Site Purpose and Criteria

Good Day!

Here I am posting reviews and impressions of knives as I aquire them. Some vintage, some new, some collectable and some not. Mostly folders, BUT I will do some fixed blade/sheath knives later as time and budget allows. I plan to have one new article approximately every 1.5 to 2 weeks.

So Far I have Case, Bulldog, Great Eastern, Rough Rider, Kissing Crane, Amherst Cutlery, US Classic, Gerber, Bear MGC and Bear And Sons…. Also SAKs; Victorinox and Wenger. I have plans to aquire Hen and Rooster, Buck, Classic Case, Queen, Roebeson, and Schatt and Morgan just to name a few..

The “Current Carry” pic on the side bar will change as often as the knife I carry does. I will keep a running history on what I carry, an update post every week or two.

Some of the criteria I review on;

Fit and finish;

I will add to this as I think of things that I do while testing, or if a (reasonable)test is requested.

Fit and finish;

  • Smoothness of polish and handle scale fit;
  • Looking for gaps between bolster and handle material,
  • Burrs on pins.
  • Cracks in materials.
  • Gaps between liners and springs,
  • Gaps between handle or bolster and liners.
  • Blade play both open and closed; Side to side play at the blade pivot pin,
  • Evenness of grind; How even the bevels are from side to side, and blade to blade.
  • Quality of factory/makers edge,
  • Quality of edge it will take,
  • How long it keeps the edge it in use,
  • Walk and talk on slipjoints:
  • Spring strength, and ease of opening –SEE BELOW FOR SCALE
  • Amount of snap closing, or lack there-of,
  • Solidness of locks; side to side and up/down play,
  • Drag while locking and un-locking,

Work Performance at general tasks;

  • cutting paper/cardboard,
  • slicing fruit,
  • meat,
  • shaving soft wood,

And hard use tasks;

  • push splitting wood,
  • extended carving,
  • shaving in hard wood,
  • push cutting soft materials,
  • cutting rope(amount of cuts before edge loss),

Pull Scale;

I use a scale ‘0′ to ‘10.5′ for spring strength on slipjoints, the pull force required to open the knife. ‘0′ being no tension and 10 being un-openable without pliers or other tools the pull the blade. ‘10.5′ being unable to open at all. Lock backs will use a scale of their own, ‘0′ being free swinging no spring or drag, to ‘10′ stiff and tight, tools required to pull open. ‘10.5′ is always ‘unable to open’. rating will be in bold Red Text in all articles. for easy reference, and linked to this part of this page for clarity.

I will eventually have comparison charts for several knives of the same type, for instance; trapper pattern slipjoints, several brands, to compare review findings.

Gary Blessing

Updated March 18th-2009

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