This was my first "serious" knife purchase and I'm fortunate enough to have found it every time I thought I've lost it. I remember way back in 2008, when I bought it, I liked the spring assist, the minimalistic design, the small form factor, and the wharncliffe-esque blade.
Today I'm glad to have chosen the Leek because it taught me a lot about using knives. Let's run through all my dumb mistakes and lessons.
-First, sometimes within 2 years of owning the blade..... I destroyed the tempering. I don't remember wth for, but I did haha. I was 19, give me a break. I didn't even realize until I finally got another knife and noticed a HUGE difference in sharpening the Dozier's Aus8. I read up on tempering and did the best I could without a forge. It's still a bit soft, but much better than before. (notice how the coating has heat discoloration. at that point I also decided to heat-bronze the screws just for kicks)
-Second, I let the pivot dry out and gum up so much that it spun with the screw and wouldn't come loose. I resorted to cutting a flathead slot into the opposite side. Loc-tite, I keep it in stock now.
Sometime after that I tried using it to cut a fairly large square notch into bit of wood and a few cm snapped off the tip. Woops!
Reground the tip and found the pseudo-tanto shape to be more to my liking than the original! The fairly straight wharncliffe shape cuts well when you use it like an X-acto knife, but it didn't do draw cuts well. The regrind is 1/4" wide and is still fairly precise while adding a mini-belly to the knife.
Still though, the lesson was to be more discerning about choosing what tool for what job.
-Third, I closed the blade on the detent lock one too many times and it snapped off. The spring assist still provided enough detent that I carried it that way for another 3 years. The clip also slowly kept riding itself out of my pocket whenever I'd sit. So I got rid of it eventually and I've been pocket carrying my folders ever since.
-Just today, my spring cracked! At some point today it just refused to fire. I took it apart and found it had indeed fractured. 6 years is pretty good for being used and abused a whole lot, imo.
I removed the spring mechanism completely and tightened up everything just a bit. Detent-by-friction seems good so I'll still use it.
I'm that way with most of my stuff; use until unusable
Any of you have a similar learning experience with a knife?
Today I'm glad to have chosen the Leek because it taught me a lot about using knives. Let's run through all my dumb mistakes and lessons.
-First, sometimes within 2 years of owning the blade..... I destroyed the tempering. I don't remember wth for, but I did haha. I was 19, give me a break. I didn't even realize until I finally got another knife and noticed a HUGE difference in sharpening the Dozier's Aus8. I read up on tempering and did the best I could without a forge. It's still a bit soft, but much better than before. (notice how the coating has heat discoloration. at that point I also decided to heat-bronze the screws just for kicks)
-Second, I let the pivot dry out and gum up so much that it spun with the screw and wouldn't come loose. I resorted to cutting a flathead slot into the opposite side. Loc-tite, I keep it in stock now.
Sometime after that I tried using it to cut a fairly large square notch into bit of wood and a few cm snapped off the tip. Woops!
Reground the tip and found the pseudo-tanto shape to be more to my liking than the original! The fairly straight wharncliffe shape cuts well when you use it like an X-acto knife, but it didn't do draw cuts well. The regrind is 1/4" wide and is still fairly precise while adding a mini-belly to the knife. Still though, the lesson was to be more discerning about choosing what tool for what job.
-Third, I closed the blade on the detent lock one too many times and it snapped off. The spring assist still provided enough detent that I carried it that way for another 3 years. The clip also slowly kept riding itself out of my pocket whenever I'd sit. So I got rid of it eventually and I've been pocket carrying my folders ever since.
-Just today, my spring cracked! At some point today it just refused to fire. I took it apart and found it had indeed fractured. 6 years is pretty good for being used and abused a whole lot, imo.
I removed the spring mechanism completely and tightened up everything just a bit. Detent-by-friction seems good so I'll still use it.
I'm that way with most of my stuff; use until unusable
Any of you have a similar learning experience with a knife?
