The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is $300 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
OK, I bought one (APO-1)...purely as a "investment". I think it was about $150 ish. Current research tells me I lost. Any thoughts good, or bad? I haven't seen one listed on the 'Bay or anwhere.
I somewhat agree with what you said about how an indestructible knife can fall short in other aspects, but you lost me when you started making up stuff about steels. I don't mean that to come off insulting...it would be a fair assumption on some level...but people love to hate on Chinese products. Politics aside, China puts out some great products these days, and they of course also still make plenty of junk. One thing they don't make is AUS-8 steel. We're you talking about 8cr series stainless steel? While not a true equivalent, it is a very similar steel that is popular mostly on budget knives. I personally don't notice a big difference in performance between the two, and I still consider it perfectly adequate under normal use. AUS8 is a Japanese product, and they take it seriously, so there may be a bit more consistency in their steel, but I can't say for sure. I think preconceptions have a bigger role in one's experience with a steel and how it performs than one might care to admit, but the reality is that unless you use your knives a whole lot, mid range steels are gonna be just fine for most things. Pretty interchangeable, and the user probably wouldn't even notice. Sure there is a boost in edge retention from AUS8/8cr to N690/VG-10, but I just don't find the difference significant like the jump to Maxamet or S110V.I just saw Survival Lilly's new knife and must say that I am not impressed.
Steel: AUS8
Blade Length: 13,5 cm / 5.12 inches
Blade Thickness: 4,8 mm
Handle Length: 11,5 cm / 4.33 inches
Weight (including sheath): 389 gramms / 13.72 ounces
Rockwell Hardness: 57 Rc +/-1
The Taiwanese workmanship looks pretty good. My lack of enthusiasm comes from her design emphasis and the design itself, which seems to fall along the sharpened prybar genre. Apparently destructive knife testing is important to her.
The quotes are from her product description, which I am not linking because I don't think she is a dealer.
I don't know about you, but I found this knife to be a bit much. Given her past history of making destructive testing videos of knives in "survival situations" this knife description was a rehash of silliness. Maybe it is just me, but I don't see the point in something like this. Indestructible does not correlate well to functional when it comes to knives, unless you plan on approaching survival like a bull in a china shop. What are your thoughts on this "survival knife".
Well, destruction testing looks cool and it gets a lot of views, right? That's one problem with many youtubers. They love to do things like baton their knives just because it looks cool on camera. They are foolishly steering people wrong with their bad knife practices. Batoning a knife drastically increases the chances of the knife breaking. In a real survival situation where you have to rely on your knife, the last thing you want to do is repeatedly strike the blade with a club like an idiot, or try to use the tip like a crowbar. If you need to split wood, you should carve wedges and use the wedges to split the wood instead. If you need to cut dry branches, you can use leverage to break them in half between the fork in a tree. The length of the branch itself can be used to your advantage in breaking it.Apparently destructive knife testing is important to her.
It's completely crazy and I think it's a trend driven entirely by youtubers batoning their knives like moronic savages. People now expect that's what you're supposed to do with your knife, and so the knives are bigger and thicker to withstand that kind of abuse better. Your knife doesn't need to be a brick if you just treat it properly.I had to laugh when I saw a comment on another thread about knives getting thinner, nope! Still not happening. But such is the way of the marketing world, as long as the marketing all says you need a sharp prybar, then that is what those who are learning will learn to use, therefore they will teach the next gen that sharpened prypars are good, but sharpened bricks are better.