Hey everyone, David C. Andersen here coming at you from the
KnifeCenter and welcome to KniFAQ episode one eight to note
1/16, the dive series, where I answer all of your questions,
whether they're sharp or dull. This week, we've got some cool
topics to talk about, including gimmicks, what are some gimmicky
features on knives these days? Let's get into it. (KniFAQ)
Alright, everybody, welcome. As always now, the deal with these
episodes is we pull questions from our comment section, and
try to find some helpful answers to give to you folks. So if you
have a question, and you would like it to be answered on a
future episode, to have a shot at that happening, just drop it
in the comments section below. First question today comes from
Brian s, he has a very, very particular set of needs. And
sometimes these questions get get really interesting. So you
have to really think about what are the priorities here, at
least I did on this one. Brian S asks, I am a ski coach. And I
have to scrape snow off the bottom of ski boots regularly.
I'll use this knife when with gloves, or even mittens on my
hands as opposed to elsewhere. I need to keep it in my pocket
when skiing, it absolutely can't open on me even when I fall, it
will get wet and cold. So I'd like something with strong
corrosion resistance smaller and lightweight, or a bonus, less
expensive is preferred, but I'll pay what it's required to meet
my needs. It's a good attitude to have. And if I've got two
options here for you one that is less expensive. One that is a
little bit more premium, I think it's worth the money personally,
but let me let you decide. This is what I mean by interesting
there's no like skiing knife, you know genres out there. So to
think about this a little bit, not yet at least true. Give it
time. So I'll say right up front, there's always a chance
something could come open. When you know things are tumbling and
forces are doing what they're not normally doing to your body
and your equipment and all of that. It is entirely possible
that even the safest thing can open so just want to cover our
butts there right up front. We're not lawyers, but don't
come after us. The Universe is a funny place universe is a fickle
mistress, as they say. So but I do have an option here for you.
I'm going to show you the more expensive version first because
I think it's worth it. Personal opinion anyway. Benchmade mini
Barrage price on this is about 171. Now, this has a few things
going for it that I think are going to work out in your favor
for this particular example, one to stand the best shot of it not
opening without going with like a fixed blade with multiple
attachment multiple retention methods. This knife has a spine
mounted safety that will walk the blade closed. There are
other knives that have this, you know a safety mechanism
involved. But the reason I chose I'm showing you this knife is
for the other reasons we'll also get to when it's time to deploy
the blade. This is an assisted opening knife. So if you're
wearing gloves wearing mittens, or if your fingers happen to be
just really cold, it's going to be very easy to open this knife.
You've got a three inch drop point blade on this bad boy 154
cm steel, your corrosion resistance is going to be just
fine. And finally, the other thing I like about this is the
AXIS Lock. That crossbar mechanism is finger safe. And
again, if you're dealing in the cold and your fingers are also
really cold wet, they might not be functioning to their full
dexterity that you might be used to. The fewer opportunities for
accidental slicing accidental cuts, the better because last
thing you want when you're on the side of a mountain somewhere
is to be bleeding out of course that would not be great. On top
of that this is great when you get back to the lodge or go back
into town to nice small little blade really capable however and
a nice thick handle there and plenty to to grip onto even in
gloves or in other situations too. Not the least expensive
thing in the world. However I do you have a more budget oriented
option for you to check out. Well one, the mini boost from
Benchmade is also an option. It's a little bit less money a
little bit bigger and better steel. Funny how that works out.
But they're kind of out of stock everywhere right now. But check
out the high brow series from Gerber. This is the standard
size it's a little bit bigger on the blade. blade length is three
and three eighths it's a 7CR Steel's really, you know, quite
basic stuff, and the price is still around $50. In this case
two, you do have a crossbar style mechanism you do have
assisted opening, although it is the flipper mechanism as opposed
to a thumb stud. No, no practical or there's practical
difference, but no difference in terms of appropriateness for
your question. And you do have the spine mounted safety as
well. I will say it's a bit heavier with the aluminum
handles here, this knife comes in five, almost six ounces,
whereas the Benchmade, rather, is 3.4 ounces significantly less
there. Although there is the hybrid compact, which I'll get
to here in a second. And I'll tell you why I'm not
recommending this knife. Its size is more akin to the mini
barrage, but you get an extra ounce of weight. Now, the
Benchmade definitely feels orders of magnitude better put
together, take that under advisement. I wouldn't recommend
the compact however, and that's because of the pocket clip. It's
the same clip as on the full size but because of the
placement and the angle, putting it close to the spine. Pretty
much everyone I've handed this to here in the office during
lunch, it's not gonna be a big problem. But in bare hands, that
clip really does dig in uncomfortably rendering it in my
mind kind of unusable for anything but like very light
tasks. So there you go. Some other stuff out there that I
didn't show you. SOG has a bunch of assisted opening crossbar
lock knives with spine mounted safeties, they are all pretty
much D2 tool steel, however, not a stainless steel, they are
coated set minimum or mitigates it a little bit, but those could
be an option to look at as well. But check out the Benchmade if I
were you. If I were me, I would. So I'm gonna recommend that to
you. Next up, be crew. Hey DCA, can you suggest a one hand
opening knife that features scissors for around the house
carry. I'm currently carrying a Victorinox Compact with a key
smart pocket clip which works great, but he missed one hand
opening fidget factor and my other only blade only knives.
The only knives I've seen to come close are the Clipitool,
the Ellis and the Civivi crit which doesn't have scissors.
Otherwise it'd be exactly what I'm looking for here. I do have
an option for you my my around the house carriers not this one
actually. But I've been carrying my free T two from Leatherman
because it has one hand opening blade but it's not super
fidgety. Check out the free K series the K four specifically
here it is. This is the partially serrated version but
plain edge is also available. About 100 bucks it has a bit of
fidget ability into it pull the the lock bar back and you can
flick it open. Just make sure it closes properly. As you can see,
it's easy for it to bounce. But flip it around to the back and
you've got the extra bits not just a scissors which of course
is what you're primarily looking for. But also a scraper slash
flathead screwdriver and awl slash smaller flathead
screwdriver and a Phillips driver with a bottle opener. All
right there with a pocket clip. Not the most comfortable handle
in the world either but better than the the high brow compact
there. And you got this going on. One other option actually,
if you want to go whole hog, and you want something a little bit
bigger even this is a five and a half ounce thing for the pocket.
But Thomas there it is the P series of the free lineup,
whether you go to the pre P two or P4. There, plenty fidgety.
All kinds of fun stuff with these, and you get way more than
just scissors in the knife. Probably a bit overkill for what
you're looking for. But it does have a pocket clip so you could
carry it as such if you wished. Thank you, Thomas. Okay. Okay,
Ja Waring now says Emerson wave is a gimmick. Can't believe that
a company like KnifeCenter would even mention it. Well, we
mentioned it because we sell them and they are commonplace
enough in the industry. But I don't entirely disagree with
you. If you're unfamiliar with the Emerson wave here it is
shown on the Kershaw Emerson CQC 6K. A $52 Knife is this little
hook shaped thing on the spine right here. If you don't know
what it does, it allows you to as you draw the knife from your
pocket, if you angle it and just the right way, you can catch the
hem of your pocket and open the blade as you draw the knife. Is
it a gimmick? A bit, but it is a gimmick that I think happens to
work very well if you know how to use it effectively, and it
doesn't get in the way if you don't want to use it at all. In
fact, on this knife it provides a rather nice thumb right before
pushing off with your thumb, or index finger if you want to flip
it around that way, but it leads me to kind of thinking about the
the word gimmick in the knife industry today. And this is
where I want to hear from you folks in the comment section.
What are some knife gimmicks out there that you like? Don't like
I would love to see disappear. Let me know down in the
comments, maybe it will spark some conversation in a future
episode.
All right, now we come to the section we call measured once
cut twice, where we take a second slice at a previous
question. And this one is from last week's episode, where I
asked you for some knife based pickup lines. You guys had some
good ones. But my favorite one that I'm going to show share
today is a little bit cheesy, but I like it because I'm a big
softy. Sometimes. It's from Aragorn, vitality. Are you a
Swiss army knife, because you got all I need and I want to
take you everywhere. It's so nice. It makes you just go. Oh,
that's lovely. And the cool thing actually about the I think
the best thing about the analogy dealing with Swiss Army knives
is there's a body type for everyone. That's that's fun. I
liked that. Check out the comments section from last
week's video. There were there were quite a few good ones down
in there and can't share them all, unfortunately. But now we
come to our lightning round for today. Jakob has soon says a
gentleman's knife. I'm sorry, that gentleman don't carry
knives around. I disagree. But rather than roastery here. I'll
open this up to the comments section below. Why should a
gentleman carry a pocket knife? I got my reasons. Share them in
the comments section. Would you Thomas. Okay. Or you can wait
and we'll see what everyone else has to say. Wise next question,
Lloyd. And why do multi tools still have can openers, cans
have opened with pull tabs for about 20 years now such a waste
of a tool slot? Well, I will say I went camping last weekend and
we had some canned food that was newly purchased that did not
have pull tabs. So there is still utility for it in that
regard. But is a knife or is this almost a gimmick nowadays?
Let me know. But more specifically, if you out there
agree with with Mr. Lloyd. And don't like the can opener. For
those of you that fall into that camp? What would you replace it
with? genuinely curious. And since we have some bonus time
here, this is the MKM Campo eight KnifeCenter exclusive with
a very cool tool set. And this was brought to our attention.
Someone was curious about why the can opener was on this side
of the knife. What I mean by this let me pull out a similar
swiss army knife right here. As you can see, you come in on a
can with a Swiss army knife right here. You want it on the
layer closest to the what's the word can the imaginary
candidates right here. And that would seem to not work out so
well with the Campo Well, the reason is, there's actually a
different design philosophy here, you actually want to walk
backwards around it, it might seem awkward at first, because
intuitively every other one out there walks forward. If you walk
backward, it's easier honestly, to pull up. Rather than push
forward. We're talking degrees of difference here, certainly.
But you can exert more leverage in a less strenuous way. And if
you're opening a dozen cans like I did over the weekend, this is
going to save you a little bit of repetitive motion injury or
you do what I did. And I use the twist one, I didn't actually use
one of these. But we've used this, it's in the reverse method
like that works very well. And now we come to our final
question of the day, which is of course, our most serious
question of the day, which comes from Lost Beagle. I'm looking
for a sharp piece of metal with a handle and appoint any
suggestions.
Sounds like you're describing the tops Hoffman harpoon my good
friend. sharp piece of metal handle point. That's the recipe.
There you go. And that's all we have for this week. Folks,
thanks for your questions.
Thanks for keeping this this series going with me. If you
want to get your hands on any of these knives, click the links in
the description and if you have a question for a future episode,
and we'd like it, consider drop it in the comments below. While
you're over at the site, don't forget about our knife rewards
program because if you're picking up one of these knives
today, you might as well earn some free money to spend on your
next ones. I'm David C. Andersen from the KnifeCenter That's
Thomas behind the camera. We're signing off. See you next time.