to characterize Kubey right now I'd say they are rooted in retail, not production, and that their 'design' process involves calling up other companies with good designs and negotiating some production of their knives with Kubey logos -- and usually from what I can tell, the reason those companies go along with it is that Kubey is asking for a slightly cheaper version in some way. If the washers have reservoirs milled in them on the original, the Kubey will have regular brass washers; if the original has titanium hardware, the Kubey will have stainless steel hardware. Stuff like that. Nothing that speaks to negligence, just cost cutting. So I think that's mostly how they're doing business, they buy production from other companies. There could be other explanations and I remain open to them, but this is how the company scans to me. The KU212 breaks down pretty quickly:
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The build is good, although it's missing the little things like a detent ramp and bearing races. Brass bearing cages always look nice -- really, I never notice a difference between nylon and brass but there's something pleasing about seeing the metal there. The blade's well milled, but the curve to it means it's not a utility knife. Cutting things with a hawksbill is different from cutting something with a flat slicer or a blade with belly, and can take some getting used to before you can rock one as a daily utility knife. But the lockup is nice and strong, and the fit and finish are good -- the detent is a little fierce in pulling the blade shut but only a bit. Back together:
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Eh, not quite as nice as the Bestech Scimitar dyed up. G-10 is pretty much whatever recipe the manufacturer wants to use, and the fabric Bestech used for the composite had a lot more light green to it, and didn't dye as fast as the resin matrix around it. This has a little less pop to it and a little more snakescale:
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But that's dyeing G-10 for you, always something a little different from the last time. So is this knife good? I'd say it's decent. But it's not so awesome that I'm tempted to pick up one of those aforementioned versions they did in titanium and S35VN. Those run around $150 for starters. That's fine if you're getting a great knife, but not so much if you're paying for looks. All the nice milling and the wicked blade on the KU212 are cool but they're more eye-catching than purposeful, if you ask me.
(Edited)
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