Tops' 1095

Chris*33

Chris*33

Joined
Jan 16, 2017
Messages
350
Hey guys,

Lately, I have the TOPS Longhorn Bowie in my crosshairs, and i would like to get opinions regarding their 1095.

For some reason, eventhough i do not own any knives in that steel, it doesn't strike me as a steel that
should have that high a price point in the market (**i'm not talking for TOPS, I'm talking for all brands, even some mid-tech / semi-custom)
In TOPS knives specifically it seems that quite some work is done on hand so i understand you pay the for quality control and the labour as well.

I would like feedback from first-hand experience, especially from TOPS owners, cause i really dig some of their designs.

Thank you
 
I have a TOPS SXB with 1095 and it's awesome. Great build quality , excellent fit and finish and it cuts/chops like it's demonically possessed. I really like the textured blade coating too. Love the knife.
 
I have a TOPS .230. I don't know if it is the HT of that specific blade, but mine is extremely soft. When I actually used it, I spent more time sharpening than I did chopping. My Ontario blades a much better, and cheaper. I also have a Schrade 7 inch fixed blade in 1095 that has a fantastic HT! That being said, they might run their machetes a little softer then their smaller fixed blades, not sure.
 
Only TOPS I own is a "key d". Its on the harder side for 1095. I consider 1095 to be a great steel. It is tough, easy to sharpen to a ridiculously keen edge, and holds an edge well. Only drawback I can think of is corrosion resistance. It's not going to be a great choice if you aren't going to have the time to maintain it, it will rust if neglected. Should it be that expensive? Well not based on the steel type alone, but if it's a well made knife, why not? I thought 50 bucks was high for the key d but I was not disappointed at all. In fact I lost my first one, and bought a replacement. The longhorn looks cool, and I'd bet money that recurve will perform very well. If the only thing holding you back is steel type, I wouldn't worry about it. Both my examples had an exceptional heat treat, held an edge, and were very tough. I really thumped on them too, no problems.
 
I get what you mean. You can get a decent Schrade in 1095 that lots of people swear by for under $50, but I feel like I understand the reason. I have a few Beckers and they are the toughest knives I own, all 1095. They are less costly than most comparable Tops knives. That being said, Tops often gives you micarta scales which if I purchase some for my Beckers would easily kick them up into Tops prices. I feel like as others have said it's the QC, fit and finish, and heat treat that lead to the high cost. Is it worth it? Only you can make that call. I say get it!
 
Beckers are not made from 1095. They are made from a copy of Sharon 170-06 aka 52-100B aka "original" Carbon V aka 1095 Cro-Van. That steel will not only be deeper hardening because of the presence of 5160 levels chromium and slightly increased manganese, but also tougher and finer grained because of traces amounts of vanadaium and nickel. 1095CV more closely resembles a higher carbon version of 80CrV2 which says that it also almost fits into the high carbon end of the L2 spec range. .
wesmanthetiger said:
I get what you mean. You can get a decent Schrade in 1095 that lots of people swear by for under $50, but I feel like I understand the reason. I have a few Beckers and they are the toughest knives I own, all 1095. They are less costly than most comparable Tops knives. That being said, Tops often gives you micarta scales which if I purchase some for my Beckers would easily kick them up into Tops prices. I feel like as others have said it's the QC, fit and finish, and heat treat that lead to the high cost. Is it worth it? Only you can make that call. I say get it!
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The "harder side" for 1095 would be in the 63 Rc range which would no tbe quite so easy to sharpen..
another mike said:
Only TOPS I own is a "key d". Its on the harder side for 1095. I consider 1095 to be a great steel. It is tough, easy to sharpen to a ridiculously keen edge, and holds an edge well. Only drawback I can think of is corrosion resistance. It's not going to be a great choice if you aren't going to have the time to maintain it, it will rust if neglected. Should it be that expensive? Well not based on the steel type alone, but if it's a well made knife, why not? I thought 50 bucks was high for the key d but I was not disappointed at all. In fact I lost my first one, and bought a replacement. The longhorn looks cool, and I'd bet money that recurve will perform very well. If the only thing holding you back is steel type, I wouldn't worry about it. Both my examples had an exceptional heat treat, held an edge, and were very tough. I really thumped on them too, no problems.
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Ontario RAT series has micarta scales, 1095 with great HT too. Esee too. But get whatever style of 1095 blade you like, there are lots out there.
 
jdm61 said:
Beckers are not made from 1095. They are made from a copy of Sharon 170-06 aka 52-100B aka "original" Carbon V aka 1095 Cro-Van. That steel will not only be deeper hardening because of the presence of 5160 levels chromium and slightly increased manganese, but also tougher and finer grained because of traces amounts of vanadaium and nickel. 1095CV more closely resembles a higher carbon version of 80CrV2 which says that it also almost fits into the high carbon end of the L2 spec range. .
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Cool. Good to know. So it's a modified 1095 like Buck's 420HC is a modified 420? So is that beneficial or not vs standard 1095?
 
Thank you for the feedback people.
It's true that you can get a few decent blades in 1095 quite cheap,
but come on.....there must be at least a TOPS design for everyone!
If they were not making knives, they would be writing mangas (or at least drawing the blades in them!)
 
HEAVILY modified. For our knifey purposes, vanadium makes for fine grain structure and maybe higher as-quenched hardness and a little more abrasion resistance, although many say that there is too little V to effect the latter. Chromium and Molybdenum make for deeper hardening.
wesmanthetiger said:
Cool. Good to know. So it's a modified 1095 like Buck's 420HC is a modified 420? So is that beneficial or not vs standard 1095?
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Jdm61, you're right, 1095 can get really hard, and this little tops I have is definitely not rc 63. I do not have the equipment or frankly, the desire to Rockwell test knives. When I said the "harder side" I meant the tops knife I own holds an edge longer than some other knives in 1095 I have owned or used. (Mainly Ontario and vintage Schrade, which by the way are awesome knives as well) You can feel a difference when sharpening. Also, just to clarify, when I talk of ease of sharpening, I'm not talking about hardness necessarily. For example I have a few case knives that are hard to sharpen despite being a rather soft steel. Love case, they are really pretty knives and well made, but their stainless tends to form an annoying burr when I sharpen it, and it costs me time getting rid of it. I realize I'm not doing the best job explaining myself here, but does anyone know what I'm talking about? I don't have to "fight" the tops to get it to take a hair popping edge. Same goes for every other simple carbon steel knife I've ever owned. Something else I've noticed that might be relevant to the OP, a lot of tops knives, when stripped, seem to show a hamon/temper line. I don't know what this is, but man it would be cool if they differentially tempered some of their blades, especially the larger ones that were gonna see hard use. Can anyone confirm or deny that?
 
If you go by their "shop tour" video, TOPS heat treats in house and does do a "differential" quench aka edge quench. Some would question that technique, particularly with a shallow hardening steel like 1095. DiffferntialTEMEPRING would be doing the old"blue back"tirckwhere you heat the spine to a higher temperature with the edge in water, etc. That is not what they are doing.
another mike said:
Jdm61, you're right, 1095 can get really hard, and this little tops I have is definitely not rc 63. I do not have the equipment or frankly, the desire to Rockwell test knives. When I said the "harder side" I meant the tops knife I own holds an edge longer than some other knives in 1095 I have owned or used. (Mainly Ontario and vintage Schrade, which by the way are awesome knives as well) You can feel a difference when sharpening. Also, just to clarify, when I talk of ease of sharpening, I'm not talking about hardness necessarily. For example I have a few case knives that are hard to sharpen despite being a rather soft steel. Love case, they are really pretty knives and well made, but their stainless tends to form an annoying burr when I sharpen it, and it costs me time getting rid of it. I realize I'm not doing the best job explaining myself here, but does anyone know what I'm talking about? I don't have to "fight" the tops to get it to take a hair popping edge. Same goes for every other simple carbon steel knife I've ever owned. Something else I've noticed that might be relevant to the OP, a lot of tops knives, when stripped, seem to show a hamon/temper line. I don't know what this is, but man it would be cool if they differentially tempered some of their blades, especially the larger ones that were gonna see hard use. Can anyone confirm or deny that?
Click to expand...
 
Crazy! I think it's surprising a company like tops doesn't advertise that technique more than they do. They have a lot of "mall ninja tacticool" kind of designs and I'm surprised I never read "hardened like the Japanese katana!"in any descriptions. Also, thanks for the correction, hardening and tempering are two different things, and I didnt mean to mess up nomenclature there. I certainly don't want to add to the wealth of misinformation about knives and knife making. I don't mean to talk bad about tops either, if some wacky design floats your boat, I say go for it. I think cold steel has some ridiculous designs too, but a lot of people like them and who am I to say otherwise? The ones I've handled seem to be made well enough. I think knife people are often kind of ridiculed for their choice in blades from non knife people. A lot of "why do you need that?" Sometimes people just want stuff because they think it's cool. I may be wrong, but I think the OP just wants to know if they are quality knives and worth it, or are they just for looks? and from my own admittedly limited experience with the two identical knives from them I've owned, yeah they're made well. And I haven't heard anyone else complaining about them either. There might be a few haters that don't like tops designs, but 1095 is quite serviceable, and wouldn't be a concern of mine after heavily using my little knife. Im pretty obsessed with keeping a super keen edge, and my little tops hasn't let me down, all while being as easy to carry as a folder. If a knife can hold an edge, and be tough enough to be whacked through a tree to make an oar for an impromptu canoe outing, I say it does it's job well. BTW jdm61, your work is pretty impressive, I like your style man. Understated and classy vs over the top and gaudy. Anyway, Chris, if you like the knife, go for it dude. I don't think you have to worry about quality. As long as youre fine with a carbon steel blade and the maintenance that comes with it, I think it'll be a satisfactory blade. The longhorn was in my crosshairs as well, along with the prather Bowie, but it's hard to justify buying fixed blades when I could just make them.
 
i recently bought a tops delta unit 3, and used it fairly lightly on mostly food the other day. noticed a small amount of rust building on very edge, and it was no longer paper shredding sharp. I stropped it for awhile, and it came right back to pretty much factory sharp. Seems like my ESSE 6 held a sharper edge longer, and I chopped a bunch with it.
 
A traditional katana is not hardened by edge quenching. the type of steels used determine the hardness and to lesser extent, the clay. I read somewhere that the "ashi" are designed to soften up little bands of the hard steel near the edge so that cracks won't propagate along the length of the blade. When making a katana from a suitable monosteel like W2, you have to lay the clay on thicker. that you would with a "laminate" hagane/shigane blade. Some will tell you that edge quenching a 1095 blade for "toughness" is unnecessary and possible not good as a shallow hardening steel like 1095/W1/W2 may not even fully harden in the thicker parts of the blade. One forumite who is heavily into Japanese cutting had Bailey Bradshaw make him a thought hardened (no clay, no hamon) W2 katana a number of years back and it was supposedly a monster cutter.
another mike said:
Crazy! I think it's surprising a company like tops doesn't advertise that technique more than they do. They have a lot of "mall ninja tacticool" kind of designs and I'm surprised I never read "hardened like the Japanese katana!"in any descriptions. Also, thanks for the correction, hardening and tempering are two different things, and I didnt mean to mess up nomenclature there. I certainly don't want to add to the wealth of misinformation about knives and knife making. I don't mean to talk bad about tops either, if some wacky design floats your boat, I say go for it. I think cold steel has some ridiculous designs too, but a lot of people like them and who am I to say otherwise? The ones I've handled seem to be made well enough. I think knife people are often kind of ridiculed for their choice in blades from non knife people. A lot of "why do you need that?" Sometimes people just want stuff because they think it's cool. I may be wrong, but I think the OP just wants to know if they are quality knives and worth it, or are they just for looks? and from my own admittedly limited experience with the two identical knives from them I've owned, yeah they're made well. And I haven't heard anyone else complaining about them either. There might be a few haters that don't like tops designs, but 1095 is quite serviceable, and wouldn't be a concern of mine after heavily using my little knife. Im pretty obsessed with keeping a super keen edge, and my little tops hasn't let me down, all while being as easy to carry as a folder. If a knife can hold an edge, and be tough enough to be whacked through a tree to make an oar for an impromptu canoe outing, I say it does it's job well. BTW jdm61, your work is pretty impressive, I like your style man. Understated and classy vs over the top and gaudy. Anyway, Chris, if you like the knife, go for it dude. I don't think you have to worry about quality. As long as youre fine with a carbon steel blade and the maintenance that comes with it, I think it'll be a satisfactory blade. The longhorn was in my crosshairs as well, along with the prather Bowie, but it's hard to justify buying fixed blades when I could just make them.
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I was poking fun at tops with the katana thing in case it wasn't obvious. Sorry guys if I derailed this thread, all I meant to add was that in my experience, tops produces a good quality knife with a solid heat treat. Again, I can't Rockwell test the thing, but it compares favorably to other knives I have made of the same steel.
 
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