- Joined
- Sep 14, 2010
- Messages
- 556
I just received this as part of a pass around found here http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/855649-Bob-Terzuola-Stag-Kiwi-3.
I have been handling the knives scince their arival. I have not gotten to use them much yet except for some cut testing and size comparison to my usual EDC the Spyderco Military or Pacific Salt.
My First Impressions:
Terzuola
The first thing that I noticed about this knife is how small it feels in hand compared to my usual carry. The Tezoula offers a full four finger grip while using the finger choil but only a three finger grip if I only utilize the handle. This knife for me must be choked up on to be comfortable.
The handle Material on this knife feels great. The textured Carbon fiber provides a smooth surface that feels nice in the hand but the texture of carbon fiber does provide some traction at the same time. The carbon fiber also looks very nice. It shimmers nicely in the light.
The blade on the Tezoula in my initial impressions does a few things right but a number of things very wrong. To start with the positives the steel is fantastic. It is very sharp out of the box zipping through paper with very little effort. The blade shape is very versatile as well. The swedge on top allows it to penetrate cardboard with ease.Finlay The choil on this knife is very functional minus its absolute lack of jimping. The choil acts as a saftey feature for this knife. In my hand it is 100% impossible to close the blade on my fingers without first pinching them with the choil. Unfortunately while the blade does provide these positives it does have some major flaws in my opinion that hold it back. First is the blade grind. The hollow grind while flawless for cutting paper in the initial test has flopped miserably when testing with cardboard. The shoulders on the top of the hollow grind have a tendency to bind when zipping it through cardboard. The next issue is the jimping on this blade. Not only is it not present within the choil like other spyderco knives but the jimping that is there is utterly worthless. It provides little to no traction in my intial testing. When chocked up on the blade the jimping is also inacessble. The next problem that I found was the size of the spyder hole. I have larger hands and this knife proved to be difficult to open one handed. This is the result of the spyderhole size.
Action. This knife while being a slipit does inspire confidence. The mid stop ball bearing makes me fell very comfortable carrying this knife to work in place of my locking knives. There are two drawbacks to this design unfortunately though. The first is deployment speed. This knife is a bear to open quickly and at its quickest I cannot get it to open as fast as my salt or military. The second flaw is smoothness of the action. The action is not as smooth as my other spyderco.
Thats all I have gotten to today. Will use and carry this knife all week and take some pics giving a final impression and rating at the end of my one week. See you in one week.
I will also add some about the kiwi have not had a chance to monkey with it as much as the Terzoula yet.
I have been handling the knives scince their arival. I have not gotten to use them much yet except for some cut testing and size comparison to my usual EDC the Spyderco Military or Pacific Salt.
My First Impressions:
Terzuola
The first thing that I noticed about this knife is how small it feels in hand compared to my usual carry. The Tezoula offers a full four finger grip while using the finger choil but only a three finger grip if I only utilize the handle. This knife for me must be choked up on to be comfortable.
The handle Material on this knife feels great. The textured Carbon fiber provides a smooth surface that feels nice in the hand but the texture of carbon fiber does provide some traction at the same time. The carbon fiber also looks very nice. It shimmers nicely in the light.
The blade on the Tezoula in my initial impressions does a few things right but a number of things very wrong. To start with the positives the steel is fantastic. It is very sharp out of the box zipping through paper with very little effort. The blade shape is very versatile as well. The swedge on top allows it to penetrate cardboard with ease.Finlay The choil on this knife is very functional minus its absolute lack of jimping. The choil acts as a saftey feature for this knife. In my hand it is 100% impossible to close the blade on my fingers without first pinching them with the choil. Unfortunately while the blade does provide these positives it does have some major flaws in my opinion that hold it back. First is the blade grind. The hollow grind while flawless for cutting paper in the initial test has flopped miserably when testing with cardboard. The shoulders on the top of the hollow grind have a tendency to bind when zipping it through cardboard. The next issue is the jimping on this blade. Not only is it not present within the choil like other spyderco knives but the jimping that is there is utterly worthless. It provides little to no traction in my intial testing. When chocked up on the blade the jimping is also inacessble. The next problem that I found was the size of the spyder hole. I have larger hands and this knife proved to be difficult to open one handed. This is the result of the spyderhole size.
Action. This knife while being a slipit does inspire confidence. The mid stop ball bearing makes me fell very comfortable carrying this knife to work in place of my locking knives. There are two drawbacks to this design unfortunately though. The first is deployment speed. This knife is a bear to open quickly and at its quickest I cannot get it to open as fast as my salt or military. The second flaw is smoothness of the action. The action is not as smooth as my other spyderco.
Thats all I have gotten to today. Will use and carry this knife all week and take some pics giving a final impression and rating at the end of my one week. See you in one week.
I will also add some about the kiwi have not had a chance to monkey with it as much as the Terzoula yet.