American Knife of the Year - Benchmade Narrows

Sibyrnes said:
Curious how you arrived at that conclusion. How many Narrows have you had in hand to compare directly with the Atom, and in what ways did the Atom “blow it away”?
Click to expand...
It WILL blow it away. not DID. Read better.

The Narrows uses a very similar steel with BM's heat treat (has anyone had any issues with their heat treat in the past? I wonder...). With heat treats being equal, the Atoms have already been proven, at half the cost.
I know you haven't held and tested a Narrows, but I'll wait.
 
gooeytek said:
It WILL blow it away. not DID. Read better.

The Narrows uses a very similar steel with BM's heat treat (has anyone had any issues with their heat treat in the past? I wonder...). With heat treats being equal, the Atoms have already been proven, at half the cost.
I know you haven't held and tested a Narrows, but I'll wait.
Click to expand...
Look, don't tell me to read better, that's just plain rude! Maybe you should try thinking better.
You're judging the performance of a knife you know nothing about based on some pre-conceived notions about heat treatment(as if that is the only important quality of a knife). The Atom looks like a fine knife, if you can find one. TRM says "Sorry, the requested product is not available".
Buy whatever you like and please allow others to do the same without your ridiculous and judgmental comments.
 
Last edited:
Chinese folders - bargain.
European beater fixed blades (Terava, Mora, Hultafors, Glock) - bargain.
Cold Steel - used to be good deal, now so-so.
ESEE - overpriced for material, but fit and finish and warranty are there.
Spyderco - you know what you're paying for.

Benchmade - Rip off.
 
HexY3co said:
I'm sure you meant .01 thicker. A .100 would be rather thick if adding .08, that would be .18 and that is fat. My CRK inkosi is .13 which is the thinnest I would have, my Dpx was .16 which I loved that fatty and deep belly in niolox steel. .18 is fixed blade range at an about 4.5mm
It's all about manipulating buyers, today it's super thin tomorrow it's the next super steel. Next year who knows maybe it will be back to sanity but I doubt it.
Click to expand...
Huh? No, I meant .100" thicker. Someone posted a pic showing calipers at .285". Assuming that pic was meant to show the Narrows' handle thickness, it is not uncommon to get a thin, lightweight folder coming in around .375" thick, and a LOT better value priced...
 
LostCause said:
Benchmade - Rip off.
Click to expand...
With one exception I'd dare say, their Griptilian line seems to have been left out of BM fantasmagoric pricing hike, for the time being at least. And it's a blessing, they're widely used by workers in my industry, because they're tough, they work well, they're not that expensive, and can be easily operated while wearing gloves.
 
I appreciate the thinness as an innovation. I'd like to handle one. At the price point it's unlikely I'll end up owning one. There's a ton of really great quality competition under that price point. Some a long ways under 500 dollars.
 
Reswob said:
Huh? No, I meant .100" thicker. Someone posted a pic showing calipers at .285". Assuming that pic was meant to show the Narrows' handle thickness, it is not uncommon to get a thin, lightweight folder coming in around .375" thick, and a LOT better value priced...
Click to expand...
Thought you were referring to the blade thickness. Makes sense now, yea .100 on the handle is nothing. Thanks for the clarification.
 
Sibyrnes said:
Look, don't tell me to read better, that's just plain rude! Maybe you should try thinking better.
You're judging the performance of a knife you know nothing about based on some pre-conceived notions about heat treatment(as if that is the only important quality of a knife). The Atom looks like a fine knife, if you can find one. TRM says "Sorry, the requested product is not available".
Buy whatever you like and please allow others to do the same without your ridiculous and judgmental comments.
Click to expand...
Rude? read your comment again and tell me where I said the Atom DID "blow it away". Read better.

Knifesteel heat-treat is the MOST IMPORTANT quality of a knife if you want to actually use it. I did not say it's the ONLY important quality, you're again trying to insinuate that I said something when I didn't. I would rather have just a knifeblade with a spot-on heat treat with a handle wrapped in tape because it will work for what it's designed for. Got a beautiful handle with a beautiful blade in soft steel? You have a nice wall-hanger.

For a blade this thin, heat-treat has to be spot on.
Benchmade has had some perceived issues with M390 blades in the past.

I have TRM Atoms and Neutrons and they are magnificent performers. I've also had older Benchmades that performed well (They did a good job on their D2 & S30V blades) , and newer ones that did not. I know that the Narrows might match an Atom's cutting performance since they're practically the same knifesteel, but at double the price? You be the judge.

Best way to get a TRM knife is follow them on social media so you're alerted to when they drop. They sell out quick for good reason. The $580 dollar Benchmade is available though :D

TRM were also at Blade, with a ton of knives to go around.
 
I bought a few BMs when they were mostly in the ~ $100 range (yeah, that long ago...). Never saw them really move beyond that, quality and prestige wise.

$500+? Get outta here! LOL.
 
TC said:
Honest question: How much R&D does it take to make a single blade folding knife? Is there any innovative technology in that particular knife?
Click to expand...
I don’t know and I doubt they’ll tell us but there would be tooling costs, design, trial and error with prototypes.. it can be fairly expensive.
 
I don't buy the R&D argument. R&D is a one time cost, to be divided by the number of unit produced. If, for example, you spend 1 million on R&D, but you produce 1 million unit, then the R&D cost is exactly 1 dollar per unit.

And you know how to reduce the R&D cost per unit on a production run? Yeah, sell more units. And how do you do that? Many ways, but a proven one is simply to reduce the price on each unit. There is a direct, if non linear, correlation between pricing and number of units sold.

Why I'm completely baffled by the pricing strategy of BM in general, but on this particular model in particular. This is a production model, meaning, as I define it, built on an assembly line type of production as opposed to a craftsman built, yet it approaches craftsman built pricing. Baffling.
 
Floatingby said:
I don't buy the R&D argument. R&D is a one time cost, to be divided by the number of unit produced. If, for example, you spend 1 million on R&D, but you produce 1 million unit, then the R&D cost is exactly 1 dollar per unit.

And you know how to reduce the R&D cost per unit on a production run? Yeah, sell more units. And how do you do that? Many ways, but a proven one is simply to reduce the price on each unit. There is a direct, if non linear, correlation between pricing and number of units sold.

Why I'm completely baffled by the pricing strategy of BM in general, but on this particular model in particular. This is a production model, meaning, as I define it, built on an assembly line type of production as opposed to a craftsman built, yet it approaches craftsman built pricing. Baffling.
Click to expand...
R&D payback isn’t a total on the lifetime of the knife. They’ll want that money back in 1-3 years. How many units do you really think they’ll sell in a year? Medford is designing an OTF that he said he has over a million invested in, and his proof runs have what, 400 knives? This is a heavy R&D project, they didn’t piece together items that already exist.
 
gooeytek said:
Rude? read your comment again and tell me where I said the Atom DID "blow it away". Read better.
Click to expand...
And that's exactly my point - sorry you missed it. You did not actually do a comparison of the Narrows to the Atom. You're predicting that the Atom "will blow it away" - a total conjecture on your part.

Anyway, I have one on order so I will actually hold one in my hand, cut some things with it and make up my own mind.
 
King of the Cheese said:
R&D payback isn’t a total on the lifetime of the knife. They’ll want that money back in 1-3 years. How many units do you really think they’ll sell in a year?
Click to expand...
I don't know, but I do know they'll sell a tons of a lot less than if they priced it more sensibly.

Everybody I've shown that knife to so far has burst out laughing when shown the price(including me).

And, reading this thread it's obvious that pricing is the major talking point, and this is on a knife forum for crying out loud.

I'm guessing, at this point, that BM is making a marketing experiment with that model, because anything else doesn't make sense to me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top