Hey everyone, David C, Andersen here coming at
you from the KnifeCenter Welcome to kniFAQ number 33, the knife series where I answer all
your questions whether they're sharp or dull. Got some fun stuff. As always, you guys know, I
like to say that. But among other things we're talking about this week, we're going to be
asking the question of pocket knives gotten too expensive. Let's get into it. (KniFAQ) So as always, before we jump into the questions,
a big thank you to everyone out there who has left their questions down in the comments for
us. We have a lot of fun combing through and picking things out. If you want a chance to get
one of your own questions answered in a future episode, do the same thing. Just drop them down
there in the comments. Alright, first question for today comes from Chris Gonzalez. a fun
question for you, who are your three favorite knife designers fixed or folder, and one of your
favorite designs from each, the only rule is you can't choose yourself, thanks. As always, of
course, I wouldn't choose myself, that'd be tacky. I had to think about this one, because
what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to ignore the fixed blade side of the equation when
I go to folders. Just because I happen to know a lot of know a lot of fixed blade designers very
well. And sometimes it can be hard to separate the the man or the woman from the design. So
just gonna avoid that altogether. Easy way out, maybe. But not really, because it actually made
my job harder. There's good stuff out there. I like a lot of things from a bunch of different
designers, certain elements. From a certain designer, I always appreciate this about them. I
always appreciate this about another. But there's not really any designers out there where
I'm always like I'm following them, like following their every move, and I love what
they're doing so much that I'm like obsessive with it. So I had to think about this a little
bit. But what I'm gonna go with is the first one for just someone who's designs, I almost
universally always appreciate I love his clean lines. And that's Brad Zinker. You may know him
from his the Boker urban Trapper series, it's certainly very popular. And those are a great
representation on the production side of things. And we get some of his customs in here too. And
I always make it a point when we get a new batch to go find them and at least look at them even
if I'm not doing anything else with them video wise. This is his urban Barlow. This one comes
in just under 700 bucks, handmade by him, of course. And there's just an elegant simplicity
to his design. And there's something that's always recognizable about his designs too, which
is hard to pull off with that same simplicity at the same time. always impressed by that three
inch blade on this guy CPM 154, nice elegant shape, burlap micarta for the handles, signature
style of his deep carry pocket clip. I dig it a lot. As for who's for the next one, the
designers who designer designers who I own the most of that's going to earn the second place
and I got to combine them here. Eric and Sal Glesser from Spyderco because I probably have
more knives in my collection with that little Maker's Mark right there that that Sal Glesser
logo than anything else. So by default, that's gotta be it a lot of stuff out there, I've
really been digging the pair of three. Lately I just picked up one of the the pair three
lightweights. Interestingly, I used to not really be a fan of the compression lock, but
it's it's grown on me a lot over the years. And I don't really, it doesn't annoy me as much as
it used to. I quite like it in fact. So that's probably not the kind of kind of name you were
you were asking for. But I got to give it to them. Third, and finally, for someone whose
designs just by and large, are always excellent, and has actually had a pretty good amount of
influence on me and the way I sketch out knives, even though I don't own any of his folders right
now. And that's Jesper Voxnaes, just another guy who has a mastery of clean lines, obviously a
little less, quote unquote simple than than the Brad zinkerz. But just a sophisticated. This is
the new caraker autos under the bokor brand but made by Hogue here in the US. There's a it's
just one of the one of those things where you kind of always know it's a Vox you you he's
established that style over the years, which is really nice to see. And I like the lines on this
knife very much. So yeah, those those three, those are three I'm going to go with today. But
yeah, thanks for the question. It made me kind of think really hard and I like
those. Thank you very much. All right, next one, Ninja Adobe. I purchased the Ontario RTAC two and on my first
use of the knife I had a large chip out of the blade cutting a Long Branch about two inches
thick into smaller length, just chop Away using a bigger fallen tree as a work surface and
noticed a piece missing from the from the blade, I think too brittle heat treat or maybe
microcrack in the steel. What should I do? I had a hold up. I don't have an Arctic today because
we didn't have one on filming day. But here is the rat seven very similar. And actually we've
got the, the se hoodless, to which the artech. Two is kind of the the predecessor to the
original hoodless. We'll get to some of that a little bit. In answer to your question as to
what should you do? warranty. First thing first and foremost, Never be afraid to give a company
a chance to make things right. Especially in the knife industry. Even some of these bigger
companies out there aren't really all that big in terms of the grand scheme of things. And
Ontario's us knives do come with a lifetime warranty. So take advantage of that. First off,
because the thing with with diagnosing why something chipped, it can be hard to tell if
you're not an expert in heat treating, it's gonna be real hard to tell if it was a heat
treat issue. Or if there was a cracking issue, someone's really going to need to analyze that.
But in all likelihood, they'll just take care of you straight up. One of the things to note and
talk about your normal uses of the knife, chopping branches on on another wood surface.
Yeah, something like that's going to be done all the time with the art tech. One thing
interesting though, just kind of a side note is certain Woods out there, especially pine, which
is a soft wood. But pine is notorious for having super, super hard knots, like harder than a lot
of steels out there. And if you hit that, especially with something like the Arctic, which
doesn't have a super thick edge, it's got a full flat grind the edge is fairly fine. If you hit
that even if you're dead on but especially if you're just at a slight angle off, be real easy
to take a big chip out of your blade. You know, you'll see references to stuff like this easily
as far back as Horace kept Hart's book, where he talks about not wanting to put his axe in into
pine for that very reason. So it's just one of those one of those things to watch out for. But
yeah, like that would my key takeaway here would be, especially with a company who offers it,
don't be afraid to give them a chance to to set things right for you. I'm sure I'm sure it's
gonna be gonna be taken care of. All right. Next question is actually a mixture I kind of
combined a few questions from a few different people into one because we've been getting this
a lot lately in our comments, and just wanted to talk about it for a minute. So, so your channel
doesn't really support the middle to lower class of workers does it? a shirt can afford to pay
$130 for a pocket knife, I simply failed to see the point of doing a blade on a premium knife
doing mundane tasks, like slicing cardboard, yuppies have destroyed the knife game nice
knives are now unobtainable for normal people lot in there to unpack. So I'm going to I'll go
through it a little bit. I would argue just broadly that yuppies have ruined the knife game
with brands out there like CJRB and Civivi. Having taken off in recent years, where you can
get a ton of really premium feeling features for like $50 in less. There are plenty of really
fantastic budget knives out there these days. And we absolutely support that we've done
several videos, talking about budget knives, and try to feature budget and more expensive stuff
in each video. So but I can understand where that that kind of backlash is coming from
because you see a lot of really high priced stuff out there. I'll take a real high end
production piece here. This is a Shirogorov UniHaition collaboration with Chris Reeve. This
guy comes in at like $2300, which is almost as much as Thomas paid for his truck over there a
lot more than a lot more than Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, that was okay. Yeah, I forgot. Yeah, you
could almost BUY TWO OF Thomas's truck. So I understand your point. But just because you're
seeing a lot more new releases on the higher end of things, doesn't mean there's not also a lot
of great budget releases coming out. The reason you see more of these higher end releases in our
videos is just quantity wise in terms of actual actual new designs, there are going to be more
but in terms of units moved far smaller than the budget stuff. Like those civvies like a lot of
those, those budget stuff out there budget things out there especially. And the reason for
that is just economies of scale to get a knife, like this elementum right here with ball
bearings in the pivot D two steel, nice flipping action at a $50 price point, you need to make a
lot of them. And in order to make a lot of something the company has to really believe in
it and has to know they're going to get a return on their investment. So that's what you see
happening. There, but on the higher end spectrum, especially the higher end production,
not talking necessarily about full on custom makers is, they can afford to take chances on
some more unusual designs because they don't have to make as many. But if you're not making
as many, if you're your production system isn't as streamlined for real mass quantities, it's
just gonna cost a little bit more, that's kind of the nature of the beast. And one of the ways
to counteract that to make up for the difference is they'll use more premium materials. So you
know, it wouldn't cost them it would cost them less to make this this unit Haitian with
materials like you see on this v v, but the price is still going to be pretty high. So you
want to see some premium materials going on. And there's a market for it. You know, I hate to say
I don't want to say Yogi's have ruined the knife game, just because a lot of people are spending
a lot of money on knives. That just means the market is there for us as knife enthusiasts.
It's getting bigger every year we've seen it. And you know, used to be like Chris Reeves,
they've been around forever, they've always been a lot more expensive than your garden variety
folding knife. And other makers have seen other high end production facilities have seen.
There's more money out there for everybody. All in all, dude, it's a really good thing. All
right, next question comes from Thomas wood, what would be a good knife for a river kayaking
camping trip? Sure, I got a few here. For a camp, any kind of
camping trip, I'm always going to gravitate towards a fixed blade. But in the interest of
showing more, I'm also going to give you a folder here. And when talking about any kind of
waterborne expedition, my mind immediately goes to Spydercos salt series, we've been showing it
a lot recently. But it's just going to work, especially on these latest versions, with lc
200. And steel, this is the the salt two comes in about 116, you can get it with a fully
serrated edge. And if you were, if you were doing something where if you have like ropes you
need to worry about, you might want that serrated edge. So keep that in mind. It's also
got a blunted tip here, which is less of a concern maybe on a hard shelled kayak, but any
kind of tubing or anything like that rafting that might be more important. These are nice and
lightweight to come in. Whereas it's 1.9 ounces, which is really light. And you've got that lc
200 n steel here, almost completely rustproof. And you get a lot better edge retention than the
H1 steel, which is completely rustproof. But you can get that option with these if you want to
spend a little bit less. But I also wouldn't hesitate to recommend a more. And we're actually
going to we're going to get into some more specific questions lately because there have
been a lot that just the answer is more. So we're gonna do it. This is the companion this
particular one comes in at 17 bucks nice and affordable. And it's got these the green color
on this one too, which is you see on that salt, which is a pretty good color for seeing if if it
is like submerged in some murky or water. These things are great, lightweight, you've got a
Sandvik 12 c 27 stainless on the stainless versions of these, it's going to work well in
those camping scenarios very nicely. It's going to be very resistant to water. You've got a
nice, hard plastic sheath here with a drain hole at the back, you get the rubber overmold on the
handle for more grip when things are wet. And you can get one of these in a serrated style as
well if that's what your needs are. That also comes with a blunted tip. So definitely check
these out these guys out. Because the other thing we don't want to talk about all the time
when we're talking about things where we're doing things on the water is you might lose it
might fall overboard, and you might not it might fall overboard in a place where you've got no
hope of getting it at $17 it's gonna be a lot shorter cry Fest, then the money on that
Spyderco salt. It's just the reality of the situation. So sometimes the the less expensive
knife is absolutely the right choice. Alright, next question comes from chase Reichert. What
survival slash bushcraft knife would you recommend for a beginner I just started out in
the survival world. Sure. I just talked about this just a little bit actually in in the best
survival knives under $100 video that we did earlier this week, where we had several options
under the $50 mark too and that's where this one's gonna sit. Because budget knives, budget
buyers need knives too. We know that and it's got to be the Murrah bushcraft black. It is kind
of in my mind, like the encapsulation of that crossover over between the bushcraft and the
survival world. You've got a nice Scandi grind, which is more typical of the bushcraft stuff.
You've got the sharpened spine, which is also the same case for that sort of thing. But you've
got a handle that's a little bit more towards that that tactical and outdoor crossover segment
that makes up kind of the survival knife genre. You've got that nice Finger guard there, it's
going to keep your finger from slipping forward. You've got a nice comfy rubber handle on this
case as well. Not a full tang. It's partial, but it is quite strong. And you've got a nice acute
tip there at the front to to be able to pierce well with in addition to doing all that other
bushcraft II stuff. And I've kind of talked about this a little bit before too I don't
remember exactly where but when you think thematically at least the difference between
survival and bushcraft with bushcraft, the whole the central core ethos is you're heading out
into the woods to thrive like you're going into the wild with survival you're trying to get out.
So even though there's a lot of skills that are gonna apply to both, it's just it's a different
game, basically. And that's why you see knives kind of tailored a little bit differently to
those two different genres. All right. Next question is from G Bae. Hello DCA. In your
opinion, how useful is the type of compound grind found on the Mora Kansbol for camping and
bushcraft tasks. I think it's very nice actually. Here it is
right there. This is the this one comes in about 40 bucks for this particular candle. It's got
the newer burnt orange color. And the it's a really good hybrid grind here a compound grind
going on. You've got Scandi technically all the way does continue all the way to the edge, but
the actual like flats of the blade have been scalped away or flat ground away so that you
have a thinner cross section behind that scanty ground edge. And it's really nice because what
happens with a Scandi grind typically is right at the edge, it is more narrow. It's more acute
than a typical knife with a secondary edge like that Spyderco. But the further up the shoulder
you go the thicker it gets sooner than something like that flat ground knife. So being kind of
that double playing chisel type of thing works great for wood especially. But the higher up you
get, you're going to be fighting that shoulder if you go into longer slices. That's why I tend
to prefer knives scanty ground knives, eighth of an inch or less 3/32 is even better. This one is
nice and thin. So it doesn't suffer from that as much as some designs can. But for even better
performance, even better slicing that scallop section out there near the front is absolutely
going to help, you're going to be able to slice better, whether you're using this and kind of
hunting scenarios, when you need to skin with that you're going to have less resistance there.
If you're doing any kind of food prep, you're talking camping, that's also going to be very
helpful there. So I really like the way they've done this. I don't have a cannibal personally.
But I've got one of the old Mora 2000s, the Mora 2k used it for years and very familiar with kind
of the advantages of this. And I think they're very, very useful indeed. All right, that's our
Mora content for the day. Which means that brings us to the lightning round for today.
Starting with Jim Griffin. David, can you speak about pivot lube, I want my folders to open
smoothly, but I'd rather not introduce anything to poisonous for when I slice up my PB and J's
and so forth. Thanks a great bunch for the content or thanks for a great bunch of content
and Darren you for making me spend too much money. With this one. I won't make you spend too
much money when it comes to lubricants out there. There's a lot of stuff out there. There's
a lot of high tech like nano oils and all kinds of stuff that work really well. But I go low
tech, I like just plain old food safe mineral oil. Because one it's food safe like that's
especially if that's your top concern. There are high tech oils out there marketed as being food
safe. But mineral oil mineral oil is a classic. It may not be as high tech, but it does just
plain work works in pivots. And it works in all kinds of other things around the house. You can
treat cutting boards with it, wipe down would handle knives with it. I think they can use it
as a laxative, which is why you can find it in like pharmacies and drugstores. The stuffs
available everywhere. It's cheap and just plain works. Alright, next question is Chris Gonzalez.
I think Wait, did he answer yes. He has two on there. Chris Gonzalez you're in here twice. You
lucky some nuggets. I'll try not to let that happen again, folks. I'm very sorry. It says
like Chris says I think the hug deca with the modified wharncliffe was would suffice Well, for
the question about the cleaver style with the crossbar lock. That was a good call. Actually,
last week Someone was asking for a crossbar lock alternative to the Gerber fastball cleaver.
While this isn't quite that kind of cleaver style blade. In terms of crossbar locking knives
out there is probably as close as you're going to get made in the USA really high quality set
or stonewashed blade versions of this started about 140 you've got 20 cv steel, g 10. And a
really nicely tuned, lock going on. So price wise it's right about the same as that Gerber
fastball, very similar kind of blade length, maybe that maybe that's a good option for next
is from Steven seaborne, you should have showcased the full tang Mora Garberg in your
best survival knives video instead of the partial stick Tang bushcraft black, that would
be a more appropriate comparison to the rest of the knives shown. I guess we're not done with
our more content. I don't have a Garberg in front of me, but it has the same handle as that
cams bowl right there. And when we're talking about
survival knives, there are a few things I look for and the Garberg is a great knife wouldn't
say anything otherwise. But it lacks one of the key features which I rank is highly important in
the quote unquote survival knife genre. And that is a prominent finger guard, you've got a little
bit here going on. But if we're talking about the moral lineup, the bushcraft black i think is
just a better choice and Say what you will about the partial Tang out here. It's been around for
years, this particular knife at this point, and there have been countless, both professional and
real world use reviews out there of this blade, and it has proven to be very highly durable. So
I would certainly trust this knife. I'd have no qualms about that whatsoever. All right, next is
from Crisco 65. DCA, you mentioned toughness versus edge retention. I'm a little confused by
what you mean by toughness. Wouldn't a tough steel hold an edge well, or does tough mean less
brittle in this situation? Essentially, yes. This simplifying things way, way, way down here.
But the tougher a knife is the more resistant it is against things like shock and vibration,
which especially in a survival knife, especially if you're really thrashing on a knife that might
be happening. deflection too. It comes into the toughness side of things. But the harder the
knife gets in any given steel, the less tough it is just kind of on the broad spectrum. Edge
retention itself has more to do with the abrasion resistant qualities of the steel.
toughness can come into play there in in kind of certain scenarios. But to keep things simple,
yeah, the less tough a knife is the more brittle it is. But toughness and edge retention are kind
of two different metrics in terms of what we like to talk about with knives. All right, next
question is from Tech Zach. I've got my eye on a pair of three lightweight, and I've been super
pleased with the s 30 v blade on the standard pair three but it isn't offered on the
lightweight would spy 27 could be a good substitute or should I stick with the BD1N and
save 35 bucks. This is the spy 27 para three lightweight that you mentioned which is
Spydercos new proprietary steel, and a powder metallurgy steel made by crucible the same folks
who make s 30 v. And by all accounts I've been seeing so far, it should get you right around in
that same ballpark as the S 30 family of Steel's not identical to any one of them, but kind of in
a similar range. This is I've picked this one up. I've been using it a little bit but I
haven't really pushed this knife too hard yet to where I'd be expecting edge degradation. So I
can't report personally, but I'm pretty sure you're going to be right in that range. So if
you like the s 30 v, and you don't mind spending the extra extra money on the spy 27 version, I'd
go for that one. Alright, next question. Tim frost, what knife would you recommend for a
premium large as in an eight inch blade or bigger survival tactical knife, chop baton
bushcraft skin camping, slicing, etc. This is the part where I would have picked up that our
attack that we don't have on the table here. But instead, I grabbed the ESEE Junglas two which is
a little bit shorter than the standard coming in right over eight inches. It's gonna do
everything you need for let's see price on these guys coming in about 180 a little bit over and
it's going to be able to do the light chopping stuff. Another good ones, the Becker BK nine,
but I recommend that kind of as a default. So I wanted to show something a little bit different
here. Since you guys have heard me recommend that knife before. You got multiple hand
positions for the chopping, choking up especially like so if you need to do some finer
work. The one thing that's gonna be a little bit more difficult is skinning because you got this
big old blade and the thing to do in that case, take a lanyard on the hole here, thread your arm
through it, you can actually support the weight of the knife with your arm and grip the front
end to do that skinning. Alright, next question from Larry E Morse DCA, I got into a friendly
argument with another guy in the comment section somewhere. And I'd like to hear your thoughts.
I'm saying that a razor blade utility knife is a wharncliffe but he disagrees. What do you think?
Well, given that it's a friendly argument that's good to see on the internet. That doesn't always
doesn't always hold true. We've seen that firsthand. But in the spirit of some good old
fashioned internet trolling, you should tell him that that's a reverse tanto Rexford utility tool
right here for those of you who are interested. Reverse tanto clearly, yes, it's pretty obvious anyway. That's it for the
lightning round. Which brings us to our last question, which is a new segment we're debating
the the most serious list of questions of the day. And it comes from Jeremy two, what is the
best three blade system for the zombie apocalypse? I shouldn't enjoy these zombie
questions, but I do I'm not going to pretend I'm too good of a person to not have thought about
this at least a little bit. So we're gonna do it. So when we're thinking about kind of what's
the zombie apocalypse, really the situation is long term survival, with some offensive
capabilities built in, showed my BK five last week when somebody asked me a zombie question.
But since that's no longer available, I'm going to do a different knife. And I'm also going to
do it all three under 100 bucks, so we can hit a good, good budget, which we're talking about a
little bit today. First one, I go with the Mora companion, stainless or carbon Take your pick,
you can even go with the heavier duty one if you want with the eighth inch thick carbon steel
blade. But one of the things if you're on the move constantly weight is a concern already
talked about the lightweight nature of this knife. And any kind of long term survival
scenario, food procurement is going to become an issue. So doing any kind of like bushcraft, ie
trap making and that sort of thing. You know, provided you have the skills and you know what
you're doing that could certainly come in handy for that sort of thing, thin enough blade on
these where you can do the some of the smaller food prep without the thickness of the skandi
Top of the skandi shoulders getting in the way. And it's nice and pokey. So you can use some
real close quarters offensiveness on that guy. As for the main blade that I would take, I'm
going to go right now with the Ontario SP5, just nice big old bowie, but again, not super heavy,
it's balanced pretty well, it's 15 ounces of just under a pound without the sheath blade
itself is 10 inches, you've got 1075 carbon steel here, so plenty tough, quarter inch thick,
it's definitely going to be a solid knife, you can do some machete stuff with it, you can do
hack and slash with it got a rubber rubber grip there, I usually prefer a solid grip but can't
have everything for all three of these under 100 bucks. And it actually balances out pretty well
when you choke up on the ricasso here to do some finer, finer carving and stuff like that. So
that would be the main blade as for the the third blade, because I'm talking a three blade
system here, I would go with the Cold Steel Special Forces shovel 20 bucks right now not bad
at all. And that SP five just over 50 bucks. And I'm gonna go with this again, because you know,
we're talking long term survival. And this is going to be able to come in handy more than just
a zombie thing. Any kind of digging tax tasks with it, you can do machete type stuff with it,
thanks to these sharp anabelle edges. And you can do you know tending your fire. If you're
keeping the flames low, of course, it's just so much you can do with a good solid shovel like
this. And it's certainly going to be fierce when it needs to be. And if anything ever happens to
the handle on this, you can always replace it pretty easily as well. So all of that comes in
about 90 bucks. So I'd say that's pretty good. That's pretty successful. We'll go with those
three, let us know yalls three down in the comments. But that's all we've got time for
today. Thanks for the questions as always, make sure to leave your questions below and if you
have any super serious assist questions, make sure to leave them down there as well. If you
want to get a chance or sorry, if you want to get your hands on any of these knives, make sure
to follow the links in the description to take you over to KnifeCenter.com And make sure you
sign up for our knife rewards program too. There's a link up in the top right of our
website where you can get all the details. But basically, when you put down your money on one
of these knives, you'll be earning some free money to spend on your next one. I'm David C.
Andersen from the KnifeCenter signing off, see you next time.
