what knife features you hate most on knives?

Choils that have sharp edges where you can cut yourself (CS American Lawman). Serrations, tip up only carry. Framelocks with no cutout so they take two hands to close. Triad locks with too strong of springs (CS Spartan). Traditionals with Nail breaking pulls by design.
 
Skulls, paracord handles, serrations and the endless piles of black leather sheaths are not to my liking.
 
Pocket clips - Not my preferred carry and I've never held a knife that felt better with a clip than without.
Orange anything - Given that the overwhelming majority of orange knives will never be taken into the woods, I will never understand this fad.
Combo edges - Not much need be said about this one.
Assisted opening - I don't like opening knives with a lot of force, and these 'force' the issue.
Forced patina - Hate might be a little strong for this one. I'm just not a fan of the way forced patinas look and much prefer them au naturel.
Overbuilt knives - Mostly a weight thing, but so often they just end up looking ridiculous to me.
 
None of these are necessarily a deal breaker, but I generally dislike these features or traits:

Tip down carry only--I just like tip up. Personal preference.
Liner lock--don't care for them compared to other locks, but will use them if the rest of the knife design is good. Again, personal preference.
Spring assisted--more parts to gum up or wear out, and I'm plenty fast with just my thumb, thanks.
Recurves--don't have a use for them.
Combo edges--give me all one or the other, please!
Massively thick blades--I find little advantage to adding weight to the sides of a blade. Make it more vertical if it must be heavier, please!
Massively thick blades on FOLDERS--Makes even less sense to me.
Finger notches for multiple fingers--anything more than one limits your range of grips.
Quality knives with crappy sheaths--If I'm going to have to get a custom sheath made for the darn thing don't make me pay for the one I'm just going to throw out.
Hyper-aggressive handle texturing--Just make it ergonomically designed and it should stay in your hand fine, without shredding my pockets and giving me blisters. Fortunately this is usually easily fixed.
Chisel grinds--especially on knives with double primary grinds. Chisel grinds on their own are not useful to me, and when the edge of a double-primary knife has a chisel ground edge (a la Emerson) it makes no sense.
Left-handed serrations on knives with right-handed locks--Only done because it makes them photograph nicely. Not optimum for performance.
Jimping--creates hot spots and doesn't prevent my hand from sliding on it. I'd rather have a straight spine with the edges rounded for comfort.
Thumb ramps--Seemingly always too close to the handle because they "look nicer there." When I extend my thumb on the back of the blade I want to have it OVER the target I'm cutting for maximum power. The only guy I know who does them right is Dylan Fletcher.
Tanto tips--They have their uses but they aren't generally for me.

I'm willing to overlook a couple of the above on a knife if the rest of its qualities stack up, but they all count as marks against it in my book. A lot of folks like many of these features and I'm happy for them, but they just aren't for me. :o
 
Safety mechanisms. safeties that keep the blade from opening are annoying enough but safeties that keep a blade from closing are straight up ironically named. like the AutoLAWKS on some CRKT's? I've hurt myself bad on M-16's trying to close them because of the "safety" features
 
Choils, so much potential blade space wasted.

A point that's becoming sore is when blades don't reach to the handle on folders, I don't want to concentrate on getting crap stuck in the gap while I'm slicing something.

Chisel grinds and very odd things like nightmare grinds and hollow grinds. I much prefer full flat grinds.

Combo edges in general and fully serrated to a lesser degree.

Oh, and things like mammoth teeth.
 
Last edited:
When the opposing side liner or scale is cut out so that you can disengage a framelock or linerlock bar easier. I have no problems disengaging a lockbar without this cut out, and prefer my knives as such.

It's a make it or break it deal for me if a knife has the goofy cutout. None of my folders have these. I'm also very picky.
 
The part of a knife I use most is the bit closest to the handle, so choils are the feature I like least. And yet they are on some knives I would love minus the choil.. :(
 
Seems like alot of folks here hate chisel grinds, tanto blades, flippers and partial serrations. My CRKT M16-10Z is feeling very unloved right now lol.

I hate bright, florescent colored scales on knives (the Ka-Bar "Zombie Killer" line comes to mind). To me, it just makes them look childish and gimmicky. Not really a fan of camo colored blades either.
 
Oh yeah--I also dislike when there's a channel in the scales aimed at the thumb stud for supposed easier access. Every single knife with such a feature I have yet to see has had it improperly oriented compared to how the knife "asked" you to open it.
 
don't really hate anything, but I would not buy chisel grind and don't like stonewashed blades. Otherwise I'll try anything once:p
 
Knives with metal handles, handles where one side is one material and the other side is another one, frame locks (Oddly, one of my favorite knives is the Spyderco Chokwe), coated blades, knives with such poor edge geometry and thickness that they can't effectively slice things, thumb studs, assisted opening, boring black handles...
 
Yeah I'm not a big fan of "boring black" either. I like green or blue when available.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top