** BOREDOM ALERT** This is probably not interesting to anybody but me, but since I'm tired of the game that's on right now and I don't have anything to do until the next bowl game starts, I'm gonna type it out and post it.
OK... let's have a report on first impressions and early user "discoveries" on my new CQC-7V.
Out of the box... the F&F was what I've come to expect from Emerson because it's what I've experienced with the 12 or 13 new ones I've bought. The blade was *very* sharp and the grind on the beveled side was almost laser perfect, tip and blade. Lockup was early because I asked for one that way. By early I mean that it locks up the width of the lockbar and no more. It's stayed there so far. The lock is a bit sticky to disengage but some pencil lead on the blade tang has smoothed that out a bit.
The blade favored the clip side just a bit, but following Emerson's instructions for centering up their folders, it now sits pretty close to dead center. The texture on the tan G10 seems a bit different to me than the texture on the black G10, or maybe it's a different texture for all the G10 scales in this model year. Mine has no year printed on the blade so I'm assuming that it's a late 2015 model. This is the newest Emerson I have. 2014 is my next newest and it does have the year on it. The action was not gritty as some have reported, but is a bit slower than some knives. That's actually what I want in all my folders so AFAIC, it's perfect right out of the box. I don't like folder blades that move without me moving them.
On to usage... the knife cuts well with both edges. The tip is great for the piercing I have to do with blister packs and boxes that contain computer parts. I don't cut wide pieces of material very often. Usually, I'm cutting pallet strapping or zip ties or packaging tape (the secondary tip is also good for this, I discover). I use a utility knife on cardboard boxes. My point is that the complaints people have about cutting off at an angle with a chisel ground blade don't matter to me because I don't cut things that are wide enough for that to come into play.
My biggest "aha!" about the "B" blade: it works almost like a recurve because the blade is ruler straight along the cutting edge. It seems to ride on the material being cut much better than a curved blade, almost pulling the material into the edge to be cut the way a recurve does. I think this is why... I use my wrist a lot when I'm cutting instead of using my shoulder or elbow. I don't know if anyone else does or not. So my natural cutting motion is a curve. A blade like that on a Military or Paramilitary follows my natural cutting motion. If I don't use any pressure to cut, then the blade just rides on top of the material I'm cutting. A recurve blade actually moves the edge of the knife into a position to cut through the material instead of riding on top of the material being cut. The long straight edge of the 7B blades works almost the same way. It actually gets pulled into the material I'm cutting because it's straight and my cutting motion is a curve.
I said all that to say this... I like it and it works well for me... just like I'd expect from an Emerson.
OK... game time.
