No- I didn't just post and then disappear. I do have other things to do on a Sunday than stoke the flames.
WalkingMan- am I supposed to open every one of my posts with a disclaimer stating that I have a relationship with CS? That sounds a little redundant and not needed.
Spyderjon- I have no desire to put you on my ignore list. Your brief yet eloquent rantings are fill me with joy and wimsy. And, yes, that's sarcasm.
Deathshead- As for answering the first question regarding the Black Talon- it has already been asnwered on this very thread. I could not comment directly on it earlier this morning (it was getting very late my time) because I didn't have my details handy. I will not make a statement that I present as factual without having all my ducks in a row- would that everyone here did the same. Sal Glessar himself has stated that there is an agreement between CS and Spyderco. Yet that having been stated in the past does not seem to stop the haters from throwing out the "thief" label re. the Black Sable.
This is what the crux of my first post was about. All the name calling and absolute surety that CS and LT are up to no good and are ringing their hands while coming up with the next nefarious plan to rob and steal from the knife industry and from the public is wildly innacurate. But, it is easy to make these huge assumptions about the company and its president when you do not know them and are not privvy to their inner workings.
I guess every industry needs a bad guy, and the haters are happy to put LT in that role.
This brings me to my second issue: LT has no scruples and no integrity. I know that it is easy to take shots at LT. The man is a muck-raker and can be abrasive. Okay, he is not the kind of guy who dances around the heart of an issue to spare the feelings of others. I actually respect that. Give me a man that is brutally honest and I can forgive the brutal part.
To say that the man has no integrity is pretty heavy-handed for someone that does not know him. I sometimes wonder how the haters define integrity, and I am sure that they will tell me
.
I find LT to be a man of fairly high integrity, and even generosity. I do not know how much BM, Spyderco, Emerson, etc., has given to our military (as an example), but I do know that they would be hard pressed to match the donations of product that CS has given over the years to the military. I can not say to a certainty, but I do know it is thousands and thousands of dollars worth of product. LT donates the CS training facility for area law enforcement to use for training. It would not be unreasonable to carge a rental fee for the gym for training seminars and the like, but LT donates it to LEO. Yea, this is a guy with no integrity.
LT and CS have paid all thier bills and owe no one any past due or renigged on any monies. Can all the other BF members say the same? Can all the other manufacturers say the same? This may sound a little nit-picky, but I think that if you go into a financial agreement and fulfill said agreement, that denotes integrity.
I really love when I read posts like, "I won't buy from CS since LT has no integrity. I would rather buy from stand-up guys like Strider." Hmm... I know that it has only been partly talked about on this forum and hit rather heavily on another forum, but this strikes me as funny. Strider has been outed as a felon who committed a gun crime, and has not been honest about his military record and built a business on said record. But he has integrity over LT? I know that the flaming will be heavy on this point, and that just stuns me. Look, I am one who believes that people can change and that if they pay for their crimes, they deserve a chance to be a productive member of society and business. If you like Strider knives- buy them, but don't impugn the integrity of a guy who has never even been accused of a crime and then compare him to a convicted felon and outed fraud.
Segway to: If you believe that someone can change and once he has paid for his transgressions deserves another chance (i.e. Strider), then why do you hammer LT re. his past words on other knife steels and styles, and not make the assumption that he might have changed his mind and that would be okay? Nope, you would rather point fingers at him and call names. And the fact is that you are taking his words out of context. I will site 2 instances listed here- the karambit and 420 steel.
In his article about the Karambit, LT never said that the karambit sucked- what he said was that it was not deserving of all the "flavor of the month" hype surrounding it. If you read the press and opinions of said knife, you would think that the heavens parted and handed the karambit to knife fighters saying, "Lo, here is the karambit. Go forth and smite the fighting knife world with this mighty weapon and prove its superiority. You shall build and use no other knives before the karambit, lest ye be just plain goofy." I personally, am not a big fan of the karambit. I prefer other knife styles for utility and tactical. But, lots of CS fans and karambit fans requested a CS karambit. There was a market, LT and CS decided to capitolize on the market. If you ask him, he will say that he is also not a big fan of the karambit, he understands its usage, he just prefers other styles. His article said as much. But he never said it was useless and that making one couldn't prove to be beneficial to both the customer and CS.
As for the 420 steel, part of his issue with it is that, yes, it is a medium grade steel, but what companies were doing with it was not in the best interest of the product. When CS opted to use 420, they put it through their heat treatment and edge configuration and the knife performed to the absolute best of its ability. In the More Proof video, one of the 420 folders was used to cut more than 8 football fields in length of cardboard before the knife lost enough of its edge to make the cuts difficult. The knife wasn't worn out, it still could have cut. But the demonstration served its purpose. Now, show me another company using the same grade of steel that can get their knives to perform as well.
Again, to me, LT has more than enough integrity to deserve my business and allegience. I mentioned at the beginning about the ATC controversy. As I stated, LT owned the name and was never approached by Prisco to either license or buy the name. Yet, if you read any of the archived posts on the subject, LT was automatically assumed to be the bad guy with no integrity and Prisco was wearing the white hat. That is not accurate, but for whatever reason it was more easily believed.
Look, do you folks think that LT is just stupid? Do you think that in a business as public and (no pun intended) cut-throat as the knife industry that he would openly steal the intellectual property of others and just assume that there would be no reprisals? When I first saw the ultra cheap Scimitar knockoffs in a discount catalog for something like 2 bucks apiece, I knew that LT and CS could do very little about it since they were made by Chinese companies and international law isn't very strong when it comes to intellectual and patented properties. But this is America. People sue each other over barking dogs and coffee cups. If there were really a theft of property or patented design, don't you think that someone would try to get into the deep pockets of CS? Don't you think that LT knows this? Do you think that he is stupid and foolish enough to just risk it all so he can make a copy of the Tighe-Stick? C'mon, be real.
More to come. I am not dissappearing- but I have 2 small kids and a business that wants their daddy.
Later- flame away :jerkit:
) they still work. My $30 Kobun (old 420szq model) splits 4" hickory logs very well with a baton, and I DO like the grivory handle material. i dont plan on buying anything else from them ever again, save a Special Forces Shovel, but Im not guna jump on anyones case for buying their products. That kind of behavior is a little imature in my book.
