Spyderco/FArid K2 - Full Review and testing.

Ankerson

Ankerson

Knife and Computer Geek
Joined
Nov 2, 2002
Messages
21,094
Specs:

OAL: 9 15/16
Blade Length: 4.5"
Blade thickness: .136"
Behind the edge: .020"
Closed: 5 3/8"
Weight: 6.2 oz
Steel: CPM 10V @ 63 HRC

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This is my full review and testing process, Rope, Cardboard and Wood. The process is to cut 5/8" Manila rope until 20 LBS is reached, then move on to cardboard and the wood cutting.

The knife was reprofiled to 15 DPS and finished at 400 Grit SIC.

1st up is the Rope

The knife made 1,100 slicing cuts on rope until 20 lbs of down force was reached. There wasn't any issues with the edge or the knife in general, had one small shiny spot on the edge after the rope cutting, the knife would still slice phone book paper after the rope cutting.

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2nd was the Cardboard Stage.

The knife was resharpened before this stage back to hair whittling sharpness. I sliced 5,500 ft of cardboard, that's 1833 Yards or slightly over a mile of cardboard, there was zero edge damage after the cardboard and the knife would still slice Phone book paper after this stage. There wasn't any issues with the knife at all, lockup is still solid.

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Last was the Wood cutting Stage:

The knife wasn't sharpened before this stage, I made thick and thin cuts in wood and snapped the blade out sideways to stress the edge. There was zero edge damage or any other issues with the lockup and or blade play after the wood cutting. Noticed no additional dulling after this stage....

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Conclusion:


The K2 performed far above my expectations, it was for the most part flawless other than that one small shiny spot on the edge during the rope cutting. Lockup remained solid, zero blade play and the edge retention was the best of any production blade I ever tested. Didn't notice any hot spots and the K2 fills the hand nicely.

The K2 can do some real work as was shown by cutting over a mile of cardboard then whittling wood without having to sharpen it so it could make an excellent field knife as that showed and the 1,100 cuts on the rope showed it would make an excellent hunting blade.
 
Wow, That is pretty awesome!
I'm pretty new to the forum, but i"m going to have to be careful how much I'm on here or I will go broke.
 
Impressive! Thanks for the review and congrats to Spyderco and Farid for making such a kick a** knife!
 
Excellent review Jim. Clear and to the point! That is a knife! Spyderco hit true custom performance with this knife. In fact not many custom makers work with the A11 class steels because of the extra cost and time needed to produce knives made of this material. It takes very controlled, precise and modern equipment to heat treat batches of this steel keeping them near the top of their hardness scales. Usually within 3 points is considered good ( example: rc 59-61). To keep the knives a point and a half of max hardness means you have confidence in your control of the heat treating process. Not so difficult with one knife in a calibrated oven with cryo. A different thing entirely when run in batches. A very high performance knife made on the state of the art equipment by people who seem to know what they are doing.

By the way mine bit me twice already. 10V can be pretty aggressive at the edge. :)

I've said this before about Spyderco knives. " they couldn't have made this knife with these specs even 5 years ago". They seem to keep pushing the bar higher. One company has this on pre order for $250, which is the first I've see of a street price. Seeing, handling and using the knife made me think it was going to be a lot higher to be honest.

What a knife. Not one to miss if you are a performance or steel junkie!

Joe
 
Jim thank you for testing the K2, keep in touch my friend.
Farid
 
The Mastiff said:
Excellent review Jim. Clear and to the point! That is a knife! Spyderco hit true custom performance with this knife. In fact not many custom makers work with the A11 class steels because of the extra cost and time needed to produce knives made of this material. It takes very controlled, precise and modern equipment to heat treat batches of this steel keeping them near the top of their hardness scales. Usually within 3 points is considered good ( example: rc 59-61). To keep the knives a point and a half of max hardness means you have confidence in your control of the heat treating process. Not so difficult with one knife in a calibrated oven with cryo. A different thing entirely when run in batches. A very high performance knife made on the state of the art equipment by people who seem to know what they are doing.

By the way mine bit me twice already. 10V can be pretty aggressive at the edge. :)

I've said this before about Spyderco knives. " they couldn't have made this knife with these specs even 5 years ago". They seem to keep pushing the bar higher. One company has this on pre order for $250, which is the first I've see of a street price. Seeing, handling and using the knife made me think it was going to be a lot higher to be honest.

What a knife. Not one to miss if you are a performance or steel junkie!

Joe
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Hi Joe,

It was really sharp out of the box... LOL

I thought it would have been more too, but at the street price they should sell well I am thinking.

The quality is really off the scale and the F&F is right up there with the best, they really did an awesome job on this knife.

Let me know once you start testing etc and I can come over with my camera. :thumbup:

Maybe we can do a video also. :)

Jim
 
So Jim, how do you do your rope testing? You mentioned until you hit 20lbs? Is this an automated test? Pics?

Also... looks like you have some kindling now! USPS might not like that, but.. those are all boxes from knives you've purchased, right? :D

Farid, nice knife! I ordered one already.. $250 I said, HELL YES.. though it will have a spyderco mark on it :)

Later! Oh and thanks for the review Jim!
 
sloth357 said:
So Jim, how do you do your rope testing? You mentioned until you hit 20lbs? Is this an automated test? Pics?

Also... looks like you have some kindling now! USPS might not like that, but.. those are all boxes from knives you've purchased, right? :D

Farid, nice knife! I ordered one already.. $250 I said, HELL YES.. though it will have a spyderco mark on it :)

Later! Oh and thanks for the review Jim!
Click to expand...


The process is described in my rope cutting thread. :)

Yeah I was running low on cardboard toward the end so I cut up all of the extra boxes I had around. LOL
 
Wow what an incredible review. So much time and effect. Straight to the point which I love. Thank you. I'll pick one up now because of this review. Thank you!
 
Thanks Jim! I have no experience with either and trying to read up a bit on this steel. Debating on picking one up.

Thanks for the review
 
skwurll said:
Thanks Jim! I have no experience with either and trying to read up a bit on this steel. Debating on picking one up.

Thanks for the review
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If you like high performance this would be the one to get. :)
 
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