OK.. Lets do it.. Kershaw or Spyderco.

[Kyle Weiss]

A nice knife to slit your own throat at Old Navy. That's where it all ends.

 

[Blackhorse]

Kyle...quit wimpering!

 

[Kyle Weiss]

Kyle...quit wimpering!

Sorry, got a bit "corporate emo" on ya. 8)

 

[plumbernater]

I know its not a kershaw, or spiderco. But its a pretty nice knife for 13 bucks. Its a schrade X timer, all stainless steel

 

[Blackhorse]

Nice little piece indeed. For the price I assume it was made in China?

Is it a button lock?

 

[plumbernater]

Of course the schrade, old timers, uncle henry. They all are made in china now. Its got a handle lock. alot like a leniar lock. I was looking at knives on ebay and run across this little knife 13.99 free shipping, and I couldnt help my self. A pocket knife with me gets lots of use and abuse. I cant justify carrying one of my good knives for work. I do have my sunday pocket knife and my case that goes to the woods. And my hunting knives. But like I said . every day work horse and beat around knife I go for these little deals I find.

 

[Blackhorse]

Chinese labor must be gettin' the equivalent of about $0.03 an hour. I picked up a very credible boot knife a month or so ago...blade of AUS 8 which is a good stainless. The fit and finish are fine...and it was $15. After I got it I saw the same knife a few places for something like SIX BUCKS! Amazing! Brand...United Cutlery. Certainly not the greatest piece out there, but for the money.....!

 

[Boxerbuddy]

Wow AUS8 is a good Japanese stainless....how do they make a profit on that...lol what does the tang go down about an inch?......even so still seems super cheap for a knife with that steel.

 

[Blackhorse]

Yeah...it must be in a new facility as it looks like they take the blade and 'injection mold' part of the handle onto it...and then do it again for the softer inset panel that's the grip panel thing. Just a guess...but if most of the work is automated it would bring the per item cost down. It's seems like it was hand sharpened though...as a robot would have done a better job. lol But for the bucks...I just hit it with my belt sander and completed the job with a really excellent little stone holding clamp device that allows a very specific angle to used and took it though 5 grits and a polishing routine...final hone with flexcut gold and a rawhide strope...it's now scary sharp.

If'n I really wanted to do it right I would have transformed the grind, which is a straight 2-bevel, to a convex grind,,,which I vastly prefer. I can keep a convex grind sharpened in the field as well as I can do in my 'shop' on a bevel grind by using 1200 and then 1800 grit paper and a mouse pad...and about any flat surface. It's pretty cool. You just lay the mouse pad down with the paper on top and with the edge away from you folded under the far side of the pad...and drag the blade sidewise toward yourself...with just enough downward pressure so that it depresses the paper 'into' the mousepad (which has 'give' to it...right?) about 1/16" or so. How much you compress the pad with the knife through the paper dictates how much abrasion there is on the blade and in turn sort of depends on how cushy the pad is. OH! And the blade edge is oriented AWAY from you...it's like a 'backdrag' motion. Works astoundingly well, using good paper. I keep one of those aluminum clipboards with a long tight clamp and half a dozen sheets of fine grit paper in a nylon school pouch thing in the back of my wagon for that use. Since I'm also always on the lookout for wood when I'm out and about - as I'm a carver AND a stumbling knife maker - I also sharpen my small axe and hatchets with a convex grind and keep them pretty sharp. Seem stupid with such soft steel? Well there ARE small axes and hatchets that are made of GOOD steel and some that use standard steels that harden the edge pretty effectively. Using a convex grind on something like that makes a pretty effective tool. I have an Estwing that I hand filed a beard into, along with a sort of 'pull knife' edge along the steel shaft (gotta be carefull handling that baby) and the shaft section took maybe an hour to contour, while the hardened edge section of the beard stock removal took all day and a lot of sweat.

But I digress. lol

 

[Boxerbuddy]

Wow man...sounds like quite a project. I wish I was a good enough knife sharpener to put a convex grind on my knives. As it is I suck at sharpening them at all lol.

 

[Richard Burley]

What the hell is a convex grind? Do you mean a hollow grind, or does the curvature go the other way? I know very little about knives, except that they're a pain to sharpen if you don't know what you're doing. And if you can't sharpen a knife, what's the point of owning it? If you actually use the thing for anything, you can't take it to a pro every day. I use crocksticks, which do work, but not on a new knife, at least not very well. The factory grind angle usually isn't right. Too obtuse, or whatever the word is.

 

[Blackhorse]

You've got it right. A cross section of a convex grind is kind of shaped like a Roman arch...you know, pointed at the top, right? But it's a very, very steep, skinny, pointy arch - so it's sharp. So to sharpen the top of that arched shape you just shave off the rough parts along the leading edge...and it's sharp again. Your issue of having a sharpener with the wrong angle is bypassed pretty much.

There's every kind of grind you can imagine...cause that's how someone came up with them.

 

[plumbernater]

Yall make sharpening a knife sound complicated. My grand pa showed me how to sharpen a knife. You know its sharp when you can breath on the edge and you can hear a small peep peep as the microbes in your breath get cut in half. :roll:

 

[Puff Daddy]

Digging this old thread up - I finally had it with the cheap liner knives I go through and broke down and bought a Kershaw Blur black Tanto partially serrated Sandvik blade. Wonder if anyone's been using this and how they hold up? Won't be a toy, daily carry work knife.

 

[riff raff]

I've owned this Chive for about 10 years, it gets abused in every way. Packing my parents apartment for a move, it disappeared. After a few months, I bought another. Four or five months later, opening a box, it's found. Now I have two!