http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/453852-Mick-Strider-has-some-explaining-to-do
Sexy huh. Just got my Navy K631S today from exduct and found that the digital camo pouch that came with it really fits the Para 2.
!http://www.pbase.com/weddings_events/image/146021740/original.jpg !
Yea, don’t do it! Vote with your money and buy something affordable. Don’t support thieves.
The thing is that a lot of people just dont care (for whatever reason, I have no idea why.)
Lots of people love the knives, and say, “Oh he apologized, just move on.”
Check that 80+ page MS thread on BF, probably more than half side with the Strider guy…
I've read it, and it disgusts me thoroughly that folks would support him after knowing his history. It's one of the main reasons I don't frequent BF very often.
In this case, buying a real Strider knife would be supporting thieves. I hope his man-parts shrivel up like raisins for the stolen valor and disrespect of the real heroes out there who served with honor, especially those who paid the ultimate price.
Close up video (chinaseb blade dirty from having harvested grapes)
I’ve got large and small sibenza and strider SMF clones. Took three weeks for delivery. Very pleased with all three knives, and price was $135 for all three. Ordered using Aliexpress from DongChengOutdoors.
Action is smooth, blades were sharp out of the box, blades were reasonably centered. I’ve been carrying the small Sibenza every day for a few weeks.
I would order from them again.
Thanks for all the comments, and the video James, and comments PowerPop. Much appreciated.
Hello all,
First post. I would like to put this forward. Makers like cris reeves make knifes from scratch, they use the finest quality materials, and they have a reputation. If you buy a sebenza for $400+. Some one has actually sweat to make that blade. Right, NOT!. One man or even a few men working 8 hours a day could not make all the sebenza’s that are available in stores. they are mass produced in medium sized batches, in the sense that they milled using automation and then assembled. how much of that price is materials, “labor” and how much is from status, and ego. In some cases, more and more now days, the chinese are duplicating products, some times 1:1, and removing the pomp from the price.
Don’t get me wrong, these “custom” production knives are fantastic. But take away the prstige that is factored into the price and it is a very different story.
I recently bought a CRKT m16-13sfg. I have never spent more than 70$ on a knife. It is great, but heavy and a little thick. So I bought my first $100+ knife, a zt0770cf. What a difference. So I liked it so much I looked for something similar. I found microtech and matrix and zt 0777/0888. They are gorgeous. But unavailable. Limited production, what a bunch of crap. I really like and want what i like, enter the Chinese. Just because some exec made the decision to not make any more, their are none, or the slimmy capitalists are reselling the units for quadruple the price. Enter the chinese. They are giving people a choice.
Anyways sorry for the little rant. I just hate when companies say ooooh looky what we made, sorry you can’t have it.
Can you post a link, I EDC a Sebenza (second one I’ve owned) and the blade tip is exposed out the end of the handle any time it’s not fully closed. That’s how it’s designed, that’s what the shape of the back of the scale is for.
@VaporBlade
Sebenza’s are NOT sold as custom’s. They are “mid-tech” meaning they have more human input than an assembly line knife (the same person follows each batch of knives along the production process) but yes they are machined. Have you priced a true hand made “custom”. They’re easily 5x a Sebenza (and can go much more). My personal favorite makes is brad southard, price his knives and check his waiting list.
Have you watched the CRK shop tour video’s? A lot of the machines in Chris’ shop are handmade by him, he started out making tools, wasn’t till he retired he started making knives.
They also offer much closer to custom knives where the blanks are still made in batches but from that point on a single person takes a single knife and does all the finish work and assembly. These are usually the extra special inlaid knives and ones made on request (for mega $$:money_mouth_face:.
Also even on my run of the mill (dealer exclusive CF small 21) a single person did the final assembly, hand sharpened it, hand tightened every screw and even hand signed its birth card.
+1
I somewhat fail to see the point of owning a clone of one of the knives whose sole purpose is bragging rights… and then being unable to brag about it without deception.
The Sebenza is not, at this point anyway, a very sophisticated knife. Its not even made of exclusive or particularly expensive materials (judging by the availability of equivalent steel and handle materials in much cheaper knives). Fundamentally its not even a great user knife due to the handle shape. What it is, is a male equivalent of the Louis Vuitton bag, 3/4 name and prestige, 1/4 the actual quality, workmanship etc. Extreme tolerances have no functional advantage to a tool as simple as a knife.
IMO its one of those cases where its either better to own the real thing, for the perceived (but really intangible) prestige it brings… or not to bother at all.
Have you used a Sebenza? I’m just wondering why there is so much negative stigma around them? I dont rotate my EDC, I carry my sebbi every single day, I have used it to cut everything from food to scraping tar off a wheel to hacking down a 3” tree for a stick to cook over a fire with. I have used it to strip 0Ga wire doing A/C electrical, to clean up the hacksaw cut on PVC and even copper, to make a small slit in a dog’s lip behind the barb of a fish hook and EVERYTHING in between.
Point is I use my Sebenza every day and use it hard and you’re statement just is not true.
But by all means, everyone keep hating on Sebenza’s, I don’t carry it cause its cool or a fashion statement like you seem to think all of us owners do, I carry it cause its a great knife that I feel a connection with and it has NEVER not performed to (and well beyond) what I’ve asked of it.
I have not used a Sebenza. The tasks you describe can be handled by any average production folder and do not go towards proving anything other than it has at least the same level of functionality, which is to be expected.
The grip comment is related to the rather obvious ergonomic inferiority of a thin and blocky handle shape vs a rounded handle shape on a knife. This is a looks and pocket carry related trade off, that many knives make but we should not pretend that that handle shape can be ergonomically superior to a fuller handle. It simply cannot and is sub-optimal for extended use.
Nowhere did I state that the Sebenza is a bad knife, in fact, it is exceedingly difficult to prove that most small “EDC” knives are substantially better or worse than others since the tasks they face are generally undemanding, and their touted qualities rarely come into play. It is like the Emerson claim that their knives are somehow more suited for “fighting”. Since no one ever fights with a folding knife, and the knives they make are just like any others of their type, this claim is not only unsubstantiated it is 100% bullshit.
What I did state is that the Sebenza is a prestige item, which it obviously is, in the eyes of a large amount of the community. It takes no more than a glance at Bladeforums to confirm that. I deduce that it is prestigious by simple logic: there is an almost mythological status of the brand behind it and it is expensive. The expense can’t be justified by performance, which is at best equal to much cheaper knives of equivalent materials, nor by particularly rare or expensive materials, therefore the only thing that’s left justifying the price is prestige of in fact owning one.
That is not to say it isn’t worth buying, or that everyone who buys it, buys it for bragging rights. But it is obvious most do and that is the status it has acquired.
Finally, if you read my post carefully, while pointing out some observations about the Sebenza itself I am actually critical of counterfeits and not out of moral reasons, but because I don’t see the point. If one wants a Sebenza they should act towards getting one, but paying 60$ for something that merely looks like it, but without its objective (materials) and subjective (prestige) value is somewhat fruitless, and at the very least, a counterfeit has no (honest) resale value, so its not a very good buy with other good branded Chinese knives around at a fifth of the price.
I do have a Chinese made copy of the Hinderer XM-18 (from Wild Boar).
It’s a decent enough knife but I don’t use it at all. It just sits in its box.
My Cold Steel Mini Tuff Lite? That I use.
I would recommend Enlan, Sanrenmu, Harnd, and Tekut for great knives under $25, Spyderco’s Byrd range in in the $20-$35 range, and Cold Steel’s offerings in the $25-$75 range. Spyderco make great knives too, but their prices seem to have gone up recently, and now even something like the Delica is heading towards premium pricing (at least from my perspective).
The Chinese replica makers do good work, but unless they accurately identify the steel and provide a decent heat treatment I would regard them more as drawer fillers than working knives. With a good heat treatment 9Cr18MoV is probably on par with a good 440C, perhaps even 154CM, but of course we just don’t know what they’ve done with it.
The Medford clone may be using 5Cr13MoV, which is about on a par with 420HC. You get a lot of it, so it’s pretty sturdy, but I don’t know what its edge holding is like.
I know several CRK owners, I met them all randomly, not threw a knife group gathering. I have never yet met someone who said anything along the lines of “I bought this for the same reason my wife buys 18 name brand, super high end hand bags”. They have all purchased the knife on its quality and the fact that nearly 30 years after the original came out they are still produced almost the same way. To me, and lots of folks that really says something, hell flashlights arnt made the same way for more than a year or two!
Also dont forget the frame lock’s patented name is “Reeve Integrated Lock” (R.I.L) so your statements that it doesnt do anything special is incorrect, if the RIL wasnt inherently better than many other locks why now does EVERY OTHER FOLDING KNIFE mfg use one on literally hundreds of different models of knives, including most custom hand made folders.
I urge you to change your opinion, or atleast stop having such a negative opinion and stop classify owners as you do not even knowing one (that is, into the category of someone who is more fixed on the name than the qualities/merits of the tool). I own a sebenza which I use every single day, I have never once in my life showed my knife to someone and said look how expensive this is, or said anything about how my knife must be better than someone else’s cause it cost more, there were many reasons I purchased in, not one of which was cause of the name or cause I wanted a piece of “man jewelry” as you seem to suggest I did. Another thing I do personally is to not criticize any knife model, be it a $3 knife or a $1000 custom folder that I have not personally used, or at the very minimum atlease handled and inspected, just sayin…
Oh and about your first statement in your reply (#33) you state that “The tasks you describe can be handled by any average production folder and do not go towards proving anything other than it has at least the same level of functionality, which is to be expected” I wasn’t attempting to site those TYPICAL daily tasks as use that woudl set the sebenza apart, I stated wha tI stated in rewsponse to your initial assessment that the sebenza isnt even “a great user” and that it was more of “the male equivalent of the Louis Vuitton bag”. All I was doing was explaining how that statement was also incorrect.
And finally, welcome to BLF, usually we try not to bump 2 year old posts to disagree with something posted YEARS AGO…
One of the reasons that the three main locks you’ll see on folding knives are linerlocks, back locks, and framelocks is pretty simple.
There’s no patent on them.
As I understand it Chris Reeves designed the frame lock and then decided it was better not to patent it, and Michael Walker’s 1980 trademark on the linerlock seems to be over. The backlock is at least as old as the Buck 110, so any patent that may have been on them has long expired.
If you want to use an axis lock, or a tri-ad lock, or a caged ball bearing lock, you have to pay the respective manufacturer (unless you’re a Chinese based company who just doesn’t give a hoot). To use the three aforementioned locks you don’t. Hence their popularity.
From all accounts Chris Reeves makes very good knives. I’d say they’re worth exactly what people are willing to pay for them.
I don’t wish to get into an argument here, but you seem to be taking things too literally. Someone does not need to actively brag about owning a status item, for it to still be a status item in a community. You don’t need to brag about your Porsche or Rolex (which I have actually seen people equate a Sebenza to), you let the thing do it for you. That’s how people think, and to ignore that is to ignore human nature. If that’s not how you think, then you have no reason to be offended, but to think everyone feels about the knife the same way you do… well, drop by Blade forums and check it out for yourself. The snobbery there is off the charts. And reverse snobbery “my 10$ knife is just as good as your 500$ custom” too, although to a lesser extent.
The reason there are so many frame locks is because they’re cheap to produce, and, as Freman said, there’s no patent on it. The liner lock and the frame lock is a convenient design, but also the one with the highest overall rate of failure and the least dependable.
As far as criticism goes, it is in the best interest of everyone not to let hype get in the way of viewing things. I’ll be the first to say that my 10$ Opinel outright thrashes all of my more expensive knives in both cutting and slicing. And its more comfortable to hold than them too. It is, bottom line, a better user. I’m not going to throw them in a bin over it, but I have to be realistic about it and not get emotionally invested in a tool just because I paid more for it.
First off I’m a vendor on blade forums and I’m very loyal to them, please don’t trash talk that place (or here) because some folks can be snobby, people are like that EVERYWHERE.
Secondly you compare the Sebenza to a Porsche or Rolex, why don’t you take a quick poll tomorrow, when your out and about ask the first handful of people you see if they recognize the 3 brands names (or even pic’s of them), you probably won’t run into someone who knows what CRK even is and most likely of you do find someone that knows its a knife they’ll ask if you mean CRKT.
You’re doing a great job making friends here… Keep thinking how you wish and trying to force your point of views on others in every way you can (why else bump a thread from 2012 as your first post). I’ll keep enjoying my perfect-for-me knife.
C_K out.
What I was doing is called expressing an opinion, which is the purpose of a public forum and that hardly constitutes an attempt to force my point of view on anyone, as if such a thing could, or should be done.
I didn’t notice that the thread was from 2012.
You’re being childish. In the exact way people from Bladeforums are, with the constant expectation that they should all nod and fawn over each others knife purchases so as not to ruffle any feathers.
I don’t care for that. If a knife is good, bad, trash, value for money, overpriced I will say what I think and try to substantiate that opinion with facts. I expect others to do the same so that I can get a valuable opinion and not marketing, of which there is too much in the first place.