What blade did you EDC today?

The screwdrivers are from aliexpress, this type is really cheap, like 4 dollar, and can be found in several shops. They work really well, with a rotating head on bearings and a magnet inside the bitholder, but them being thin you can not apply a lot of force. The bits are quality Wiha bits, got them separately.

Right onā€¦ Iā€™m always eyeballing drivers because I havenā€™t yet found a decently priced Iā€™ve that quite fits what I wantā€¦

I want free-spinning with enough girth to torque down on stuck screws but thin enough to spin relatively quickly when tightening.

Iā€™m picky.

Wiha bits all the way - spent years not realizing how big a difference there is when you invest just a little bit more. I have been able to lots of T6-es since I did.

I also have been putting in time with a machete recently, and making good progress on the invasive blackberries that at their peak probably covered about half of my elderly neighborā€™s pasture (since sheā€™s a good neighbor and our kids play in her field).

Iā€™ve tried various techniques with mowers, and with trimmers with brushcutter attachments, but short of having a proper field mower / brush hog, the machete has proven the easiest for me.

This one is a 24inch, Latin style ā€œTruperā€ with an ā€œalto carbanoā€ blade that my dad bought at Harbor Freight ages ago, but barely used. Seeing the factory ā€œedgeā€ on it when he gave it away to me, itā€™s no wonder. It took quite a bit of time with a file to sharpen it, and then I finished it and mostly maintain it with a $3 Harbor Freight wet stone. The handle also needed some sanding to remove sharp edges. The original $6.99 price tag somehow has not worn off.

Apparently True Temper was for a while having many of their tools made by an established central American tool company, but after they parted ways, they switched from labelling their products ā€œTrue Temperā€ to ā€œTruperā€ to try benefit from a sense of name recognition. It seems that like the better known Imacasa and Tramotina brands, Truper makes competent, no-nonsense tools that are widely used in central and south America, as long as youā€™re willing to initially sharpen them yourself.

Older photo of progress:

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New knife day REC Native 5.
slightly underwhelmed likely will swap the blade for 4v-- defeating the aesthetic but I digressā€¦

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Here is a silly pic with the Bradford Guardian I carried on Sunday.

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Do you guys believe this knife is really made of M390 steel?

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ā€¦ Vosteed Acorn ā€¦

ā€¦ Olight Zirconium i3T ā€¦

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Ti Tuesday - OKC Cerberus & Kizer October

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Forgot where it was, maybe Harbor Freight?, that had a bunch of machetes on sale for like 5-7bux a pop, and I got like 7 of 'em.

Figured at worst theyā€™d be disposable, and could stash 'em in various places in case of emergency. Plus hip-high weeds that donā€™t take kindly to pulling.

Crappy bare-wood handles, easy to sand away the edges and splinters, though.

Blades were no doubt Chinese Mystery Metal, and barely filed to shape, but with a little work could be made pretty sharp. I was sharpening them knife-sharp, could cut pretty fine, but never really hacked my way through a jungle to see if theyā€™d hold their edges.

Still, for that price, why not?

Was wondering how to treat the handles, though. Just oiled? Varnish? Never did any woodworking, so Iā€™m clueless about that. Just want to avoid them splitting open if theyā€™d get wet for too long.

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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Noooooo.

Something fancier todayā€¦

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Just curious, why. 204P is pretty good, at least the blades I have in that steel are right up there with any of the modern steels. Quite comparable to M390 and better in some respects. Of course 4V can be harder, but you give up corrosion resistanceā€¦

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I give basically zero credibility to the possibility of making a normal sized M390 knife that cheaply.

If we saw reputable companies like Civivi making $30-40 M390 knives in a modern factory in a relatively developed province in China, I could possibly believe that an unknown shop in one of the lowest labor cost regions of the world was making them for the $7 price that Aliexpress is showing me.

We do see that kind of pricing dynamic happen with mid-grade steels like some of the 400-series stainless alloys or D2. But those alloys are available from a variety of sources around the world, and made in relatively high volumes.

M390 is more specialized, and as a powder metallurgy steel, will never be as cheap to make as more conventionally made alloys like D2. While the prices that hobby or small volume custom knife makers can buy these materials at wonā€™t be representative of what a high volume manufacturer like Buck can buy them at, the price difference is telling.

While enough M390 for maybe 3 of those knives would cost me $37.40 per knifeā€¦for the material alone and in this case with a thinner bladeā€¦I could get the same amount of 440C for $9.17 per knife. I suspect as volumes go up the actual production cost is a bigger factor and retail overhead is a smaller factor, the cost of budget steels would go down faster than for high end steels, so the material cost difference is probably significantly more than 4x.

In short, I think that knife is being about as honest about being made from M390 as the 990,000 lumen flashlights on Aliexpress are about their output.

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Thank you very much. IĀ“m very newbie in the knives world and IĀ“m looking for a good supplier.
Saw some CPM-30SV too in AE, but I dont feel confortable in buying them.

As I understand it M390, CPM 20CV and CTS 204p are essentially ā€œthe sameā€ā€¦ almost identical chemical compositions, just made by different steel manufacturers - Bohler, Crucible & Carpenter, respectively.

Larrin Thomas of Knife Steel Nerds has done some analysis & comparisons if anyone is interested in getting deep into the weedsā€¦

But the important segment was where he said their test results were so similar that he couldnā€™t be sure the differences were just due to experimental variability. Who knows, maybe Iā€™m far enough in over my head I missed somethingā€¦ but every comparison between them I hear all agree.

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The 204p is just fine I have a few 20cv and m390 blades which are very similar like you said. Slightly disappointed in the blade coating on this knife. Im a big fan of Spydercoā€™s coated tool steel blades(especially lightly oiled TiCn) but think they missed the mark a little bit on this one. Could just be just me though

There was a polish guy on Reddit a while back who bought a bunch of knives off of Aliexpress (some clones and some original designs) and tested them with an XRF gun and the results were surprisingā€” the majority were as advertised and I recall a few were in fact m390, chemically anyway.
Some of the more ā€œrespectedā€ ali sellers will note if the steel matches the stamp on the blade or not (the stitch clones ā€˜Jufuleā€™ sold were either vg10 or d2 though had m390 stamps)

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Iā€™m sure there are some reputable sellers on Aliexpress, just like there are for flashlights (eg - Convoy, Sofirn, and Wurkkos all initially sold primarily through that platform), but Iā€™m afraid Iā€™m not familiar enough with Aliexpress knife sellers to make suggestions.

The advice I would give, however, is to figure out what your budget is, what kind of uses you have in mind and what that seems to suggest for size, deployment and lock types, and feel free to ask for some suggestions, here or in dedicated knife forums.

In general, I think most people will find a 3-3.5 inch, drop point blade, with a liner lock and thumb studs to be a good default, but you may have a sense up front of what your preferences might be.

After you have those details figured out, then blade steel material can be one of your factors for deciding exactly which model to get, but donā€™t buy functionally the wrong knife because a chart or list somewhere says the steel it uses will stay sharp longer if if the manufacturer didnā€™t compromise on the heat treatment to save money. The existence some honestly very good steel performance data, including from Larrin Thomas, makes it tempting to over-emphasize that specific factor, but very many experienced knife users will tell you that how long a knife keeps its edge is not the top factor in determining how useful it is for various tasks. Rather, it primarily affects how frequently it needs maintenance (and on the flip side, tends to adversely affect how easy that maintenance is).

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Iā€™m willing to believe that, but still, Iā€™m betting the knives that actually turned out to be M390 or similar grades of steel were not $7 knives.

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