Hey everyone, David C. Andersen here coming at you from the
KnifeCenter and welcome to KniFAQ episode number 99. The
knife series where I answer all your questions whether they're
sharp or dull. In this week, we're taking a look at some
tactically inspired Italian knives, talking about the right
kind of pressure for sharpening, as well as talking to Austin
about some steel (KniFAQ)
Alright, for those of you new to the series, we answer questions,
some of them sharp some of them don't. But to submit your
questions to have a chance to have it featured in this series,
you have to leave it in the comments section below this
video. That's where we pull pull from that's the pool we pull
from. We're off to a great start, aren't we? Yes, the pool
we fish from. 99 You'd think we'd have have this kind of down
after 99 of these things? No. Apparently not. First question
today comes from Aaron Anglin. This is cool. Aaron used to work
here never heard of him that he had your job. Actually, there is
no there was no time before Thomas What's up Aaron Good to
hear from you. Recently just purchased a Beretta M9 from a
buddy and was wondering if there are any Italian made folders
you'd recommend to pair with it for occasional carry. This one
is cool. I kept wanting to say and I should have pulled one as
an example I kept wanting to say to sig K 320 With the new wood
inlays I think that's a really cool knife but it's not Italian.
So we'll go with an Italian couple of tiny things 41st One
How about I've got three here and I've got the lions still -
lion steel Kur. man we're still not doing a great job No. I like
this knife. It is a very robust knife to I have found this
particular one has an olive wood handle scale but you could scale
you could also get it with g 10. price on this about 194 And I've
had to take one of these apart before and it is robust as all
get out you know we've got a solid basically foundation back
here with this full metal backspacer robust liners. The
whole thing just is built to take a beating. blade steel is
Sleipner it is nice and thick. In this case for a kind of
harder use tactical vibe. Crown spine however for comfort and a
full flat grind to keep it a little bit slicey and the feel
in the hand is great as well. liner lock flipper. Great,
snappy action as you can as you can hear, one of the things to
keep in mind mind though as you can see, this model does not
have a pocket clip. So that might affect your choice
somewhat. But this is a somewhat overlooked lion steel and
undeservedly so so I figured it deserved a moment in the
spotlight. Two more here. And both of these are basically come
from the designer or come from the minds of two of the kind of
most foremost recognized tactical designers in the
industry. The first being Bob Terzuola with the MKM Maximo
very cool knife and very Terzuola you can kind of see it
right off the bat. Regular price on these is about 260 This
particular one, the day we're filming this happens to be on
sale for about 235 So that's kind of nice. M 390 blade three
and a quarter inches. So it's a good size for being plenty
capable without being too big or bulky. I mean the lions who
would just looked I think is a 3.4 inch blade. Yeah, so a
little bit longer, still manageable. This maximum very
manageable drop point blade, higher flat grind with a swedge
you can get it with titanium or micarta handles and micarta
might be a nice vibe for what you're looking for. And it's
just a solid tactical everyday carry. You mentioned occasional
carry but this one might find its way into your pockets on
more than just the odd occasion. Same thing for all of these
actually. We have a glass breaker on the back you've got
the deep ride pocket clip, and I like the kind of frag pattern
texture going on right here. Probably doesn't quite match the
grips on your Beretta but kind of calls to a similar or draws
from a similar well. My metaphors are not so good today.
But anyway, it is a really sweet knife I like them a lot. one
more option from Viper This is a Rick hinderer design and it is
called the storm. M390 blade steel again, about three and an
eighth of an inch so just a skosh small More than the Maximo
a still a cool option 215 is the regular price on these two, G 10
onlays on both sides, a couple different colors and get an
orange one very nice century I guess, or the black or some
other colors, two ball bearings in the pivot you've got in
addition to the flipper, you've got a thumb stud option for
opening. And because technically, I'm gonna go ahead
and call this a frame lock because you've got these, you
know, the G10 is more like an onlay as opposed to an actual
structural part of the handle. And it's a nice thick lock bar
there so it doesn't really feel like a liner lock. But you
probably call it a liner like if you want to, but because of
those G 10 onlays. You don't have to worry about putting
pressure on the lock bar. If you want to use the that thumb stud
deployment which can be a bugaboo of some other designs,
of course, but it's just another fantastically useful little
blade right there. Or the cool thing also is there are some
signature connections signature touches to the full fat or the
namebrand hinderer stuff, as opposed to being just a viper
piece. You can see the pocket clip as a hinderer pocket clip,
and you've got the let me get the name right that hinder
modular backspace or system with that removal that set screw
right there. You can swap out different back spacers if you
wanted to go crazy customize, order some awesome alternatives
to change up the color. Lots of cool options right there and
some very, very cool knives that I think would be a good good
complement to your new tactical piece right there. All right,
next question comes from Chris Cairns. I need help. I've been
getting more and more into premium steels. And I was
wondering if they all take forever in a day to sharpen when
the time comes. I know you've covered technique previously,
but was wondering if pushing harder is advisable. I use the
sharp maker in the flat configuration and a strop to
finish it off and I can get hair popping, but I don't like
sitting there for hours sometimes. Can you help? I have
a shirt maker right here. Let's let's kind of go through your
question piece by piece. Do all the premium Steel's take forever
and a day to sharpen all know, some can. depending on you know
the steel grade depending on how hard that particular blade has
been treated. But stuff like s 90 v and s 110 v could take a
bit longer. Yes, stuff like s 30 v s 35. I don't find them to be
particularly troublesome. I think three V is a great steal
one of my favorites. In fact, because you get a lot of high
performance you get a lot of toughness. And for the given
edge retention you get it doesn't take as long as sharp as
you might think or at least that's always been my impression
of it. As for pushing harder, you kind of want to just let the
weight of the knife do its thing. pushing harder can
introduce a lot of different problems whether you're working
with a sharp maker or a flat stone or really any sharpening
method. If you're working well this is a stone system, the
harder you push. That means the more tension is on your wrist
the less steady your grip can be, which can cause
irregularities and angle and you can even like push it a little
bit the wrong way and blunt your edge. No good. Same things
especially true with belt based sharpeners like the workshop
stuff, really easy to round your edge over if you're pushing down
real hard. Now what you can do for the premium Steel's if
you're worried about them taking too long, you want to expedite
the process you can go with Diamond Coated abrasives you can
get diamond rods or cubic carbon boron nitride CBN rods for the
sharp maker, the diamonds going to be more more aggressive than
the CBN. And those will cut a little quicker through some of
the the real high edge retention Steel's out there. A word of
note with diamond abrasives especially pushing harder is
even worse. You run into even more problems not just because
of what was already discussed with maintaining pressure and
letting the abrasive do its work. But if you push real hard
onto a diamond abrasive you can actually tear the diamond out of
the the steel supports the steel matrix that is kind of holding
it there. I've had this happen. I've done this very thing with
diamond rods. I'm a sharp maker I wanted to actually repro file
a an s 30 v. What's the word fixed blade man? I'm batting
1000 right now. Read first of all reprofiling even with
diamond rods on a sharp maker.
It takes it took way too long. And I wound up going through a
hole like ruining the set of diamond rods that I bought on
that one night because I was pushing it hard. So I say this
from experience. Just let the knife do its thing. Go with the
diamond stuff if you want to expedite the The process but let
the let the process work. Don't try to rush it. Don't try to
force or push too hard on the rods and you'll be good to go.
And kudos for for using a strop at the end. That's always a good
thing. I always always do that. All right, the next knife. The
next question comes from the Jedi junkie, hey DCA, which
blade profile has a better predisposition to be the better
slicer spear point, or a spear point drop point, like on a
Swiss army knife or something with a classic drop point. So
initially, I thought this was going to be a lightning round
question where I would simply say any any blade shape is going
to be fine. It's just a slicer. It's all about the geometry. But
actually, I started thinking about it a little more. And I've
got two Swiss Army knives here that kind of illustrate what I'm
about to talk about. You mentioned a spear point drop
point, like a Swiss army knife, and I believe I know what you're
referring to. And that's the typical blade shape on most
Swiss Army knives. However, this is not actually a spear point,
you'll notice the tip of the blade is a little bit below the
center line. So not not technically a spear point. There
are a few Swiss Army knives this day to this day that do have a
spear point and I'm talking about some of the models that
used to be winger models before the two companies officially
consolidated under one umbrella the Victorian ox name, like this
evil grip 10. Right here you can see it has a different blade
shape. Then this next in our exclusive pioneer x down here,
there's a little bit more belly and the tip is more along the
centerline. So this you could you could get away with calling
a spear point but the Pioneer X not so much. Now, you'll notice
the blade of the spear point blade on this Victoria on this
EVO grip has more belly. And that is going to be the
differentiator when we're talking about slicing. So think
about the task at hand. What is a slice really and I know this
may be a seem like a silly thing to get into the weeds about but
but stick with me. There's basically two, two primary types
of cuts that cover pretty much pretty much everything, you have
push cuts, and pull cuts, push cut being literally exactly like
it sounds, you're pushing through the material, and a pull
cut or a draw cut. That is what a slice is, that's what it's
always meant, to me anyway, the slicing motion that pulling or
that drawing of the blade back, that is a slice and it involves
the mechanics of your anatomy doing that. So it's, you can do
a perfectly straight back cut, but most likely, there's gonna
be some rotation to the blade or some changing of the angle. As
such, when you're slicing, the more belly something has.
Typically that means it's going to slice a little bit better
than something with less belly. And I don't have I don't have an
aggressive example here of a, a wharncliffe style blade or
something like that. But hey, actually, Thomas kind of does.
Here we go. This old school ZT 0055, I can almost say it's old
school at this point. Since it is discontinued. It doesn't it's
not a perfect example, because you do have the kink in the
blade here. But you think as you know, let's say you're going
through your slice, the more you get to the back of it, the more
the tip goes down, the less of the blade is actually cutting
the material you're cutting, the less of the edge is actually
interfacing with what you're cutting. If you have I'll use
one of these other big bigger bellied knives as a better
example. But if you have more belly at the tip, as the blade
starts to point down, as you're coming towards the end of the
motion, you have got more edge interfacing or interacting with
what you're cutting, just pretend it's like a cut of meat
on a cutting board right it's a great example. Same angle,
you're you're you're gonna be dealing with like this much edge
cutting through the meat on the cutting board whereas if you
have more belly you're dealing with a lot more edge more edge
cutting through is going to be more efficient. Thank you Thomas
for your example right there. So for that reason, I would say
between the two low between the two Swiss Army Knife examples
here, everything else being equal, if the edge geometry is
the same if the thickness of the blade is the same, then the
knife with more belly will be a little bit better predisposed
towards slicing.
Again, all things being equal perfect example right here this
LT Wright pronghorn with its scandi grind you're dealing with
a thicker blade geometry especially as you get higher up
the scandi grind and into the full thickness of the blade. I
would say the Less bellied swiss army knife here, the pioneer X
would be a better slicer. So again, all things being equal,
though, more belly is going to be is going to give you a bit
better slice. And you can take that all the way to the end
through the logical end of trailing point blades with a lot
of belly. And that's exactly what they're made to do is big,
long, efficient slicing. So, hope that helps. It's not quite
answering your question exactly by like this type of drop point
or a spear point, but just in general, more belly. All right,
now we do come to the lightning round for today, which comes
from our men. Armen Ara Killian Arakelyan. David, I really want
to know your favorite blade steel. Not that it matters. But
I want to know what your favorite is. So I think I may
have answered this before. So you can go back to see if you
know where that is. You can see my answers the same. I always
say I have three I've got a favorite carbon steel, a
favorite stainless steel and a favorite particle metallurgy
steel. I really like O1, four carbon steel. And I've said like
either 1095 or O1 depending on which day you asked me today,
it's O1. It's not the latest whiz bang sort of thing, but it
is dependable. It's like the old farm truck that never fails to
start always going to work. For stainless I like AEB-L it's good
and tough. It's easy to care for. Its takes a really fine
edge really well. And for particle metallurgy. I like 3V I
mentioned it before. One of the things that all these steels
have in common is they're they're easier to take care of
than certain other things in the same genre while still giving
you really good performance. Like I said 3V gives you more
edge retention than you would expect given how easy for me at
least it has always been to sharpen. Same thing with AEB-L
sharpens really easily holds the edge a long time is crazy tough
and O1 or 1095 sharpens easy enough. Good toughness out of
it. Overall good performance and just awesome dependability. You
don't always need the latest and greatest to do great things. I
think those three Steel's really proven. Which brings us to our
last question our Most Serious question of the day, which comes
from Austin Freiburger what's a great name fry? Fry burger right
there. Let us know when you're opening a franchise down this
way we'll come visit. What's the best blade steel for someone
named Austin? The answer is simple, my friend MagnaCut. No,
not this time. Not this time. S35VN is the best steal for
someone named Austin. And I will tell you why. on a future
episode, until then you have to guess Tell me down below. If you
can, if you can figure out the Byzantine logic that I use to
figure out why S35VN is the best deal for someone named Austin.
Drop your guesses in the comments section and go. That's
all we've got for this week. However, let me know your
thoughts on the questions. Let me know if you've got some
alternate answers. And to have a chance to have your question
featured in a future episode. Drop it in that comment section
below. If you want to get your hands on any of these knives or
the sharpener there, check out the links in the description
that'll take you to KnifeCenter.com While you're
there, don't forget about our knife rewards program. Because
if you're going to be putting your money down on one of these
products, you might as well be earning some free money to spend
on your next one. I'm David C. Andersen from the KnifeCenter
That's Thomas behind the camera and we're signing off. See you
next time. I mean, either way he's gonna have micarta I mean,
maybe I'm just gonna go just go get a burger. Yeah, guys, fries
and burger, let's go.