Shorttime
Gold Member
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2011
- Messages
- 4,017
I collect dumb knives.
I couldn’t tell you why. Maybe a lifetime spent being one of the shortest people in the room has left me with some need to compensate. Maybe it’s the same arse-backwards impulse that drives me to loudly proclaim the drag-marks on the back of my knuckles as badges to be proud of, that I’m too much of a galoot to carry “slim, pretty knives”.
You just ignore that spear point barlow over there on the table. You don’t need to worry about the spine thickness of that.
The 4Max Scout ought to fit in just fine.
I will not be covering the usual numbers. You can find those anywhere. Extensive navel-gazing on the topic of cutlery has convinced me to promote the importance of features that most people would not give a second thought to. Like, the pocket clip. This one is spin-cycle strong, and I like that.
One of the things I’ve criticized Cold Steel for is their pocket clip screws, which “walk loose”, just by being in your pocket. It’s something to do with the triangular pattern of the screws, I’m sure. But I’m also not an engineer, so who cares?
This one, hopefully won’t have that problem. Triangles and circles are spooky, supernatural shapes that do strange things with surface area and torque, and they shouldn’t be trusted. This clip is just a nice, straight line, and I want it to work. We’ll see, I guess.
Part of what makes a pocket clip is the material under it, and the slabs on the Scout are like dull 80 grit sandpaper.
This is a good thing! That same blue collar pride has given me palms like brake pads, and I really like the surface contact I get from this. The aluminum slabs of the Code 4 were a little less than confidence-inspiring in the coefficient of friction category.
Speaking of confidence inspiring, I equate weight with skookumness, and this knife delivers those goods. My wife’s postage scale is buried under a pile of letters, so I can’t give you an accurate weight. It’s “enough”.
However, the internet provides, and a bit of a Google sent me to another reviewer who places the weight at 10.19 oz. No, I’m not going to give him credit, he can harvest his own internet points.
Other fun facts include that 10.19 ounces is a bit over half a pound. This makes me happy.
For our friends who are using the Science measurements, that’s 288.88 grams.
Some of that weight is the steel liners:
They’re thinner than I would like, but they’re there, unlike a lot of CS products. C’mon, GSM: machine time is cheap.
This is a pre-GSM Scout, by the way. I got it off the auction site, back in October. Or rather, she got it for me. I don’t have an account over there, for reasons.
Most of the weight is the 0.187” thick blade. This 3/16” to 4” ratio seems to be an industry standard. I would quite like a 0.25”, convex-bevel blade, but mass-production doesn’t seem to think we’re ready for that.
Cutting performance? You don’t buy something like this because of it’s CATRA results. Nobody is out here, pushing their glasses up their face, saying “well, actually”, and trying to compare the Scout to a Spyderco for cutting performance. If you’re having trouble cutting something with this chunk of implement, grab a stick and hammer it the rest of the way through.
Still though, the flat-grind goes about 75% of the way up the blade, and it chews cardboard very acceptably.
Controlling the point is easier than you think. The semi-choil
Makes it easy to wrap your index-finger round, and get some extra precision.
The thumb stud at least looks scaled to the rest of the knife, and anything less sticky-outey would probably be useless. I would rather have a disc, but the industry doesn’t seem ready to listen to me about this, either. I guess the difference is that you can crank studs out on a CNC lathe all day, where discs need milling time, and more operations. Gotta get that 0.01 of a penny out of the manufacturing cost, don’t we?
The blade is stone-washed, and it looks great. I have nothing negative to say about this, for a change.
The lockbar sits a little high of the rest of the handle on my example, and I honestly don’t care.
For what I’m getting, I can easily tolerate a few minor imperfections. I even welcome them, since this is the sort of thing that’s expected to accumulate battle scars, and having it arrive pristine and perfect would make that process more traumatic for the user.
At first, I thought the backspacer was plastic, and I was prepared to be unhappy about this. But after a little more investigation, it’s some kind of metal: well done, Cold Steel! I’m sure it helps the balance, I’m just a “more metal, more better” kind of person.
Ergonomics are entirely subjective. My hands are roughly proportional to the rest of me (somewhat short but adequately girthy
), and it doesn’t feel “too big”. I imagine if you have piano player fingers, or you’re one of our more grizzly-bear-like members, you might find the handle a bit small on the circumference, but never in length.
I’ve posted this math equation in other places:
problems = (hand size + knife size) > pocket width
In the case of the 4Max Scout, you are going to have problems. Not as many as you would think, though. The angle of the pocket clip means the knife sits a little skewed off-angle in your pocket, so it’s easy to displace it toward the front of your pocket as you dig around for your more sensible cutting tool. At least, as long as you wear pants that are cut for comfort. If you prefer a more… profiled… sizing, clipping this cutlery tool to your pocket will make people ask if you’re happy to see them. I’m not here to judge fashion, but if you’re rocking the slim look, you should consider another way to carry whatever else was in that pocket, because this knife is going to use it up.
This is where I talk about the reason you started reading this, in the first place: should you buy it?
You’ve been all over the internet, seen every knife reviewer take it outside, bash it through a tree branch, talk about how great it is, and pass it on to the next dude who takes it outside, bashes it through a tree branch, and talks about how great it is. I haven’t bothered talking about the Triad Lock, or very much about overall dimensions, because these don’t tell you anything you don’t know already, or can find out somewhere else.
If you’re still on the fence about this knife, it’s because:
A) you don’t have a clear use-case for it
B) you can’t justify the price for something that crowds the edges of practical EDC
C) you don’t see the point: for the size and weight, you could have a real fixed blade.
I agree with you: this knife is far bigger and heavier than you strictly need for routine jobs. It’s probably the largest folder most people can fit in their pants pocket, and it takes up most of that space. It’s guaranteed to make the gentle people recoil in horror if you pop it to deal with the mundane frustrations of our modern, plastic-wrapped society. Skip it, save your money, and get an actual fixed blade. Unless you like dumb knives.
I couldn’t tell you why. Maybe a lifetime spent being one of the shortest people in the room has left me with some need to compensate. Maybe it’s the same arse-backwards impulse that drives me to loudly proclaim the drag-marks on the back of my knuckles as badges to be proud of, that I’m too much of a galoot to carry “slim, pretty knives”.
You just ignore that spear point barlow over there on the table. You don’t need to worry about the spine thickness of that.
The 4Max Scout ought to fit in just fine.
I will not be covering the usual numbers. You can find those anywhere. Extensive navel-gazing on the topic of cutlery has convinced me to promote the importance of features that most people would not give a second thought to. Like, the pocket clip. This one is spin-cycle strong, and I like that.
One of the things I’ve criticized Cold Steel for is their pocket clip screws, which “walk loose”, just by being in your pocket. It’s something to do with the triangular pattern of the screws, I’m sure. But I’m also not an engineer, so who cares?
This one, hopefully won’t have that problem. Triangles and circles are spooky, supernatural shapes that do strange things with surface area and torque, and they shouldn’t be trusted. This clip is just a nice, straight line, and I want it to work. We’ll see, I guess.
Part of what makes a pocket clip is the material under it, and the slabs on the Scout are like dull 80 grit sandpaper.
This is a good thing! That same blue collar pride has given me palms like brake pads, and I really like the surface contact I get from this. The aluminum slabs of the Code 4 were a little less than confidence-inspiring in the coefficient of friction category.
Speaking of confidence inspiring, I equate weight with skookumness, and this knife delivers those goods. My wife’s postage scale is buried under a pile of letters, so I can’t give you an accurate weight. It’s “enough”.
However, the internet provides, and a bit of a Google sent me to another reviewer who places the weight at 10.19 oz. No, I’m not going to give him credit, he can harvest his own internet points.
Other fun facts include that 10.19 ounces is a bit over half a pound. This makes me happy.
For our friends who are using the Science measurements, that’s 288.88 grams.
Some of that weight is the steel liners:
They’re thinner than I would like, but they’re there, unlike a lot of CS products. C’mon, GSM: machine time is cheap.
This is a pre-GSM Scout, by the way. I got it off the auction site, back in October. Or rather, she got it for me. I don’t have an account over there, for reasons.
Most of the weight is the 0.187” thick blade. This 3/16” to 4” ratio seems to be an industry standard. I would quite like a 0.25”, convex-bevel blade, but mass-production doesn’t seem to think we’re ready for that.
Cutting performance? You don’t buy something like this because of it’s CATRA results. Nobody is out here, pushing their glasses up their face, saying “well, actually”, and trying to compare the Scout to a Spyderco for cutting performance. If you’re having trouble cutting something with this chunk of implement, grab a stick and hammer it the rest of the way through.
Still though, the flat-grind goes about 75% of the way up the blade, and it chews cardboard very acceptably.
Controlling the point is easier than you think. The semi-choil
Makes it easy to wrap your index-finger round, and get some extra precision.
The thumb stud at least looks scaled to the rest of the knife, and anything less sticky-outey would probably be useless. I would rather have a disc, but the industry doesn’t seem ready to listen to me about this, either. I guess the difference is that you can crank studs out on a CNC lathe all day, where discs need milling time, and more operations. Gotta get that 0.01 of a penny out of the manufacturing cost, don’t we?
The blade is stone-washed, and it looks great. I have nothing negative to say about this, for a change.
The lockbar sits a little high of the rest of the handle on my example, and I honestly don’t care.
For what I’m getting, I can easily tolerate a few minor imperfections. I even welcome them, since this is the sort of thing that’s expected to accumulate battle scars, and having it arrive pristine and perfect would make that process more traumatic for the user.
At first, I thought the backspacer was plastic, and I was prepared to be unhappy about this. But after a little more investigation, it’s some kind of metal: well done, Cold Steel! I’m sure it helps the balance, I’m just a “more metal, more better” kind of person.
Ergonomics are entirely subjective. My hands are roughly proportional to the rest of me (somewhat short but adequately girthy
), and it doesn’t feel “too big”. I imagine if you have piano player fingers, or you’re one of our more grizzly-bear-like members, you might find the handle a bit small on the circumference, but never in length.
I’ve posted this math equation in other places:
problems = (hand size + knife size) > pocket width
In the case of the 4Max Scout, you are going to have problems. Not as many as you would think, though. The angle of the pocket clip means the knife sits a little skewed off-angle in your pocket, so it’s easy to displace it toward the front of your pocket as you dig around for your more sensible cutting tool. At least, as long as you wear pants that are cut for comfort. If you prefer a more… profiled… sizing, clipping this cutlery tool to your pocket will make people ask if you’re happy to see them. I’m not here to judge fashion, but if you’re rocking the slim look, you should consider another way to carry whatever else was in that pocket, because this knife is going to use it up.
This is where I talk about the reason you started reading this, in the first place: should you buy it?
You’ve been all over the internet, seen every knife reviewer take it outside, bash it through a tree branch, talk about how great it is, and pass it on to the next dude who takes it outside, bashes it through a tree branch, and talks about how great it is. I haven’t bothered talking about the Triad Lock, or very much about overall dimensions, because these don’t tell you anything you don’t know already, or can find out somewhere else.
If you’re still on the fence about this knife, it’s because:
A) you don’t have a clear use-case for it
B) you can’t justify the price for something that crowds the edges of practical EDC
C) you don’t see the point: for the size and weight, you could have a real fixed blade.
I agree with you: this knife is far bigger and heavier than you strictly need for routine jobs. It’s probably the largest folder most people can fit in their pants pocket, and it takes up most of that space. It’s guaranteed to make the gentle people recoil in horror if you pop it to deal with the mundane frustrations of our modern, plastic-wrapped society. Skip it, save your money, and get an actual fixed blade. Unless you like dumb knives.
