schrade fixed blades 2018

S

scott cannon

Joined
Oct 9, 2018
Messages
19
hello,
I did a search and didnt find this specifically so if i missed it i'm sorry. I am looking at buying the schrade 9, schrade 10, and a schrade 42d. But i am nervous. I looked for reviews and advice on youtube. Basically i have seen videos a few years old showing these knives to be good on one video then another shows some problems like a tip breaking and bad heat treating and etc... so if i buy these am i rolling the dice on getting a knife that will break like glass? or the tip will break off? under mild conditions?
Also; theres videos stating that schrade was bought out and now all the knives are made at the china plant and this is bad because the good heat treating plant is in taiwan. not the other plant. So i have questions like: does the schrade 9 still have a sabre grind? is the heat treat from taiwan? what about the 10....will it just break on me? and the 42d ....where is it made now? are these knives as strong as a few years ago or do they suck now?
thanks in advance and sorry for the long first post,
scott
 
I have a 42d and two 55’s.

I have had good luck with them so far. The coating is a Teflon type and the 1095 steel sharpened and behaved like expected. Edge grinds were not perfect but serviceable. The jimping on the round pommel is agressive enough to rough up wood or scrape.

The handle scales are ergonomic but made of plastic. There are only two fasteners holding them on and I’ve read reports of them coming loose over time or batoning through wood. You may need to loctite before use. I’m not a huge fan of the handle material, but they work fine and micarta scales are available.

The 42d has a decent leather sheath, and the 55 comes in a very neat plastic sheath with a rubber belt loop that can be positioned to wear horizontally or vertically.

They both came well packaged in nice boxes.

I believe both of these models are made in Taiwan.

I can’t comment on how well they hold up from heavier use, because I’ve only had them for a few months, and have not used either one to chop, baton, or pry. But from my use of cutting and whittling they have held up fine.
 
19-3ben said:
Paging Mistwalker Mistwalker .

The ones made in Taiwan seem to be good. But it just so happens, the designer of some of their best fixed blades is a member here on the forum and can likely answer any questions like this.
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Thank you for the compliments and kind words!

MolokaiRider said:
I have a 42d and two 55’s.

I have had good luck with them so far. The coating is a Teflon type and the 1095 steel sharpened and behaved like expected. Edge grinds were not perfect but serviceable. The jimping on the round pommel is agressive enough to rough up wood or scrape.

The handle scales are ergonomic but made of plastic. There are only two fasteners holding them on and I’ve read reports of them coming loose over time or batoning through wood. You may need to loctite before use. I’m not a huge fan of the handle material, but they work fine and micarta scales are available.

The 42d has a decent leather sheath, and the 55 comes in a very neat plastic sheath with a rubber belt loop that can be positioned to wear horizontally or vertically.

They both came well packaged in nice boxes.

I believe both of these models are made in Taiwan.

I can’t comment on how well they hold up from heavier use, because I’ve only had them for a few months, and have not used either one to chop, baton, or pry. But from my use of cutting and whittling they have held up fine.
Click to expand...

Thank you for responding. I hope they hold up and stand the test of time for you.


scott cannon said:
hello,
I did a search and didnt find this specifically so if i missed it i'm sorry. I am looking at buying the schrade 9, schrade 10, and a schrade 42d. But i am nervous. I looked for reviews and advice on youtube. Basically i have seen videos a few years old showing these knives to be good on one video then another shows some problems like a tip breaking and bad heat treating and etc... so if i buy these am i rolling the dice on getting a knife that will break like glass? or the tip will break off? under mild conditions?
Also; theres videos stating that schrade was bought out and now all the knives are made at the china plant and this is bad because the good heat treating plant is in taiwan. not the other plant. So i have questions like: does the schrade 9 still have a sabre grind? is the heat treat from taiwan? what about the 10....will it just break on me? and the 42d ....where is it made now? are these knives as strong as a few years ago or do they suck now?
thanks in advance and sorry for the long first post,
scott
Click to expand...

Schrade has had some knives made in China and some made in Taiwan for the last 10 years, since they launched the Extreme Survival line that I know of for sure. It was the awesome heat treat of their 1075 of some of their first ones made in Taiwan that caught my attention and impressed me. I wanted the SCHF9 to be made from 1095 from the beginning for several reasons, but I would have been happy with the 1075 as long as they were made and heat treated in Taiwan and not China. I was adamant about that because I had been unimpressed...or perhaps more accurately impressed in a bad way, with the inconsistency I had seen in their Chinese heat treat. I had wanted micarta handle scales to start with, but that is not (or at least was not, not sure now) available in Taiwan. I was willing to deal with the molded TPE handle as long as they were made in the higher quality Taiwanese machine shops. The knife turned out well as an Extreme Survival Knife, and so when Morgan did the SCHF10, which is actually closer to being a clone of the Boker Orca with an even more uncomfortable handle than the SCHF3 is to being a clone of the CRK Pacific, and I told Morgan that when he showed it to me. I knew very well as I had just done a write up on the Orca for Tactical Knives Magazine a few months before....but I digress...When he did the 10 he decided to go for the Chinese 1095 so he could have the micarta scales and still have it made cheaper than the ones made in Taiwan. I have seen several broken SCHF10s. I've only seen a few broken 9s in the last decade of them being made, and I think that's pretty good for it being one of their most abused models. I think the video review of the broken one on the big river looks a little sketchy. I tried to give the guy his money back plus just to get a look at it, but he had conveniently thrown it away before I could get in touch with him. The vast majority of the reviews of the 9 on the big river are 4 and 5 stars out of 1,300 customer reviews. I think that says a lot. The ones I designed; SCHFs 9, 9N, 42, 42D, and 55 respectively are all made in Taiwan like the SCHFs 1 and 2, but as far as I know all the other fixed blades are all made in China. I'm still working on the abusive tests of the 55, but I have been pretty rough on the 42 and there are several pics of that here in this thread.
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/the-schrade-schf42-raven-how-it-came-to-be.1604258/

There is more on the 55 in this thread if you want to check it out
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads...lackbird-and-some-little-known-facts.1602234/

.
 
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thanks for the replies! just wanted to add that i am very budget minded and like to stretch a dollar or two as far as i can.(in case some wonder why i don't save up for a more expensive blade).
 
snapshot2017 said:
I bough the SCHF55 and it's a really quality knife, i don't think you can go wrong on buying one.
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Thank you for responding. I'm glad you like it, and I hope it serves you well for years to come.

scott cannon said:
thanks for the replies! just wanted to add that i am very budget minded and like to stretch a dollar or two as far as i can.(in case some wonder why i don't save up for a more expensive blade).
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Having spent time growing up in south Alabama during the recession of the 70s, I totally get that. Back then Schrades were still U.S. made, but even so they were still largely budget minded knives. They were easily affordable to tradesmen who made decent salaries, and much more affordable for the average working person even in the deep south at the time. They could be picked up at any hardware store, were made out of as good a quality of 1095 steel and handle materials as any other knives on the market and better than some, they would function fine. I couldn't tell you how many rabbits, squirrels, deer, fish, and other game I processed with my Old Timer Deer Slayer, Woodsman and Golden Spike, or even guess at how many my father processed with the Old Timer folding hunter he carried. I still have one of the Golden Spikes and my dad's folding hunter today. It was remembering the better days of Schrade and Old Timer, and having conversations about that and my thoughts on it with Morgan Taylor is how I ended up designing knives for Schrade to produce. The expenses of doing the 9 of the materials I wanted and where I wanted made for their Extreme survival line caused Morgan delay the other designs to see how the 9 did. That gave me a lot more time to refine what I really wanted to do for the next ones, while working in R&D for a couple of high end production tool companies and for a few hand made knife companies. Over the years I drew out designs for multiples of their lines, with some even for the Old Timer line that I had always wished existed. But the Old Timer line is exclusively made in China, and among other things the steel I wanted to use isn't available there, and Morgan didn't want to set up a second OT line in Taiwan. So I went back to the drawing board for Schrade designs and drew out a knife I personally wanted with specific features and ergonomics to provide specific mechanical advantages and hand comfort in long term use when working while fatigued in a wilderness or primitive living environment. That was the Raven that became the SCHF42. Then I drew out the one I wanted for a rough use tool that could be tough, functional, highly portable, and very discrete at need, with as much of the same ergonomics as I could give it, for working in deteriorated urban environments. Both were based on my own personal experiences, and the goal was to put a couple of knives into the more affordable end of the knife market that were more well thought out than most knives i had seen in those price ranges, which incorporated thoughts and attributes that had typically been seen only in higher end knive for some time. They were designed as nods to sportsmen from all my years spent hunting and fishing, as well as trapping and fishing commercially and living primitively for weeks at a time, and to soldiers working in urbanized terrain after over fours years of living covertly in deteriorated urban environments as an orphan on the streets for my last three years of childhood and first two years of adulthood. So budget-friendliness has played a big role in all of my Schrade designs.
 
yea im from georgia(served in the regular army a few years also) so we were neighboors,lol.we do all the "country stuff". hunting,fishing, mudding, trailing,camping...etc..right now we starting to get bits from the hurricane. i dont have a issue with buying stuff made in china,as long as the quality and value are there. i look for budget with the hope that it will outshine its price and last a few years.
 
scott cannon said:
yea im from georgia(served in the regular army a few years also) so we were neighboors,lol.we do all the "country stuff". hunting,fishing, mudding, trailing,camping...etc..right now we starting to get bits from the hurricane. i dont have a issue with buying stuff made in china,as long as the quality and value are there. i look for budget with the hope that it will outshine its price and last a few years.
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I'm not anti any location or nationality so much as I am anti shoddy work and anti inconsistency in work regardless of where. If you read through the thread on the SCHF42 you'll see where it actually started out as a similar knife which was originally slated to be produced by a company here in the US that I have worked with in the past. But for several reasons, and one of them being a long run internal struggles at the time and very inconsistent heat treating on their high carbon steel blades that they had started doing in house rather than outsourcing as they had done for years before. While still outsourcing their stainless steel heat treatment and cryo-quenching. I would love it in CPM S35VN and I have a friend who will make them in that steel for me if I can come up with the funds for a small batch. But doing it in a good stainless through the above mentioned company would have made it cost ten times as much as the SCHF42 being made in Taiwan in good quality 1095. And having it cost 10 times as much would have defeated the purpose behind the design. A lot of my friends and some of my family went into the service to escape lives of poverty, and those people were the inspirations behind those designs.
 
scott cannon said:
thanks,sir. thats very considerate for you to use your knife design talents in a manner to include those of us with shallower pockets =)
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LOL, not like mine are all that deep ;) I have a few high end knives, that took me years to get. But I can't exactly afford to collect high end knives, even if I wanted to
 
mistwalker said:
[..re SCHF42..]I would love it in CPM S35VN and I have a friend who will make them in that steel for me if I can come up with the funds for a small batch. But doing it in a good stainless through the above mentioned company would have made it cost ten times as much as the SCHF42 being made in Taiwan in good quality 1095. And having it cost 10 times as much would have defeated the purpose behind the design. A lot of my friends and some of my family went into the service to escape lives of poverty, and those people were the inspirations behind those designs.
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That makes perfect sense. I'd also note that in many ways price adds its own quality, at least for those of us without stratospheric wealth. I can afford to have one in the boot of my car "just in case". That's something I do with a <$100 knife, but I'm most unlikely to do with one costing ten times as much. It's also more likely I'll actually use such a hard-use knife for hard cases: something I might be reluctant to do with a knife that's expensive and difficult to replace. (Whether that makes sense is another matter. There seems little point in having a tool you're reluctant to use. Unfortunately, though, I'm not always as sensible as I should be.)

...Mike
 
mfunnell said:
That makes perfect sense. I'd also note that in many ways price adds its own quality, at least for those of us without stratospheric wealth. I can afford to have one in the boot of my car "just in case". That's something I do with a <$100 knife, but I'm most unlikely to do with one costing ten times as much. It's also more likely I'll actually use such a hard-use knife for hard cases: something I might be reluctant to do with a knife that's expensive and difficult to replace. (Whether that makes sense is another matter. There seems little point in having a tool you're reluctant to use. Unfortunately, though, I'm not always as sensible as I should be.)

...Mike
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Yes, that was certainly another one of the inspirations that went hand in hand with the others. Keep the price low enough the idea of using it wouldn't even get questioned. And yes, over all I have noticed that for a lot of people the $100 is the magic number where they either don't want to use it or won't loan it out to someone else who needs to use it, even if they're on the same team. I have a couple of expensive hand made survival knives that I have no issues whatsoever with using and using hard, and even loaning to a friend I trust to not be stupid. It was leaving them in the vehicles I've run into issues with and I had them made of expensive stainless steels just to facilitate long term storage. But them replaced them in the get home bags with Navy MK-3s made of 440 stainless I paid $60 each for because I live in a rain forest with a very high humidity and lots of rain. I hope to do something similar to the 42 in Nitro V later and keep it affordable as well.
 
Paqara said:
The ones made in Taiwan seem to be great.
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They're the ones I have (3xSCHF55, 2xSCHF42, 1xSCHF42d) and I couldn't agree more. The only one I'm a bit 'blah' about is the SCHF42d, and that's only because I find the SCHF42 a good deal better, in ways Mistwalker Mistwalker documented well in his thread referenced above. Not that there's anything wrong with the 42d so much as it doesn't have that much over a fair number of other knives (though it's still good value, when compared). Whereas I think the 42 and 55 really do have 'that bit extra' going for them.

...Mike
 
hey everyone, well we are in sw ga and was in the path of the hurricane. we are ok. no power but we have a generator. house is fine. two trees down in the yard.i have been cutting them with a chainsaw. now, i maybe crazy for doing so but i took the opportunity to try out a schrade 38 frontier and a FAKE gerber strongarm, while working in the yard. i gotta say i am impressed.i been beating on them for three days, i have tip tested, sliced, chopped on both. neither tips broke . the blades have dulled a little. but amazingly even the black coating isnt comming off. im really impressed. heck i only paid 17 bucks for the chinese rip off strongarm lol. i never owned a strong arm but im not paying 70 plus bucks for one when just two years ago they were in the 30s on amazon. the price has doubled but the knife hasnt changed or improved. anyway just a short update. hope you all are well. next i want to get the schrade 9, 10,and 42....either the 42 or the 42d cant decided lol.
 
the answer is 42, of course, even a trilogy of 5 parts says so... (hitchhikers guide to the galaxy)
you can't say no to this shape
timthumb.php
 
I got the 42 and 42d recently. I got hooked on them reading mistwalkers post on how the 42 came to be. for the money they are impressive knives. very well thought out designs. thick strong tips but still slicey enough and the ffg really work well for a variety of cutting chores. I prefer the 42 just a bit more.
 
jbmonkey said:
I got the 42 and 42d recently. I got hooked on them reading mistwalkers post on how the 42 came to be. for the money they are impressive knives. very well thought out designs. thick strong tips but still slicey enough and the ffg really work well for a variety of cutting chores. I prefer the 42 just a bit more.
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I was the same as you jbmonkey, I read his story and design theory and had to try them out.

I’m working on fitting some Micarta scales into my budget for the 42 and one of the 55 models I have.

I actually like the factory scales on the 55, but not so much on the 42. The brown color throws me off a little bit in contrast to the leather sheath’s coloring (which I like).
 
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