Passaround Lum Chinese.

[Keith Montgomery]

I have had this knife for three days and have used it for a variety of tasks. It has done a great job of both slicing and push cutting, It works well as an everyday utility folder.

The handle is ok, but never feels really comfortable in my hand. The clip is not too much of a bother even when doing heavy wood cutting, but I do prefer the feel of the knife without the clip. Since this knife allows for both tip up and tip down carry, I tried it both ways. My preference was for tip down, it was easier for me to get the knife out of my pocket with this orientation. The handle also felt a little to slippery to me. It never felt really secure.

I really like the leaf shaped blade. This blade worked great on everything I used it for. I never tried skinning anything with it, but I did sharpen a few large sticks and pencils, cut rope, cardboard, tape and some canvas. It did a fantastic job every time. It was also very good at penetrating. I pushed it through one of those plastic 5 gallon water bottles multiple times and it did this very admirably.

I was expecting VG-10 to be a little hard to sharpen; it wasn't difficult at all. A minute or so on my bench stone and the edge was as sharp as I like it. This VG-10 seems to be a very good steel.

The action of this knife is smooth and solid. No play in any direction. It opens very easily, but I never had a problem with it opening when in my pocket. love that Spydie hole.

The lock is not as robust as I like and it was very easy to get it to flex, but it always held.

What I liked the most about this knife was the blade. I would be interested in trying other knives with leaf shaped blades. The Quandong by Hanwei (Available from CAS Iberia) is a knife I am going to take a look at. What i like least about the Lum was the fact that the handle never felt quite right in my hand. This may not be a problem for other though.

The Lum came with a Kydex neck sheath by Normark. This is not standard for this knife. It held the knife very securely. In fact, in my opinion it held the knife too securely. It was difficult for me to get the knife out with giving it a very hard, strong tug or prying the sheath open a little with my finger tips. Overall I like this carry system, but would like it to hold on a little less tightly.

Edited to correct some typos

 

[numberthree]

The Lum arrived today, and I opened it with much anticipation. It's a great looking knife and I was pleasantly surprised that it's the blue handled model; I like the green too, but I already have a Salsa with a green hnadle and was curious what the blue would look like. The blade is definitely an very interesting shape, somehow elegant and utilitarian at the same time. It makes me yearn all the more for a flat-ground Native, since the point and general curves of the Lum's blade are reminiscent of those of the Native. This was my first encounter with VG-10 steel, another aspect of the Lum I was very curious about. While the blade wasn't particulary sharp when I got it, it did not take much effort to get a scary sharp edge on it. I like VG-10! It's easy to sharpen, and after a couple of hours of whittling things, making fuzz sticks, and finally cutting off those xmas tree branches that were too long, it seems to have retained the edge well.

Now for what I don't like about this knife:

Unfortunately, it's typical of Spyderco that their upper end models are very rarely ambidextrous in any way. The Lum, sadly, is no different. The clip is switchable to tip up or down, but for want of 6 simple holes on the other side of the knife, it cannot be switched to left hand carry. Come on guys, spend 2 extra minutes on the drill press, add the 5 bucks to the price of the knife and add 10% to your market share of upper end knives. /rant. Also, the liner lock is righty, but I was able to figure out a reasonable way of operating it safely. The cutout for the lock allows the right hander access to the lock when the knife is open, and the spyderhole when the knife is closed. Opening the knife left handed is slightly more difficult thanks to the lack of a cutout on the other side; the hole is slightly occluded by the grips on that side of the knife, and the clip is somewhat in the path of your thumb's travel as it approaches the hole. There is some minor contact with the lock while my hand is in an operational postion on the knife, so there is some theoretical risk of accidentally disengaging the lock if one were to use this knife left handed.

Normark's neck rig is stellar of course, and seemed to be the right balance of tightness for me. I know Keith found it too tight, but I could just barely pop it out of the sheath with a sharp shake, allowing gravity to drop the knife. This is a good test for a neck rig, since a fall or jump can provide similar conditions when the rig is on your neck, and it's nice to know if you're gonna have steel loose in your shirt. I want a rig to be tight enough to not drop the knife easily and still be able to quickly pull it out without undue effort. A reasonable pull gets it out very nicely, but that's such a subjective thing, it's going to be different for everyone... That being said, I probably wouldn't carry a knife like this around my neck, as I find it's too much fiddling to get the knife out, indexed and open. I prefer to carry less used, but important survival-type knives there, such as my SAK Trailmaster (also in a Normark neck rig). It provides a redundant knife blade, some basic tools, an LED flashlight, a highly effective saw, and a ferro rod, all in a discrete, carry-and-forget package. A folder like the Lum is much faster and more useful directly out of your pocket.

Overall this is a very nice little blade. Strangely, though I was hotly anticipating trying this one out, I am less inclined to buy one now that I've used it. It's just too anti-lefty to be a truly comfortable EDC. The minor annoyances of clip placement, lack of cutout, etc add up to a higher risk of fumbling the knife, or cutting myself accidentally. If it was a bit cheaper, I'd be less picky about the details, but for us Canucks, this thing costs about $200 or more. Still, it's a quality blade which has sold me on VG-10 so far, so I guess Spyderco will see yet more of my business.

Huge thanks to Dave H for making this possible north of the border.
And thanks to everyone for their patience so far...

I'll keep it for another couple of days and then send it to Vampyrewolf...

 

[VampyreWolf]

Posted initial opinion on the 26th right after I recieved...

after using it for a couple days, I'll be shipping it to Wyrm on monday.

I had handled the knife instore, so I knew it would be worth trying out. I've had my Calypso jr lt in VG-10 since Oct 26, 2001... and love flat ground VG-10 PE.

I used it on 50 boxes today at work, after sharpening it last night(cut paper but wouldn't shave... 800grit benchstone fixed that). It's not as great as my c52, as it doesn't shave right now(did 80 and shaved with the c52 once), but it's still sweet. Blenty of useable belly...

the heft of this sucker remind you that it's there... pocket or neck

now for the griping/rant...
*tapered metal handle = lack of grip... add cold/wet hands in and it gets damn slippery.
*lack of choil.
*false edge on spine gets in the way of a comfy thumb spot(love my millie).
*the rig takes too much of a tug to get out... and snapping it back in was a pain when done one handed.

sunday night will see the kitchen use... and a few notes added to this one.