810 Contego Abuse

Cypress

Cypress

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Jun 22, 2009
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Due to the freezing weather we had here in Oregon, there were a lot of burst pipes around our valley. A business contact out out a call for help doing demolitions in water-damaged homes. Long-story short, I spent two days crawling around under houses in 3"-4" of standing water and mud removing soaked insulation and heating ducts.

I needed a hard-use knife for this, and decided to put my 810 Contego to the test.

Tasks involved cutting the fiberglass twine holding insulation strips up, cutting through the insulation around heating ducts, cutting those ducts into 3' strips, and then cutting through linoleum floors for removal.

The M4 held a working edge until the job was done, which was expected. At one point, the edge developed rust spots, but they rubbed off once the knife was used again.

The Axis mechanism was absolutely jammed full of mud and wet fiberglass, but never once failed to lock!

The smoothness of the blade deployment was seriously hampered and sounded pretty bad by the end of the first day. Once I got home, I scrubbed the mechanism out with dish soap, applied a few drops of lube to the pivot, Axis assembly, and the cutting edge making the knife right as rain.

Permanent damage is in the form of the coating being scratched up, and missing from the tip (linoleum is more abrasive than I thought?). The backspacer is also covered in rust and pitting that I couldn't seem to get remove.

Overall, I'm seriously impressed with the M4 steel and the Axis mechanism, but bummed about the backspacer being so easily corrodible. I expected to coating to be compromised in some way, but not by flimsy vinyl...

Damage:







 
Surprised the stainless steel backspacer got so many rust spots. Did you try Flitz Paste Metal Polish with a Q-Tip and leaving it on for a while before removing it?
 
Thanks for posting this. Ive noticed the back spacer on my 810 seeming to this. Almost thought I was imagining or it was the light. I havent carried or used yet, just fondled 1/2 dozen times, was more concerned about the edge forming than spacer. MIM I guess is the prob. Same as with the few cracking issue they've had. I did notice the edge seeming to form at a faster rate than the m4 blade on a 710 that lives the same safe life.

Coating does seem to wear at a faster rate judging from your pics. I like the way the wear looks better than I thought. Scratch's.....chicks dig scars, yea. Glad to see the M4 live up.I bought mine to use so, sucks about the back spacer for sure, too bad, I liked it a lot. Forced patina, heat treat maybe....stand offs?
 
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The stainless steel backspacer on the Contego also has another problem related to the glass breaker in that use of the glass breaker has cracked many a backspacer. Of course, Benchmade promptly sends out repalcement backspacers. See the thread: 810 Contego backspacer fracture

I was hoping the issues with the backspacer would've been resolved through a design and/or material change for the upcoming 810-1401 Contego. Of course, in that model there's no glass breaker.
 
You have to understand that flooring, especially vinyl, has to have a strong base structure or it would rip everytime you slid a chair on it. I have had to toss many utility knife blades after a short time cutting through some of the better material.
I am sorry to see the rust on the spacer. I have a black combo Contego and will keep a light/thin coat of oil on the blade edge and spacer. Love the knife and you are correct about the blade holding an edge. Thanks for the very informative review.
Frank.
 
Thanks for the review, I will keep my spacers oiled now. I thought Benchmade didn't send out parts like a backspacer. I guess they know they screwed up on this model and are willing to send them out instead of having tons of knives coming in for replacement.
 
The 810 is a great knife. Unfortunately the cerakote scratches and pits very easily with normal use. Mine scratched just by cutting cardboard. Vinyl is a lot tougher than it looks. Flitz or a similar polish will remove the rust from the back spacer and probably protect it from further corrosion. You should be able to remove it without taking down the entire knife. I have not tried it yet but it appears that there are only two screws holding it in place. I really like the 810, so much that I got 2 of them. The action and feel is better than some of my customs. I would really like to see the 810 come out with an uncoated blade. Caring for carbon steels is really easy. It is coming out in M390 but it is out of my price range at this time.
 
I bought an early 810, was the kitchen cutting Brussel sprouts, not rocks, and was very surprised to see scratches in the coating. A trip up for warranty blade replacement fixed that and then I traded it off. On the new variant, I think removing the glass breaker was a good idea, but even better is having a satin M390
blade in the mix. I agree with Soleil; having an uncoated blade even in M4, which I really like, is and would not be a big deal.
 
HAHA, flooring…..

When my career in commercial flooring began so did serious abrasion on my EDC knives. Once you know what different types of flooring are actually made of you would understand why ;)

I put my CPM-M4 through a lot more than this and it held up to an impressive standard IMO. The lock always worked but then a spring broke.

Very awesome thread you put together, glad to see some use.

Kevin
 
Cool to see you putting the Contego through its paces. Would be interesting to see what the blade portion hidden under the pivot looks like after more time and use.

Coatings always seem to rub off with real use (not just photo ops and cutting string). They look great when brand new or a safe queen but its not long before any coatings on the blade, liners, and axis lock start to wear thin and expose metal. I don't mind the used look though :D
 
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