Ive never quite understood the concept of a folding skinner. It seems to me that if you are going to be in a situation where you will be skinning things then you have probably gone out hunting, in which case I cant see why you wouldnt just carry a fixed blade in the first place. After several years of knife carry, I have never ran into a situation when I needed to skin something with my pocket knife.
Because of this I will be evaluating this knife from a standard utility and EDC perspective rather than as a dedicated hunters tool.
My personal opinion of this knife is fairly neutral. While the design concept is quite good, there are some aspects of the products construction that detract from its usefulness, and some details that should be changed. As is, I would not buy one for myself at any price, but if it were priced lower I would possibly buy one as a gift. For the $100 that it is going for at One Stop I can think of a number of other similarly sized folders that I would rather have.
First off, the good:
-I really like the feel of the G-10 that Spyderco uses. Overall it feels much grippier and warmer than the G-10 used by other manufacturers such as Benchmade.
-The blade opens and closes smoothly, and the opening hole is easy to find and use. Of all the knives that I have owned or used, this is certainly among the easiest to get open.
-I found the skinner blade shape to work great for everyday tasks, as it has a nice sharp point and plenty of usable edge. It seemed as though it was ground a bit thick at the tip, but generally did everything that I would want with a minimum of effort.
-The handle design offered excellent comfort and good grip. While this is clearly not a knife that is designed to lock onto your hand like the Dodo is, it is quite secure in any general usage grip that I could dream up and always seemed to just feel right. I think that this sort of mildly contoured handle is a good compromise between the simple straight handle used on many knives (Sebenza or Strider, for example) and the super secure Dodo style.
-The texturing that is cut into the blade and liners on the Impala is not simple lines or the sawtooth pattern which seems to be the industry standard. Instead it is composed of a series of small semicircles with smooth tips. These are far more comfortable than the standard style, and seem to work just as well. A small thing, but a tangible improvement.
-The liner lock was secure enough, and easy to disengage when desired. I did try putting moderate spine loads on it with simple hand pressure and the liner clearly bent and displaced a bit, but it was not in any danger of failure. When I tried flexing the handle back and forth it started to creep across the tang towards the unlock position and I expect that it would have done so if I had continued, but as this knife is clearly not built for prying loads this is not a huge issue. Overall it is a convenient mechanism, and wholly suitable for this knife.
And onto the bad:
-The knife really needs a second stainless liner on the left side. Currently it has an unlined G10 slab, and this presents a number of issues.
1) When attempting to open the blade left handed the tip drags across the slab, which should eventually result in a wear issue. Adjusting the blade pivot tension did not solve this problem. If there was a stainless liner there the wear would be minimized or eliminated.
2) There is too much flex in the handles. With the unlined slab and the thin nested liner, I could easily bend the handle with little effort. This is a problem both in terms of lock security (as mentioned above) and overall feel. Others may disagree, but I think that a distinct flimsy feel is unacceptable in a $100 knife.
3) Because G10 wont take a good thread the clip can only be fastened to the right side of the knife, which leaves the lefties out of luck.
A simple .065 inch thick stainless liner would add no effective weight or thickness, and would be a big help with these issues. As it could be stamped out and would not need to be nested for strength it should add very little to the cost of the knife. It could be extended beyond the edges of the G10 to improve grip security, and would allow for swapping the clip to the other side of the knife. There would also be significant strength gains and the overall feel of the knife would likely improve. I would love to know what the advantages are of having a single nested liner and bare G10 on the other side, and why Spyderco has chosen to construct the knife in this manner.
-I would prefer the knife without the gut hook, as it tended to get in the way when cutting things such as cardboard and is not really useful for the everyday tasks that I encounter. I did try it out on some shrink rap and pallet straps and it seemed to do an alright job, but no better than a conventional blade. Even if a customer desired to have a gut hook, the design of the current one could use some improvement. Currently the leading edge of the hook portion has a perfectly square edge, which makes it difficult to get the sharp part in under things which are stretched tight. Simply modifying this square edge into a conical or spherical design would significantly improve the performance of the gut hook, and reduce the likelihood of it snagging on things when the conventional portion of the knife blade was being used.
-The clip design should be reconsidered. Currently it uses a triangular contact patch which has a hole in the center to fit over the pivot pin. This looks cool, but causes the knife to ride high in the pocket and does not allow for the clip position to be swapped at all. Although it was designed for my personal choice of carry options (right hand tip down) there is really no reason for this to be the only available choice. Some people like tip up, and some people are left handed. They should be accommodated. No reason not to give the consumer some options and allow him to make his own choice about what works best. A standard clip which is attached at the edge and easily swappable would be a better choice. Of course, this would only be possible if a second liner were installed on the left side of the knife.
-I noticed that the G10 was loose and pulling away from the liner at the butt end of the handle on the right side. Im not sure if this is a defect in the knife or a result of some enthusiastic use during a passaround, but it was noticeable and annoying. I didnt want to modify the knife so I didnt disassemble it or anything, but I did try tightening the screw. It wouldnt budge, and after that I left it alone.
Some comments:
-Im curious as to the motivation behind the choice of fasteners that are used on this knife. The smaller screws that actually hold the knife together are Phillips head, while the pivot screw is Torx. In other words, the screws that are not supposed to be tampered with are a head style that everybody has, but those that are meant to be adjustable require a specialty driver. This is not a problem per se, but it does strike me as being a bit odd.
-The VG-10 blade steel was certainly adequate, but I cant see what all the fuss is about. It seemed to hold an edge in general usage about as well as 440C, and it sharpened about the same. I think that it is a good material, but I did see anything to indicate that it is superior to other quality cutlery steels. Maybe a week was not long enough to notice the performance benefits that everybody keeps referring to.
Verdict
Overall a competent utility knife that is in need of some detail work and a second liner. It would not be my first choice for EDC, but pretty good nonetheless. As I said, the overall design is very nice, and a few changes could likely make this thing into a real contender in the price range.
Comments and opinions are welcome, I hope somebody finds all of this helpful.
Because of this I will be evaluating this knife from a standard utility and EDC perspective rather than as a dedicated hunters tool.
My personal opinion of this knife is fairly neutral. While the design concept is quite good, there are some aspects of the products construction that detract from its usefulness, and some details that should be changed. As is, I would not buy one for myself at any price, but if it were priced lower I would possibly buy one as a gift. For the $100 that it is going for at One Stop I can think of a number of other similarly sized folders that I would rather have.
First off, the good:
-I really like the feel of the G-10 that Spyderco uses. Overall it feels much grippier and warmer than the G-10 used by other manufacturers such as Benchmade.
-The blade opens and closes smoothly, and the opening hole is easy to find and use. Of all the knives that I have owned or used, this is certainly among the easiest to get open.
-I found the skinner blade shape to work great for everyday tasks, as it has a nice sharp point and plenty of usable edge. It seemed as though it was ground a bit thick at the tip, but generally did everything that I would want with a minimum of effort.
-The handle design offered excellent comfort and good grip. While this is clearly not a knife that is designed to lock onto your hand like the Dodo is, it is quite secure in any general usage grip that I could dream up and always seemed to just feel right. I think that this sort of mildly contoured handle is a good compromise between the simple straight handle used on many knives (Sebenza or Strider, for example) and the super secure Dodo style.
-The texturing that is cut into the blade and liners on the Impala is not simple lines or the sawtooth pattern which seems to be the industry standard. Instead it is composed of a series of small semicircles with smooth tips. These are far more comfortable than the standard style, and seem to work just as well. A small thing, but a tangible improvement.
-The liner lock was secure enough, and easy to disengage when desired. I did try putting moderate spine loads on it with simple hand pressure and the liner clearly bent and displaced a bit, but it was not in any danger of failure. When I tried flexing the handle back and forth it started to creep across the tang towards the unlock position and I expect that it would have done so if I had continued, but as this knife is clearly not built for prying loads this is not a huge issue. Overall it is a convenient mechanism, and wholly suitable for this knife.
And onto the bad:
-The knife really needs a second stainless liner on the left side. Currently it has an unlined G10 slab, and this presents a number of issues.
1) When attempting to open the blade left handed the tip drags across the slab, which should eventually result in a wear issue. Adjusting the blade pivot tension did not solve this problem. If there was a stainless liner there the wear would be minimized or eliminated.
2) There is too much flex in the handles. With the unlined slab and the thin nested liner, I could easily bend the handle with little effort. This is a problem both in terms of lock security (as mentioned above) and overall feel. Others may disagree, but I think that a distinct flimsy feel is unacceptable in a $100 knife.
3) Because G10 wont take a good thread the clip can only be fastened to the right side of the knife, which leaves the lefties out of luck.
A simple .065 inch thick stainless liner would add no effective weight or thickness, and would be a big help with these issues. As it could be stamped out and would not need to be nested for strength it should add very little to the cost of the knife. It could be extended beyond the edges of the G10 to improve grip security, and would allow for swapping the clip to the other side of the knife. There would also be significant strength gains and the overall feel of the knife would likely improve. I would love to know what the advantages are of having a single nested liner and bare G10 on the other side, and why Spyderco has chosen to construct the knife in this manner.
-I would prefer the knife without the gut hook, as it tended to get in the way when cutting things such as cardboard and is not really useful for the everyday tasks that I encounter. I did try it out on some shrink rap and pallet straps and it seemed to do an alright job, but no better than a conventional blade. Even if a customer desired to have a gut hook, the design of the current one could use some improvement. Currently the leading edge of the hook portion has a perfectly square edge, which makes it difficult to get the sharp part in under things which are stretched tight. Simply modifying this square edge into a conical or spherical design would significantly improve the performance of the gut hook, and reduce the likelihood of it snagging on things when the conventional portion of the knife blade was being used.
-The clip design should be reconsidered. Currently it uses a triangular contact patch which has a hole in the center to fit over the pivot pin. This looks cool, but causes the knife to ride high in the pocket and does not allow for the clip position to be swapped at all. Although it was designed for my personal choice of carry options (right hand tip down) there is really no reason for this to be the only available choice. Some people like tip up, and some people are left handed. They should be accommodated. No reason not to give the consumer some options and allow him to make his own choice about what works best. A standard clip which is attached at the edge and easily swappable would be a better choice. Of course, this would only be possible if a second liner were installed on the left side of the knife.
-I noticed that the G10 was loose and pulling away from the liner at the butt end of the handle on the right side. Im not sure if this is a defect in the knife or a result of some enthusiastic use during a passaround, but it was noticeable and annoying. I didnt want to modify the knife so I didnt disassemble it or anything, but I did try tightening the screw. It wouldnt budge, and after that I left it alone.
Some comments:
-Im curious as to the motivation behind the choice of fasteners that are used on this knife. The smaller screws that actually hold the knife together are Phillips head, while the pivot screw is Torx. In other words, the screws that are not supposed to be tampered with are a head style that everybody has, but those that are meant to be adjustable require a specialty driver. This is not a problem per se, but it does strike me as being a bit odd.
-The VG-10 blade steel was certainly adequate, but I cant see what all the fuss is about. It seemed to hold an edge in general usage about as well as 440C, and it sharpened about the same. I think that it is a good material, but I did see anything to indicate that it is superior to other quality cutlery steels. Maybe a week was not long enough to notice the performance benefits that everybody keeps referring to.
Verdict
Overall a competent utility knife that is in need of some detail work and a second liner. It would not be my first choice for EDC, but pretty good nonetheless. As I said, the overall design is very nice, and a few changes could likely make this thing into a real contender in the price range.
Comments and opinions are welcome, I hope somebody finds all of this helpful.