Well, if a company makes enough junk, then sometimes their good stuff gets lost. I've handled so much absolute crap from United that I have a hard time taking them seriously at times. Though they do make some better stuff as well, it's just harder to find and handle.
The Lainhart designs -- the SF Utility Knife and Jungle Machete -- may be better-made than many United offerings, but I still don't like them. The utility knife not only doesn't have any guard at all, but from memory it has thumb grooves up top, to tempt you to put your thumb right next to that top sharpened edge. I realize this is a problem with many skeletonized knives, but you can find safer skeletonized knives. At retail $175, you can also find much better skeletonized designs overall than this. Even at discount, it's not a particularly good deal. In fact, for well under the retail price and not much more than the discount price, you can get much better designed knives from custom makers that fill the same role.
The Jungle Machete I'm undecided on. At first, I took them at their word and judged it as a machete. Here I had problems, it's really too short to be a good machete, much thicker than a machete needs to be, and ATS-34 makes no sense in a machete application. Never mind the $270 retail (or ~$150 at discount) price. As a machete, it just doesn't work.
However, someone convinced me to look at it not as a machete but as an inexpensive jungle bowie. It makes more sense in this application, I'll admit. However, I'd still probably rather go for, say, a $50 retail Ontario bolo in coated 1095. Moreover, the Cold Steel Trailmaster at $165 (at discount) is only $15 more expensive, and simply blows the United offering away.
I dunno, have I missed something? You tell me.
Joe
jat@cup.hp.com
