Hey everyone, David C. Andersen here coming at you from the KnifeCenter and welcome to KniFAQ
number 40. The knife series where I answer all your questions, whether they're sharp or dull.
This week we're talking about butterfly knives for EDC, different blade grinds, and just how
many knives should a person carry every day and a whole lot more? Let's get into it. (KniFAQ)
All right, everyone. Thank you for all your questions. As always, if you would like to have
a chance to have one of your questions featured, as always, just leave it down below in the
comment section. Thanks for watching our blade show week special last last weekend as well. On
that note, there was one question I forgot to include in that special and it was a good one
from Mr. Zsombor Donko. Nice. Repeat comments for us. So before we get into the non blade show
stuff, I want to bring that question back in. He asks, If there's a chance, I'd really like you
to ask some knife makers and designers. What is the knife that pushed them into the industry?
Was it the first knife they got? Or just something iconic? Like a sebenza. Very cool. So
I thought it was a great question. We didn't have time to ask too many folks about it. But I
did ask my friends, Mr. LT Wright. And Dan Eastland of dog wood custom knives, this
question. And we filmed their responses. So Thomas, this is where you'll put in those
videos. Is it? It is. Okay, check these guys out.
Probably when I was a kid, my dad had a herders catalog knife. If you ever if you've ever heard
of herders catalog, which was a very kept part and design, and it was like a, it was like a
butcher knife. But it was a hunting knife. And I really, really liked that herders design. It was
simple. It was a 10 series 1095 or something extremely thin, like a 3/32. And man, as a kid,
I used to play in the woods, you know, the time he retires, and I had this burgers and I, so I
would have to say that's the one that really really got me started going down the knife
making thing. And then my dad was always a Buck, nice guy. So I love the Buck 124. And for one
Christmas, I got the buchmann 24. If you're familiar with that, that's a long buoy style
knife, and I used to love I carry that around everywhere. And then naturally, the Buck 110 big
fan of that. So those are, that would I would have to say as my starting point.
It was a it was a classic bowie knife that I made with Mark hopper. We had been working on a
project when I was a woodworker. And he finally just said, Hey, man, come in on Saturday, I'll
show you how to make a knife. And it was a very traditional American Bowie brass guard. And that
was it. I mean, it was ray of sunshine on the anvil choir of angels singing, I came home and
told my wife, I'm going to be a knifemaker. And I came back to that knife maybe five or six
years after I had been a stable, successful knife maker. And that led me to the Akilah which
was this whole renovation getting back to that first knife I ever made. And now it's kind of
fun to see that that first knife and then see the progress and how it has influenced me over
different patterns that wound up with the Akila. So yeah, I'm just a traditional boy knife kind
of guy.
All right, next question comes from Gkjr2564. Hey, DCA, can you explain the difference between
a saber grind and a high flat grind? And maybe show some examples of each? I'm a visual
learner. Thanks. Sure thing. So this is one of those terms. saber grind gets thrown around a
lot. And unfortunately, there's no hard and fast actual definition. But I'll kind of get into
kind of historically, what it typically would mean at least as far as I understood it, not the
the foremost expert on this, believe me is the saber grind would be ground halfway up the blade
so it wouldn't be like a full flat grind. Also wouldn't be something like a Scandi grind.
That's something completely different. But essentially, you'd have a blade ground at least
halfway up the blade. Nowadays, it's kind of meant to mean anything that's maybe at least
halfway or even higher, is often referred to as a saber grind. The reason I don't always like
this too much is it doesn't actually tell you what the geometry of the grind is because a
saber grind could be flat. Could be hollow could even be convex, but most people these days and
lt right specifically, I'm showing this Gen five here as an example when they say saber grind,
they mean a partial height flat grind. But again, like actual definitionally historically,
could be any grind. So I always like to get a little more specific. I'll say it's a Sabre flat
or saber hollow when I'm describing an edge, but when it does come to the LT Wrights, your sabers
will be flat. If they call it a flat grind, it's going to be a full flat grind. Sometimes they
might leave a little bit, it might be a nearly full flat grind, in any case. So hope that
clears things up a little bit. Even though it's not a I can't give you Hard a hard and fast
definition, a clear line in the sand on that. But that's kind of what they're talking about.
Next question comes from Drew Ryan, he says I have a buck 110 Hunter, classic knife from 1999.
But I haven't carried it for quite a while and I stored it in the sheath. When I got it out the
other day, the bolsters and part of the liner had tarnished and has some green on it, what's
the best way to restore it to that sweet, polished look, also, what's the best way to
store this blade so that doesn't tarnish? Obviously, brass, of course, is what you're
talking about, it will get that kind of green color which can get kind of gunky after a while.
Best way to clean that up. Depends on how far gone it is. Some barkeepers friend might me It
might be a good place to start. And then you're gonna want to polish from there. Good at home
solution could be something like a Dremel with a little polishing wheel on it, I can bring some
of the shine back to it. You may have gotten a little pitting underneath that green however. So
you know, your mileage may vary on that. In terms of keeping it from happening in the future
number one thing you're going to want to do is not store it in the sheath, especially if it's a
leather sheath, like the one tense still come with today. Because any any place where the
sheath is in contact with the brass, it's that much more likely to develop kind of that, that
nasty stuff. Other things you can do give it a light wipe down with something like mineral oil,
or something like the century solutions, tough cloth. These are really nice. There's some some
inhibitors built into these, when you wipe them down can be very nice. If you want to go even
further, you can store it with a little desiccant pack, you know like you get them in
the electronics, a little pack says do not eat this. Throw them in there, though they're not
going to last forever, obviously. But you can kind of keep refreshing them as you get new
stuff. They even sell ones out there that you can recharge like in the microwave or by
plugging into the the outlet. So you can store stuff like this maybe in a small box. And that
would help keep them dry as well. Or you could just carry them or you just you just carry them
hashtag use your stuff. Sure. There's a lot if this guy's any anything like me. There's a lot
of knives in our collection. So can't always use all of them.
At least I got a fair from Thomas. That's nice. Next question is from Dustin. He, hey DCA I
recently, that's funny. EDC I recently bought a knife online and hated it. The second I opened,
it just seemed cheaply made didn't feel great, and I regretted buying it. However, after some
regular use, I realized it was fun to fidget with and it gets the job done nicely in most
cases. And it's now one of my favorite knives. If you ever had a knife you hated it first but
ended up loving. Yes, I do, I'm actually going to give it to a whole category of not a not a
cheaply made knife by any stretch of the imagination. But Spydercos compression lock, I
used to really almost aggressively not care for this particular lock. Especially back in the day
when I when I first experienced it, I was all about crossbar locks. So if it if it wasn't a
bench made with my AXIS Lock, I thought this was just trying to be what the Benchmade was. But it
wasn't as ambidextrous. I've turned around a little bit I've since since come around to this
lock, and it has its own charms for sure. And if you're right handed, you're not worried about
the left handed ability, at least you're not going to have to worry about an Omega spring in
those crossbar locks potentially breaking. But we've had that happen once to me over the years.
But you get a lot of nice flick open action with the compression lock, you can do things that I
like about the crossbar lock, like keeping your fingers out of the path of the blade as you go
along. Or as you unlock the knife and close it I should say. So that's it for me. I've definitely
come around a lot to the compression lock. And you might find a pair of three in my pocket
these days, kind of often. So hope that answers your question, sir. Next one, Michael hurt asks,
so how many knives should a rational person carry on them? Totally asking for a friend.
Sure. Yeah, well tell your friend depends on your needs. Honestly, myself, I usually carry
two I'll have a primary folder like potentially a pair of three. And I always have as my backup,
a Swiss Army knife and 99 times out of 100 is my winger or sorry, I used to carry the younger
version but it's the Victorinox Evo grip s 18 has everything I need it day to day and then a
little bit some on top of that. It's even got a nice blocking blade there. And the reason I like
to carry this as the as the compliment is, I've always said like a Swiss Army Knife is just way
too useful not to have. But obviously the steel is not going to be up to spec of something like
this Maxamet Para three, for example. But this is something that if I want to be a little less
circumspect in cutting something, I can take this out if somebody is asking to borrow a knife
to cut something, I'll feel a lot better handing them this versus a much more expensive knife
that they might do something stupid with. So you So that's, that's the answer for me. Thomas over
there. I know carries three day to day. You got your skeletool Bug Out ZT 0055 all in his pocket
at the same time or no two in the pocket Leatherman on the bill. Yeah, but you did say
rational. I don't know if I'm the right one to ask there. Yeah. But then again, I usually have
a Leatherman wave in my in my backpack everyday too. That goes most places I do that comes as a
carry. Now, I'm just wondering if I'm a rational person, I think we're both lost or or an
irrational person. Yeah. We're nice people. You might not want to ask us this question,
too, is a good place to start. We'll go with that. Why not? john smith asks, aside from its
stability, what is are the practical advantage is of balisong compared with other folding
knives, I like this question because you're, it seems you're coming from a place of someone
who's thinking about carrying and using a valley as an actual EDC, rather than just as something
that's fun to play with. So there are there are a few reasons you might want to carry a valley,
if you are able to where you live, of course, is one, oftentimes, you can get a lot of blade
length into a fairly compact handle compared to some of the other you know, let's be honest
overbuilt knives these days, there are other options, you know, this, this endura from
Spyderco actually managed to have a pretty slim handle, but the valley is gonna fold up nice and
compact. So you can carry a lot of blade without taking up too much room in the pocket. And
especially if you have one like this particular Emerson right here, with the the pocket clip on
there, be able to carry it just like any other normal thing to other advantages, especially
ones with the latch like this, it's not likely to come open in your pocket and potentially cut
you accidentally that way. And also, you know, you did mention stability. And that's, that's a
big draw of it in the open position. You've got two pivots here. And if one pivot were to break,
it's still not likely that this blade is going to close towards your fingers. So lots of good
things to like about a valley and mean you can even get them with a little finger guard on on
this guy if you if you pick the right design. So I would love to see more people EDC, a balisong.
Actually, sometimes when I talk about it in that respect, people kind of give me the side eye but
I think it's a good idea. And I encourage you, sir. All right, next question. William cook the
third he says I got a friend who works with a lot of rope and paracord what super steel blade
would have the longest lasting edge under $150? easy answer right now at this point in time
Spydercos lightweight series with K 390 blades are going to be spot on the endura is comes in
about 133. This kind of the most blade you can get in this series for under 150. The police
models a little bit bigger, but it's I think 160 something these days. But because you're dealing
with a more inexpensive handle like the injection molded here, you're able to spend more
of that budget on the blade steel itself and this K 390 is going to last an extremely long
time. You know the corrosion or sorry, the abrasion resistance you get from something like
this is going to work very well on rope. You can even get it in a fully serrated edge which for
this person who works with a lot of rope and paracord might be even better for them and
they're you know, it's about the same price if not the same price for this serrated version, so
definitely I would check these guys out. Alright, now we come to our lightning round for
today. First question from Nathan Olmstead. For someone if someone were filming a science
fiction short film on a budget, what would you suggest for a futuristic looking knife that is
cheap and wouldn't be ruined, ruined by doling the edge for safety on set? I would go with
Surely there's several Kershaw's you could go with but I would go with the parsec really cool
look going on definitely has kind of a futuristic vibe comes in about 42 bucks you know
got an eight CR series stainless of you know you wouldn't feel bad about doing the knife blade a
little bit. And bonus parsec is a unit of measure in space so that's kind of cool to the
light year also is another knife they make but I don't think that will look very good on can't
look as good on camera, I should say. Check out that person. All right, no likes two year s says
I work in kitchens and something that never happened before recently occurred. The spine of
a knife was so raw that it snagged my fingers while chopping. The question is how can I double
the spine of the knife with home tools? weird question maybe thanks for the vids. You're
Welcome sir. So on unlike something like a bushcraft knife like this Gen five where you
want that crisp spine for doing things like strike striking a fire steel on a kitchen knife,
I could definitely see how that would get to be a little annoying. Depends on how good or how
sharp it is. hate to say like you might want to take it to stones but I would try starting with
some really fine grit wet dry sandpaper, maybe 800 or 1200 to start with Just kind of run the
edge lightly on it, and see if you can just kind of knock that sharpness off of there. All right,
Brian asks, hi, Dave, how do you or can you sharpen ceramic blades? Thanks. One can but it's
kind of difficult, it's a bit of a job to do. Honestly, ceramic knives are almost least I
usually consider them to be almost disposable items, because they, they tend to be very sharp
and can hold an edge long time. But they're not that tough and can chip really easily. So if
you've got a really big chip out of the edge, honestly, I just chuck it. But if it's not too
bad, go with something that has diamond plates on it, fine grit and go really carefully, not a
lot of pressure at all, almost no pressure at all, I'd say and that might be able to, you
know, various groups of that might be able to get you back to something that's usable.
Alright, next question is from Live Free or Die? Maybe someone from New Hampshire perhaps? Can
you discuss why pocket clips are so popular? Because they're convenient. They keep your
pockets organized, you know, the knife not falling about?
Ever since Spyderco. Put a clip on a pocket knife. It's been all the rage. A lot of people
tend to agree. But on to the second part of your question. With my pocket clip, I have scratched
paint and lost my knife whilst pushing through the brush. Not to mention the cause handle
hotspots. Obviously, yeah, you do have a clip there is the potential for it to get snagged. If
you know you're kind of gonna run into that into the bush most of the time. That's why I usually
like to wear a fixed blade myself with a secure sheath system. But to avoid potentially the
scratched paint or the handle discomfort. Look for something with a wire pocket clip like this
Becker, bK 40, which is a very inexpensive knife is about 40 bucks. So this is one if you did
lose it in the brush while it was pocket clipped, wouldn't tear your heart out quite as
much. But a lot of Spydercos use these several Italian makers use these on a number of their
models, but you've got all round edges so you don't have any sharper spots. And like I said,
be a little more comfortable and less likely to cause the scratches. Alright, next question
comes from Istvan tough. What's that whole four on the Condor machetes Could someone explain
sure I've got the the polar North here, this hole out here near the tip is what you're
referring to. Honestly, they do this mostly for aesthetics. They call it the eye of the Condor.
It's kind of a kind of a signature brand element for them. However, you do get the advantage of
being able to hang it from a peg or a nail or something like that. might not come in to or
come into play too much at Camp although it could. But if you wanted to have this let's say
in your garage or in a tool shed be real handy to keep it hung up on a pegboard or something
like that. But mostly aesthetic. Which brings us to our final comment our most serious question
of the day from Cucamonga says I wouldn't use the paracord on my knife handle for a survival
situation. That's what my paracord belt is for. And my paracord Neck knife, lanyard and paracord
sock garter for my boot knife. Plus those knives also have paracord handles as well as my
paracord suspenders because paracord belts are awful. I can't argue with that. It's not a
question but I love this comment so much. I just enjoyed the heck out of it. And it's so good.
You got to turn around there at the end with the belt bringing the belt back and he's making fun
of all of us like having a laugh for you know, carrying so many things and EDC lifestyle. I
love it. Fantastic. You saying three knives might be a little too many. Somebody got here,
one, two, he's got three. Okay, he sounds reasonable. I think we're good. If you want a
chance to get one of your own questions featured in the future, just leave them down below in the
comments and check out these knives and pick one up for yourself. We'll leave links in the
description to take you over to KnifeCenter comm while you're over there, make sure you sign up
for our knife rewards program. Because if you're gonna buy one of these knives today might as
well earn some free money to spend on your next one. I'm David C. Andersen from the KnifeCenter
signing off. See you next time.