What is with Cold Steel?

[averageguy]

"Firstly don't compare cold steel to Spyderco of all companies."

Of course you can compare these - and you can expect similar quality from similarly priced knives between these brands.
There are only a few major knife manufacturing facilities in Japan. That means all knives marked Japan come from one of these. They may be branded differently but they are manufactured in the same plant.

Morimotom - 8734 posts in two years - what kind of fan boy wanna-be are you anyway.

When you Busse guys pay hundreds of dollars for knives that don't cut much better than 420hc I guess you have to spend a considerable amount of time putting down other knives to justify that expense.

It should be mentioned that together with heat treat, blade geometry is the most consequential factor in a knife's cutting ability.
The Busse knives I have owned did not possess anything near a correct geometry - this may have changed now, I dont know - but I'm not spending hundreds of dollars and playing the fan boy to find out. I can get real knives from guild members for this kind of money.

 

[iamsmiling]

It's not their knives that is the problem, it's their marketing. Everything on their website and in their literature is sorta wannabe ninja oriented.

A friend has one of their "hunter" knives and really likes it.

 

[Broos]

Good grief, if you can't figure out on this issue where you stand by a simple search and some reading (a lot of reading), then there is no hope for you. There seems to be a compulsion for some to first ask this question about why folks won't support this company, then downplay the replies in attempt to support cold steel. Go figure...

 

[truecarbon]

well golleeee since i started all this i have learned nothing. Just that nobody here has any cool stories and if you ask a honest question all the "old timer" people will tell you to do a search oh and the search engine on here is broke or it sucks. oh and some of you should know i am not new to using knives just "sitting around and talking about them". This is why i asked the "question" i used cold steel products and a lot of others and found nothing negative about them so i asked.

 

[Confederate]

does it matter that the sharkie isnt a knife? its clearly a rip off.

I believe the resemblance between the Sharpie and the Sharkie is completely mitigated by the fact that the two markers are not competitors. They have two completely different purposes and neither one deprives the other of profit. Have you ever seen those Coca-Cola and other cans or bottles that are really places where you can put cash and jewelry? They're along the same lines; they're called "diversion safes." Just unscrew the bottoms and put the valuables right in. The idea is to hide the true nature of the device. It's a kubotan. Having said that, I'm going to look pretty damn foolish if Lynn Thompson puts the Sharkie up against the Sharpie in his next video. "When you start marking with our Sharkie, you'll think you're using a spray painter!"

I had an Obayun (i think it was called). The grind was uneven and poor. The finish was uneven and inconsistent (bead blast of some sort). The sheath was molded Kydex, but wasnt trimmed and looked like crap. The fit was fair, and rubbed the finish off sections of the knife on the first insertion. not just a little, but right through the bead blast.

Anyone can have a bad experience with one knife. On another site, I just read a review of the Buck 110 with a S30V blade. It read: "After just four days of carry and no heavy use, only to cut open some Christmas packages, the knife handle started to come apart from frame." He gave it a one-star rating. Now was that a fair review? I don't own a Buck, but from what I've heard about them, I'd say no.

I dont know the name of the folders, but a guy I work with had a serrated job. Lots of blade play, loose scales. Dont know what he did with it, but I don't think he ran it over or anything."

I don't know, either. But I can tell you that I have Voyagers in every blade size and many configurations. None of them has any play. I've also given some away as gifts. I have Gunsites, Recon 1s, Pro-Lites, Night Forces, Vaqueros and a Ti-Lite. Oh, and two Ready Edges. All are flawless. I also have a "new" El Hombre 4-incher. It's a bit tight and won't open with a flick, but that's the closest to a bad knife that I've had from CS. If I worked with it awhile, it might even loosen up. Anyway, I like the cowboy on the side with the lasso. Kind of a Western flair.

Remember the CS that snapped at the hilt after some batoning? Wasn't that a Trailmaster?

Okay, so if a knife doesn't baton, you're saying that it's not a good knife? Do you know of any manufacturer that will stand behind their knives if they're batoned? We also have to know how the batoning was done and under what circumstances. What was the temperature, how hard was the knife hit; at what angle was the blade in relation to the handle, what king of wood was being split? There are many variables. Had the knife been batoned before? Did you try it with more than one Trailmaster?

 

[hardheart]

the knife that broke batoning was pretty much at most a design issue, who knows if there were problems with QC or other abuse that could have set the knife up for failure. It was a cold environment, that much is obvious from the snow in the pic, but if that contributed, who knows. The tang to blade transition wasn't radiused much, if at all.

Complaining about the quality control of a Carbon V CS is equivalent to complaining about the QC of every Camillus/Becker/Marbles at a certain point/etc, same manufacturer, same steel (0170-6)

 

[3Guardsmen]

"Firstly don't compare cold steel to Spyderco of all companies."

Of course you can compare these - and you can expect similar quality from similarly priced knives between these brands.
There are only a few major knife manufacturing facilities in Japan. That means all knives marked Japan come from one of these. They may be branded differently but they are manufactured in the same plant.

Really? You mean I can expect a made in the USA, S30V bladed, thumb-hole opening knife if I were to give Cold Steel $200? Cool! Show me where it is!

I suppose, too, if I were to give Spyderco more than $300, they could make me a folding knife with a laminated AUS8/420J2 blade. Nah, Sal would probably just laugh at me for my steel choice.

Morimotom - 8734 posts in two years - what kind of fan boy wanna-be are you anyway.

Making personal attacks on Mark is not in good form! Just because you don't have as high a post count as he does, you don't need to feel inferior.

3G

 

[3Guardsmen]

Complaining about the quality control of a Carbon V CS is equivalent to complaining about the QC of every Camillus/Becker/Marbles at a certain point/etc, same manufacturer, same steel (0170-6)

Same heat treatment, too? If so, you are saying that Cold Steel didn't have the proprietary heat treatment, unique to only them (they called it a closely guarded trade secret), that they claimed they did.

3G

 

[Keith Montgomery]

averageguy, just a bit of advice, you should refrain from throwing around insults. It can you banned.

Cold steel sell (they don't make any knives) some very good knives. They also make some very average knives. They don't sell anything that I would call out and out crap.

 

[3Guardsmen]

So, is this thread gonna hit a thousand posts too?

Glad to see more folks defending CS against the "usual suspects" of CS Haters.

So, do you have the "dirt" you promised on other knife manufacturers yet? Its only been like two years now.

3G

 

[Phelan]

Even in these hoary, grizzled and geezered times, with our Bill of Rights going straight down the U.N.-dug rathole, our jobs getting shipped to India and with illegals in front of every Home Depot, as thick as flies at an outhouse, Lynn Thompson is still battling the Knife Mafiosi from his Ventura, CA abode. My Trailmaster will accompany me to Ely, Nevada in a little over a month where I hope to freeze my &@#* off.

Horses will grow as big as brachiosaurs before this horse is beaten to death one last time.

 

[3Guardsmen]

remember the cs that snapped at the hilt after some batoning? wasnt that a trailmaster?

Okay, so if a knife doesn't baton, you're saying that it's not a good knife? Do you know of any manufacturer that will stand behind their knives if they're batoned?

First of all, with an ad copy that states "In terms of sharpness, edge holding and strength, it will out perform—by a wide margin—any factory made knife we know of and 99% of all hand forged knives as well!"[/B] http://www.coldsteel.com/fixed-blades-trail-master-series.html, I would certainly expect that it could stand up to some batoning!

I know of several manufacturers that will stand behind their knives if they are batoned, and its a shame you don't, otherwise you wouldn't have asked such a presumptive question.

3G

 

[Khalnath]

Good grief, if you can't figure out on this issue where you stand by a simple search and some reading (a lot of reading), then there is no hope for you. There seems to be a compulsion for some to first ask this question about why folks won't support this company, then downplay the replies in attempt to support cold steel. Go figure...

If you're so bothered by this kind of thread, why'd you click on it? If you don't want to hear people bickering about Cold Steel, seriously, don't read threads with "Cold Steel" in the title.

 

[Khalnath]

First of all, with an ad copy that states "In terms of sharpness, edge holding and strength, it will out perform—by a wide margin—any factory made knife we know of and 99% of all hand forged knives as well!"[/B] http://www.coldsteel.com/fixed-blades-trail-master-series.html, I would certainly expect that it could stand up to some batoning!

I know of several manufacturers that will stand behind their knives if they are batoned, and its a shame you don't, otherwise you wouldn't have asked such a presumptive question.

3G

I saw that picture. That Trailmaster broke during batoning due to improper batoning technique. The blade was angled tip up in the wood that it had been batonned into. That creates a fulcrum near the guard that tends to snap knives. With the blade held tip down, you can baton with a Balisong.

http://www.neidermeier-skp.com/BCo/etreview3.htm - if you scroll down you'll see a picture of a red plastic handled scandibali batonned into a chunk of wood nearly as thick as the blade is long, and none the worse for wear.

Does that mean there aren't knives that can stand up to this kind of abusive batonning? Of course not. The Trailmaster certainly isn't the toughest knife in existence. Claiming that it "can't stand up to batonning", though, is foolishness.

Note: I am not defending Cold Steel's advertising, nor especially Lynn Thompson who I gather is a bit of a dick. I'm just talking about the knives. I totally agree that their advertising practices are shoddy and border on misrepresentation.

 

[truecarbon]

If you're so bothered by this kind of thread, why'd you click on it? If you don't want to hear people bickering about Cold Steel, seriously, don't read threads with "Cold Steel" in the title.

exactly. well said.

 

[Khalnath]

Really? You mean I can expect a made in the USA, S30V bladed, thumb-hole opening knife if I were to give Cold Steel $200? Cool! Show me where it is!

You can get a Made in the USA thumb-hole opening knife with an S30V blade from Spyderco for $75. Native anyone?

Seriously, you can COMPARE Spyderco and Cold Steel all you want, I just don't think it's going to turn up looking good for Cold Steel.

Let's not go overboard here. CS gets bashed a lot and often good products get overlooked... but trying to claim CS is the greatest thing since sliced bread (Or even "as good as Spyderco...") is really pushing it.

Cold Steel has some good products and some crap products. Some of each are fairly priced and some of each aren't. Spyderco has a lineup of great tools at reasonable prices for what you're getting. CS *DOES* really fall down when it comes to steel selection for a lot of their products, but Spyderco puts VG-10 or better in pretty much everything.

(And they don't try to pass off 420HC as the best thing ever.)

 

[averageguy]

"Really? You mean I can expect a made in the USA, S30V bladed, thumb-hole opening knife if I were to give Cold Steel $200? Cool! Show me where it is!

I suppose, too, if I were to give Spyderco more than $300, they could make me a folding knife with a laminated AUS8/420J2 blade. Nah, Sal would probably just laugh at me for my steel choice."


I'm not sure what this means but it sounds like BS. Unless Spyderco's profit margins are significantly less than CS you can expect similar quality for a similar price.

Keith - I don't need a warning from you. But it would seem that with over 20,000 posts you have the need to insert yourself into every post on this forum. Thanks for the advice.

 

[truecarbon]

"Really? You mean I can expect a made in the USA, S30V bladed, thumb-hole opening knife if I were to give Cold Steel $200? Cool! Show me where it is!

I suppose, too, if I were to give Spyderco more than $300, they could make me a folding knife with a laminated AUS8/420J2 blade. Nah, Sal would probably just laugh at me for my steel choice."


I'm not sure what this means but it sounds like BS. Unless Spyderco's profit margins are significantly less than CS you can expect similar quality for a similar price.

Keith - I don't need a warning from you. But it would seem that with over 20,000 posts you have the need to insert yourself into every post on this forum. Thanks for the advice.

watch out man or the "post mafia " will get you.

 

[Khalnath]

I'm not sure what this means but it sounds like BS. Unless Spyderco's profit margins are significantly less than CS you can expect similar quality for a similar price.

Keith - I don't need a warning from you. But it would seem that with over 20,000 posts you have the need to insert yourself into every post on this forum. Thanks for the advice.

S30V is a high quality and coveted steel for blades, at least among steel snobs. It does cost more to include more expensive steels in a blade. Cold Steel is well known for cheaping out on blade steels. As such it seems safe to assume that Cold Steel has more generous profit margins than Spyderco.

And please keep to the topic at hand. Ad hominem attacks are not called for.

 

[J85909266]

I'm not sure what this means but it sounds like BS.

That's because you are ignorant, and know very little about Spyderco or Cold Steel.