Would You Tell Me What is So Special About Chris Reeves Knives?

DayofReckoning said:
2. Two brand new samples, both of which were flicked open several times after being pulled from the box.
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So you say. The video (I even d/l'ed it to disk) seems broken and only shows one.

But let me put on my "devious" cap for a moment. What we see there is an infomercial where one maker with a vested interest to make his product look superior to another maker's product (and when you do that, aim high!) stages something that is supposed to convince the viewer and sell his product. The result is something seen in thousands of similar "tests" - my product beats the high price product! Now here's the devious part: To make sure of that outcome it is extremely easy to manipulate the high price product to assure its failure! Just give the lock bar a good bend to make it weak, for example. The possibility of that alone makes me tend to be highly sceptical of such stunts.

If you put your trust in an infomercial and call that FACT and DATA, you just may be a tad naive. (cue P.T. Barnum...)
 
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The tell in the video for me is the ease at which he flicks a brand new Sebenza, also the video does nothing to inspire me to buy a Cold steel knife, a monster lock on a knife design I do not want.
 
What baffles me are youtube videos “disproving” claims Chris Reeve never made.

The Sebenza is an iconic knife that still acts and performs how it was created to. After all these years, CRK’s still cut, operate smoothly, have a great warranty and customer service, and have a “lock” for safety.

If one is looking to pound nails or dowels in with the spine of their open knife…the CRK is NOT the knife for that.

Estwing makes a fantastic tool for those applications. They call it a hammer. :)
 
DayofReckoning said:
This is THE EXACT strawman I alluded to in my first post in this thread. What a silly argument.
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How exactly is judging the performance of something based on how it's intended to be used a straw man argument? Do you go race car forums and tell those guys that something they enjoy is worthless because a Honda Civic gets one to work more economically? How about watch forums and tell them that a 50 dollar Timex is better than their Omega or Rolex? Do you go to arborist forums and tell those guys that echo and poulan are better than Stihl and Husqvarna, or that a rope you can get at the hardware store is better than using cordage from Samson or Yale (let me give you a hint, they aren't.)?

I like cold steel/demko knives just fine too, but guess what goes in my pocket every day... the one crk I own. Not because it does knifey things better than any other knife, but because it's enjoyable and does knifey things just as well as any other knife. Plus, it's made here stateside, and for me that's important.
 
DayofReckoning said:
Sorry, I didn't have a chance to read the whole thread, but I was just wondering if it's been mentioned yet that the Sebenza's inferior lock is amongst some of the weakest you find, regardless of price, and that Cold Steel's testing showed it produced one of the worst results they've ever recorded, with the lock collapsing under a mere 45lbs, and the knife closing on the very first spine wack? Was it mentioned that magnitudes of far "inferior" and vastly cheaper knives have much stronger locks than the Sebenza? Titanium on titanium lockup is not good engineering, no matter how many fanboys say otherwise.

Now, I'm certain the typical flood of strawman's are going to start flooding in, things like "Sebenza's lock is strong enough for whatever anyone would ever realistically need", or "those tests are unrealistic and have no value", blah blah blah. Imagine the responses if the Cold Steel failed and the Sebenza survived the test.

The supposed "tight tolerances" of the Sebenza are another talking point we see regurgitated time and time again at nauseum. All that's required is a simple google search and you will see the laundry list of Quality Control issues that appear on these knives, seemingly more in recent years, The "tight tolerances" are nothing more than a myth, at least now that is. Maybe there was a time when that was true, but far, far too many Quality Control issues pop up far too often.

The reality is the Sebenza is an overpriced POS with an inferior lock that gets massively outperformed by knives costing a fraction of the price, both in overall strength as well as heat treating of the steel. It's a knife that became and stayed popular not because of substance, but because of hype.
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Your right... The sebenza is not that good with having weights hang off the end of it's blade.
Luckily it's great at everything else.
As far as tolerances... what other knife still has rock solid lock up even if you unscrew the pivot.
 
That video does not make me want to go buy a Cold Steel product but just the opposite
 
That Youtube video reeks of Infomercial. Kind of makes me want to sell my CS AD15 that I bought mostly out of curiosity and is now relegated to opening boxes, etc in my garage.
 
According to Chris "folding knives are designed to cut when the blade is open. They are designed to be stored when the blade is closed. They are not designed to be hit on the back of the blade and used as hammers. I assume there is some theory, that this will test the strength of a lock, but it is a test with no valid function."
So if you find the need to spine whack your knife or hang weights from it, this may not be the knife for you. I suggest a fixed bkade, but that is up to you. If you are looking for a fine cutting tool, a CRK may fit your needs.
 
So guy goes out to design a knife that will pass his specific parameters of what he considers "strength" in order to show that his knives can, in fact, do what they are designed to do. Other knives that have never made this claim (and even outrightly reject it a reasonable measure as according to Mr Reeve in P Peter Hartwig 's fine post ) fail this test and are thus deemed to be inferior? OK...

Now how about we take a Cold Steel knife by GSM and manage to break it or mangle or damage it short of hanging a couple of gorillas off the lock. Do you think GSM is going to stand by it? Do you think they are going to keep parts on hand? Go check out the bitch-fest of how terrible their customer service has gotten since the buy-out in the Cold Steel subforum. When I bought my Inkosi, part of the premium I paid was knowing that someone would promise to take care of it forever.
 
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I hear the term overpriced thrown around alot, particularly in hobbies. The fact is that markets set prices. When is something overpriced? When a company cannot stay in business because they are sitting on inventory that's not selling at the price they are asking for it. On the other hand, when products sell out faster than a company can manufacture them, by the simple laws of economics, they are not overpriced. This goes for Sebenzas as well as it does for Demko 20.5's.
 
DayofReckoning said:
I never said it was my opinion, it's fact. Please see the video. Note the video is not displaying properly for some reason at the moment, I'm not sure why. But one can see the result of some of the testing. They have put countless knives under the exact same testing. You must understand that the Sebenza OBJECTIVELY produced one of the poorest results EVER. That's real DATA, but again the same strawman "it's strong enough for me and all my buddies on Bladeforums (though 95% of Sebenzas are shelf queens, lol) therefor those spine Wacks and weigh hang tests mean nothing" always appears.

Funny you accused my post of being opinion, and that I should get a grip, when I actually have proof of my claims, whereas in your defense, you used "many who can attest for being served well" as being your proof.

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The "data" you've shared is meaningless because it's irrelevant to how people actually use knives.. I mean I don't put pressure on the blade's spine while making cuts, do you? At a certain point (I'd guess well before the Sebenza failed in the test), good enough is perfectly safe for normal use. Cold Steel is fantastic at marketing.. I'm sure they've sold A LOT of (admittedly, sure, some pretty decent) knives using videos like you shared.. it doesn't make them better knives and it certainly doesn't detract from Chris Reeve Knives..
 
Knives&Lint said:
I hear the term overpriced thrown around alot, particularly in hobbies. The fact is that markets set prices. When is something overpriced? When a company cannot stay in business because they are sitting on inventory that's not selling at the price they are asking for it. On the other hand, when products sell out faster than a company can manufacture them, by the simple laws of economics, they are not overpriced. This goes for Sebenzas as well as it does for Demko 20.5's.
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They also hold thier price well, for current models, in the secondary market and far exceed the original pricing for discontinued models. Wish all I buy would do that.
 
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