Gerber Torch I-II thoughts ?

[Tostig]

So , the last couple of weeks I've been pining for a flipper XM-18 , the real deal from Mr. Hinderer himself , but with Christmas , bills and so forth , way out of my budget for a while , not to mention they are not exactly readily available.

So , any Torch owners out there who have something good to say about their knife ?

I've been soiled on Gerber for some years now , the last Gator I got was crap , the multitool I have has pinched me more times than a geezer in a strip joint and the little tanto style money clip Gerber I had was one of the worst knives I've ever bought but , the Torch has intrigued me some.

Is the flipping action nice ? How does the blade steel hold up under use , is the knife solid ? those kind of questions.

I figure one of these could momentarily soothe my need for the real thing for a little while

Thanks!

Tostig

 

[misterjuiceman]

I actually am curious about this too. I can't imagine Rick Hinderer would let his name on something that's crap.

 

[bigphilbk7]

i bought a torch I this past spring.
the f&f on mine was not very good, the flipper was
very hard to use.
i could not get the blade to take a good edge to save my life.
and i can sharpen all of my knives to at least a shaving sharp edge.
all in all i would have to say it was a complete waste of money.:grumpy:

this is just my two cents. YMMV


phil

 

[nevermind35]

I would agree with bigphil that if your used to quality knives this knife is just a waste of money. I got one for free from my employer this year and I was not impressed at all. The steel is some of the softest I've seen, the washers are the flimsiest i have seen, and until I lubed the snot out of it it was nearly impossible to both flip open and disengage the frame lock. I'd say if you desperately want something similar to tide you over you might want to check out the Kershaw Zing. It has a pretty similar look and although it is a liner lock it has a pretty thick liner and is actually a pretty stout little knife.

 

[bladkersh02]

I picked up a Torch I a while back at Dicks for 19 bucks. Figured what the heck. I agree, the knife did take a lot of work to get sharp and it doesn't hold an edge very long. However sitting in my kitchen, it cuts cheese and bags and ties just fine. It's a bit small and is fine for light tasks, tho a bit larger woulda been much nicer.

The f&f is kinda clunky , like the coating/bblast on the blade is not even near the grind and looks cheap. The jimping and spacers look cheaply finished. The plastic wavy insert is just ugly. lol But when you look at the lock side, you see that Hinderer influence and that's cool. Mine flips very well and locks up very solid. However, you can push the frame lock with light movement so that it moves over more. Still locks up tight, but for how long? The cut out for the lock bar seems very big to me which prolly makes it springy so to speak.

I like mine for the money. If you don't mind having another knife to play with it's cool, but yet kind of a tease too cuz it could be so much more. But sure practical wise ,there a lots of better cutters out there for the same money.

 

[Kaizen1]

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with the negative comments on this thread. I've owned 3 different XM-18s and I was just curious to see how the Torch I stood up. I did a mini review on another forum. I'll just copy and paste that on the next post.

 

[Kaizen1]

My mini review of the Torch on another forum:

...I got it for $17 shipped, so I couldn't pass it up. I recently read on some forum that Gerber's 440A was pretty bad in the edge retention department, so I figured I see for myself. I got the knife yesterday and brought it to a hair whittling sharpness. It could pretty easily shave without touching the skin. With that level of sharpness, I decided to cut up a pizza box into shreds:

Here's a closer pic of the knife:

Afterward, the areas of the blade that got the most use no longer were able to shave without touching the skin, but they still shaved rather easily. Interestingly enough, the areas that didn't take as much of the work were still able to shave without touching the skin. I sliced this newspaper, which was about as thin as the yellow pages and it went through very smoothly:

The knife went through the entire box without any noticeable difference in effort on my part to continue cutting the cardboard. I don't cut that much everyday. This blade could easily take care of a reasonable amount of random cutting. To be honest, I don't see a need for anything more than this unless your daily cutting chores are very heavy duty. 440A sharpens easily enough. These go for about $23-$30 shipped on eBay. It's really difficult for me to say that this blade is crap given that it seems to be able to do what a small, cheap folder was made to do. Plus, I love all the little details that are like the XM-18. The quality could be a little better, particularly, there's vertical play in the detent when the blade is closed. But for a blade that gets EDC cutting chores done and at the same time I wouldn't worry about if I lost or broke it, I think this knife is a nice little deal.