Jason B.
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
- Joined
- Jun 13, 2007
- Messages
- 11,168
A well designed folder, the Fantoni/harsey also boast the extremely wear resistant CPM S125V. The knife overall would be a good general user blade, its has good handle ergonomics and a larger hand filling size (I wear a lg glove) that most smaller blades don't possess. The blade shape lends itself well to nearly every cutting task and due to it filling size keeps hot spots in your hand from forming during long periods of cutting. The action was smooth with a strong detent, there was slight side to side play but that was corrected. The knife arrived with the edge in a sad state and needed a little fixin 
The steel was surprisingly not that hard to sharpen with diamond stones and in my opinion easier than S90V. Using the aligner clamp and DMT bench stones XXC-EEF I did a complete re-profile and sharpen followed by a light strop before testing. With a stated Rc of 62.5 and such high wear resistance I expected it to take much longer to sharpen. During sharpening the steel unfortunately did not feel this hard and developed a burr that stayed with the edge until polishing. The burr and "feel" of the steel on the hone leads me to believe the heat treat may be less optimal for this steel than it could be with the slight possability that its not all the way up to the 62.5 mark. It did however yield one of the best finishes to date from my EEF stone and aligner combo.
Here you can see the burr
The detent though good and strong made the liner sit flush on the blade when in the closed possition with the reasoning being that the hole on the blade is too large. This makes the liner move slightly in the locking direction when in the closed possition and make a large surface contact with the side of the blade. The lock bar when the knife is open rests at about 50% of the tang, it locks solid with no play or shifting when directional forces are applied. Its also nice a thick given the size of the knife.
Though I feel the detent could be better executed it did make the knife well suited for thumb flick openings. I would have also like to seen the finger guard/choil extended into a flipper
When it came time to cut the steel lived up to is rep and dulled in a typical CPM stainless fashion (that's not a bad thing). The razor edge was lost quickly but stayed fairly sharp throughout the cutting session, I found myself having trouble trying to really dull the knife and with cutting cardboard was unable to inflict any visible deformations to the edge. I repeated this test twice with almost exacting results and was able to restore hair popping sharpness with just a 1 micron diamond compounded strop. This was also a good test of the blade coating that surprisingly showed minimal to no wear.
After the testing was complete I touched it up freehand with the EEF hone and polished to 1 micron. The steel accepted a polish very well and achieved a good level of sharpness.
Overall, Its a good mid/small EDC with a steel you don't have to worry about going dull half way through a task. I think there are some QC and F&F issues that a picky person like myself would like addressed but that's just me. I also understand its a limited run but at nearly $400 its kind of a plain jane knife.
The steel was surprisingly not that hard to sharpen with diamond stones and in my opinion easier than S90V. Using the aligner clamp and DMT bench stones XXC-EEF I did a complete re-profile and sharpen followed by a light strop before testing. With a stated Rc of 62.5 and such high wear resistance I expected it to take much longer to sharpen. During sharpening the steel unfortunately did not feel this hard and developed a burr that stayed with the edge until polishing. The burr and "feel" of the steel on the hone leads me to believe the heat treat may be less optimal for this steel than it could be with the slight possability that its not all the way up to the 62.5 mark. It did however yield one of the best finishes to date from my EEF stone and aligner combo.
Here you can see the burr
The detent though good and strong made the liner sit flush on the blade when in the closed possition with the reasoning being that the hole on the blade is too large. This makes the liner move slightly in the locking direction when in the closed possition and make a large surface contact with the side of the blade. The lock bar when the knife is open rests at about 50% of the tang, it locks solid with no play or shifting when directional forces are applied. Its also nice a thick given the size of the knife.
Though I feel the detent could be better executed it did make the knife well suited for thumb flick openings. I would have also like to seen the finger guard/choil extended into a flipper
When it came time to cut the steel lived up to is rep and dulled in a typical CPM stainless fashion (that's not a bad thing). The razor edge was lost quickly but stayed fairly sharp throughout the cutting session, I found myself having trouble trying to really dull the knife and with cutting cardboard was unable to inflict any visible deformations to the edge. I repeated this test twice with almost exacting results and was able to restore hair popping sharpness with just a 1 micron diamond compounded strop. This was also a good test of the blade coating that surprisingly showed minimal to no wear.
After the testing was complete I touched it up freehand with the EEF hone and polished to 1 micron. The steel accepted a polish very well and achieved a good level of sharpness.
Overall, Its a good mid/small EDC with a steel you don't have to worry about going dull half way through a task. I think there are some QC and F&F issues that a picky person like myself would like addressed but that's just me. I also understand its a limited run but at nearly $400 its kind of a plain jane knife.
