Byrd Finch-initial review.

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[digidude]

Joined
Aug 21, 2005
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Well today I went looking for a mini Mag-Lite converion kit at my local LeBaron (amazing store). They were sold out. As I always do I took a peak at there impressive knife display, and looking at the 3rd drawer of Spyderco's, this little beauty cought my eye, the Byrd Finch by Spyderco.

"Whoa! Keychain Knife!" kept flashing through my head. That, plus the price ($16.97, come on, how could I pass it up?) convinced my to buy it.

It opens smoothly, the small size hardly hinders the useability of it, and the stianless handle is nice (and engravable, if your into that kinda thing). One handed opening is a little tricky, but thats due to the small size. If you have large hands, you might want one of Spydies larger knifes. The steel on this knife is 8Cr13MoV (I think that's basicly 420HC, though dont quote me on it). The fit and finish is great, very nicely made. It locks up nice and tight with no blade play. It uses a lockback if your wondering.

I havent had a chance to carry or use it, obviously, but I'll post a "long term" review of it in a few weeks/months. All in all a great purchase, best knife for the price IMO. Also, please be aware that this isnt "really" a Spyderco knife, but a division of their company. (Although it is designed by them and outsourced to specific chinese manufacturers) Thanks for reading.

Stay sharp.


-[digidude]
 
any more feedback ? i have just ordered one of these (plain edge). My favorite so far is the Spyderco Dragonfly. Small size and good steel. Reason i am buying this finch is the steel seems to be better quality than aus8. I tell you why i say that: I own a Byrd crow. And i can tell yo its easy to sharpen the dragonfly - but sharpening the crow is a Beiotch indeed. Seems to hold an edge very well. I shave with my dragon fly, so i need a knife to be sharp enough to shave with but hold its edge while being used. I have put a killer edge on my Dragon fly and used Rennasience wax and majorly buuffed it up and it looks grand. Reason i am buying the finch is its made by "spyderco" or a sister company, the steel is equal or seemingly better in every way than aus8, smaller blade size for me is a bonus and its slightly less weight PLUS it does not have a stupid molded clip on the side that you cant remove like on the dragon fly. What are your thoughts about the dragonfly and the byrd finch ?

Thanks alot guys

WG
 
[digidude] said:
The steel on this knife is 8Cr13MoV (I think that's basicly 420HC, though dont quote me on it).
Click to expand...
It's more like 420SHC, or 420 "super high carbon" plus molybdenum and vanadium. The biggest difference of all, of course, is that 8Cr13MoV easily reaches 60 Rc with a commercial heat treatment. I don't have much to add about the steel that hasn't already been said, but it should have a fine combination of toughness, edge retention, corrosion resistance, and ease of sharpening, especially for such an inexpensive knife. I would label it as a steel that is very much in "balance." It's not hard to sharpen, it won't hold an edge as long as S90V, but I bet it has 75-95% of VG-10's edge retention, it should have corrosion resistance greater than steels like 154CM, around that of VG-10, possibly even greater, and greater toughness than VG-10. So if comparing the steel to VG-10, you should be sacrificing a small amount of wear resistance for an increase in toughness, ease of sharpening, and a decrease in cost (not to mention it's much cheaper to use a steel already made in China). Hopefully the Chinese steel company that makes it is of the highest quality, since I like the way the composition looks. Cliff Stamp's tests have affirmed that the steel is of high quality.
 
Yes, as i said my Crow seems to have a much harder blade than my aus-8 dragonfly. The crow seems to need more to sharpen it. The only problem with the crow, is the back of the blade is not sharpened properly and its thick and wont cut near the base. but would you agree with the statement "8Cr13MoV is better than aus-8" and if not why ?

Thanks
 
TECHWG said:
Yes, as i said my Crow seems to have a much harder blade than my aus-8 dragonfly. The crow seems to need more to sharpen it. The only problem with the crow, is the back of the blade is not sharpened properly and its thick and wont cut near the base. but would you agree with the statement "8Cr13MoV is better than aus-8" and if not why ?

Thanks
Click to expand...
I couldn't say, because I don't know anything about the steel manufacurers. The compositions are similar enough that they're probably quite close. The main difference is that 90% of AUS-8 is 56-58 Rc while Spyderco is taking 8Cr13MoV to 60-61 Rc.
 
8C13CrMoV is closer to AEB-L than AUS-8A. It has a significantly higher amount of carbon than AUS-8A and a lower amount of chromium so it will have a higher hardening responce, lower corrosion resistance and a lower fraction of primary carbides and thus a greater edge stability. The raw wear resistance is likely quite similar to AUS-8A with a small advantage to 8C13MoV due to the hardness/alloy carbide.

If you try to compare them in knives it tends to be influenced by the fact that the hardness these are usually ran are very different. Benchmades AUS-8A at 60 HRC is different than the much softer AUS-8A usually used. It isn't just the hardness but how it is achieved which usually means the steel is also more coarse than optimal with lower corrosion resistance due to lacking the required hardening temperature and oil/cold. Ref :

http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/knives/blade_materials.html#S_8C13CrMoV


-Cliff
 
Thankyou i have that link. okm would you agree on this one? Spyderco should exclusively use this new steel on their main knives, and use AUS-8 on the Byrds ? it seems to me they are giving me a better steel on the 16$ finch than i get with the 30$ Spyderco dragonfly . .??? maybe its cheaper but on my Byrd crow the steel seems to be harder when i sharpen it. It "feels" harder. i dont like my crow because it was bigger than i expected and have opted to go backwards (smaller) laws in the uk are easier to deal wioth the smaller the knife. technically all locking blades are illegal (even though its a safetly feature) but if you have a 1 CM blade size lol compared to 1 mile its a big difference. So if tomorow when my knife hopefully comes i am guessing the Byrd Finch will replace my Spyderco Dragonfly.

Also heres a Q for you:

Given the choice of a free Spyderco Dragonfly OR a Byrd Finch, which would you pick and why? In my opinion Byrds will become very big real soon with the quality and blade material they are using + price
 
The steel choices are influenced by where they are made. For a light use knife I'd probably buy the Finch due to the price. However the weight of the all steel construction and the sabre/hollow vs full flat grind on the DragonFlt could make it more attractive to some, especially for a significant use keychain knife. I would agree the Bryds are likely to make a significant impact as the performance/price ratio is similar to Mora/Opinel.

-Cliff
 
i dont fully understand hollow grind etc but i think its the shape of the edge being bowed inwrds ? anyways first thing i do now when i get a knife is i give it a sharpen to get rid of anything like that. I like a standard edge with no fancey serrates or grinds etc. but i will give them this, they make me work harder on the blade using the crow. the dragonfly is easy to sharpen but the crow slightly slightly harder
 
yea that sounds like a bad idea to me . . surely that weakens the edge, anyway i cant do that to a blade, so i instantly sharpen it a little in an effort to remove that. But i guess i would need to really give the blade a good seeing to , to wear that effect from the blade. I could do it but i really just like to sharpen my knioves to make sure they have my edge i like. i have tried so many angles its not even funny. The reason i think my blades dont hold an edge is because i sharpen to shallow angle almost hitting the stone . .? Now that i am sharpening at like 25 - 30 Degre <> it seems to be as good if not better and i bet it will last longer. Also do you know about renaissance wax ? its truely remarkable product. Put it all over your blades then buff it really nice and give a quick couple of swipes on the edge to remove the wax from the edge. Protection complete and a shine worthy of kings
 
TECHWG said:
In my opinion Byrds will become very big real soon with the quality and blade material they are using + price
Click to expand...

I second that. I never want to miss an opportunity to sing Byrd's praises. These knives are going to kick so much ass in the market if and when people catch on to them. People have a tendency to reject them because they are made in China, but what isn't these days? I just hope the quality doesn't decrease once the demand picks up. Spyderco is really knocking 'em out of the park with the Byrd line, especially the G10 handled variants. They're so much better than Benchmade's red class it's not even funny. They're better than a lot of main line knives, actually. I would take a Byrd over a Griptilian any day of the week. (except maybe I could turn around, sell the Griptilian and buy 3 Byrds!)
 
LOL hell yea. . . we will see hopefully in a matter of hours i will own a byrd Finch . . as i say i have the crow and although i dont like the size , its a very good quality knife and the blade seems to me to be nothing short of sweet indeed. How do you like the metal in the Byrd blades ? have you compared it with any others you may have owned like Spyderco etc
?
 
As far as I can tell, the blade steel is just as good as any of my other knives. I usually carry Benchmades, mostly my 710 but now I carry a Byrd. I love it. But I don't abuse my knives too much. Cutting boxes and opening packages is all I really use my EDC knives for, so they stay sharp a long time. When I need to chop down a tree, I use a chainsaw, unlike some guys out there, who like to demolish artillery emplacements with their folders.

I've never had to sharpen my Bryd, it will still shave hair from my arm. I've done some slash testing on big cardboard boxes with it and I'm completely confident it would cut through meat very efficiently if it had to. I think the general concensus is that the steel is as good or better than that used on knives costing much more.
 
TECHWG said:
The reason i think my blades dont hold an edge is because i sharpen to shallow angle almost hitting the stone . .?
Click to expand...

Mine tend to all be sharpened very low as well, some of them are right on the stone. For harder work you need to increase the angle at the very edge a little. So I might sharpen for example at 8 degrees and then at 15 degrees for a light secondary bevel that is only 0.1 mm or so wide. After sharpening the smaller bevel for awhile I then recut the lower bevel to keep the cutting ability high.

-Cliff
 
How is the edge retention on that little method there ? btw i got my finch Damn its small ! i like alot. Only thing is during sharpening, there was more metal on the stone than when i sharpen the crow ?! but its nice indeed . . So anyway edge retention on that technique ?


http://wijly.homeip.net:8222/knife.jpg
 
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