A question for Sal, or Michelle, or anyone else at Spyderco

dsvirsky

dsvirsky

Joined
Aug 2, 1999
Messages
1,910
This is just a question, not a complaint.
Recently I measured the blade length on a couple of my Spydies and found that my results don't match the figures posted in the Spyderco catalog (either online or hardcopy). For example, the CF Dragonfly blade is 59 mm by my ruler, but only 54 mm according to the catalog; similarly, it’s 67 mm versus 64 mm for the Aluminum Walker.

I figure there are several possible explanations for this -- in ascending order of likelihood:
1) someone can’t use a ruler;
2) Golden, CO is traveling at a significantly higher percentage of the speed of light than Antioch, CA, resulting in relativistic effects;
3) we’re measuring things differently (measuring different things?).

So what’s the scoop?

Thanks in advance.

Dave

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Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of More Knives

 
Are you measuring just the cutting edge, or from the tip of the blade to the beginning of the handle? Spyderco may not be measuring the tang. I also checked several of my rulers against a good quality measruing scale and there was quite a bit of difference in some of them. That was a little surprising to me. I marked the inaccurate ones so that they will only see use as straight edges.

------------------
Paul Davidson

Them:"What's that clipped to your pocket, a beeper?"
Me:"Uuh....yeah, something like that."


 
Paul,
I'm measuring from tip of blade to handle. Cutting edge on the Walker is only 60 mm, so that wouldn't explain it either.

It's likely that my rulers are less than perfect, but the differences are too large to be explained solely by that.

Dave
 
Dave, sorry, I'm not from Spyderco, but I really have to hand it to you for choice #2, I narrowly avoided spraying orange juice all over the monitor
smile.gif


As Paul mentioned, there are several choices of what to measure: one end is the point, obviously, but the other end could be a) the end of the sharpened edge, or b) the point where the handle intersects a line between the point and the pivot, or c) the bit of exposed blade metal furthest away from the point (which can differ from #b on something like the Benchmade Stryker).

I've heard stories of overzealous airport security people wanting to measure from the point to the pivot ("well, why stop there? why not measure up to my elbow, since that's how far through somebody this knife could go").

You can also measure in a straight line between the two, uh, points (sorry, words getting overloaded here), or you could measure along the curve that the edge follows.

My personal preference is to measure the difference between the open and closed overall lengths of the of the knife. I think Spyderco has measured just the sharpened edge, in the past, although I've seen some of their magazine ads that show both the sharpened-edge-only and to-the-handle lengths, with little measuring lines below the pictures.

More (and less) than you wanted to know...

------------------
Carl /\/\/\ AKTI #A000921

Think this through with me ... Let me know your mind
Wo-oah, what I want to know ... is are you kind?
-- Hunter/Garcia, "Uncle John's Band"
 
Perhaps its a matter of conversion. My blades work out to be same length as those advertised (in inches). The measurement in inches is from tip to handle.

Hope that helps.
 
Regarding the Walker, I can state that dsvirsky is correct, the blade on the Walker is about 2 9/16" versus the 2 1/2" in the Spyderco literature. The measurement is from the blade tip straight it the handle. I don't have a Dragonfly so can't say on that one.
 
When I got home last night, I measured a few of my other Spyderco knives. It looks like maybe only the Almite Walker and CF Dragonfly are significantly different than advertised. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that neither is the regular production model?

Dave
 
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