American Knife Idol - Hard Use Folder Edition

averageiowaguy said:
Hey,
I'm looking for a real hard use folder. I was recently very disappointed when I bought a supposedly hard use folder. I watched and read about 30 reviews of the knife and they must have all been made/written by fanboys.

Here are the rules for my American Knife Idol (LOL) Contest:
1) G10 cannot be a main structural component of the knife. I don't want a frame lock titanium side with G10 on the other side.
2) I don't want the locking mechanism to be the standard one that is on the back of the handle. Frame locks are OK (I guess) as long as the other half of the knife isn't plastic. Liner locks are OK (I guess) as long as they are very very very sturdy. I'm open to other locking mechanisms.
3) It needs to be full sized. I am not super concerned about price because I just canceled an order from the same maker as my supposed hard use folder disappointment.
4) It needs to be readily available. I'm not military so I can't get stuff from the guys who are so busy they will only sell to active duty military. Custom knives are OK as long as it is more or less ready to ship.
5) Made in the US is a big plus. Made in China is a dis-qualifier.

I'm really interested in what you think. If you have a candidate I'd love to know about it. My problem is that I am not a knife encyclopedia and I don't know everything that is out there. I'd appreciate a push in the right direction. Thanks in advance,
AIG
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Why does your folding knife need to be this robust? Robust comes at the expense of many things that make folding knives useful: weight, pocket comfort, cutting ability, public perception, etc.

If you have drawers filled with nice fixed blades, why do you want some enormous, unwieldy, poorly-slicing, people-spooking monstrosity in your pocket?

I get the desire for robust, handle-anything fixed blades.

For folders, stout, reliable? Yes. Robust, "hard use" (WTF is this, even?), not so much.
 
^^Especially when he doesn't even know that the "standard lock on the back" is a backlock, and regarded as being stronger than a framelock. Though both are plenty robust.

It's just an internet fad of seeing thicker and thicker, and needlessly overbuilt folders and having to "one up" the next one. It's gotten to the point where they are actually adding features which make them WORSE hard use knives, like on that monstrosity of a knife with CPM M4 pictured earlier. It's all just pocket bling to post pictures of online, which is cool, but when they deliberately add things to LOOK hard use, and perform worse, is ridiculous. I'm speaking specifically of that closed back construction they added to it. Sure it looks cool, but it adds weight, and "fixes" a nonexistant problem. That knife in open back construction would be a much more viable hard use folder....
 
averageiowaguy said:
Hey,
I'm looking for a real hard use folder. I was recently very disappointed when I bought a supposedly hard use folder. I watched and read about 30 reviews of the knife and they must have all been made/written by fanboys.

Here are the rules for my American Knife Idol (LOL) Contest:
1) G10 cannot be a main structural component of the knife. I don't want a frame lock titanium side with G10 on the other side.
2) I don't want the locking mechanism to be the standard one that is on the back of the handle. Frame locks are OK (I guess) as long as the other half of the knife isn't plastic. Liner locks are OK (I guess) as long as they are very very very sturdy. I'm open to other locking mechanisms.
3) It needs to be full sized. I am not super concerned about price because I just canceled an order from the same maker as my supposed hard use folder disappointment.
4) It needs to be readily available. I'm not military so I can't get stuff from the guys who are so busy they will only sell to active duty military. Custom knives are OK as long as it is more or less ready to ship.
5) Made in the US is a big plus. Made in China is a dis-qualifier.

I'm really interested in what you think. If you have a candidate I'd love to know about it. My problem is that I am not a knife encyclopedia and I don't know everything that is out there. I'd appreciate a push in the right direction. Thanks in advance,
AIG
Click to expand...


I think what it comes down to in the end is the following:

What would be YOUR definition of hard use, anyone else's definition doesn't matter here?

Do you want or even care about cutting performance because MOST of the hard use knives just plain suck at cutting without some serious work on the blade and edge except for a few that have taken cutting performance into consideration when they were designed.


1) The Strider SnG that you bought is and would be more than strong enough for just about anything you would have wanted to do, but the standard Lego vers is stronger.

2) The back lock, Mid lock is as strong or stronger than most frame locks and the Tri-Ad is the next step up from those.

G10 is VERY strong so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

If you want a knife that you can just beat the crap out of then I would recommend the CS Recon 1 or American Lawman, if you break either one of those two knives you were trying to break them on purpose. Both are hard use knives that one can still cut stuff with as both are very good cutters especially the Recon 1 Clip Point vers. That's based on my own experiences with 3 generations of Recon 1's since 1996 and I still have that 1st generation and it's been through a lot over the years.
 
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Hey,
Sorry it took me so long to respond. I've been out deer hunting. I know what a backlock is. I also know all kinds of other jargon. I used a description of the locking mechanism that someone reading the thread would understand without needing to whip out their knife dictionary. My concern with backlocks is that I've had them fail during hard use. I haven't personally cut my hand doing that but I've seen it happen several times.

Why is everyone so damned hostile on here? All I wanted was a few suggestions for hard use knives. That doesn't make me a mall ninja, as I actually go out and USE knives to do things like process deer. I wouldn't consider gutting a deer to necessarily be 'hard use' but I would consider splitting the sternum and pelvis on a bigger mature deer to be. I'm not really interested in having a fight on the internet, so just forget I asked. Good grief.
 
DireWare Solo V1/2 - they come up once in a while for sale on forums, otherwise they can be ordered direct from Eric the maker by emailing him at the address on his site (wait time for a new one is 5-6 months). I have 2 - one in Carbon Fibre and the other all Ti (bronzed anodized) and because the scales are so thick, the CF makes quite a bit of difference to the weight. The blades on both (both are second hand) come the sharpest I've seen on a folder (similar to a Hinderer) and are made of S-35VN. They're not for everyone, but they're built like a tank and no sternum or pelvis would be safe. I also have the Strider SMF Aluminum and it's also very well built and robust. The Solo is considerably bigger/thicker/heavier than the SMF-AL. Good hunting.
 
averageiowaguy said:
Hey,
Sorry it took me so long to respond. I've been out deer hunting. I know what a backlock is. I also know all kinds of other jargon. I used a description of the locking mechanism that someone reading the thread would understand without needing to whip out their knife dictionary. My concern with backlocks is that I've had them fail during hard use. I haven't personally cut my hand doing that but I've seen it happen several times.

Why is everyone so damned hostile on here? All I wanted was a few suggestions for hard use knives. That doesn't make me a mall ninja, as I actually go out and USE knives to do things like process deer. I wouldn't consider gutting a deer to necessarily be 'hard use' but I would consider splitting the sternum and pelvis on a bigger mature deer to be. I'm not really interested in having a fight on the internet, so just forget I asked. Good grief.
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Sounds like you really need to be carrying a fixed blade if that's what you are going to be doing with the knife and you posted that you have plenty of those.

Folders aren't really the best tool for that job for a lot of reasons.
 
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