What knives do you find overrated?

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druid189 said:
Well I gotta say....$350 for a mostly aluminum knife with a blade of about 3" IS a little ridiculous....just saying....
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Since you like to equate inches to value I think this might be more up your alley:

4Largest-pocket-knife.jpg
 
I have everything from a $20 kershaw clash, spyderco millie, pm2, ZT's, striders and sebbies. I don't have any overrated knives. I even tried some of the knife makers on here like JK, also have some JR's, Aaron Forrest. can't find an overrated knife.

Oh and I have a large 21 sebenza, large 21 sebenza CF, large 21 sebenza Tanto, and a 25. Can't overrate any of them.

Even that gosh darn strider smf 3/4 grind with s110v isn't overrated. shoot.
 
CRKs. I don't find the build quality lacking at all, it's outstanding. They just need to get their blade hardness up a few points.
 
ebidis said:
In my experience this is untrue. It is precisely because of "the incredibly precise demands on each part being exactly the right dimensions to within a tiny fraction of a millimeter" that a Sebenza goes back together exactly the way it was before disassembly, and still maintains those exacting tolerances. That is the benefit it actually imparts to the end user.
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I can respect that. I've had the opportunity to carry and use the Sebenza but, as it wasn't mine, I never disassembled or reassembled it.
 
Sikael said:
The Sebenza has very precise tolerances, and maintains those tolerances after repeated disassembly/reassembly. That's a testament to a well-engineered design; I'm not sure anyone with a three-digit IQ is capable of screwing up a CRK while attempting basic maintenance (maybe if you're afflicted with 'sausage-finger syndrome', and manage to bend a washer).

The 'benefits' a well-made knife 'actually imparts to the end-user' don't need restating... but what the hell, lets get blindingly obvious -- would a sloppily built PoS be somehow preferable? Would you rather live in a home built completely out-of-square? WTF problem could anyone have with quality and precision? After taking apart knives that don't have the same tolerances, knives I still like immensely, but cost a bit less, I've seen the benefits of the Sebenza's elegant simplicity. For some very well-regarded but less expensive knives, disassembly means voiding a warranty and a lot of mucking around to get them working properly again.

You might not care about how the knife is constructed, or precision, or perceived quality, and you don't have to pay for it -- fair enough. For myself, I've found a direct correlation between precision and quality in every tool I've owned. I don't think you or any of the Sebenza-bashers are interested in changing anyone's mind. It's just a case of passive-aggressive trolling, something this thread was made for, sort of. Everyone came here to talk shit about a knife or brand that didn't live up to our expectations, some more politely or insistently than others... but it's all good. I don't think anyone will be buying or selling a Sebenza on the basis of this thread, and the same applies for every other knife or manufacturer that's had dirt kicked all over it (including Benchmade ;)).
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You're bringing up something called a false dichotomy. None of the knives I own are sloppily built, yet none of them feature the obsessively tight tolerances CRK uses. My general point is that, for me, CRK is adding tremendous additional cost for something that's so far past the point of diminishing returns that I'm not even sure what the benefits are.
 
I didn't want to comment again but since many people are discussing the Sebenza-

How are you making sure that the knife is "coming back together exactly the same way"? Do your other knives not go back together the "same way"? I own a $100 Benchmade liner lock that goes back together the exact same way. I've owned handmade folders made over 20 years ago, with no help from numerical control machines, that went back together the exact same way. Zero play, zero flex, zero gaps. No change in how the operation feels. What's your metric for reassembling the "same way", and how are you testing for it? If there's a 1/1000th difference will you or will you not be able to notice? If there's a 1/1000th difference will it matter to any great degree?

Could you also name some of the knives you claim require a lot of "mucking around to work properly again"? I really can't see what can go especially wrong in a modern folder where the pivot screw, stop pin, and standoffs/backspacer ensure correct alignment of the components on reassembly.



Sikael said:
The Sebenza has very precise tolerances, and maintains those tolerances after repeated disassembly/reassembly. That's a testament to a well-engineered design; I'm not sure anyone with a three-digit IQ is capable of screwing up a CRK while attempting basic maintenance (maybe if you're afflicted with 'sausage-finger syndrome', and manage to bend a washer).

The 'benefits' a well-made knife 'actually imparts to the end-user' don't need restating... but what the hell, lets get blindingly obvious -- would a sloppily built PoS be somehow preferable? Would you rather live in a home built completely out-of-square? WTF problem could anyone have with quality and precision? After taking apart knives that don't have the same tolerances, knives I still like immensely, but cost a bit less, I've seen the benefits of the Sebenza's elegant simplicity. For some very well-regarded but less expensive knives, disassembly means voiding a warranty and a lot of mucking around to get them working properly again.

You might not care about how the knife is constructed, or precision, or perceived quality, and you don't have to pay for it -- fair enough. For myself, I've found a direct correlation between precision and quality in every tool I've owned. I don't think you or any of the Sebenza-bashers are interested in changing anyone's mind. It's just a case of passive-aggressive trolling, something this thread was made for, sort of. Everyone came here to talk shit about a knife or brand that didn't live up to our expectations, some more politely or insistently than others... but it's all good. I don't think anyone will be buying or selling a Sebenza on the basis of this thread, and the same applies for every other knife or manufacturer that's had dirt kicked all over it (including Benchmade ;)).
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Insipid Moniker said:
I agree with you, but those kind of assembly tolerances are gone the second you disassemble the knife (and disassembly is a selling point of the Sebenza). I figured we were talking more about the incredibly precise demands on each part being exactly the right dimensions to within a tiny fraction of a millimeter. That stuff is cool, but I question what benefits it actually imparts to the end user.
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What.
 
I guess the sebenza is overrated, but only because people over rate it much too much. It's a great knife, but it's not perfect.

However, of all my knives, my sebenzas get smoother with use, i cannot say that with any other brand of knives I've kept.

I have 2 southards needing a cleaning or servicing, super gunky.

I've owned my sebbies much longer than the southards (which I loved), but boy are they smooth.
 
Most knives using washer pivots do get smoother with use.. bearing pivots can, as well, but they can also gunk up more easily from small particles becoming trapped in the bearings causing a 'gritty' action.

On the topic of smoothness, I think it's worth mentioning that with weaker locking bar/detent tension, whether done after the fact or manufactured in that manner, it's pretty easy to have a super-smooth action that's smoother than most Sebenzas are. The level of smoothness that Sebenzas have is very good considering it's a mass-produced knife and its locking bar tension is pretty strong. But it's not hard to find knives with smoothness exceeding that of most Sebenzas.

HwangJino said:
I guess the sebenza is overrated, but only because people over rate it much too much. It's a great knife, but it's not perfect.

However, of all my knives, my sebenzas get smoother with use, i cannot say that with any other brand of knives I've kept.

I have 2 southards needing a cleaning or servicing, super gunky.

I've owned my sebbies much longer than the southards (which I loved), but boy are they smooth.
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DPC said:
My 10/10 knife is one that blends seamlessly Utility / Aesthetics / Price

When I think "overrated" I can separate into three different things based on what a knife is to me:

Overrated : Rated higher in tests than its true performance. (Design & Performance) / Knives that no matter how good we're told they are, they are either ridiculously heavy, uncomfortable or just painfuly impractical.

Overpriced: Priced higher than what it's worth. (Value) / Anything beyond 150-200 $ that is not indestructible by a naked man (without access to tools)

Overhyped: Marketed as better than what it actually is. (Sales pitch) / Anything considered awesome and "a milestone" whose fame comes from just the word of the maker or from repeating like a parrot how awesome it is. Anything whose performance does not match what it is marketed as. Also knives marketed (viogorously, although most times indirectly suggested ) as badass because they're used by any branch of the military (which I consider deceptive).

I know Im not "discerning" truths in these categories, and actually reducing all infinite possibilities to these three tenets, and that there's someone who could always say "well, knife is just a name, just about anything can be a knife, however ugly, uncomfortable and dishonest (its marketing) may seem to you". Yeah, sure.


If we consider overpriced like so, just guessing numbers from my own collection, maybe 70 or 80% of all knives can very well be considered overrated.

I can come with three knives (that I own) , one being more notorious on one of these categories, even though I think the categories work together:

Bad design&performance / OK price / OK marketing. Overrated: TOPS Steel Eagle 107C

OK design&performance / Bad price / OK marketing. Overpriced: Fallkniven WM1

OK design&performance / OK price / Bad marketing. Overhyped: Chris Reeve fixed blades (in this case, a Pacific)

Not to mean there aren't any (in fact many) more.
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This is a good post! It makes the question very clear, and brings out the nuances that, if not known, attract a lot of the useless answers that we sometimes see to these threads.

Of course there is such a thing as "overrated", just as there is such a thing as "overpriced". The thing is, the answer will always be subjective; so the value in asking the question is not just in any specific bit of information, but in the perspective that you get from honest answers to it.
 
asdf12345 said:
I didn't want to comment again but since many people are discussing the Sebenza-

How are you making sure that the knife is "coming back together exactly the same way"? Do your other knives not go back together the "same way"? I own a $100 Benchmade liner lock that goes back together the exact same way. I've owned handmade folders made over 20 years ago, with no help from numerical control machines, that went back together the exact same way. Zero play, zero flex, zero gaps. No change in how the operation feels. What's your metric for reassembling the "same way", and how are you testing for it? If there's a 1/1000th difference will you or will you not be able to notice? If there's a 1/1000th difference will it matter to any great degree?

Could you also name some of the knives you claim require a lot of "mucking around to work properly again"? I really can't see what can go especially wrong in a modern folder where the pivot screw, stop pin, and standoffs/backspacer ensure correct alignment of the components on reassembly.
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When you took apart your $100 Benchmade you voided your warranty.

From Benchmades website:

"Do not disassemble your knife. Do not sharpen your knife on a power grinding wheel. Any of these acts will void your Warranty. MINIMUM CHARGE TO REASSEMBLE A KNIFE WHEN THE WARRANTY HAS BEEN VOIDED IS $20 PLUS PARTS."

Fortunately you can take apart a Sebenza and put it back together as many times as you would like and still enjoy the benefits of being under warranty.

;-)
 
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