Less hyped or noticeable knife characteristics which are important to you

[norcalAF]

Interesting, I didn’t know this. I guess the main idea is to provide flipper functionality but without that nub of steel sticking out in the open position?

You should check out the brilliance of GTC's flipper designs. The ZT 0055 is a more accessible specimen than his customs.

 

[Wowbagger]

any robust lock on a knife with scales on both the show and lock sides.

YES ! a thousand times.
Like a Gayle Bradley. I have three : original in pristine stock condition (of course) , one GB 2 stock and one GB 2 I reground to 1.8 mm at the spine ; crazy thin behind the edge, acute geometry, polished edge . . . the whole shmeer . . .

Once Michael Kristy showed how to release the lock with an index finger rather than thumb I've never looked back or wanted a cutout to get at the liner lock.
I swear when I grip a knife handle hard that has one of those over done cut outs in the scale on one side the knife / blade twists / leans to one side in my grip.

and I don't understand knives that have handle texture on one side and a slick side with a frame lock on the other seems half fast to me.

 

[Wowbagger]

Oh, thought of another. Backspacers should be mandatory. lol

yuuup
The action is improved by this if nothing else.
My blue and black 710 with M390 , brand new out of the box, proved how badly the action can suck without enough structural integrity (too few standoffs ; needed a back spacer).

 

[LimpCroissant]

The Wingman MDD Kickstop solves that issue by having Tom Mayo's signature handle shape that swells out like a guard. Shirogorov on the other hand shaped the flipper tab so that it almost disappears in the handle.

View attachment 2752303

Yes! And oooh boy do I love that Dr. Death profile in both the original Mayo and the Shiro model. Those things are sooo sexy. Definitely an all time grail for me. Unfortunately I can't quite get myself to reach into that price category.

 

[David Mary]

I like a light yet durable blade

Agreed. I might go about it differently than what you described though.

For example, my seven inch bladed Shranto has just a hair over 3/16” stock, but is more than strong enough for any kind of use a knife this size should be expected to fulfill.

It’s not a super wide blade, and is a full height grind I call flatvex. Just a gobbledygook word I started using for “convex that seems flat at a glance”.

And at an inch longer in blade than the G10 handled Ratmandu I used to own, it weighs the same with the sheath as that knife did on its own. Will the RMD be better at breaking cinder blocks? Yes. Will the Shranto out cut it all day and all night? You bet.







Not gonna break that tip either.

 

[Henry Beige]

Handle shape and material. I was pleased to see two makers I respect raise this point. One key for me is that the knife not dig into the heel of my hand in a sabre grip. The reseprine handles on some SYKCO knives are big offenders. Reseprine is a wonderful handle material, but some of those knives have a flared pommel with corners that dig into my palm in a sabre grip. Fortunately, a little 80-grit will round off those edges so that the knife is as comfortable as it should be. Another common offender is a metal pommel with a lanyard hole. If this bit is toward the top edge it can dig fiercely into my hand. Sometimes there is an edge that can be softened, sometimes cut off the offending bit.
Of course, there is a lot more that goes into making a comfortable handle, but this issue keeps recurring, and the knives that are comfortable are the ones that get used.

 

[Stringjam7]

Frame-lock flippers that close one-handed like glass without having to overcome a jarring speed-bump. (Thank you Les George Myna)

Good liner locks. @David Mary mentioned it earlier.

Grip designs that keep your index finger securely close to the cutting edge without using a finger choil on the blade - exceptions for small knives that make perfect use of choils to account for overall length (ex. Chaparral and CS Tuff Lite).

Grip designs. So much of what boils down to when I absolutely love a knife, like it, or hate it, comes down to the grip. Feel in-hand is something you can only experience when you use a knife, and for me, it trumps so many other attributes in what ends up being my favorites. You can't truly see it in a picture, and you can't put it on a spec sheet, but when you feel it - you know it.

 

[norcalAF]

Frame-lock flippers that close one-handed like glass without having to overcome a jarring speed-bump. (Thank you Les George Myna)

Good liner locks. @David Mary mentioned it earlier.

Grip designs that keep your index finger securely close to the cutting edge without using a finger choil on the blade - exceptions for small knives that make perfect use of choils to account for overall length (ex. Chaparral and CS Tuff Lite).

Grip designs. So much of what boils down to when I absolutely love a knife, like it, or hate it, comes down to the grip. Feel in-hand is something you can only experience when you use a knife, and for me, it trumps so many other attributes in what ends up being my favorites. You can't truly see it in a picture, and you can't put it on a spec sheet, but when you feel it - you know it.

You gotta check out a Holt or a grimsmo, they close like slick snot!

 

[marthinus]

Well finished internals.

 

[DangerZone98]

Frame-lock flippers that close one-handed like glass without having to overcome a jarring speed-bump. (Thank you Les George Myna)

Good liner locks. @David Mary mentioned it earlier.

Grip designs that keep your index finger securely close to the cutting edge without using a finger choil on the blade - exceptions for small knives that make perfect use of choils to account for overall length (ex. Chaparral and CS Tuff Lite).

Grip designs. So much of what boils down to when I absolutely love a knife, like it, or hate it, comes down to the grip. Feel in-hand is something you can only experience when you use a knife, and for me, it trumps so many other attributes in what ends up being my favorites. You can't truly see it in a picture, and you can't put it on a spec sheet, but when you feel it - you know it.

Grip is sadly one of the things you can’t judge with 100% accuracy from product photos. You can’t beat actually handling the knife in person from a real life store.

 

[Crag the Brewer]

Grip is sadly one of the things you can’t judge with 100% accuracy from product photos. You can’t beat actually handling the knife in person from a real life store.

Fortunately, or unfortunately....you do get an idea, after buying lots of knives that won't work....... I know what I Won't buy just by looking at them.

 

[NDGuy]

A good sheath-way too many trash kydex sheaths that scratch the shit out of the knife. I would rather have a meh leather sheath any day of the week.

Nice wood-amazed the garbage I see on some handles. Don't get your material from Lowe's. Use G10/Micarta if you are gonna be cheap on material.

The extras from the maker-stickers, makers card etc. I love the little extras showing character and branding.

 

[Stringjam7]

You gotta check out a Holt or a grimsmo, they close like slick snot!

I have a Holt Haptic liner-lock and it is definitely an impressive piece. I haven't checked out their frame-locks but if it's as good as the Haptic I have no doubts it would close like slick snot!

 

[norcalAF]

I have a Holt Haptic liner-lock and it is definitely an impressive piece. I haven't checked out their frame-locks but if it's as good as the Haptic I have no doubts it would close like slick snot!

Both my ZT0055s are guillotines, one split open my finger when I didn't get it out in time

 

[DangerZone98]

Fortunately, or unfortunately....you do get an idea, after buying lots of knives that won't work....... I know what I Won't buy just by looking at them.

But that idea only hits you tens of thousands of dollars later.

 

[gadgetgeek]

For me, the underhyped features are the ones that just fit into the design and the intended use-case. I don't mind deep pocket or tall pocket clips, but I've passed on a couple knives because the rest of the handle didn't fit the clip. That's subjective, I'll admit, but for example, my UKPK sits just flush with my pocket, decent to grab, but out of the way, and it's not something I need fast. My Native salt, Caribbean, or griptillian sit where I don't need to dig all the way into my pocket to get enough of them to get a deployable grip, or if worst was to happen, I can direct someone to grab then, and they don't need to get deep into my pocket to get to it. Lanyard holes, the bugout's hole set up makes sense for the knife as a whole, it's a design flourish, but I can chuck a mini-biner in there if I need to. Given it's overall design and market, that makes sense.
I like my ESEE-3, but with hindsight and more knowledge I know that at the time, I would have actually liked the handle mod version more, but since the wood here is harder than rc57, and my whiteriver backpacker pro is a better steel for my needs, and sits between the 3 and Izula, and my LT Wright next gen is again a better steel, but also a bit better for getting beaten on than the 3, in design. That said, it took learning to get there, and of the four knives in total, I'm not up shit creek if I only had one. Just that with time, I learned that certain things were a bit more or a bit less necessary.
I have a pretty small hand, and so most folders put the stud in the wrong place for me, they put it for where a big guy will find it easy to use a small knife, instead of fitting it to where it matches with the overall size of the knife.

 

[DrHarmony]

I appreciate minimal branding and screws on the show side of a folder.
Is not a deal breaker, but when a maker puts a web site address on the blade like on my BM Arcane, I feel like they are overdoing it.
Also find it to be a nice touch when a company omits aggressive texture from under the pocket clip.

I love back spacers... Is mildly disappointing when the butt end has a stand off and a lanyard hole sleeve right beside each other. (looks sloppy to me)
Seems I cut a lot of loose plastic and fabrics so thumb studs and sharpening choils snag a lot, but I am really enjoying front flippers and flippers that completely hide into the handle when open.

 

[VorpelSword]

How it feels in my hand is an important but intangable. One cannot specify how a knife feels on a spec sheet or engineering drawing.

I like a knife that feels comfortable and controllable whether it is held edge up or edge down, point forward or reversed.

Visually, I like a knife with a smooth profile and graceful grind lines. I seem to prefer what Randall Made calls a "Border Patrol:" grip profile. The Iconic Spyderco thumb hole and hump are esthetically jarring (it looks like an Alligator to me.).

In a folding knife, I like the "flipper" style of deployment and a dropped point. I like the Colombis River M21, but wish it was a higher end premium knife in Magnicut and with a titanium frame lock . . .and made by Chris Reeve.

To be sure, some of this ignores the form-derived-from-function concept, but let's just drop that into eye-of-the-beholder arena.

 

[onekerf]

A folder that has scales which effectively conceal the blade enough when closed, to where I can’t catch my finger/thumb on the blade tip, no matter the grip on the closed knife. A positive for me.

 

[Huntsman Knife Co. LLC.]

1. Ergonomic handles you can use all day and make hard cuts with. I see so many knives with these sharp scalloped scales. Holy hot spots.

2. LIGHT WEIGHT- this is such a big one. Most big knives are way too heavy. Making a big knife light weight without compromising strength is very challenging and costly. Most manufacturers just skip it all together and don't list the weight of their blades. A huge amount of the expense in my own knives comes from cutting out weight.

Also, thin stock. Making a thin knife is HARD. Harder to get right when grinding or milling, thinner steel is actually more expensive per/lbs, and warpage is a constant threat. When I see an ultra thin knife, I'm impressed.

3. A truly clean stonewashed finish. Easy on small knives, very challenging on big blades. To get a good stonewash you have to sand the entire blade to at least 400grit and tumble for around 4 hours with good media. It's harder to get right than a satin finish. A big blade thats been stonewashed and has zero grit or tooling marks is truly a thing to behold.

4. Thick scales. Alot of knives use undersized scales (probably to save cost) A handle for a hard user needs to be beefy and have contours.