Cold Steel VS Zero Tolerance

[ursamajor]

But the design is NOT equal. That's the entire point. And why apples are not oranges.

EXACTLY! One is actually a hard use knife, and one pretends to be a hard use knife, while boasting a design that cannot sustain hard use.

There was a test against Spyderco's power lock. And while it came up a little short in the strength department, I applaud Spyderco. At least they are looking to innovate. Most other folding knife manufacturers only know how to throw materials that they did not invent, at designs they did not create.

 

[J_Curd]

So if you are reaching down behind something to cut it, it is impossible to accidentally hit the back of the knife, against a fixed object, with a significant amount of force, while pulling your arm back out? It is not intentional, yet people don't intentional crash their cars either. And if most people used their cars, the way that most people on this board used their folders, they would just start and stop them in their garage, and never drive them.

But for the rest of us, who use our knives in a utilitarian manner, the spines do get accidentally "whacked"

Oh come on now. I'm pulling towards me (bad idea, doing it wrong) and somehow I reverse motion with enough rapid force to fold a ZT that's in a firm grip?!!? Have you EVER owned a ZT?!?

Most accidents in cars happen while in reverse. Dolts who aren't using the mirrors or paying proper attention.

No knife company can fix stupid. None of them.

 

[Krissig12]

Don't even bother Quiet. asdf12345 is obviously the hard use "expert" around these parts

The other day I spent a good long while battling him over whether one example of a broken Contego backspacer after dropping meant that the model in general was not suitable for any type of hard use, ever.

For the record, I would take a ZT over a cold steel ANY day. I don't care about CS's ultra-tuff triad lock because I've never felt that hard use for a folder included spine whacks and batoning. Sure the extra stength is nice to have, but the majority of us live in reality, and are therefore capable of understanding that the supposedly "inferior" ZTs rarely ever fail under day to day hard use. This is because there are very very very few situations in which the knives would be brought to the point of failure while being used, and all of these would be considered abusive by the standards of any rational person. But you see, in the mind of the hard use "expert", everything is a matter of "what if?"s and hypotheticals, so their knives must be able to put holes in an engine block and fall out of a plane with no damage to even be worthy of pocket time.

Anyway........why exactly does this thread even exist? If OP wants to troll the ZT crowd, W&C is the only appropriate place for it. And if he just wants to congratulate himself for buying a CS, then he needs to GTFO of general and take it to the Cold steel subforum. That's what it's there for.

Seeing as it ISN'T in that particular subforum, and tries to make a comparison between two different knife companies to argue the inferiority of one that is very well liked by many here, makes me pretty damn sure this is a troll thread.

 

[ursamajor]

Oh come on now. I'm pulling towards me (bad idea, doing it wrong) and somehow I reverse motion with enough rapid force to fold a ZT that's in a firm grip?!!? Have you EVER owned a ZT?!?

Most accidents in cars happen while in reverse. Dolts who aren't using the mirrors or paying proper attention.

No knife company can fix stupid. None of them.

Yes I have owned a ZT. I already said as much. I think you misinterpreted what I said though. Because your response, is not even close to what I described.

 

[Quiet]

EXACTLY! One is actually a hard use knife, and one pretends to be a hard use knife, while boasting a design that cannot sustain hard use.

There was a test against Spyderco's power lock. And while it came up a little short in the strength department, I applaud Spyderco. At least they are looking to innovate. Most other folding knife manufacturers only know how to throw materials that they did not invent, at designs they did not create.

Are you talking about that test that Cold Steel did? Oh, right, of course you are. Cold Steel abused the Tatanka and used it in a way that it wasn't designed for. I'm sure Spyderco wasn't pleased, because the test inferred a weakness that isn't actually there and in the end, the Cold Steel test only showed what those of us who aren't CS-Bros already know: super lock strength doesn't mean anything when discussing what knives are made to do: which is cut things.

 

[RBid]

Demko cut his finger open with the flipper. I personally do not like to get injured when my knife's lock fails.

Demko wasn't using a framelock or a real grip, and he has a specific interest in making competitors look bad.

 

[RamZar]

Cold Steel all the way. What is this ZT?

 

[brancron]

super lock strength doesn't mean anything when discussing what knives are made to do: which is cut things.

Judging by the current trends in the knife world (quarter-inch thick blades, "nightmare" grinds, etc.), it's not clear to me whether knives are in fact made to cut things anymore.

 

[J_Curd]

Yes I have owned a ZT. I already said as much. I think you misinterpreted what I said though. Because your response, is not even close to what I described.

Apologies. So you're cutting blind and expecting to not get hurt? What am I missing?

 

[Quiet]

Judging by the current trends in the knife world (quarter-inch thick blades, "nightmare" grinds, etc.), it's not clear to me whether knives are in fact made to cut things anymore.

That is actually a good point.

That said, I think I'm going to go start another ZT bashing thread. I'll call it "Crowbars vs Zero Tolerance" and then talk about how much better the crow bar is at "hard use" than ZT knives.

 

[Krissig12]

Judging by the current trends in the knife world (quarter-inch thick blades, "nightmare" grinds, etc.), it's not clear to me whether knives are in fact made to cut things anymore.

It's pretty simple.

My knife definition:

They aren't knives if they don't cut things.

But they aren't necessarily NOT knives if they don't lock

 

[ursamajor]

Ah, so what you're saying is that "hard use" is actually "hard abuse, using a knife in a manner in which it is not intended." Gotcha.

If you choose to abuse your property, that's fine. But again, I go back to the shoe/soup bowl analogy. If you have something designed to be used NOT as intended, then you really don't have any place saying it's better than other products which work exceptionally well as intended. Soup bowl shoes aren't better than regular shoes at being shoes, just because they hold soup.

Have you ever been pulled over for speeding? Ever gotten a truck stuck in the mud? What about having a car accident where you were not at fault? Accidentally break something in your life? If you answer yes to those questions, then you have used things in a way that they were not supposed to be used, sometimes intentionally, sometimes accidentally.

It is quite easy, (if you actually use it) to get a liner or frame lock to fail on accident.

 

[poolhustler]

I've had the KVT "fail" on me twice. I haven't used bearing pivot knives from any other company and I'm pretty sure that it would apply equally across the board unless they come up with a sealed pivot. Once I took a knife with bearings to a beach. That was a bad idea. Sand all up in the bearings, I thought I really damaged the knife because of how gritty it became. Another time I was drinking some beer and cutting up oranges to put in the beer as the poker night continued. By the time I was done I cut up probably 5 oranges over the course of maybe 5 hours. Washing with soap and hot water did nothing to help my knife being basically frozen shut because of all the pulp and juice and whatnot getting in there. I had to disassemble the knife and clean pretty hard to get the bearings rolling in the cage again. I didn't use solvent as I didn't want to inadvertently mess the knife up. So two places I know I can't carry and use a knife with open bearings. A sandy beach or when cutting up fruit. Seems someone would want to be able to do that with an all around knife. That's not a knock on any specifc company as multiple companies use them. Just giving a testimony as to what I've personally seen, that's all.

And I hesitate to use the word fail because it's not so much a failure as what it is a limitation of the design. The lock failing on those two specifc knives is a failure, though, and should not be defended. The third one is questionable because it at least handled reasonable pressure before slipping. That's not too bad. The first two knives were really pretty much slip joints. It's pretty hard to come up with a reason a "locking" knife should close that easily. And that's not saying the entire company is bad or anything. They make other knives that can stomp the two in that video.

orange juice an orange pulp just made me laugh my ass off !!!!!!!!!

Thanks

 

[crom]

Closest thing I ever owned that was ZT like was the Tyrade and for the record it cut like a sharp shovel. I tried to thin the edge out but that D2 won in the long run and I sold it. I like knives with better cutting geometry and that experience with an early KAI tank knife really turned me off. I have another tank of a knife (more of a tank than any ZT) like that right now and it's the same story, sitting on my dresser because the edge is too thick to cut and I don't feel like putting in the time to thin it out when other knives like my Voyager cut like a laser beam out of the box.

 

[toker]

Have you ever been pulled over for speeding? Ever gotten a truck stuck in the mud? What about having a car accident where you were not at fault? Accidentally break something in your life? If you answer yes to those questions, then you have used things in a way that they were not supposed to be used, sometimes intentionally, sometimes accidentally.

It is quite easy, (if you actually use it) to get a liner or frame lock to fail on accident.

- I've used all kinds of knives for all kinds of things and have never had a lock fail. So I must be missing on how it's easy to disengage a lock.

 

[Quiet]

Have you ever been pulled over for speeding? Ever gotten a truck stuck in the mud? What about having a car accident where you were not at fault? Accidentally break something in your life? If you answer yes to those questions, then you have used things in a way that they were not supposed to be used, sometimes intentionally, sometimes accidentally.

It is quite easy, (if you actually use it) to get a liner or frame lock to fail on accident.

I'm sorry, what? WHOOP WHOOP bad logic again. I drive a fast car, one that was designed to go fast. Absolutely I've been pulled over, for using the car for what it was designed for. I've never been in an accident, and I've not owned a truck.

What you're saying is, it's quite easy to get a liner or frame lock to fail, if you are abusing the knife in an attempt to specifically get that to happen. Countless members here have cut any number of things, or used their knives to cut brush, carve wood, cut food, dress an animal, and so on, using a knife with a liner or frame lock without it failing. That tells me that it's not nearly as "quite easy" as you claim, a claim you're making in order to try to make the point that Cold Steel knives are better.

So, that tells me that CS-Bros are merely trumping up what the Triad lock can do, because they can't use any other metric to try to prove that Cold Steel knives are better. That's because (spoiler alert): they aren't. Again, if you are comparing using a knife as something other than a knife, then that's on you. But it's an unfair comparison...which has been the point made by me and others in this thread.

If you want to abuse your property, that's fine. Do you. But don't get hung up, when others don't abuse their expensive knives trying to use them in ways they weren't intended to be used. The comparison is invalid.

 

[J_Curd]

Have you ever been pulled over for speeding? Ever gotten a truck stuck in the mud? What about having a car accident where you were not at fault? Accidentally break something in your life? If you answer yes to those questions, then you have used things in a way that they were not supposed to be used, sometimes intentionally, sometimes accidentally.

It is quite easy, (if you actually use it) to get a liner or frame lock to fail on accident.

From now on I will:

Give the cops my tickets to pay, cause it's their fault I was speeding.

Call Ford to get my truck out of the mud, because they should've made a hovercraft.

Have the person at fault pay for my damages (this one makes sense).

Have Miller replace the beer I dropped.

And most of all, blame the knife manufacturer because I did something stupid.

You, my friend, are not batting 1000.

 

[Paka]

One thing I've learned about Linear locks over the years is that it is like putting in a small automatic transmission inside a 2015 435hp Ford Mustang. It is very clear that the transmission will not be able to perform under the hard use of the engine's powers.

In relation to ZT linear lock knives, it has the same idea in that the whole body of the knife itself is ready for hard use, no question. It is the linear lock that is the weakest link (regardless on if it works for folks and never failed or not, still the weakest link).

What is this linear lock you speak of? Lmao, look at the spyderco Gayle Bradley, you think that fits your analogoy? Oh wait, you made a blanket statement against all of these "linear" locks, regardless of the knife they're on. Pretty sure a gents folder with a liner lock isn't under-kill. Funny how you say you've learned over the years about these "linear" locks yet don't even know how to spell it.

 

[poolhustler]

Your points are wrong because they are standing upon the sand of faulty logic. You keep touting this "likely" failure of multiple points on Zero Tolerance knives, but the fact remains that those occurrences aren't actually "likely" and that ZT knives are just as good as any other knife for the purposes of "hard use".

Look, let's just clear up all the nebulous terminology: what does "hard use" mean to you? Prying up manhole covers, helping fat guys step up on a wooden contraption, or using the knife as something to hang weights from?

Or is it cutting a variety of materials, in a variety of environments? Because if it's the latter, guess what? Sorry, ZTs do just as well. I really don't know much clearer I can make this for you.

I'll just say it: if you need the ridiculous strength the Triad lock provides, then you shouldn't be using a folding knife in the first place, because it's clearly the wrong tool for the job. So, don't call Zero Tolerance products inferior or "not as good for hard use" because they aren't designed to be something they're not: crowbars, or weight stands.

Again, common sense prevails.........

 

[Freman Bloodglaive]

Odd, I've never had a Zero Tolerance framelock close on me. Therefore, I'd say those locks work just fine. I've carved wood, I've cut up food, opened mail, trimmed nails, snipped off a shirt thread, and have even done light prying with my Zero Tolerance knives and have never had a single one fail. So, explain to me how a Triad lock is necessary, and makes Cold Steel knives objectively better for hard use.

The fact is: the lock doesn't. And that's what CS-Bros can't handle. Hell, you can get "hard use"* out of a $35 Buck 110. So what? The Triad lock only seems to be good for a few outlying "uses" for knives that folks who respect knives would never use knives for.



*Gotta love nebulous, unquantifiable terms

Well in objective terms a backlock is stronger than a framelock because the forces that would make the knife close are tensile rather than compressive and steel is stronger under tension than under compression. Lynn Thompson's stated aim is to make the strongest knives, hence the modified backlock design he uses. The weakness of the backlock, that shocks can disengage the bar, is removed by the Tri-Ad's stop pin. The design is, in absolute terms, stronger. That it doesn't matter in most circumstances is beside the point.