Spyderco Swayback... a week of use

I put a black Spydie cip on mine after Scotchbriting it to an acid wash look.

 

Concluding that a model isn't a good design based on the secondary market is a mistake. Plenty of designs throughout the years had flat sales numbers until the company stopped producing them. From there, many of those discontinued saw ridiculously inflated secondary market prices. Some of the Spyderco Bob Lum designs had that effect. The Lum Chinese folders were super inflated after Spyderco stopped producing them. They were so popular, they brought the model back for more runs, and prices dipped again. None of this is surprising, but the point is the rollercoaster reaction on the secondary had a lot to do with flippers and hype.

 

I just got my swayback, and I'm not a fan. Since I am a Spyderco collector I'm not going to get rid of it, but in my opinion, this one was a miss.

The blade is excellent--gorgeous to look at and the hollow grind is awesome. However, there's no sharpening choil, and most important, the Spydie hole is way too small. I can still open it, but it's not nearly as positive a flick as other spydercos, even smaller ones. Speaking of flicks, you can't Spydie flick the thing. There is no hole on the other side.

It's also heavier than I was expecting. After comparing it to the Spydiechef, same company, same designer, the Spydiechef is just a superior EDC tool for anything except specific wharncliffe applications, and Spyderco already has a few offerings with a wharny blade shape. Hell, they have more coming out this year.

IMO the Spydiechef has vastly superior ergos too.

The Swayback's plain clip would bother me more if I actually intended to carry it.

Again, I'm going to keep mine, but if I'd been able to handle one first, I would have passed. Maybe after they're inevitably discontinued, I will sell mine and put the money toward something else.

 

Yes, even with it. I mean, they do make the Sharpmaker.

 

I think he's more concerned with the aesthetics of the sharpening job than the practical application of simply making it sharp again. A lot of their knives make it difficult to sharpen the edge all the way down to where it terminates.

The lack of sharpening choil and the odd way it terminates at the plunge will indeed make an attractive edge more difficult to maintain. I'd probably cut a finger choil into it. Would allow you to choke up and get rid of the heel at the same time.

 

Honestly I think the biggest part of that was the Slysz Bowie bring one of the first really expensive Spyderco folders and most people just being hesitant to fork over that much for a Spyderco. Since then they've come out with a lot of knives in that price range and people are more used to it.

 

You are conflating several things here in the time line. Shabazz had an impact at the end of the Bowie run and into its retirement not while it was in the beginning or main part of its production. Madcap was commenting about why it didn't initially sell and why it hit the chopping block. Other folks reviewed it as well so it wasn't just Nick. There is a big thread on the subject if you care to look for it. May not want to derail your own thread

 

Hey, slow down there bud. I'm just saying that you are trying to address two different things said by madcap when you say "it was nick", and that if you cared to learn a little more about the subject you could search for the thread where it was discussed. You are sort of new to the knife discussion areas of the forum so you might have missed it.

Anyway, I won't derail the thread further as the topic is your swayback!

 

You're not understanding me correctly, no.

 

LOL!