My Tenacious PE Just Arrived

rpttrsn

rpttrsn

Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Messages
1,347
I haven't purchased a Spyderco in awhile and this just arrived by USPS today. Was concerned with the quality since it is made in China. Thanks to this forum I felt from the reviews it would be worth taking a shot. Glad I did. For a $30. knife it's seems well worth the money. Very sharp. Didn't have to touch it up as with many new ones. The Tenacious looks like it will be a great slicer. Now waiting for the Para Military Green G10 to reach my doorstep. Keep up the the good work Sal Glesser. I almost forgot what fine knives you guys make.:thumbup:

P1010023-vi.jpg


About 3/4 hour after this post The Green D2 Paramilitary stopped by to live here. Big Brown dropped it off. Today is my Lucky Day.
 
Last edited:
Looking real good and 2 new knives over the weekend will make your thumb go sore.

Have a Tenacious PE coming aswell and i missed the darn fedex truck that was by my home today so i will have to wait untill monday.
 
Last edited:
I got mine this week too, and so far I like it, especially given the price. I bought because of the flat grind/price combination.

Unfortunately it was not sharp at all when I got it, which is unusual for a Spyderco, regardless of its country of origin. On the other hand, I generally reprofile the primary edge of all of my knives, so ultimately the edge it had was inconsequential. However, it's always nice when a knife will actually cut stuff when it's new. This knife would not even slice newspaper. So far I'm not happy with the edge I've been able to put on it, although that could be a result of the steel or heat treatment, but I'll keep trying.

The construction is superior to any knife of mainland China origin that I've ever handled. It's sturdy, and the lock is solid. It opens and close smoothely, which is probably the biggest surprise for a knife from China. In fact, it just feels like a well made knife.

This knife will be my primary "around the house" knife for a while since I lost my Buck 110 with the BG-42 blade. I'm also now motivated to try to find one of the flat grind Enduras that I've seen mentioned here, but I've not seen for sale.
 
Sorry to hear that your Tenacious wasn't sharp out of the box. I was more fortunate as mine was as sharp as the Paramilitary. For a $30 knife I was impressed with the manufacturing job out of China also. I guess that's due to Spyderco's influence. I would recommend this knife to anyone who doesn't want to spend allot for a pocket knife. I hope you get the edge you want.
 
Yeah, it's good now. Took some effort, and I don't know how long it last, but it's adequately sharp now. Given Spyderco's track record, I think mine was an anomaly, or perhaps someone along the way used it and put it back in the back. :D

Anyway, I'd expect most samples to be sharp and I would not hesitate to recommend this knife to someone else.
 
rhino said:
Yeah, it's good now. Took some effort, and I don't know how long it last, but it's adequately sharp now. Given Spyderco's track record, I think mine was an anomaly, or perhaps someone along the way used it and put it back in the back. :D

Anyway, I'd expect most samples to be sharp and I would not hesitate to recommend this knife to someone else.
Click to expand...
I don't think it's an anomaly, mine was like that too (PE, haven't owned a SE or CE yet).

Great lockup (especially for a linerlock), smooth action with minimal tweaking, and, after about 20-30 mintues work, a very decent edge that seems to last a while.
 
Hmmm ... maybe the people in China who do the final sharpening need some additional instruction? One of the (many) strengths of Spyderco is that when you see the Spyder on the box, you can expect the knife inside to be really sharp.
 
My Tenacious was sharper than the majority of new knives but not as sharp as most Spydercos I've purchased. It's of little consequence for me because like you I reprofile all my knives.
 
I have had a tenacious plain edge on order from the knifecenter since they first started taking pre orders a couple of months ago.They keep telling me there is a supply issue,seems kind of fishy with all the plain edge knives I see on the forums.It does look like it will be worth the wait.
 
Hi Matt,

Knife Center is telling you the truth. There has been a supply issue. The original run sold faster than we had expected. We have sured up future production, but there is month lag in the schedule. Sorry.

sal
 
I will try to hang in there,but it has been months.....as long as it lives up to my other spyderco knives it will be worth it.
 
I'm still favorably impressed by the design, construction, and sturdiness of my Tenacious.

I'm not thrilled by the blade though. The shape and profile are fine. However, when I sharpen it (using progressively finer diamond rods) I can get a good edge (that pops arm hair). Unfortunately, the edge does not stay that sharp, even if I don't use it. I'm thinking that maybe I'm trying for an edge that is too thin for this steel/heat treatment combination to support, kind of like when you go too thin with 440C (because of the relatively huge iron carbides it forms). Slicing performance right after sharpening is not bad, but wait a few hours and it slides across a plastic wrapper before biting a little and finally slicing it.

I'm trying a slightly thicker edge now. It's not the way I like it, but at least it stays as sharp as I made until I use it for a while.

Contrast this with all of the other Spydercos I've owned. Lately they've been G10, and before that AUS8A (my favorite stainless overall) plus whatever the original Police Model steel was (G2?). All of those were reprofiled and some have held that hair-popping edge for months or even years without use, so I'm obviously not pushing their limits.

Methinks a Tenacious in AUS8A might be a significant improvement (by my standards), at a similar price point (unless this 8Cr13MoV is a lot cheaper to machine).
 
Sal Glesser said:
Hi Matt,

Knife Center is telling you the truth. There has been a supply issue. The original run sold faster than we had expected. We have sured up future production, but there is month lag in the schedule. Sorry.

sal
Click to expand...

I just wanted to say, great customer-care feedback (note, I'm named Matt, but I'm not the Matt who Sal's replying to).
 
It's been a little less than two weeks since my last update on my Tenacious. After using that time, I am disappointed with the knife as a cutting tool. I really don't enjoy giving negative feedback on a product from a fine company, but I also wouldn't hesitate to praise this knife if it performed well.

My sample just isn't a good cutting tool. I can get it sharp, but doing so much as opening an envelope greatly diminishes the sharpness, and just a couple of cuts makes it necessary to do a little touch-up of the edge. It won't last through breaking down a cardboard box, for instance, without a touch-up.

I will reiterate that the mechanical parts of the knife are superb. I love the blade shape and flat grind (although it's a bit short for my liking), which is why I bought it given the price point. It opens as smoothely and locks as solidly as any knife I own. It just has a good feel in the hand.

I'm not sure what's wrong with the blade itself. Perhaps the heat treatment is inadequate. Perhaps I reprofiled the edge thinner than this steel/heat treatment could support. I suspect that the edge might have lasted longer with the orignal edge profile, but a semi-sharp knife whose edge lasts marginally longer than an adequately sharp knife doesn't interest me much.

I've never had this issue with other Spydercos, including a couple of Enduras and a Police Model. They all performed nicely after thinning the primary edge bevel as much as possible.
 
Rhino, How far over does your liner lock move to the right? mine goes all the way to other liner with no room for break in or wear. I like the way it cuts and it has held a edge well so far. ( about 3 weeks) It is locking up tight but it bugs me.
 
Rhino that's weird behaviour. I've taken this steel down very thin (10 degrees inclusive with a microbevel approx.) and haven't had edge holding issues. Granted the steel doesn't hold an edge as long as others, but I'm able to break down plenty of cardboard before it needs touched up.

You have ground off the factory edge?
 
LG&M said:
Rhino, How far over does your liner lock move to the right? mine goes all the way to other liner with no room for break in or wear. I like the way it cuts and it has held a edge well so far. ( about 3 weeks) It is locking up tight but it bugs me.
Click to expand...


Mine locks into place just to the right "center" where it meets the blade's tang. Using my Mark I eyeball, there is at least a quarter, maybe half a millimeter of space left on the right between it and the liner.
 
Vivi said:
Rhino that's weird behaviour. I've taken this steel down very thin (10 degrees inclusive with a microbevel approx.) and haven't had edge holding issues. Granted the steel doesn't hold an edge as long as others, but I'm able to break down plenty of cardboard before it needs touched up.

You have ground off the factory edge?
Click to expand...

I have the bevel down to where it just matches the primary grind of the blade. Microbevel is done by "feel" to remove whatever wire edge is left. I do it all by hand, so maybe I'd have better results if I used a jig or machine, but I do okay with my other knives.

After sharpening, it will pop arm hair hair. If I slice open an envelope or two, it will only scrape arm hair. A little more cutting and it will slide across my thumbnail without biting into at all.

I've tried finishing with finer (DMT Green) and coarser diamond abrasives (DMT kitchen knife "steel"), with not much difference in results.

I'm not really motivated to spend much more time with it, especially since I have a lot less "free" time than I've enjoyed in the past.
 
I wonder if maybe you have one with a bad heat treat then.

I just put a fresh edge on my Tenacious using a fine DMT stone then stropped to hair popping sharpness so I could replicate your casual testing. I confined all cutting to the first inch of cutting edge.

After slicing opening two standard envelopes mine would still pop hairs but I felt a slight degradation of sharpness.

I then sliced about two feet of dirty corrugated cardboard going against the grain. The part closest to the handle still pops hairs, the last half inch of the test area only scrapes. The part further away was in contact with the cardboard more during the cut. The duller part could still whittle off slivers of my fingernails.

After two more feet the edge didn't dull noticably. Still scrapes on the dull part, still pops hairs on the part of the edge right next to the handle.

I cut about 10 more feet of the cardboard, cutting through some industrial glue too. The edge had little hair scraping ability on my testing areas of my arm* but on long hairs it worked better. It could slice the envelope effortlessly and could push cut through it if I started the cut with a slice. It caught on my fingernail without issue.

*When I talk about shaving arm hair I'm actually referring to stubble. I constantly test sharpness on my left fore arm so the hair never re-grows full length. So when I say it started at hair popping sharp, it was popping off 2 mm pieces of hair, not full length ones. Thought I should specify.

If you have any interest in doing so I can mail you my Tenacious to compare with yours.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top