Large plain edge Voyager : Cold Steel

[Confederate]

Sometimes it's possible to get sidelined by the tests. To test a knife thoroughly for review is one thing; to carry it every day for years is another. And we're fortunate to have so many great knife makers to choose from. Often just choosing is a royal pain.

Chances are, for most people a Voyager will do just fine as an everyday carry. Up until recently, most people were limited to carrying only tiny to mid-size slip lock knives. And though such knives have tremendous cosmetic appeal, I could never go back to using them. (It would be like throwing away the remote control for my television.)

Spyderco, Benchmade, CRKT, Cold Steel, and many others offer too many great carrying pieces. And the steel keeps getting better for the most part -- imagine quenching steel at -120 degrees. It's amazing.

Like I said, sharpening a serrated Cold Steel isn't difficult or especially time consuming. Certainly one doesn't have to worry about angles or whether an edge is a utility or sharp. And those fine serrations slice through just about anything, including thick boating nylon roap, or an envelope.

Large serrations, on the other hand, tend to cut bumpy and rip what one is trying to cut.


Confed

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Sometimes it's possible to get sidelined by the tests.

The stock testing in general is designed to give an overal impression of the abilities of a knife in a relatively short period of time, they are ideally developed based on user carry and refined by it. If I note that stock work shows a knife in general cutting better than another but in actual carry the opposite is seen then I know that some aspect is being ignored and is has to be included, this is why the methods have changed constantly in the last ten years.

After the stock work, the knife is just carried and used for a period of months to years, the reviews on some knives are still being updated more than 5 years after they were written as they are still being used. It also helps to have different people use them, I can carry a knife for months and then give it to my brother who in a few days reports aspects which I had not foreseen because I don't do the same type of cutting on a regular basis. Using the lead serration on the Salt for example to cut/score jyprock, is much more effective than a point on a plained edge knife.

Chances are, for most people a Voyager will do just fine as an everyday carry.

For most people a $1.99 rip off is enough knife, you can make due with anything. The question discussed on the forums and in most reviews is what is the performance relative to other knives. Any knife can be used to cut pretty much any material, some knives just do it better for longer same as any other tool essentially.

Like I said, sharpening a serrated Cold Steel isn't difficult or especially time consuming. Certainly one doesn't have to worry about angles or whether an edge is a utility or sharp.

It takes *much* longer to individually hone the fine teeth than to just use the Sharpmaker on the SpyderEdge pattern. When you consider in general the lack of ability to freehand sharpen then the inability to use something like the Sharpmaker is major handicap in general.

As for angles, the teeth are simply a saw pattern and need to be honed as such for optimal performance. Lee has pictures in his book on what saw teeth look like if you don't care about angles, and as for not being sharp, it is necessary for serrated edges to be very sharp to cut optimally well just like it is for saws and plain edges.

Large serrations, on the other hand, tend to cut bumpy and rip what one is trying to cut.

Highly honed patterns like the SpyderEdge don't rip or tear materials unless they are very flimsy like light tissue paper, they are far more fluid than Cold Steels small teeth. This assumes of course that both edges are fully sharpened, if they are just roughly honed then yes the SpyderEdge will rip and tear, however it can be just as sharp as a plain edge.

-Cliff

 

[buckg]

I didn't notice any comments in this thread about the pivot pin. I have a serrated Tanto XL Voyager. Why on earth did CS choose to use a pivot pin that can't be adjusted or removed? You can't take the knife apart to clean it. It also doesn't look very resistant to lateral stress, though it seems that Cliff found otherwise in his testing (I'm refering to the pivot/handle, not the blade). Also, I'd like to comment on the serrations. At least from the photos that I've seen, the teeth on the serrated Tanto blade aren't as fragile as the teeth on the clip point. Perhaps that's not true (I don't have a serrated clip point to compare), but it seems that way from the photos. The XL serrated Tanto blade has about 1" of fine edge between the primary and secondary points for those tasks that would damage the serrations. Very useful in my experience. I consider the 5" blade to be the ideal size in the Voyager line, as it is the largest size that still fits in my jacket pockets yet still rides well in your pants because of the light weight and thin profile.

 

[Cliff Stamp]

Many of the Zytel knives have fixed pivot pins and the handles can not be easily taken apart, these may not be obvious to everyone, thanks for pointing them out. You can adjust the tension by light hammering, bu in regards to cleaning, you would basically have to repin it.

Interesting note on the serrations, the ones I have seen were the same but I have not used every Cold Steel model. Spyderco's serrations do change in durability even with the same pattern due to the primary grind so this might hold for Cold Steel as well.

-Cliff

 

[buckg]

Looking at the photos in CS's Fall 2005 catalog, the small teeth on the X2 clip point appear to be much longer and, as a result, far more easily damaged than the teeth on my XL Tanto Voyager. Maybe this is just liberal use of PhotoShop, I don't know.