Large plain edge Voyager : Cold Steel

C

Cliff Stamp

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This is a used folder, bought mainly as a benchmark for lock security to evaluate folders for wood working. However after carring it as an EDC for a couple of weeks, its overall performance was solid enough to delay the heavier lock work until it could be examined in detail.

For reasons mainly of user preference I would rather carry something like a Spyderco Endura (or Paramilitary to go high end), but i can see this readily for someone who would rather have a more traditional blade shape, stud vs hole, and tip up carry.

The performance of the medium Voyager in regards to the lock tolerance, and further the very light work done with this one in regards to minor chopping does certaintly raise interest in an x-large model for heavier brush work, though the memory of the Vaquero Grande is still strong.

After I carry this for a further month or two depending on how the lock work then goes I might try an x-large model. No word from Cold Steel along these lines, no responce to emails. I mailed off a written letter earlier this week.

Ref :

http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/knives/voyager_large.html

-Cliff
 
I updated this with some recent baton work, the lock is readily effected even at light baton impacts, but it doesn't see drastic failure until very heavy impacts from a large framing hammer. Initially it looked to be performing similar to the Military and Al Mar Sere, but the final break point was about twice as energetic. Even though the functionality is effected almost immediately, the knife is never actually broken, and is able to take even the heaviest hits with just a loss of impact security, even after the worst batoning it will still work perfectly fine as a knife. This sets a pretty high benchmark for impact resistance and security in regards to batoning.

-Cliff
 
In the garden, I've batoned my cold steel voyager with a brick into hard aged stakes and have never had a problem. Just take a little sandpaper to the spine to remove the burrs. I also use it to dig, plant, make rows for seets and it'll get dull, doesn't chip and sharpens up with minimal effort.
 
I see little productive value in such a knife test, though I'm sure some will find it useful. The Cold Steel array of knives aren't designed for the kitchen and are a bit too pricey for shrubs and wood. As a carry knife, the Voyagers see a lot of duty cutting boxes, packaging and field use. They make excellent defense knives if you can use them for that, and they're great to have in an emergency (though I prefer knives that have stronger tips).

The huge Voyagers are anything but discreet and open with a loud "whaaack" and much fanfare. They're good for what most folks use a knife for in day after day uses, but will never replace a good Japanese kitchen knife for the kitchen, or a good machete; and those who love the outdoors might be better suited with a fixed blade.

The Cold Steel DVD shows the Voyager cutting raw meat, being pried sideways, and slashing through more cardboard than any knife should see in a lifetime of service (without being resharpened). The Voyager and the Vaquero probably aren't the best knives for anything; however, they should do just about anything and in a big way. And for their reasonable price they, if nothing else, make good conversation pieces.

I love all reviews and would like to see how a Voyager with serrations stacks up against one without. Two knives so very much alike and yet so different. I've also wondered how Cold Steel's 440A Night Force with serrations would do against a 4-inch Voyager AUS 8A with serrations. One might be tempted to go with the Voyager, but the serrations on the Night Force are just a littttttle bit bigger than those on the Voyager. And that may make it the workhorse of the two.

Confed --
 
My voyager is a large tanto. I got it because it was a a classic knife and design and I wanted to try a tanto. I think its purpose is for tough use under all conditions, and mine has held up with no complaints. I've abused the knife, even dug holes with it, but with a tanto, it's not really kitchen friendly, but that's not what a tanto is for.
 
The high lock work was done as I wanted a low cost benchmark to reference as this activity is starting to be promoted by those promoting survival type folders, and like the cold steel car door stab, you need benchmarks to judge performance. As it turns out the Voyagar is acually very solid in this ability and sets a performance standard that I would not bet all of the much more expensive folders would pass readily.

In general it works well as a heavy use knife, the thick unground flats give the blade a lot of strength and the steel is ductile enough to take a lot of force without cracking, but still strong enough to be decently stiff and it is very resistant to impacts. This combined with the nice hollow ground edges gives a solid combination of cutting ability and durability, plus the ergonomics are solid.

I don't like the serrations in general, too easy to damage and very difficult to sharpen, yes you can steel them, but if you actually use the knife you are going to need to sharpen them eventually and it takes a lot of work compared to more open patterns you can hit readily with a Sharpmaker.

-Cliff
 
Gotta concur with Cliff about those cursed serrations. Easily the worst pattern I've seen on a knife, other than maybe those $2 gas station knives. :barf:

The small teeth are delicate; I've broken them on cardboard, ferchrissakes. The side angle of the small teeth is too steep, causing them to tear rather than cut, unless out-of-the-box sharp. CS puts larger serrations between them, similar in proportion to Spyderco or Benchmade, but the edge steps up from the small serration to the large ones enough that it catches badly.

As luck would have it, I'm EDCing my Gunsite II today, which I rarely ever do, mostly because of the serrations.
 
I used to have the med. voyager, and I sold it NIB. I carried it for a while, but the clip was too small, and it did not ride comfortably in my pocket. it felt heavier than a FRN endura.

The one selling point of the knife was the blade shape. I considered drilling a hole where the thumb stud is, to open like a spyderco, because the stud did not offer enough purchase. The knife was not gritty when opening, but tight, probably due to the strength of the lock spring. I could not get enough leverage from the stud.

The knife was razor sharp the entire time I owned it, and I didn't cut anything with it so I cannot evaluate it in that respect. The design was aesthetically pleasing, but the negative factors outweighed the positive.

Mine was a combo edge, and I absolutely hated the serrations. I did not even have to use the knife to know that it would not do what I had planned for it, and in the future I may try a plain edge version with some mods, but for now, if I had to purchase a knife of that style and price, I would take a benchmade pika or a spyderco endura.
 
I like the clip for ergonomics and retention/ride on the large Voyager. It isn't as nice as the new clips on the Endura/Delica and is way behind the Spyderco wire chips, but is better than a lot of the really square clips out there and the nice curve tends to flow into the hand.

I like the general feel and weight as well, it is a big knife though and tends to say more utility than cutting instrument which is how I look at the Endura. But the Endura with the VG-10 steel, steel liners and other mods really moves that out of comparison with the Voyagers as they are fairly different now.

The serrations do well on some material when new, I have been meaning to compare them to Spyderco's for some time. But ease of resharpening and durability are real issues. Mission makes a really nice pattern, but some like Sog, McClung and Reeve are fairly problematic in general and hard to find areas where they excell over Spyderco or Mission.

-Cliff
 
A knife Cliff likes?
WooHoo didn't fall apart when hit by a sledge hammer then Cliff?

;0)
One serious point, I fine VG10 harder to sharpen than the AUS used by CS
(Big fan of both Spyderco and Cold Steel)
 
Cliff, I'm not familiar with Mission knives. What sort of serrations do they have? Do you have a pic you can share?

I've yet to find a pattern that beats the original Spyderco pattern. Edges steep enough to cut aggressively, but not so steep as to bind; mixes smaller serrations to provide lots of edges, together with larger, deeper serrations for aggressive cutting.
 
Ref :

http://www.missionknives.com/products/images/72dpi/mpklg.jpg

they are *very* fluid and exceptionally aggressive. However they have a fairly big drawback because they are Beta-Ti, as they are so soft if you try to cut something hard then it will quickly ruin your day.

I did a test run using the MPK and Sog Seal cutting steel belted rubber, and the steel actually cut the serrations off the MPK. It didn't wear them down, just filed them right off. It is kind of surprising to see just how much of a difference 10 HRC points can make.

You can also turn them easily if you are chopping and accidently whack one of them into a knot, it will fold over. But for ropes, fabrics, etc., they are very nice and the edge retention is high, even on dirty materials.

It would be interesting to see a MPF fully serrated ran against an Alantic Salt.

-Cliff
 
I have a number of the Cold Steel Voyagers, a Vaquero, a Pro-Lite and Night Force, all with serrations. If you don't have the tools to sharpen them, they will eventually cause trouble; however, I have a Lansky dogbone sharpener that I bought from Cold Steel that I used to sharpen a somewhat dull Vaquero. I had the entire knife resharpened to woo-hoo sharp in about ten minutes (while watching TV).

Hard cutting with the serrated knives may indeed chip the teeth depending on what one is cutting, but normally I haven't found it to be a problem. The blades cut cleanly through nylon cord, seat belts, cardboard, plastic packaging, etc. My Gunsite II is good for almost everything a city person could want, as it has enough of a plain blade to cut fruit, paper and strip wiring for electronics work.

For outdoor use, I'd pick a plain-edged knife more suitable for camping, hunting or cutting up kindling wood.

Again, the pattern of serrations found on the Night Force are a bit more rugged. Perhaps Cold Steel will use that in some of its future knives. I'm hoping for some knives made from CM154 in the near future.


Confederate
 
I would like to see Cold Steel go with VG-10 or even ZDP-189. It would make sense for them to upgrade their steel choices at some point, even if it would be for a premium version of already existing models they currently offer.

Don't get me wrong though; I like the AUS-8A that they use in the Voyager line.
 
Most of the serration fractures I have seen are on metal contacts, staples and light cabling usually. This is one area where the Spyderco ones excell over a plain edge as they will catch and trap inclusions, they will get damaged, but usually just a dent or chip in the scallops whereas the Cold Steel teeth can just get broken off.

-Cliff
 
I've got a couple med. (4") Voyagers with the old plastic clip, a clip and a tanto, both plain edge. Both are handy for IWB carry (jogging), and are also flat enough to slip undetected into a jacket pocket (or even a suitcoat when I have to wear one :grumpy: ). No point in alarming the Sheeple, after all. Never had a problem with corrosion. They take an excellent edge and hold it well enough, tho not like ATS-34 or VG-10, but are easily resharpened. The high thin grind makes them excellent cutters. I haven't batoned mine but the lockbacks haven't worked loose in several years and seem pretty strong. When I'm going out of the country I'll throw one in the suitcase for when I get back on the street
 
I wouldn't want the voyager in a harder steel that's more expensive. Then when I dig with it it'd probably chip more and it would certainly cost more. VG10 and ZDP?? are the current spyderco steelofthemonth and have their place, but in an inexpensive quality beater knife, I think I'd actually prefer the AUS8.
 
ZDP-189 is a new steel for Spyderco used as noted by Glesser as there was a demand so a few runs were made. VG-10 however is one of the main steels used for quite some time which replaced other steels due to better performance in the standard materials tests they run.

As for the damage when digging, lowering the hardness to get toughness trades off strength and now you have impaction. I have done very hard sod cutting with the plain edge Endura, and then sharpened it with about thirty seconds on a concrete block to where it was back cutting hemp. Details are in the review.

It is an interesting point regarding toughness / strength, I'll make a note to compare the Voyagar and Endura with similar edge profiles when it comes back from the pass around. Likely a few different profiles will be used to see if fracture is a problem, because it won't be if the edge is heavy enough.

Yes, VG-10 would likely be a price upgrade, one of the reasons why the pricing of the Endura/Delica is so impressive, then you consider the other additions like stainless liners, etc. .

-Cliff
 
GCG199 said:
I would like to see Cold Steel go with VG-10 or even ZDP-189. It would make sense for them to upgrade their steel choices at some point, even if it would be for a premium version of already existing models they currently offer.
Click to expand...

Someone posted a link here to the moteng website that showed some Vaquero-ish Cold Steel with VG-2. Don't know what it is, but it sounds exotic.

I like Cold Steel's old serration pattern both because it works on the shallow cutting for which I've used it (plastic and buried vines) and also because of the novelty factor. Spyderco came up with a three-tooth pattern and a lot of folks copied it, but Cold Steel came up with a four tooth pattern. Reminiscent of Spinal Tap's amplifier that go up to 11 instead of just 10. And, as Confederate says, once the novelty wears off, those Lansky dogbones made for Cold Steel's serrations make resharpening a breeze.

Cliff,

If any still exist, the one used medium Voyager should have a dent in one of its scallops where I cut through some steel wire. The teeth of the serrations and the threading of the wire seemed to guide it there.
 
Yes, I still have one I plan to use as a benchmark against Spyderco's pattern. While you can sharpen it with a small rod, this was pointed out on rec.knives with the first suggestion I read being small jewlers diamond files, you have to basically recut every serration, compared to a few passes on the Sharpmaker for the SpyderEdge which takes seconds, so it is *MANY* to one in terms of time increase.

In regards to its abilities, one of Cold Steels large serrated folders was taken to the first get together that McClung had on KnifeForums and there was rare praise for its abilities, in particular on its ability to cut free hanging hemp rope. Never have tried that with any SpyderEdge patterns, but don't cut a lot of hanging one inch hemp rope, any amount of that is more than the cost of a knife.

-Cliff
 
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