Quick impressions of Kershaw JYD

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ehhh

ehhh

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Got a small Kershaw JYD yesterday and did a quick test of it on a small cardboard box.

I bought it lightly used, and touched up the edge on my Sharpmaker real quick. I must say the 13C26 steel is real easy to sharpen and it gets very sharp. It's very similar to my Leek in 440A in that regard, though I'll give 13C26 the nod in sharpness. One thing I'm not a fan of and have seen on all 3 Kershaws I've handled (Leek, ZDP Leek, JYD) is a poorly done edge. Whoever sharpens the knives seems to match the size of the bevel on both sides so it looks nice. But when I looked down the edge of my Kershaws, they all have very uneven edges with one side less than 20 degrees and the other side more than 20 degrees. It still cuts fine, but it's kind of a pain to sharpen on the Sharpmaker. I guess I'll just have to reprofile it.

The overall fit and finish is very good, though I find that a lot of the cheaper Kershaws have rather soft grinds that are reminiscent of Chinese and Taiwanese imports. I wish the grinds looked nicer, but that would probably raise the price. And regardless of the looks, Kershaw makes great users.

Anyhow, back to my short test drive: I cut up a small USPS box with both the Leek and the JYD and I'd give the Leek the nod when it comes to light cutting like that. The JYD is a slightly stouter knife with a stronger looking blade. The blade is about 1/8" thick (.121"), which is beefier than most 3" folders I've handled, and the scales are about 3/32" thick (.090). The cutout for the framelock is a little thinner than I'd like (.030"), but for such a small knife it shouldn't matter much. It cuts very well thanks to its high flat grind and good belly.

Opening it takes a little wrist flick, unless you loosen the pivot to the point of having the blade rattle without the lockbar touching it.
The handle is rather short feeling, even for a small folder. I can get a normal grip on my other 3 inchers, but the flipper takes up a lot of room so I need to cram my fingers on the handle or use a 3 finger grip. I have somewhat smaller hands, so this may be a problem for those with larger hands. The handle shape is nice though, and it feels very secure.

All in all, the steel performs similarly to 440A so far, and it's a fine knife for the price. I wish they wouldn't put those silly graphics on the handle though...I think that really detracts from it. I'll post up a more in depth review after I've used it longer.

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ehhh, sorry to hear that the JYD didn't do it for you.

To comment on a few of your generalities about Kershaw Knives, Kai USA, first I am puzzled by the "soft grinds" comments. This is the first time I have heard anyone complain about our grinds, and would love to hear more about our USA made knives resembling that of cheap imports.

We also don't hear many that have been disappointed with our edges. With our output, I suppose there may be an occasional edge that is not perfectly centered, but we're pretty damn good.

We have also found there is little comparison with regards to performance when pitting 13C26 to 440A. Most on this forum have also found the same. Hopefully your long term use will prove that out as well.

The JYD doesn't really need a wrist flick, but more needs the user to be proficient with their flipping technique. A little more practice may be in order.

The "silly" graphics come from the custom makers (Tim Galyean's) original JYD design. We thought it was quite patriotic and fun, not sure "silly" entered into our or Tim's discussion on final details.

Here is a link to Tim's fantastic knives.
http://www.galyeancustom.com/
Tim's custom's would currently be considered on the "hot" list.

I'll look for your more in depth review in the future.
 
Hi Thomas,

Actually, the JYD does it quite well for me and I like it. I didn't think my review came across as negative as a whole, just a few rough spots.

I'm not sure what you're confused about with the soft grinds, but I feel they just aren't as crisp as the grinds of many competing US manufacturers. This only applies to some of the cheaper Kershaws like the Leek and the JYD. My ZDP Leek had great looking grinds. Does this matter to me much? No, because it's a cheap knife that makes a great user. I guess it's the beadblast process that softens up the grinds?

Your edges cut fine, they are just uneven in all my experiences. I'll try to take some pics of the JYD edge if you'd like. I already reprofiled my Leek and sold my ZDP Leek.

With regards to 13C26, it performs like 440A so far and I have not used it that much yet. I expect it to be a little better, but I don't expect it to outperform many of todays supersteels in edge holding ability. That said, it touches up easily and gets incredibly sharp. Better than 440A in sharpness I would say. I don't think I cut enough to really see how the edge holding is, but in general it seems pretty close to 440A. In my opinion, 13C26 has been hyped up a little on these forums this past summer. I'm still waiting for that full hard 13C26 run of Leeks you guys were planning to do :D Is that still in the works?

After I tightened the pivot a bit, I could no longer open the knife even by loading up pressure on the flipper. It has to be kind of loose for it to work without the wrist flick, but I don't see that as a problem. I like my knives a little on the tighter side because I live in NY and I don't flick my knives anyways. I'm sure the average user will have no problem if they leave the pivot loose enough. Maybe I could use a little more practice though. Currently with the pivot where it is I can flip it out about 3/4 without a slight flick. I also do not oil my knives, so that could be another thing.

The graphics are a personal taste kind of thing. I don't really like them, and I've heard other people don't like them. I'm sure some people think they're great. I'm not really picking on Kershaw here, just saying I'd rather have one without the graphics.

Just my honest 2c about the knife. Great knife in my opinion and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who wants an affordable user. Thanks for stopping by Thomas, if you have anymore questions don't hesitate to ask :thumbup:
 
ehhh said:
I bought it lightly used, and touched up the edge on my Sharpmaker real quick.
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When I first read your post I thought you bought a NEW knife.
Were your other purchases previous users?

Please don't take this personal, but if you didn't like
the graphics (how the knife looked) why did you buy it?

Were there other factors that outweighed what it looked like?

mike
 
ehhh said:
In my opinion, 13C26 has been hyped up a little on these forums this past summer.
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Hyped by whom? If anything, 13C26 was thoroughly discussed, and if anything it was dragged through the mud on the forum.

I'm still waiting for that full hard 13C26 run of Leeks you guys were planning to do :D Is that still in the works?
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Full hard, sorry ehhh, again it seems I'm confused with what you mean. At what hardness do you feel 13C26 is best optimized at?

I am going to start working on identifying a soft grind though. Thought I had a better eye than apparently I do.
 
People praise 13C26 all over these forums for being very fine grained and stable with a thin edge, but they're usually referring to it at 64HRC. I don't really expect the JYD to be much different from 440A at this hardness, but I like 440A just fine. 440A is likely very stable at the edge too. I've had great experience with it in the Leek.

64HRC would be the hardness I'm thinking of, though I don't know if that's optimal because I've never used the steel before this. I remember hearing mention of a run of Leeks at that hardness.

Mike: Were what other purchases users? My Leek and ZDP Leek were bought brand new, and the JYD is like new. I don't like the graphics, but the knife was bought to be a user so I don't really care.
 
I like the grinds on the NRG, and yeah they do look nice and crisp. I think the softness of the grind in the 440A Leek and JYD is because of the fine beadblast or whatever finish it is.
 
ehhh said:
People praise 13C26 all over these forums for being very fine grained and stable with a thin edge, but they're usually referring to it at 64HRC.
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I challenge you to find more than 2 people (other than myself) that have even held a 13C26 blade at that hardness. Heck, name me one production knife ever run at that hardness. Could it be there is a reason that there isn't such an animal?

I'm unsure how one can praise a steel run at a certain high hardness that really doesn't exist, but it seems I am a step behind in this thread as a whole.

Please don't make go back and find the trash threads that dominate 13C26.
 
ehhh said:
I'm not sure what you're confused about with the soft grinds, but I feel they just aren't as crisp as the grinds of many competing US manufacturers. This only applies to some of the cheaper Kershaws like the Leek and the JYD. My ZDP Leek had great looking grinds. Does this matter to me much? No, because it's a cheap knife that makes a great user. I guess it's the beadblast process that softens up the grinds?
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I think I understand what you are talking about with the soft grinds (though I don't see it as a negative thing), I think that your guess about the beadblast process is probably right. I have Leeks with satin finished blades that have grinds just as crisp as my considerably more expensive Ti Bumps. Here is an S30V example of the Leek, I also have a nearly identical 440 Leek blade.
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Here are the SG2 Blur and SG2 Junkyard Dog II, both have a bead blasted finish and you'll notice a correspondingly softer grind. I can guarantee that just as much care went into grinding these blades as the above Leek, and I'll bet grind was just as crisp before the bead blast. If you have millions of tiny beads colliding at high velocity with a ridge, you should expect a bit of erosion or deformation.
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I guess I always have associated a bead blasted finish with a grind that looks that way. Do you have any examples of a really crisp grind with a really matte bead blasted finish? They must be difficult to do, I'd love to see one (it's got to look pretty amazing).
 
By the way, on the flipping thing, don't give up. You definitely should be able to open it with the flipper without the wrist flip. I taught my girlfriend to flip mine after only a few tries. The pivot on mine is set tight enough that anyone you hand it to (that hasn't done it before) will generally only get it to open about a third of the way, if even that far. The tension on mine is actually the factory set tension and there is no play on the blade at all. Once you get the hang of it, you can flip it in any orientation without using your wrist.
 
For the record, I recently bought a Damascus Leek and the edge was extremely sharp out of the box and the grind was even. I was very impressed with it.
 
I'm not really sure why you're so aggressive towards me in this thread Thomas, but ok. STR and thombrogan have handled a 64HRC Kershaw Storm iirc, and a number of other people have talked about high hardness 13C26. Anyways, that's where I've seen 13C26 get hyped up a lot. Now I don't expect 13C26 in the JYD to be better than supersteels, but I don't see anything wrong with that considering it's a $40 knife. I don't see what's wrong with comparing it to 440A in a similarly priced Leek. In my limited experience, it performs like 440A, which I think is a fine steel. After using it more, I can have a better say about it's performance, but I expect it to be similar.

Kneedeep, yeah the ZDP Leek I had had nice grinds on it.
My Buck/Strider SP881 has a coarser blast finish and has fairly crisp grinds on it. It's pretty nice, I'll post pictures of it later. Again, I'm not saying that this is a real killer for Kershaw, but just something I noted in my review. I don't really understand all the controversy behind it, because it's just my honest opinion.

Kaizen1, yeah Kershaw does put good edges on their knives. Mine just happen to be a bit uneven.
 
ehhh said:
Kneedeep, yeah the ZDP Leek I had had nice grinds on it.
My Buck/Strider SP881 has a coarser blast finish and has fairly crisp grinds on it. It's pretty nice, I'll post pictures of it later. Again, I'm not saying that this is a real killer for Kershaw, but just something I noted in my review. I don't really understand all the controversy behind it, because it's just my honest opinion.
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I think the controversy is in the implication that the perceived soft grind is a quality issue that equates U.S. made Kershaws to Chinese and Taiwanese imports. I realize that you are simply saying that the look of the grind reminds you of the imports, but as you even mentioned it is likely a result of the bead blast process (the pictures I posted show it is a bead blast thing, not a price thing). I know that Kershaw takes quite a bit of pride in their efforts to keep as much of their production in the USA, and that sort of generalization can be taken as insulting.

I look forward to seeing the pics of the SP881.

Of course this is an open forum, and I look forward to reading everyones honest opinions. Of course we have to expect that not everyone's opinion will agree with one's own. :)
 
Imports aren't necessarily poor products, they generally have softer grinds though. Just an observation of mine and I don't really know why we have a Kershaw employee coming in here and more or less trying to hurt my credibility by saying "what soft grinds? I don't see them." I understand they take pride in their products, but in my opinion, that is bad business to step in and tell the customer they are wrong.

Please understand that I like Kershaw knives, so I'm not here to bash them. My most used knife is probably my Leek, and I think the JYD is a damn good knife. No need to get defensive and even aggressive about the review. It certainly doesn't raise my opinion of Kershaw one bit, and I think it's safe to say others may share that sentiment. Take the review in good stride, make improvements to the product if you think they can be done and should be done, and everyone wins. I personally don't think the soft grinds are a big deal at all.

Here's an old pic of my 881. The grind lines are clear and crisp on it. It's quite a nice knife.
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Not my intention to be aggressive ehhh sorry bout that. Just got my eyebrow raised with the choice of some of your words
 
ehhh said:
...I don't really know why we have a Kershaw employee coming in here and more or less trying to hurt my credibility...I understand they take pride in their products, but in my opinion, that is bad business to step in and tell the customer they are wrong.
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Tell you what ehhh, don't want to be bad for biz, so let's just say that your right, I'm wrong (on multiple levels), and it's time for me to move on.
 
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