I have been carrying the Spec Bump exclusively for 3 weeks during my x-mas trip and thought it might be time for a quick review:
All in all I have come to love this knife. The knife feels well made and the handle ergos are great. For me a knife needs to feel right in the hand and this one does like the best of them.
The edgeholding of the new steel CPM 154 is, unsurprisingly, very good, though I would have a hard time distinguishing it from 154 CM/ATS-34. It does feel and look a little odd on the stone (but I would be hard pressed to quantify, or explain that, it almost feels powdery?), and seems to burr very little and is thus quite easy to get very sharp.
I would have like to see the belly a little further to the tip and a little more curvature in the front part of the blade, but it performs very well as it is and the straight edge with the high tip allows easy work on the cutting board without scraping you knuckles. The DLC coating of the blade is excellent and very tough. However, a sharpening stone makes short work of the coating (see below).
Which brings me to the only drawback of this knife. Disregarding what I said earlier. The factory profile of edge I would rate as poor. Another victim to the "combat blade" trend. Once properly reprofiled to something like 15 deg per side, the blade really shines and the cutting performance of the high saber grind and dramatic recurve is equally dramatic.
Of course, reprofiling of this recurve is not easy and it took me a while to get the hang of it. In the end the best way I found was with fairly wide and only gently curved slipstones standing on the small side, moving the blade with short strokes (the slipstones I have are quite short), like on an ordinary benchstone. Before, I tried holding the knife edge up and the slipstone at the proper angle, moving the stone but couldn't develop the necessary pressure for reprofiling and slipped several times over the edge of the stone which scratched up the blade coating pretty badly...oh well, its a user anyways. Once I had found the right way to do it, reprofiling was easier that I would have expected and I did not scratch the coating any further. The final sharpening of the recurved part I did on the Sharpmaker with fine and UF rods at 15 deg per side and on the edge of a leather strop (which works surprisingly well) which very satisfactory results.
The front part including the belly I sharpened on my usual benchstones and got excellent results with out a hitch. As I said, even though the steels feels a bit weired on the stone, it takes a very good edge very easily with very little burring and polishes up very nicely. Without wanting to quantify it, my experience reprofiling the edge indicates that CPM 154 doesn't have nearly the wear resistance of CPM S30V but edge holding in practice was good.
The other high point of this knife aside from the handle is the lock. I have come to really like Studlock. Very reliable, and you get an immediate visual indication of the engagement and whether there is any crud trapped. Seems to be very strong too, but to me reliability is more important than ultimate strength. I haven't tried to white knuckle it with maximum strength, but there is no slipping with medium strength or under spinewacks. Eventually I am sure the stud or the ridge in the blade that holds the Stud will break but I have no need to test when that will be. The most critical failure that this lock might undergo is the failure of the little spring that pushes the stud. But it is a stainless coil spring and I don't really expect that to fail anytime soon.
The lock is very easy to operate. Even if it doesn't allow the flashy "flicking-it-closed" like the Axis- or the Comp-lock (which wouldn't work on the Spec bump anyway because of the assisted opening) but it is easy enough to close the knife one-handed. One-handed opening is of course quite literally "a snap" because of the assisted opening. The assisted opening should, I think, have a higher initial resistance. I did have it open on me once rather unexpectedly, but it has never opened in my pocket as I feared.
Bottom line: An excellent knife that made it easily into my list of favorites and at the current price almost a bargain for what you get!
All in all I have come to love this knife. The knife feels well made and the handle ergos are great. For me a knife needs to feel right in the hand and this one does like the best of them.
The edgeholding of the new steel CPM 154 is, unsurprisingly, very good, though I would have a hard time distinguishing it from 154 CM/ATS-34. It does feel and look a little odd on the stone (but I would be hard pressed to quantify, or explain that, it almost feels powdery?), and seems to burr very little and is thus quite easy to get very sharp.
I would have like to see the belly a little further to the tip and a little more curvature in the front part of the blade, but it performs very well as it is and the straight edge with the high tip allows easy work on the cutting board without scraping you knuckles. The DLC coating of the blade is excellent and very tough. However, a sharpening stone makes short work of the coating (see below).
Which brings me to the only drawback of this knife. Disregarding what I said earlier. The factory profile of edge I would rate as poor. Another victim to the "combat blade" trend. Once properly reprofiled to something like 15 deg per side, the blade really shines and the cutting performance of the high saber grind and dramatic recurve is equally dramatic.
Of course, reprofiling of this recurve is not easy and it took me a while to get the hang of it. In the end the best way I found was with fairly wide and only gently curved slipstones standing on the small side, moving the blade with short strokes (the slipstones I have are quite short), like on an ordinary benchstone. Before, I tried holding the knife edge up and the slipstone at the proper angle, moving the stone but couldn't develop the necessary pressure for reprofiling and slipped several times over the edge of the stone which scratched up the blade coating pretty badly...oh well, its a user anyways. Once I had found the right way to do it, reprofiling was easier that I would have expected and I did not scratch the coating any further. The final sharpening of the recurved part I did on the Sharpmaker with fine and UF rods at 15 deg per side and on the edge of a leather strop (which works surprisingly well) which very satisfactory results.
The front part including the belly I sharpened on my usual benchstones and got excellent results with out a hitch. As I said, even though the steels feels a bit weired on the stone, it takes a very good edge very easily with very little burring and polishes up very nicely. Without wanting to quantify it, my experience reprofiling the edge indicates that CPM 154 doesn't have nearly the wear resistance of CPM S30V but edge holding in practice was good.
The other high point of this knife aside from the handle is the lock. I have come to really like Studlock. Very reliable, and you get an immediate visual indication of the engagement and whether there is any crud trapped. Seems to be very strong too, but to me reliability is more important than ultimate strength. I haven't tried to white knuckle it with maximum strength, but there is no slipping with medium strength or under spinewacks. Eventually I am sure the stud or the ridge in the blade that holds the Stud will break but I have no need to test when that will be. The most critical failure that this lock might undergo is the failure of the little spring that pushes the stud. But it is a stainless coil spring and I don't really expect that to fail anytime soon.
The lock is very easy to operate. Even if it doesn't allow the flashy "flicking-it-closed" like the Axis- or the Comp-lock (which wouldn't work on the Spec bump anyway because of the assisted opening) but it is easy enough to close the knife one-handed. One-handed opening is of course quite literally "a snap" because of the assisted opening. The assisted opening should, I think, have a higher initial resistance. I did have it open on me once rather unexpectedly, but it has never opened in my pocket as I feared.
Bottom line: An excellent knife that made it easily into my list of favorites and at the current price almost a bargain for what you get!
