Help me get caught up.

Dude, vanadium vanadium I thought you were hilarious as I read through your astute post, but at the end you had me laughing...

THIS IS PURE GOLD

vanadium said:
Spyderco got even worse at making a knife that doesn't look like a platypus squatting over a bidet. Even with good makers and designers working with them, they can rarely produce a design without making it extremely weird. The greatest exception seems to be the work of Marcin Slysz, whose work they reproduced faithfully using their Taiwan manufacturing capability. The shining example of producing a practical mid-tech is the Spyderco Slysz Bowie, which looks almost identical to the custom. For this reason, they promptly discontinued the knife last year. Still gotta love 'em.
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vanadium said:
Over the past few years a guy called Nick Shabazz became a tastemaker of sorts, via his YouTube channel. Most of his influence has been extremely positive and down-to-Earth in my opinion. I think he helped to end the obsession with overbuilt slab-sided titanium framelocks with stupid grinds, which have now fallen in price on the secondary market. His "Knife Gripes" series on Knife News called out a lot of bad habits in the industry, and had some big positive effects, including that Spyderco discontinued use of red (permanent) Loctite and stopped treating disassembly as an automatic warranty voider.

Instagram became the 24/7 knife show from hell. A mixture of great makers and crappy makers, and a million young doctors and lawyers who don't know the difference. Raffles where people pay $25 or $50 for a "chance" at a "grail" knife. Someone screaming the word "grail" every 1.27 seconds. Prices spiraling out of control. Everyone wishing for a "full dress" flipper with a Damasteel blade, Timascus clip, Zircuti bolster, and Mokuti scales, creating an overall effect that looks like television snow from a distance. People clamoring to snatch a "full dress grail" for $4000, before it gets flipped for $8000 on a dealer site the next week. Asymmetrical grinds. Bad customer service. Impersonators. Hacked accounts. People who can't figure out how to use Bladeforums complaining that they got scammed in a trade with "knife_maniac9728" or whatever. YouTubers who buy a new $5000 custom every week and ask for donations to their channel.

People are still spending money on knives like Emerson and Strider that reflect a total disinterest in consistency of craftsmanship. But we can drop Hinderer from that list, because he finally figured out that every knife should have the same detent and lock bars cut by inebriated people should be discarded. As soon as that happened, I bought a 6th-generation XM-18 and I'm a happy camper. Meanwhile companies like Grimsmo Knives, North Arm Knives, Holt Knives, and Three Rivers Manufacturing (TRM) demonstrated that you can make well-engineered, consistently high-quality knives in North America for a reasonable price (until the Grimsmo brothers decided to become a boy band and triple their prices).

Spyderco got even worse at making a knife that doesn't look like a platypus squatting over a bidet. Even with good makers and designers working with them, they can rarely produce a design without making it extremely weird. The greatest exception seems to be the work of Marcin Slysz, whose work they reproduced faithfully using their Taiwan manufacturing capability. The shining example of producing a practical mid-tech is the Spyderco Slysz Bowie, which looks almost identical to the custom. For this reason, they promptly discontinued the knife last year. Still gotta love 'em.
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Agree with all of this, and extra points for the Dr. Frunkey inference. That ish is absolute clownshoes. Dude is in school to be a neurosurgeon, gets in absolutely eyewateringly expensive full customs from guys like Robert Carter, Peter Rassenti, etc. virtually every WEEK, and last month he's all "Hey guys, go donate to my Patreon so I can keep creating awesome content like me giving you my opinions on these knives that virtually 0% of you have a chance of ever owning. THANKS!"

He got called out on Knife Critiques and it was glorious.
 
Speaking of the D2 heat treat. Where is that information from nathan?
Been looking around for a while.
Going to keep looking.
 
Larrin said:
I find that even when the knife industry changes my tastes seem to stay mostly the same.
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I’m feeling the same way. I tried to get into the whole Chinese high end market but at then end of the day, they just aren’t the same as a CRK, Strider or a Hinderer. In my experience, they don’t take down and go right back together quite like the other three do, despite not being too far off in cost. The super steels are cool, but at the end of the day, S35vn will be enough to get 99% of all people through the day.
 
Livefreeordie92 said:
I’m feeling the same way. I tried to get into the whole Chinese high end market but at then end of the day, they just aren’t the same as a CRK, Strider or a Hinderer. In my experience, they don’t take down and go right back together quite like the other three do, despite not being too far off in cost. The super steels are cool, but at the end of the day, S35vn will be enough to get 99% of all people through the day.
Click to expand...

So will a Wal-Mart blister pack Kershaw Leek, but no one here is in that 99%... :eek:
 
Quiet said:
"Hey guys, go donate to my Patreon so I can keep creating awesome content like me giving you my opinions on these knives that virtually 0% of you have a chance of ever owning. THANKS!"
Click to expand...
Apparently he's taking another tack, which is to promise reviews of the Ontario RAT #1 and #2. I guess we need a "second opinion" on the top-rated budget folders of our age. And he needs funding to buy those knives, because he would never buy them otherwise. Brilliant.

For me the biggest change of the past 5 years is perhaps in the past year, when the accessibility of high-quality low-volume Chinese manufacturing has intersected with an avalanche of aspiring 'makers' who only need to learn CAD/CAM to be productive, resulting in a glut of well-made $200-300 knives that go from drawing board to KnifeCenter in a matter of months. From my perspective, this has created a wave of overwhelm leading to boredom. Surfing the "new arrivals" page on the major dealers used to be interesting, because a new release was the outcome of Spyderco's multi-year development cycle or something. Now it's like shopping for a toaster oven: you pick the one you like, they're all good enough, all made in the same factory in China anyway, and so what. Of course there are still real gems, but you have to wade through a lot of costume jewelry. Even Spyderco is succumbing to the competition for short development cycles and releasing some half-baked products, like folders with blades that protrude into the compression lock cutout when closed. Feels bad.
 
vanadium said:
Apparently he's taking another tack, which is to promise reviews of the Ontario RAT #1 and #2. I guess we need a "second opinion" on the top-rated budget folders of our age. And he needs funding to buy those knives, because he would never buy them otherwise. Brilliant.

For me the biggest change of the past 5 years is perhaps in the past year, when the accessibility of high-quality low-volume Chinese manufacturing has intersected with an avalanche of aspiring 'makers' who only need to learn CAD/CAM to be productive, resulting in a glut of well-made $200-300 knives that go from drawing board to KnifeCenter in a matter of months. From my perspective, this has created a wave of overwhelm leading to boredom. Surfing the "new arrivals" page on the major dealers used to be interesting, because a new release was the outcome of Spyderco's multi-year development cycle or something. Now it's like shopping for a toaster oven: you pick the one you like, they're all good enough, all made in the same factory in China anyway, and so what. Of course there are still real gems, but you have to wade through a lot of costume jewelry. Even Spyderco is succumbing to the competition for short development cycles and releasing some half-baked products, like folders with blades that protrude into the compression lock cutout when closed. Feels bad.
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I think WE is the biggest offender there. They have some good designs, but they've got the fecal-matter-in-the-industrial-fan approach to it. You know... let's pump out ELEVEN ZILLION different designs that are still basically all the same design.
 
madcap_magician said:
I think WE is the biggest offender there. They have some good designs, but they've got the fecal-matter-in-the-industrial-fan approach to it. You know... let's pump out ELEVEN ZILLION different designs that are still basically all the same design.
Click to expand...

I also can't track the volume of new RealSteel, Bestech, Stedemon, Maxace, Twosun, Ruike, etc., many of which are collaboration pieces. Are they even different companies? Is "Night Morning" someone's actual name? Do any of them NOT have super smooth action, nice detent, great centering, sweet lockup, and a toootally aaawesome threee deee milled titanium pocket clip? :( I think I'm done buying folders for a long while, except for buying direct from a really cool domestic maker with a face, like Three Rivers.
 
vanadium said:
I also can't track the volume of new RealSteel, Bestech, Stedemon, Maxace, Twosun, Ruike, etc., many of which are collaboration pieces. Are they even different companies? Is "Night Morning" someone's actual name? Do any of them NOT have super smooth action, nice detent, great centering, sweet lockup, and a toootally aaawesome threee deee milled titanium pocket clip? :( I think I'm done buying folders for a long while, except for buying direct from a really cool domestic maker with a face, like Three Rivers.
Click to expand...

Everything you just described is a major reason why I do not generally buy Chinese knives. They all just feel the same. All perfect, because they're all machine made, so of course they are.
 
vanadium said:
I also can't track the volume of new RealSteel, Bestech, Stedemon, Maxace, Twosun, Ruike, etc., many of which are collaboration pieces. Are they even different companies? Is "Night Morning" someone's actual name? Do any of them NOT have super smooth action, nice detent, great centering, sweet lockup, and a toootally aaawesome threee deee milled titanium pocket clip? :( I think I'm done buying folders for a long while, except for buying direct from a really cool domestic maker with a face, like Three Rivers.
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I find that the Chinese company's have no passion for knives. Only for "product".
Screw them. They won't see a penny of my hard earned dollars!
 
danbot said:
I find that the Chinese company's have no passion for knives. Only for "product".
Screw them. They won't see a penny of my hard earned dollars!
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I’d disagree in terms of Reate. The owner was very active on social media and made it a point to talk to people that bought his knives. Haven’t heard from him since I’ve gotten back into it. But IMO, they’re getting too high up there in price. My two most recent acquisitions are a Reate Crossroads and a Hinderer XM-18. No matter what, the Hinderer just feels like a much higher quality knife. And it’s completely fair game to compare them at this point, when the only thing separating them is $50. Had the Reate been $100 less, then it would be different.
 
Quiet said:
Everything you just described is a major reason why I do not generally buy Chinese knives. They all just feel the same. All perfect, because they're all machine made, so of course they are.
Click to expand...
My Reate is far from perfect. Reassembly was a pain in the ass. Lanyard and stop pins can be spun while assembled. Screws are uneven in the scales. Mild stick when disengaging the lock. And there is a gap between the presentation scale and the liner that was there right out of the box. But it was between a Hinderer Eklipse and the Reate originally. I ended up with an XM-18 a week after ordering the Reate. Had I gotten the Hinderer beforehand, I wouldn’t be considering a Reate and this will most likely be the last one I ever own and will probably get sold down the road. For $180, my Horizon B was a steal, and made spending $375 on the Crossroads easy. Sadly, it was somewhat of a letdown, especially now that I have the XM-18 sitting next to it.
 
madcap_magician said:
I think WE is the biggest offender there. They have some good designs, but they've got the fecal-matter-in-the-industrial-fan approach to it. You know... let's pump out ELEVEN ZILLION different designs that are still basically all the same design.
Click to expand...
I’ve yet to see anything from them that looked like it was worth my money.
 
My responses are in blue.

vanadium said:
Over the past few years a guy called Nick Shabazz became a tastemaker of sorts, via his YouTube channel. Most of his influence has been extremely positive and down-to-Earth in my opinion. I think he helped to end the obsession with overbuilt slab-sided titanium framelocks with stupid grinds, which have now fallen in price on the secondary market. His "Knife Gripes" series on Knife News called out a lot of bad habits in the industry, and had some big positive effects, including that Spyderco discontinued use of red (permanent) Loctite and stopped treating disassembly as an automatic warranty voider.

Oddly enough, I first heard of him through the watch community. Dude seems to make quality videos, albeit a bit long winded.

Instagram became the 24/7 knife show from hell. A mixture of great makers and crappy makers, and a million young doctors and lawyers who don't know the difference. Raffles where people pay $25 or $50 for a "chance" at a "grail" knife. Someone screaming the word "grail" every 1.27 seconds. Prices spiraling out of control. Everyone wishing for a "full dress" flipper with a Damasteel blade, Timascus clip, Zircuti bolster, and Mokuti scales, creating an overall effect that looks like television snow from a distance. People clamoring to snatch a "full dress grail" for $4000, before it gets flipped for $8000 on a dealer site the next week. Asymmetrical grinds. Bad customer service. Impersonators. Hacked accounts. People who can't figure out how to use Bladeforums complaining that they got scammed in a trade with "knife_maniac9728" or whatever. YouTubers who buy a new $5000 custom every week and ask for donations to their channel.

And that’s why, to this day, I do not have an Instagram account or any plans on making one.
Oddly enough, I’ve never had a serious interest in custom knives. Closest thing I ever had was a Ferrum Forge Ferox and I hated it. High end productions like CRK, Strider and Hinderer are where I’ve been the most content. $8k for a knife is ridiculous to me. I can get a Rolex for that.
Similar thing happened in the fragrance community with a certain reviewer. Dude starts soliciting for donations on his channel claiming he’s quitting his job to jump into the fragrance industry and how he has no idea how it’s going to go for him. Less than a month later, the dude uploads a video of himself buying a Ferrari 458 and now repeats the same add ridden crap content on a monthly basis.

People are still spending money on knives like Emerson and Strider that reflect a total disinterest in consistency of craftsmanship. But we can drop Hinderer from that list, because he finally figured out that every knife should have the same detent and lock bars cut by inebriated people should be discarded. As soon as that happened, I bought a 6th-generation XM-18 and I'm a happy camper. Meanwhile companies like Grimsmo Knives, North Arm Knives, Holt Knives, and Three Rivers Manufacturing (TRM) demonstrated that you can make well-engineered, consistently high-quality knives in North America for a reasonable price (until the Grimsmo brothers decided to become a boy band and triple their prices).

It took me three times to realize Emerson’s were garbage. I liked my Striders though. Wish I never sold them. And I love my new gen 6.

Spyderco got even worse at making a knife that doesn't look like a platypus squatting over a bidet. Even with good makers and designers working with them, they can rarely produce a design without making it extremely weird. The greatest exception seems to be the work of Marcin Slysz, whose work they reproduced faithfully using their Taiwan manufacturing capability. The shining example of producing a practical mid-tech is the Spyderco Slysz Bowie, which looks almost identical to the custom. For this reason, they promptly discontinued the knife last year. Still gotta love 'em.

Never liked Spyderco anyway. They make a decent product, it just has no appeal to me. I’ve never been able to keep one of their knives for more than a few weeks.
Click to expand...
 
Quiet said:
Everything you just described is a major reason why I do not generally buy Chinese knives. They all just feel the same. All perfect, because they're all machine made, so of course they are.
Click to expand...

Are we seriously complaining about perfectly made knives? What have we come to. You can keep your sloppily made knives from the likes of emerson, strider, and so on. I'm all for quality American products, but I will not support a company, country, or brand if it produces junk. Hell, even CRK is stale to me, every knife they make looks and feels like a reiteration of a sebenza. I for one love American designs (ray laconico, brian nadeau, ferrum forge, etc.) on those perfectly made Chinese knives. Hell, my boker urban trapper was a piece of garbage, complete junk for such a high profile designer name, yet the brad zinker dog tooth produced by WE is how any production brad zinker should be, minus the pocket clip that I couldn't stand.
 
vanadium said:
What is Knife Critiques?
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Check out https://www.instagram.com/ddrknivesofchina/ on Instagram too. I find it funny that there's alot of evidence of some really weird shit going on with them yet they are giving one away here on the forums and it's nearly 50 pages long.

But whatever.

Here's something that happend last year...
This is heeter knives they are made by ddr knives apparently. Along with lucky 13 another shady character.


 
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