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Southard first impressions - seems like it's hard to figure this knife out online

uofaengr said:
Chuck, good to hear that you like yours. Thanks to a very accommodating offer by a member here on BF, I'll be getting to try a Southard before I buy. I'm hoping that I love it, and then immediately either koa, redwood burl, or green micarta scales by Steve are going on it. You sucked me in, evilgreg :D
Click to expand...

If you do go with Steve's scales, I vote for green micarta with red g10 liners. If you don't, I will. :D
 
Welp...got the Southard for a test run, have had it for a few hours, and...don't really know what to think about it. It's kind of an odd bird for me. The f/f is excellent, and it feels quality and robust; however, there are some gripes.

The G10 is almost too grippy for me. If I buy it, I'll mostly likely be getting a wood scale for it so I've tried to imagine the different feel the knife would have with wood. Not really a big fan of the clip and wish it were a deep carry. But most importantly...cutting...I tried cutting up a good bit of cardboard with it, and it performed marginally at best. My Sage 2 (yes I know it's FFG) breezed through with no resistance. My beloved Gayle Bradley is a hollow grind, although a much higher one, and it can probably out cut most anything I own, including 6 FFG Spydies. Cutting the cardboard with the Southard resulted in a lot of drifting and tearing of the cardboard and a lot of "muscling through" the cut. It's not great at food prep either.

So for me, it bears the question, what do I use this for? It wasn't necessarily the most comfortable knife to do heavy cutting with. It's a chunky EDC, (I know the GB is heavier, but I don't mind for the performance plus the GB is more ergonomic for me) I wouldn't carry it in the woods, I'm not going to use it for food prep at home, work, camping, wherever; and it's not a dressy knife though wood would help, but it's still too tactical-ish for formal carry IMO. So it's kinda striking out in the categories that I look at when purchasing knives. There's no doubt that the knife has a "second kind of cool" appeal, and pimping it would just increase that even more. As robust as the knife is, including the super thick spine, I unfortunately just see it as an occasional high-end EDC for light tasks, as sad as that sounds and don't know if I see it really kicking any other knives out of my pocket.

Usually I feel like I know within a few seconds from first holding a knife if I'm really going to like it, like when I held a PM2 for the first time, within 5 seconds I knew I had to have one...and I was a Benchmade fan then and knew almost nothing about Spydercos....and it's been several hours...along with even cutting several things...and I'm not feeling it..yet, at least. Maybe it grows on me in the next day or two, who knows, but if you forced me to give me an answer right this second, I'd have to pass on it. Did I fall into the hype? Absolutely. Do I think pimped Southards are beautiful? Absolutely. Did those two things push me to getting a hold of a Southard to try out? Yep. Is it the right knife for me? Not sure yet...
 
I agree with you on the clip, and I honestly didn't even notice that the G10 was more grippy than that of the Para-2 until I just compared them both side by side. It is fairly aggressive.


However, I'm having the opposite cutting experience. For a thick-spine hollow-grind blade, this thing is a laser for everything I've used it for (inluding food - it will try and break an apple slice over, but for meats, chopped-veggies, or cheeses, it does a great job - I will say that the flipper makes chopping on a cutting board a little tricky). I typically slice-cut though and don't push-cut. It has that super long edge that makes for better slice-cuts for me. It has more edge than the Para-2 and even the Gayle Bradley (despite being overall smaller/lighter than the Bradley). I will say that I went and cut a bunch of cardboard and it doesn't necessarily excel there due to the short blade-profile and thick spine, but as long as I was slice-cutting and not just push-cutting, I didn't think it was that bad. Now rope/para-cord/jute/small-electronic-wires/packing-straps/zip-ties, that is where this thing is amazing - that weird blade-profile seems to be able to get into places some of my taller-blades cannot and you can sort of rock it back on that weird hump in the spine and just draw it out. That long edge does the rest of the work.

It also seems more ergonomic in my hand than a lot of other knives do - but I realize that this is going to depend on the person holding the knife (that's specifically why I sold my Gayle Bradley, though I've been thinking of giving it another chance lately). It's barely heavier than the Para-2 and lighter than the Gayle Bradley (despite having more cutting edge and being over-all smaller as well). It is chunky, but for me, that helps in ergos with the shorter overall profile (if the scales were taller, I'd say it's definitely way to thick).

I won't lie, since it came out of Taiwan, I would have loved to see the Gayle Bradley's G10/Carbon-Fiber laminate on it - that would class this knife up tremendously and still give it enough traction.

Now, off to the exchange to find another Gayle Bradley...
 
I would highly recommend reprofiling the blade to get better performance with cutting. When I first got my Southard, it cut pretty good. I put it on the stone to reprofile it and it just cut like a laser. After I got my Lansky, I reprofiled it to 34 inclusive with a 40 microbevel, it's like falling in love again.
 
The one I tried out already had a 15 dps convex edge on it, unfortunately. It wasn't so much the cutting as it was that the overall package just wasn't for me. I may just not be a flipper fan.
 
I've been carrying mine for a few months the now and love it. It goes to work with me every day as a plumbing / heating contractor and gets used quite a bit. I do have to touch up the edge once a week just like my s30v work knives but I'm not carrying them anymore.
 
I am very fond of my Dietz pimped Southard, it really is an unusual knife in a lot of ways. Blade shape is very useful as an EDC, and the grip is ergonomic but in a weird sort of way. It is one of the best folders I've ever used for what I call "scribe" cutting (with my index finger extended along the blades spine) - feels like my finger grew a very sharp talon with the tip in the most intuitive of positions. I just wish it flipped as nicely as my Brous T4 or Mini Division.



 
It took me awhile to finally pull the trigger on the Southard. Found a good price on BF and had to do it. It's been carried heavily since I got it, but I find my Techno making it's way back into the rotation. We'll see how things go...
 
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