strange K.O. KNIFE on a chinese site, would like to know if it exists really or not..

9blades said:
If that's ti and d2 then I'm holding a custom strider..........
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The Chinese have been able to produce complex, high end designs for a while now. I remember reading about how Rick Hinderer, after handling a fake, commented that he couldn't tell that it wasn't genuine.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the knife was exactly as advertised. (Or at least made of titanium and steel alloys close enough to 6AL4V and D2, that a difference would be extremely difficult to perceive.)

Morrow said:
I removed your link to the Google search results. You're very close to deal spotting which is against the rules. Your post was like 2nd hand smoke....not as bad as actually smoking but still not good. :p
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Sorry!
 
Dan57 said:
The Chinese have been able to produce complex, high end designs for a while now. I remember reading about how Rick Hinderer, after handling a fake, commented that he couldn't tell that it wasn't genuine.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if the knife was exactly as advertised. (Or at least made of titanium and steel alloys close enough to 6AL4V and D2, that a difference would be extremely difficult to perceive.)


Sorry!
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I never heard that from Hinderer, but did hear that about Mick Strider... There's an awesome comparison Jdavis882 has comparing a SNG and a chinese copy.
 
I'm from china. I can tell you that in China there are lot of cheap and feke copy from local knifemakers. It very cheap in view of the U.S income level. But expensive to China income level. For example in China TC4 Titanium is about $60 per Kilo. and very easy to get in market .And BOHLER D2 steel is about $20 per Kilo (include HT price). But in China we donot have thin tool steel for knife, we usually use Wire Electrical Discharging Machine to cut the thick one to piece . Most important they are all CNC Machining. and CNC machining cost is very cheap in China. But maybe expensive in US.

So may be you think $75 is very cheap. But in my opinion there still big profits.

I am very envy that in US you guys have a lot of type steel to choose, but we don't have. Most of steel company do not provide thin piece .we can only buy a thick one to cut. That why RWL-34 and Sweden damascus is very popular in China(A lot of China handmade knifemaker choose them ), because they provide thin one to China.
CRUCIBLE is not popular in China because they don't provide thin piece.
 
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I think the biggest difference is in labor.

The difference between the materials cost for something like a Sebenza and a Spyderco Sage is likely a few dollars. Labor and manufacturing costs, not to mention the whole paying for a "name brand" thing, is $300-400.

Knifemakers and factory employees in the US likely expect to make $20+ an hour, with good reason. Costs of living demand that. Costs of living are currently cheaper in places like China (although, it's catching up quickly). When you take something that demands up to many hours per item, a huge cost is in the labor. When your "cost" for labor is $1.00 an hour, you're obviously going to be able to see (comparatively) large profits at that price.
 
bernard_s3 said:
I never heard that from Hinderer, but did hear that about Mick Strider...
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It might have been Strider who said it. I can't remember.

rik007 said:
I'm from china. I can tell you that in China there are lot of cheap and feke copy from local knifemakers. It very cheap in view of the U.S income level. But expensive to China income level. For example in China TC4 Titanium is about $60 per Kilo. and very easy to get in market .And BOHLER D2 steel is about $20 per Kilo (include HT price). But in China we donot have thin tool steel for knife, we usually use Wire Electrical Discharging Machine to cut the thick one to piece . Most important they are all CNC Machining. and CNC machining cost is very cheap in China. But maybe expensive in US.

So may be you think $75 is very cheap. But in my opinion there still big profits.

I am very envy that in US you guys have a lot of type steel to choose, but we don't have. Most of steel company do not provide thin piece .we can only buy a thick one to cut. That why RWL-34 and Sweden damascus is very popular in China(A lot of China handmade knifemaker choose them ), because they provide thin one to China.
CRUCIBLE is not popular in China because they don't provide thin piece.
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That's all very interesting. Thanks for the info! Are you involved in the Chinese knife industry at all? You seem to know a lot about it.
 
Dan57 said:
It might have been Strider who said it. I can't remember.



That's all very interesting. Thanks for the info! Are you involved in the Chinese knife industry at all? You seem to know a lot about it.
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No, I am a amateur knifemaker, I design and make my own knife just for hobbies and interests . and I'm use a lot of steel such as BOHLER PM steel and CPM-3V. But i bought from in about 30mm thick blocks and cut them in thin piece (3-5mm), It fouce me to know a lot about machining process.

Some fake copy knife in China they usually copy some famous classic knife . Because of China's low labor costs,for cutting down the cost those company never use good steel such as CPM, BOHLER PM.. they usually use 9cr18mov(440c 's chinese edition) and 8cr13mov, and 12crmo1v1(D2 's chinese edition) . The steel,machining,labor cost are very cheap .So these product are cheap too. why they don't use import good steel. because of the consuming ability . ( some company use fake steel pretend to be good steel)

But there are lots of very good handmade knifemakers in China. They usually use import steel such as CPM, BOHLER and RWL-34 . As i know RWL-34 and Sweden Damas ary very popular for them. and these knife also expensive for hundreds and thousands of U.S. dollar.

That is different from low-end product and high-end product .
 
D2 is not new, proprietary, or expensive. The fact that it is old, common, and thereby affordable is actually why it appears in knives. Most of 'our' alloys come from other industrial applications, such as die steels (D2). China has been eating up metals for a few years now with their increase in infrastructure. When they start advertising mass produced PM grades I will be a bit more skeptical, but they are no doubt going to legitimately come somewhere down the line.
 
I don't know how I feel about this thing. I see these pop up on ebay all the time and it's made me curious, so I looked into it a little closer.

[youtube]wgrn6eDUOtw[/youtube]
...apparently this brand is big in russia for some reason...most of the videos I can find are full of cyrillic...

Here's a different one, called the 'Venom'. Looks even cooler to me (and I think it's an original design).
[youtube]KbhrITm0ru8[/youtube]

On one hand, as far as I know it is an original design by this Kevin John dude. The reviews I've seen of his stuff (again, almost always in russian, but sometimes with English descriptions / comments) have been really, really favourable. There are even cutting test videos where people try to determine the actual quality of the blade steels, and the knives perform favourably. There's one youtube user who uses a bunch of Kevin John knives to do rope-cut tests, and they hold up quite well. That's pretty cool - the chance to get an actual Titanium framelock, complete with lockbar stabilizer, steel insert on the lockbar, with real D2 / S35VN / 12c27 blade steel, and in an original design to boot for 100$ or less. :thumbup:

On the other hand, the same guy also makes complete knockoffs and tries to pass them off as the real thing. :barf: 90% of the Videos / Reviews I can find on this guys knives are of knockoff Sebenzas, Hinderers, and Striders.

I don't generally care what people do with their money, and if people really really want to buy knockoff knives, I don't see that I have any right to whine at them about it. I don't even have a problem when, say, sanrenmu makes a knife suspiciously similar to a Boker design and puts their own materials and name on it, but Even I think it's a scumbag move to make a fake and try to pass it off as the genuine article like this Kevin John fellow seems to do. These fakes are kind of scary-accurate.

[youtube]LN4XkPvwOnk[/youtube]

I would totally buy one of the Venom folders to try it out... but I'm pretty torn about potentially supporting a scumbag rip-off artist. :thumbdn:


EDIT: To elaborate a little more on what I've found, it seems as though there are a bunch of brands appearing on all of these titanium / 'premium' steel Chinese knives:

"Kevin John / Triumph Precision" - Seem to be synonymous. From what I gather from the many russian reviews, they seem to be the upper crust of the knockoffs and just about the only ones who make Original designs, like the Venom. They (allegedly) use mostly 12c27, 440C, D2, and, even S35VN on occasion. Looks like they sometimes label their knives under their own brand, sometimes under the original designer's name. I had heard that the District 9 knife was also a Kevin John design, but I'm having trouble verifying that.

"Wild Boar" - Seem to be the folks who put out most of the Ti framelock, "D2" steel Strider / Chris Reeve / Hinderer knockoffs, passed off as originals. They seem to come in a box with the wild boar logo, but the knives are stamped with the real designer's logo.
 
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Man those knives look mighty nice. If only Google wasn't 10 kinds of useless I could actually find these things... Why in the hell they changed their search algorithms to be so much worse I will never know.
 
dkb45 said:
Man those knives look mighty nice. If only Google wasn't 10 kinds of useless I could actually find these things... Why in the hell they changed their search algorithms to be so much worse I will never know.
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Aliexpress is probably your best bet if you want one, make sure to get one from a seller with positive reputation.
 
So when you guys found some cheap knife that made in china which said using TC4 titanium alloy, and D2 or some other steel. You may pay attention to that it's that really true TC4 titanium ? There are lots of type of titanium alloy. Not everyone do spectroscopic analysis job for them.

I am very hard to found really steels in China. 70% of the steel company sell fake import steel (some of them not really fake, just a similarity alloy component which made in china) . I can only buy steel from agent company which post on the steel company official website.

In China some knifemaker using fake steel in folding knife. I see lots of them. they have very cheap price. For example i known a local knifemaker who make folding knife said he use CPM S35VN and TC4 titanium and sell them in a famous china knife fourm. But truth is he using fake steel. Many people were cheated .How we known that? Some guys do spectroscopic analysis job. Do you known how much he sale? only $70. Maybe this knifemaker was cheated by company who sell him the steel . Maybe he known it .

I don't say all knife which made in china are fake .I said just the black sheep.
 
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