What is with Cold Steel?

truecarbon,

Would you please just do a simple search? Your question is just asking for trouble. There's more than enough info on these forums already for you to get an idea of why people do or do not like CS. There's absolutely no need for another thread that's going to DEFINITELY lead to flame wars.
 
i think cold steel knives are the best! no other knife made on the planet will even come close, i also think lynn is a swell guy. i was in line at the concession stand at the blade show and he was behind me, he bought me popcorn and rootbeer as long as i let him skip me in line.:D
 
sdt11670 said:
Lynn Thompson has not only designed several of cold steels better products but has helped in designing many more. You find the materials to be poor? hmmm i would like to know how many here think that about spyderco, perhaps you? since they are of the same materials by the same makers except the cold steel knives generally have stronger locks. I have tons of knives from just about every manufacturer i can think of and CS ranks with the best of them. Many peoples responses to CS hatred is just hear say being repeated as you obviously have done since if you really knew anything about the company you would have known that in fact LT is a designer. Perhaps you have tried the cheap CS products or perhaps the better ones are too pricey in your opinion so you have not tried them.
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yes, i dont care for many of spyderco's products either. i dont like frn or aus or 440 series steels.

i have owned cold steels, i have seen them carried, and i have seen them fail. i have also seen them carried for years and serve their owners well.

i never said i hated cold steel. in fact i think my response was quite objective.

agreed, lynn thompson has designed or helped desing a few of his companies products. that does not make him a knife designer, it only means he has had input, to some degree, on SOME knives. you cannot deny that he is a marketer before anything else, or are you just being obtuse?

read the whole thing, instead of selectively quoting a section you dont like.
 
WOW......some real bad vib's on CS , I have a few..........been using a mini-pal in the barn for some years now....it does what it was made to do...cut...I can not recall how many feed bags / bails of hay / string / rope...etc etc...it has cut open and is still sharp enough to keep working...and it was a 2nd !

not all there knives are great...this mini-pal has been well used and keeps working...

I got what I paid for..........how about you ?
 
To each their own.
I bought a Voyager in 2003. Cheap knife, really sharp. Not very good ergonomically, but I liked the look.
First day I used it to cut some jute (natural fiber) light twine.
Tips of several serrations broke off.
No problem, I thought, it was obviously a manufacturers defect, so I called the company to give them the opportunity to either re-grind or replace the blade.
Decent company would have had me mail it in for evaluation.
Not Cold S***.
Got accused of abusing the knife by the "Customer Service Manager."
He must have had to take a bunch of calls for defective blades, because he was insulting from the time I said hello.
I hung up on him and took the knife back to the store I bought it from. Traded it for a CRKT M-16-2. Only problem with the CRKT, other than they don't hold an edge very long, is people keep stealing them. I'm on #4
I won't own another Cold S*** product.
FWIW, the chain retailer I bought it from, doesn't handle the company anymore either.
 
MORIMOTOM said:
yes, i dont care for many of spyderco's products either. i dont like frn or aus or 440 series steels.

i have owned cold steels, i have seen them carried, and i have seen them fail. i have also seen them carried for years and serve their owners well.

i never said i hated cold steel. in fact i think my response was quite objective.

agreed, lynn thompson has designed or helped desing a few of his companies products. that does not make him a knife designer, it only means he has had input, to some degree, on SOME knives. you cannot deny that he is a marketer before anything else, or are you just being obtuse?

read the whole thing, instead of selectively quoting a section you dont like.
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O.K. as far as designing a knife goes, think about this... Is there any way possible to design a knife that doesn't look like someone else's? i don't think so. now what CS claims is they improve on their design of a specific design. I recall designing my perfect field dressing knife... It was a large skinner with a small folding blade in the grip for gutting/detail and then i looked in levine's guide only to see a ton identical by scagel! And can't you look at a custom makers blades and tell who made it? They usually have two to four blade styles in different lengths. does this simply mean they are knife makers and not designers because they have not designed a huge assortment of blades? Your opinion of a designer may be with the likes of those like Gil Hibben,Ken Onion,Kit Rae, D. Ralph etc. Now if these guy's are your idea of designer's then i do see your point, and yes LT is the Clinton of marketing.
 
sdt11670 said:
O.K. as far as designing a knife goes, think about this... Is there any way possible to design a knife that doesn't look like someone else's? i don't think so. now what CS claims is they improve on their design of a specific design. I recall designing my perfect field dressing knife... It was a large skinner with a small folding blade in the grip for gutting/detail and then i looked in levine's guide only to see a ton identical by scagel! And can't you look at a custom makers blades and tell who made it? They usually have two to four blade styles in different lengths. does this simply mean they are knife makers and not designers because they have not designed a huge assortment of blades? Your opinion of a designer may be with the likes of those like Gil Hibben,Ken Onion,Kit Rae, D. Ralph etc. Now if these guy's are your idea of designer's then i do see your point, and yes LT is the Clinton of marketing.
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are you suggesting the gi tanto and the sharkie are not intentional copies?

of course there is a limit to the creativity in the field, and many designs are similar in more ways than one. lock types, blade shapes, etc.

the difference, i believe, is that cs marketed the gi tanto (for example) by using disparaging remarks about mick strider. and it is not a stretch to suggest that cs had the gi tanto made for the specific purpose of offering a nearly identical knife for about 5% of the cost of the strider.

a designer/maker is one who makes knives. starting with the design, forging/milling/cnc, grinding, shaping, finishing, etc, in the makers workshop. for the most part, the only outsourcing is for heat treat or scrimshaw type work.

lynn thompson may be a nice guy to talk to at shows, but i find his business practices to be unethical.

i dont mind the over the top advertising, it can actually be quite entertaining. many companies market their products as the "best", or the "toughest". we all understand that marketing and advertising is part of a business, whose goal is to make money. but there is a vast difference between marketing your own products on their own merits, and bashing other companies in order to sell knives.
 
The real reason is that Lynn Thompson was a newcomer who did not get down on his hands and knees and bow to the Knife Mafia.

The Knife Mafiaosi thought he was a new kid on the block and they hated him for providing great knives at a great price, far cheaper than they charged.

They hated him for the same reason the Haberdasher Mafia hates Wal-Mart. I go to Wal-Mart and get is good shirt that fits me for $11.00, while the Haberdasher Mafia wants $60.00 for the same quality and snotty service.

My Trailmaster from 1992 has been used hard and still will outperform most custom knives. It looks good, has good balance and does not weigh a ton.

Some may claim Lynn Thompson is not a cool dude but he has some good knives. Lynn Thompson saw a niche in the economy and filled it.

This horse will continue to get beaten to death until horses evolve six heads.
 
Phelan said:
The real reason is that Lynn Thompson was a newcomer who did not get down on his hands and knees and bow to the Knife Mafia.

The Knife Mafiaosi thought he was a new kid on the block and they hated him for providing great knives at a great price, far cheaper than they charged.

They hated him for the same reason the Haberdasher Mafia hates Wal-Mart. I go to Wal-Mart and get is good shirt that fits me for $11.00, while the Haberdasher Mafia wants $60.00 for the same quality and snotty service.

My Trailmaster from 1992 has been used hard and still will outperform most custom knives. It looks good, has good balance and does not weigh a ton.
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you base all this on exactly what?

cold steel has been around for what, 20 years? more? hardly a new kid on the block. and who is this knife mafia you refer to who lynn thompson refused to bow to? buck, gerber? there werent many other large production companies selling knives at that time. the knives cold steel originally sold were anything but inexpensive, relatively speaking. in fact, the tanto initially sold for over 100.00, quite a sum back then, and far more than the majority of bucks and gerbers.

and i guess what you are ultimately saying is that cold steel is the wal mart of the knife world?
 
Phelan said:
My Trailmaster from 1992 has been used hard and still will outperform most custom knives.
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That is an inane comment. How in the heck would you know that the Trailmaster would out perform most custom knives. Have you tested it against all the available custom knives? Has anyone tested it against all the available custom knives that has come to the conclusion that you have? Of course not, but that is the only way that you can make a statement like the one you did, and have it mean anything.
 
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averageguy said:
All I know is Cold Steel rocks compared to Spyderco.
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I've owned both and would disagree with that. Some of the Cold Steel knives that I have owned have been very good, some have not. I have yet to own a Spyderco that wasn't a good knife. You're experience may well have been different than mine.
 
averageguy said:
All I know is Cold Steel rocks compared to Spyderco.
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Keith Montgomery said:
I've owned both and would disagree with that. Some of the Cold Steel knives that I have owned have been very good, some have not. I have yet to own a Spyderco that wasn't a good knife. You're experience may well have been different than mine.
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I'd agree that, for the average guy (pun intended), Cold Steel might just "rock" compared to Spyderco. But for "those who know".......Well, I think averageguy might have been correct in his assessment. Compared to Spyderco's cutting implements, I imagine Cold Steel's do function more akin to "rocks.":D

3G
 
Only Cold Steel I've ever owned was one of there "City Stick" walking canes. And I was completely satisfied with it. I still carry it in my car, it's in there right now actually.

I do not plan on purchasing any of there knives anytime soon however. I've read enough on here about them stealing other maker's designs to be put off to say the least. That and the few CS items at my local knife shop seem to be low quality compared to other makes they carry.
 
FWIW: Bragging about wearing Walmart clothing does nothing to influence another's opinion on your sense of taste, or your ability to identify quality. It's like shopping for a fake Rolex or fake designer jeans. You usually get what you pay for.

If you are satisfied with low end Chinese junk, by all means, stick with what you like.
 
Phelan said:
The real reason is that Lynn Thompson was a newcomer who did not get down on his hands and knees and bow to the Knife Mafia.

The Knife Mafiaosi thought he was a new kid on the block and they hated him for providing great knives at a great price, far cheaper than they charged.

They hated him for the same reason the Haberdasher Mafia hates Wal-Mart.
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No, if you break the knife mafia into two groups Manufacture and Sales the main reasons they hated him were that 1)he hired them to make knives for him and then didn`t pay for them. 2) He began going to the same shows his dealers were at and was selling directly to the public for less than he sold to his dealers. 3) He tries to threaten and intimidate half the people he meets, either with lawsuits or physical violence or both. At Blade in Atlanta I personally watched his staff threaten an elderly knifemaker at his own table, and I watched Lynn try to pick a fight with Col. Rex Appllegate who was in his mid 70`s at the time.
Thompson was yelling at the top of his lungs, slobbering and turning red challenging the Col. to come outside and have a knife fight. Nobody could believe what was happening. I`ve got to give Mr. Applegate credit, he was much more patient than he needed to be. He calmly pointed out that A) Dueling is illegal,B) He was 75 and WALKED WITH A CANE, and C) If Thompson didn`t leave him alone he was going to shoot him where he stood.
Thompson WAS a rich bully who was used to scaring people into doing what he wanted. He threatened half the makers out there with nuisance law suits he knew they couldn`t afford to fight. That ended when he sued (at that time) the largest knife distributor in the US. My boss had lunch with him and asked how it had gone. The distributor said the settlement kept him bound from discussing who`d won.....He just said "it`s a shame Lynn can`t sell his house because I have a lean on it."
The guy is loudmouthed jackass. His company doesn`t make one of the knives they sell. They treat thier customers and thier business partners like dirt. But i`ve gotta say they sell a heck of a nice shovel.
 
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