thoughts on emerson wave

M

mlawson

Joined
Mar 29, 2003
Messages
208
Was wanting to know what you guys throught about the emerson wave design on their knives. a buddy of mine let me check his out and i really liked the feature. i could see where, if not carefull, i could cut myself, and that it could realy tear up a pocket. Your thoughts please.
 
I owned a fullsize Commander with the wave feature and it was very handy for opening the knife but after time the wave eats through the corner of your pockets. I wear jeans to work and it ripped through them, if you wear pants of a lighter material you may develope holes in a hurry.
 
I think that it's a nice feature, but not the tremendous advance that some people make it out to be. It can do a number on pockets.

The biggest problem that I see with the Wave is that it only comes attached to Emerson knives.
 
I had a waved SOCFK for a time. The wave feature makes waved Emersons the fast opening folder out there, no contest. It's open when you take out of your pocket. I carried mine IWB, and could even wave it from there.

Don't worry about being cut, you can easily draw the knife without opening it as well.

Look around on b/s/t. You can usually find waved Emersons there. If you don't like it, there's a large demand for resale.
 
I've been carrying a waved CQC-7B for over a year and have not had any problems. It is fast and it works. If you don't want an Emerson the Cuda Maxx and Cold Steel Ti-lite work in a similar way and some people grind waves into other knives with Spydercos being the most popular.
 
Originally posted by fishbulb
I think that it's a nice feature, but not the tremendous advance that some people make it out to be. It can do a number on pockets.

The biggest problem that I see with the Wave is that it only comes attached to Emerson knives.
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my sentiments exactly, i don't really see a situation where you would need to deploy a knife the whole 2 seconds faster except if you are in the military or you live in an area where you are constantly in fear of getting mugged. The problem with the wave imo is that it opens the knife too forcibly, from the commander that i had i can see the liner lock getting wedged too tight against the tang and the stop pin is pretty tiny so that might get deformed eventually.
 
I have owned Emerson Commanders for a number of years. For a long while I thought the wave was wonderful. But I found that many times I want to pull a clipped knife out of my pocket, to use, and I do not want it to fly open. If you want to pull the waved knife out of your pocket and have it closed (in social situations etc) it is awkward. They also started to chew up my jeans pocket corners.

Now, when carrying a Commander I use the Emerson quick deployment sheath. The combination is perfect. You can simply pull the knife out of the sheath slowly and it will not open via the wave. Or you can pull it out faster and you are open and set in a blink of an eye.

Many of the places I go, will not let you in with a fixed blade. The Emerson, in the Emerson sheath, is not a problem and you can have an open blade in the blink of an eye.

One other point is that the constant use of the wave does produce additional wear and tear the knife. I think the wave opening motion is harder on the knife than constant flicking.
 
i don't really see a situation where you would need to deploy a knife the whole 2 seconds faster except if you are in the military or you live in an area where you are constantly in fear of getting mugged.
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It is not a question of speed so much as a question of the fine motor skills needed to thumb open a knife. The Wave facilitiates the opening of the blade without requiring that fine motor skill on which one should not depend under stress. You just pull the knife from your pocket and the knife is open.

Almost any knife with an opening hole can be waved with some modifications to the blade itself.
 
Originally posted by Sharp Phil
It is not a question of speed so much as a question of the fine motor skills needed to thumb open a knife. The Wave facilitiates the opening of the blade without requiring that fine motor skill on which one should not depend under stress. You just pull the knife from your pocket and the knife is open.
Click to expand...

I buy that line of reasoning. Question: do you guys who have waved knives, find that your knife is open each and every time you pull it out of your pocket, without any mistakes? I ask that because I've seen enough people who carry Emerson waved knives fumble the draw and end up with a knife not quite open -- including a serious expert -- that I wonder how often this happens. And this is merely under the stress of "somebody is watching me, I better not mess up", which isn't much compared to "holy **** that guy is going to kill me if I don't get this knife out fast enough!".

A quick flick of the wrist will open the knife the rest of the way in any case, but I wonder if the number of "fumbles" I see is an anomaly or something other people also see occasionally.

I do, BTW, think the wave is a great feature. If the 710 had it, it'd be nearly perfect! :)


Joe
 
Joe,

I suspect that much of that is a training issue. Waving your EDC open hundreds of time counts as some practice, but a person really needs to simulate a high stress situation and wave under those conditions. Grab some training buddies, and work at fast draw techniques UNDER STRESS. I think that a lot of folks believe that since they can open their folder easily when it comes time to open mail, that those skills will transfer over to combat, which simply isn't the case.
 
If the Wave is all you carry, especially just one model, it should open pretty reliably every time. But if you carry a CRK one day, BM the next, Spydie the day after, then on the weekend, your Commander is not going to be that extension of your mind and hand it was engineered to be. :D

Practice, practice, practice ... (Note: buy extra jeans ... ohhh, TAD has pants with reinforced pockets!)
 
i don't see how you can mess up using the wave feature, as long as you can grip the butt of the knife and pull it'll open with the wave, just pull the knife towards the back. Now I don't know if there is a difference between the different types of pants that people wear which could make things different since the pocket might be designed differently and the fabric might be thicker or thinner
 
When I am playing around, my SOCFK waves out perfect almost every time. However, sure as shooting, when I try to demo for someone I end up with a partial opening about a third of the time.
I would not trust myself to wave properly in a stressful emergency situation. However, this is my fault – not the fault of the knife. I’m sure the opening could be made reliable with focused practice. I also imagine that the bigger wave hooks (found on Emersons other than the SOCFK) might work better.

I like mine. No pocket problems on my jeans. Never been even close to cutting myself while waving.

Now I want a CQC10.

--SAK
 
Be pretty rough on the pocket, but my real attitude towards the Wave is one of complacency these days.
When I started checking out knives I thought the wave was really neat, but now I realize it's kind of gimmicky and I really don't need to shave .05 seconds of my folder opening time, I don't carry knives for combat so ultra-quick deployment is hardly a priority with me.
 
I had a waved Commander and I thought it was a cool feature. It can over time wear out jeans. The thing I didn't like about it was in order for me to "wave" the grip didn't work for me. I can't speak for others but for myself I can deploy my Cuda Maxx faster than the Commander that I had. The larger blade flys open with a wrist flick and I don't have to shift my grip.
 
the wave is a great feature, should be on all EKI knives imho, that said 2 of my 3 fav EKI's arent waved, P-Tac and CQC8, #3 is the SOCFK which is, #4 is not, my I&I tanto.

right now my edc is an emerson collectors P-Tac w/a zero bevel grind, love it waved or not, i do practice deploying it, so no wave doesnt slow me down TOOO much.

a great feature though

greg
 
When Ernie first came out with the wave, it was only on the ES1 made strictly for the military and was not a blade opening device. It was made to catch or stop an opponent's blade in certain kinds of knife fighting. It happened that Ernie and some SEAL's he's involved with discovered simultaneously the blade opening benefit.

Obviously, once you own a knife you can do any thing you want to it. Ernie has a patent on the wave, including add on waves,etc. so if you see anyone selling waved knives they are ripping him off. Not directed at anyone here, just know of 2 makers who did it without permission and were stopped by attorneys.
 
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