Terrible Knives

Coldwood said:
...At $1, I think it was probably overpriced. I have a friend who thinks a $5 stainless steel throwing-knife/letter opener bought at the county fair is a survival tool. I'll give it to him...
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LOL! Good one.

Edit to add: In response to the OP's question, a Gerber LST. I carried one for 3 years and it did everything I needed it to until it was stolen. I touched it up occasionally on some Arkansas stones and it was good to go. Flash forward to a couple weeks ago when Dad and I were digging through his knife box. He gave me another LST and I haven't been able to get an edge on this one to save my life. I don't know if Gerber switched steels at some point or this one got a bad heat treatment. Whatever the case is, I'm slowly coming to the opinion that this current version is nothing more than a Wal-mart butter knife in the guise of a folder.

Dan
 
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I have an SOG Blink that I picked up not longer after joining BF. I don't like it. It has zero ergonomics(which I knew when I bought it) It feels clumsy in my hand and is, overall, a pretty useless knife. That being said, it has typical SOG craftsmanship that I have found to be fairly impressive.

Also, any Kershaw Ken Onion I have ever been duped into buying. Snap-On gave me one, I forget the model, but it's the smallest one, for my purchase history :rolleyes: I don't like the blades at all. They are not shaped in a practical manner. I can't think of any reason I would want a blade with that ridiculous curve in it. I have finally rid myself of all of their hideousness.

Another one I just remembered: I bought a nice Beretta folder from Academy when I was in high school. Damn "stainless" blade had rust spots on it the next day. Yep...went right back to the store...
 
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I would like to submit this thing:
KS4355.jpg


What the hell?
 
The only knife I was truly disappointed in was the Gerber Paraframe. I paid $30+ for it and when I compare it to my $30 Spyderco Tenacious, well, they are worlds apart. The steel sucked on the Paraframe as the edge would role spreading butter :rolleyes:, and there was always blade play that you could not get rid of no matter what you try. I lost it somewhere in the house and don't care to ever find it again.
 
Whining ahoy.

In my opinion the Spyderco Military has some strange design problems.
The finger choil closest to the blade is just waay undersized and feels insecure.
The liner lock is next to impossible to close with your thumb. I always close it with my index finger from the wrong side. Also, it feels quite uncomfortable when you put your right index finger over it, not using the top choil.
The near absence of steel liners in the handles makes it feel a little flimsy.

The finger sized choil above the guard, below the blade on my new SYK Scrapper 5 is quite uncomfortable to put your finger in. Although i'm not sure it was meant for that.

The Spike from cold steel would be a great design if the handle wasn't half an inch high.

Both the thumbstud and the flip button on my new S&W Magic folder are incredibly uncomfortable. Though that can sort of be remedied by using them both when opening it.

And the old thumbstud on the cS Ti-lite. It's PAINFUL.
 
I have an Opinel that I think is terrible. I bought one to try out after all of the good things I've read here. I shredded that blade within the first five minutes of using it. That edge rolled right on over, like it was made of tinfoil when I was cutting some green wood. Pathetic. Maybe that sort of thing works for mamby-pamby frenchmen, but Opinel is a no-go for me.
 
CARRERA50 said:
Closest thing I've had to a "terrible" knife is a Buck/Strider B882. The liner is scrawny, the blade is way off-centered when closed, and the texturing of the G10 scales reminds me of a cheese grater. The off-center problem seems deliberate as the washers on either side of the pivot are, for some reason, of different thickness. The thumb studs are way too close to the frame to be of any use--use the hole or just flip it.

Amazingly, after the blade wobbles its way into the open position, the lock-up is tight but not confidence-inspiring. The Bos treated blade is what I would expect from anything with his name on it but it is very heavy and the stippling is weird.

I bought this knife to see if the Strider design would steer me towards buying the SNG. It didn't.
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I bought one of these POC's. Buck basically followed the outline of a respected working knife and filled in with value engineered details inspired from Pakistan.

No, the "thumbstuds" aren't - they are a blade stop. The stippling interferes with deep cuts for the sake of fllipping the knife open by gravity - or another way of saying, "You don't know what you're doing." The checkered FRN grips are so weak liners are required, and the locking side so thin it walks out of engagement with hand pressure. BUCK REPLACED IT AND THE SECOND ONE DOES TOO, Customer Service is fine but why bother if you send another bad knife.

The whole concept of a Strider made by Buck of the lowest line materials, and have a combatives instructor tweak the design, should have tipped me off. Too many cooks . . . .

I paid $60, it would have been more appropriate at $25 and marked NOT Made in the USA. If this is what Idaho is doing, I'm reminded I didn't even get a kiss or towelette.

However - I did look beyond the obvious and saw what the SnG could be, especially from reading the handling and lockup reviews of owners. Bought one, and got my money's worth. A SnG is everything the Tarani isn't. The SnG is arguably the best all around all purpose utiliity knife ever made.

The Tarani, no. Been posting curses about it for years.
 
I have a Gerber Gator Seratror that I really do not like. Got it back in 99 I think. The handles are too think to be a folder, and the blade is difficult to sharpen because of the serrations and steel.
 
I had a Smith and Wesson small tanto neck knife for around $20-25. The tip snapped off same night I brought it home. The guy behind the counter at Shore Galleries (this is few years ago) also showed me a Buck Tarani folder that he closed repeatedly with very light love taps to the back of the blade spine. He was as much chagrined as I was.

ON THE OTHER HAND... I bought a terrific Meadowlark at Shore, as well as a terrific Beretta light folder (the latter was around $28 out the door during one of their sales).

Some of those Berettas and Chinese byrds put the $75 and $100 knives to shame (some of them.)
 
Originally Posted by orthogonal1:
Haven't bought any truely terrible knives since the early '80s. [ ... ] I suspect that my experiences in knives over time have resulted in me not buying "crap" knives, so no terrible knives are bought.
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Esav Benyamin said:
I think this is the definitive answer to the original question. Most of us know what we're looking for before we buy.
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Apparently not me, Esav. :eek:
I often browse the flea markets, cheap gas station displays, dollar stores, etc, looking for the "It can't be that bad, at that price." knife.
Sometime it is that-bad, sometimes it's OK.
I got a pretty good S&W Cuttin' Horse at Dollar General for $5 that was really OK...after I Dremel-polished all the sharp edges off the handle.
I know, I know, "They're crap!" is the consensus here, but still, $5 is not a lot of cash...if you're willing to risk it.
Anyway. I have fun browsing...maybe the 'chase' is half the fun....like playing the nickel slots. :)
 
Well, I don' t really like the Kershaw Vapor i bought about a year ago. It' s not terrible, but for around 20$ a Byrd knife would have easily blown it away in pretty much every aspect.
I found the Screws to be lose when it came and hard to tighten because they looked like they were already stripped.
Then the edge grind was completely off, totally different on both sides of the knife and inconsistent, sometimes it was around 35° sometimes more towards 50°. Oh and it came dull too.
Then the thumbstud is very uncomfortable to use, and had machining marks all over it as did the handle at several points.
The framelock clearly overtravelled, because it hit the other side.
And also the pocket clip was terrible, it was far too tight to put on my pants, and when I took it off the screws nearly stripped.
Oh and there is alot of side to side blade play, and when i tighten the pivot it only gets even more uncomfortable to open.

So overall I guess it' s not "terrible", but clearly not what I expected from Kershaw.
Maybe I got a bad one, I don' t know. But Kershaw is still one of my absolute favorite brands.


Oh and I' d like to submit the Gerber Paraframe, that knife really was terrible. It literally fell apart in my hands after I worked with it a bit:D
 
I forgot about the Vapor. Every time I opened it, it kinda stuck and my finger would slip off the thumbstud and I'd find myself opening it by pushing on the edge side of the blade with my thumb. Not good.


miro44 said:
Well, I don' t really like the Kershaw Vapor i bought about a year ago.
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I had a CRKT M4 about a year ago that had the edge ground far enough off center that when viewed from the tip, looked like the edge was chisel ground. The timing of the spring assist was a little off too, opened with very very little movement of the blade.

I removed the spring and fixed the edge profile. Good knife now, looks very nice too.
 
So far that is three votes so for the Gerber Paraframe if you include mine. My oh my Gerber, how far you have fallen.
 
Gerber Paraframe: it literally fell apart in use. Just like a few others have said.
Gerber 600 multi-tool: after its first use (tightening the bolts on a swingset) it fell apart.
Gerber LST: wouldn't take an edge, and fell apart due to the screws loosening from one day on a keychain.
SOG Micron I: fell apart from keychain use. SOG has improved the design on the Micron II to remedy this.
Cold Steel Kudu: after having about six pass through my hands, five of them would not unlock, even with pliers.
CRKT M16: under EDC use, the screws loosened and made the LAWKS useless. The blade closed many times from this under normal use.
Kershaw Vapor. I love Kershaw, but every Vapor I've had (four in all) developed blade play in the first week.
 
Cold steel pocket bushman: loved it until I found out how dangerous it is...the hard way :(
I also agree on the kershaw vapor...cheap
 
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A bad knife? Sebenza

KIDDING

Back to topic: The Schrade Cliphanger was one of the worst knives I've ever had. The entire knife felt like it would fall apart any second, it screamed cheap, the blade had a dull edge when I got it and it took a while to even get minimal sharpness. I'm glad I lost it.

Gerber Fatty: just a bad design. I've cut myself twice just by opening the blade. To me, there is a flaw where the blade is too broad when opened; it extends below the handle slightly. Just enough to snag my fingers if I'm not careful.
 
The Kershaw Carabiner Tool Knife is the worst POS I ever purchased. I made the mistake of using my first post here to criticize it and the "kershaw mafia" started accusing me of making up my problem. Yeah, that's how I spend my time, bad-mouthing a low end kershaw product that I didn't really buy. But unfortunately I did buy it. As I said in my 1st post, the carabiner is a made in china POS with kershaw painted on the blade. The so called bottle opener lifts the cap off a beer as neatly as a spoon could. The carabiner lock would unscrew itself and the screwdrivers were too small to really be useful. To top it off the fit and finish were awful. I bought this worthless thing from an online source...I wish I had seen one in person so I could have avoided the purchase altogether.
 
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