^ +1. Hoping he will give a visual of what he is talking about Post #9 above sometime, please?
FlashPilot,
Excellent idea and I agree that is a very sweet looking knife. I don't really have a contact person. I just contacted all the shops that were currently selling the Damm. I'm assuming I was communicating with the shop owners.
The best I could probably get would be to get all the knifes shipped here in one package and then distribute them to the GB participants. The second shipping would eat up some of the discount. Would really increase the risk for the GB leader. Not sure I'm up for that at the moment.
If anyone else wants to take a crack at a MG group buy, I won't be offended. Just let me know so that I don't try again after the holiday is over.
Here is a lineup of acceptable to good. Top is .040”, middle is .020”, bottom is .009”
Guess which one will break down the most boxes before your hand gives out? Even when you remove the advantage the 61Rc S90V from the bottom knife, it is still much easier to cut with because it’s a much smaller wedge.
Beautiful blades, especially the citadel but man, can you please set your images to 100%?!
What ZT is that? Looks like the clip mighty fit my sebby (Im to cheap to buy a $20 clip for a $400 knife when KAI gives them out). Is it a Ti clip? I can probably make it work.
Not a ZT, it’s a Kizer Ki3404A3. Been carrying it a lot and my only complaint is that I catch the clip on the steering wheel of my car a lot when I get out, and it bends pretty easily. That and it took some oil and a couple days to work the grittyness out of the pivot.
I like to pull it out when people start to badmouth Chinese quality and tell them that if they can make an iPhone what makes them think that the Chinese can’t build high end stuff. The problem is people wanting ZT build quality at gas station prices. Quality is not cheap, even in China. It is however cheaper, and that’s why the Kizer is $125 instead of closer to the $175 ZT would probably need to charge.
I’m not knocking ZT by the way, I have 2 and love them except for the fact that they feel huge in the pocket. The size of this particular Kizer is perfect for me.
I usually resize by seting max pixels on longest dimension. Does using % make it resize to the viewers screen? If it does, that sounds much better. Should I be using the % instead of pixels when resizing?
Kloepper Knife Works wrote:
Here is a lineup of acceptable to good. Top is .040”, middle is .020”, bottom is .009” . . .
So are you reducing material above the edge so that you have a smaller edge width (and shoulder) or are you increasing the angle of the edge to make it smaller in width? Sorry for being dense. I not as knife savvy as most of the folks posting in this thread.
Reducing material. It’s basically grinding more away on that big bevel that is above the edge bevel. Narrower boats cut through water faster, knives do the same thing. The tradeoff is less strength to resist ham fisted operators. Once you start factoring in the resistance of the particular steel to fracturing or getting a rolled edge is where modern super steels really shine. They can handle the thinner cross sections better because of their much improved strength and toughness (not always both) compared to steels of 40 years ago.
Thanks. Seems like a challenging and rewarding hobby on many levels.
Someday, treat us to a build thread for one of your knives. There are probably a lot of amateurs (and a few serious knife hobbyists) like me here that would find it very interesting.
@Kloepper Knife Works, thank you for your kind inputs and in helping to educating us. Your amazing craftsmanship could never be misconstrued as spam amongst these pages. :bigsmile: Most of us here arent full fledged blade affectionados, although we’re getting there. There are plenty of reviews of the MG DAMM and none seem to be even the slightest bit negative. The MG Blitzwing “Lightning” seems to be about the same length, made of the same materials and is more appealing to me. What is your expert opinion?
@ImA4Wheelr, thanks for your efforts. I probably need one of these knives about as much as I need another flashlight. lol. Prices drop quickly on aliexpress and more than a few resellers seem to carry several MG knives. Maybe one of them would be willing to provide a discount code ala simon style (of convoy flashlight) to increase their sales. I hear you about avoiding reshipping and the liability behind it. I wouldn’t put you through that one buddy. Im saturated in the X60 GB at the moment so I’ll probably wait and see how this thread progresses. If anything, I think we’re all learning something new here.
If there are any notable differences I’d say that the steel insert on the lockbar of the Damm will make it less prone to sticking, and longer wearing than the direct blade to titanium contact of the Blitzwing. The Damm also appears to have a better designed blade on the back end. The prongs on the Blitzwing would be potential points of failure, especially given the very small radii they have to use on the inside corners.
In general I think I’d prefer D2 with a good heat treat (if they indeed do a good heat treat) over N690, however for anyone using it in humid/wet conditions the N690’s significantly better corrosion resistance will be a very attractive quality. Aesthetically I like the Damm better, but that means very little. The Blitzwing looks like it would be more comfortable in the hand, and probably provide a more secure grip with the contours on the side opposite the spine on the handle. Neither is what I would call sculpted for comfort, though few companies really do a good job of that with folders so it’s hard to get too upset.
I’d probably prefer to try out the Damm even though it’s not the “better” steel for most of my uses, mainly because it looks like more thought was put into its design.
I like the DAMM knife but I like the Blitzwing better:
I like to keep my Aliexpress knock off knife purchases under $40 but this one is tempting.
I seriously doubt if it’s really D2 steel, I think for the most part all of these knock offs are probably 440, and I think a lot of the sellers use photos of the actual original knife (they buy one to copy and use it for the photos)
I’ve bought quite a few knock offs on Aliexpress and most of them actually seem to be made quite well. They are tempting but I’m trying to resist buying too many more, for the same price I’d rather have one real brand name knife than 5 fakes from China. I do like the Sanremu and Ganzo knives they’re very good and are their own brand.
I’m going to start selling off some knives this year to buy more flashlights!
+1
Amazing and absolutely gorgeous handmade guitar and knives. I especially like the Westin knife.
With 14 guitars and over 100 knives I think I have a “problem” with Guitars and knives! (as well as flashlights!)
I eventually want to start making knives, not to sell but only as a hobby. I enjoy watching the many knife making tutorials on you tube, especially Gavko Knives who I’ve been following for a few years. I’ve designed some patterns and already have the infamous 1x30” HFT belt grinder and if the hobby takes off I’ll eventually be considering a 2x72”
I’m sure eventually you will be “manufacturing” some custom flashlights. I’d really like to see someone on here with a lathe make custom flashlight bodies. Hint!
At the price point and with the few reviews of their knives being quite positive, I’d be surprised if they lie about their steel. D2 is neither particularly expensive nor hard to get a hold of, at least compared to things like CPM steels(S30V, S35VN, S90V, S110V). And Kizer, another Chinese knife company making some knives for a similar price, has proven itself to me. I don’t have much doubt after using my Kizer for 6 months or so that they likely did use the CPM S35VN that they say they did. What they could have done, but didn’t, was take it a couple Rc points higher to improve the edge retention. (edge retention has still been respectable)
Which brings me to the bigger shot in the dark. The quality of their heat treating. There’s a vast difference in performance between a well and a poorly hardened blade. If it turns out that they aren’t doing a great job heat treating it then the prongs I mentioned earlier become an even bigger liability. There’s the claimed 2 point spread in the Rc spec for both knives, if they hit the target they claim, they should be pretty comparable to other good companies target hardness and ranges (some reputable companies even spec 3 or 4 point spreads, 3 is kind of OK, 4 is just sloppy). Two important considerations are whether they have weird problems like excessive grain growth (usually a time and temp problem) or if they accidentally overheat the edges when doing the initial sharpening. Neither would show up in a hardness test, but both would greatly degrade the performance of the knife.
Anyone who really wants to know a lot about knives needs to visit bladeforums. It’s a mountain of information, and there are guys there who know more about knives than I could ever dream of knowing.
^ Bladeforums is a great site and the members there seem very helpful. I've gone there a lot lately and may eventually join just to say thank yous when someone gives helpful info. We appreciate you KKW taking the time to answer all the questions we are throwing at you. Questions most of us would not feel comfortable asking on Bladeforums.
Another question if you feel like answering KKW. If you bought a Damm and found the heat treatment lacking, would you consider re heat treating it yourself? I imagine a small amount of surface material must be lost in each heat treatment. Knix this question. I've been googling and see that heat treating stainless steels like N690 is a pretty specialized process and not done by many at home.
That Blitzwing (the "t" is after the "z" in some listings) that Flash brought up looks so good. I hope they address the frame lock wear issue in revision. The blade looks so good that I would be willing to accept some performance issues in exchange.
If they are taking the time to heat treat properly, it would seem that MG would benefit greatly from proving it with indepentent 3rd party testing of their blades or better yet of their heat treating process. I guess if they did this, their blades would be much more expensive.
The light, go to the light beam0.
EDIT: FlashPilot,
Thanks for the idea on the discount code. It would be a good oportunity for a vendor to create awareness and goodwill. If no one decides to try to run a MG GB, I'll approach some vendors about that some point after the holiday. Maybe things are going more slowly around here.
For what it's worth. I think you are doing a great job on that X6 GB. I was really impressed with the size of discount you were able to secure. If I wasn't at a point where I want to build some of my own monster lights from scratch, I would have jumped on board on that GB.
Can someone tell me are the MG Blitzwing and DAMM on Aliexpress fake knock offs, or is it a Chinese brand it’s own??
I see the MG website has a Counterfeit Strider folder (with Strider logo) and other fake knives too (A fake Brend M2 they’re calling “Brendan” M2 - in the photo they cover the name with the sheath!) (Knock off Fallkniven F1 dubbed “Sweden FK”) I don’t even see the Blitzwing or Damm on their site (Maybe I’m looking at the wrong MG Knives site?)
There doesn’t seem to be much information on the maker of these two knives on the web, a quick web search on the Blitzwing and DAMM knives only turn up their listings on Ali & ebay.
Kizer appears to be an reputable company. They have a booth at the SHOT show. They have a lifetime warranty. They have a US dealer network. Their carried at Blade HQ. Looking at their website they do have some beautiful designs and appear to be very high quality (and I have no doubt that they are). HOWEVER, some of their knives appear to be an EXACT copy of a design from US custom knifemaker Tim Britton Hand Made Knives that are in the $450-$475 range. There has been some discussion about it on Bladeforums.
“Many of us have been troubled by the problem of Chinese rip-offs. I fought this and gave it my best shot only to hear that the only viable alternative would be for me to hire a Chinese attorney and to file suit in a Chinese court of law. Copyrights and patents are of value only if you are willing to spend a lot of money defending them. I have talked at length with ICE and with two US Senators with minimal results. I will continue to focus on what I do best, fishing and making knives.
Thank you for your interest and for your continued support.
Best Regards, Tim Britton” *
I’ve seen this before with the Chinese copying, they can get away with it even if there is a copyright/patent/trademark etc. If the company does not have the financial resources to fight a very expensive infringement legal battle.
I can’t afford a $450 knife that’s why I’ve bought some of the fakes in the past without giving it a lot of thought. But now I feel bad to support companies who are doing this backhanded counterfeiting that hurts the companies who make the real products.
I know China is now producing much better quality knives than in the past, I have quite a few, however for the outright fakes I’m skeptical of the blade steel always being as advertised, due being blatant fakes they lose all credibility. As opposed to brands like Ganzo & Sanremu (who make some of the import knives for Spyderco and other well known brands)
