Hello,
I'm not a knife enthusiast in that I don't collect knives. I did as a kid, but none of those were high dollar; I just wanted examples of different knives I'd heard referenced. I carried a Victorinex Swiss Army Camping knife.
Currently, I appreciate a good blade. I don't have a large collection and nothing worth much over $100, but lots of stuff that works well for me: A Ka-Bar, a Buck 110, a Winchester Bowie-style that was a gift and has held up, and several straight razors. I enjoy shaving with straight razors.
At age 19, I bought a Spyderco Clipit designed by Wayne Goddard as we were learning combat knife as part of CQB in the mixed martial arts I was taking at the time. This course was private, and mixed in Aikido, Kung fu (mostly Wing Chung), Filipino, Escrima, and a few other good ones. Was an interesting time.
I carried that Spyderco for years. At age 39, a couple weeks ago in my shop, I lost it. I was under the weather, and opening that day's mail. I noticed it was gone later. The only thing I can figure is that it must have gotten in one of the boxes I opened and went out with the trash. I sure hope that's not the case and that it turns up, but I'm not hopeful.
I'd been planning to retire the Spyderco and replace it anyway, so I had been looking. Its loss sped up the process a little, and I ended up with a Kershaw 3890w "Scrambler":
A discontinued knife, I got it for cheap. I'm a lefty, and they'd unfortunately neglected to tap the opposite-side clip holes, so I had to do that.
I sat there and flipped it... a lot. It drove my wife crazy. After 20 years of using one folder, I had some muscle memory to reprogram.
While handling it, I learned two things. First, it was slick. The side without the G10 polymer was a challenge to hold when my hands were completely dry. Some skateboard tape fixed that:
I've used this stuff on pistol frontstraps, and though it's no longer my preferred method, it does work. It worked for this, too.
Second thing I learned was that it was hard to get it out of my pocket. Since I carry concealed using a cover garment, concealing the knife inside the pocket isn't a concern. I re-positioned the clip:
Now it rides nicely, and is easy to get out quickly. This came in handy when I hooked my clothing on a treble hook the other day hiking back from fishing:
Of course, all this flicking and handling heated the spring and broke it. I now had a manual opener with no retention.
So, I put retention in it:
I also discovered that one doesn't have to have a spring to pop the knife open from a static position, but only needs middle and third fingers:
About a week after converting the knife to a manual flipper, I received two springs in the mail from Kershaw. That was nice of them. I'd rather have paid for the spring, but I didn't have that option.
Installing it, I used silicone heat transfer grease I had around from my old computing days:
Though I won't be flipping it nearly as much any longer, I hope the silicone grease will help transfer any heat generated to the frame and keep the spring cool.
I just notice tonight that the frame lock may be getting a little loose already. I have strong hands and may have bent it too far -- that's not out of the question. Might take it apart and bend it back; hopefully there is still enough tension to keep it there. There should be an overtravel stop on that frame lock, and I suspect that's one reason this model was discontinued. I've noticed another current frame lock has a stop washer.
So, now I'm looking at other Kershaw knives. The one I'm liking most is the Knockout. Made in the USA with what looks like a slightly more robust locking design. I'd still have to move the clip so it rides higher in my pocket, of course, but other than drilling a retention for the times I want to run without a spring, it looks like it may work better for my needs. I do like the thumb studs as well; redundancy is a virtue in my mind.
Regards,
Josh
I'm not a knife enthusiast in that I don't collect knives. I did as a kid, but none of those were high dollar; I just wanted examples of different knives I'd heard referenced. I carried a Victorinex Swiss Army Camping knife.
Currently, I appreciate a good blade. I don't have a large collection and nothing worth much over $100, but lots of stuff that works well for me: A Ka-Bar, a Buck 110, a Winchester Bowie-style that was a gift and has held up, and several straight razors. I enjoy shaving with straight razors.
At age 19, I bought a Spyderco Clipit designed by Wayne Goddard as we were learning combat knife as part of CQB in the mixed martial arts I was taking at the time. This course was private, and mixed in Aikido, Kung fu (mostly Wing Chung), Filipino, Escrima, and a few other good ones. Was an interesting time.
I carried that Spyderco for years. At age 39, a couple weeks ago in my shop, I lost it. I was under the weather, and opening that day's mail. I noticed it was gone later. The only thing I can figure is that it must have gotten in one of the boxes I opened and went out with the trash. I sure hope that's not the case and that it turns up, but I'm not hopeful.
I'd been planning to retire the Spyderco and replace it anyway, so I had been looking. Its loss sped up the process a little, and I ended up with a Kershaw 3890w "Scrambler":
A discontinued knife, I got it for cheap. I'm a lefty, and they'd unfortunately neglected to tap the opposite-side clip holes, so I had to do that.
I sat there and flipped it... a lot. It drove my wife crazy. After 20 years of using one folder, I had some muscle memory to reprogram.
While handling it, I learned two things. First, it was slick. The side without the G10 polymer was a challenge to hold when my hands were completely dry. Some skateboard tape fixed that:
I've used this stuff on pistol frontstraps, and though it's no longer my preferred method, it does work. It worked for this, too.
Second thing I learned was that it was hard to get it out of my pocket. Since I carry concealed using a cover garment, concealing the knife inside the pocket isn't a concern. I re-positioned the clip:
Now it rides nicely, and is easy to get out quickly. This came in handy when I hooked my clothing on a treble hook the other day hiking back from fishing:
Of course, all this flicking and handling heated the spring and broke it. I now had a manual opener with no retention.
So, I put retention in it:
I also discovered that one doesn't have to have a spring to pop the knife open from a static position, but only needs middle and third fingers:
About a week after converting the knife to a manual flipper, I received two springs in the mail from Kershaw. That was nice of them. I'd rather have paid for the spring, but I didn't have that option.
Installing it, I used silicone heat transfer grease I had around from my old computing days:
Though I won't be flipping it nearly as much any longer, I hope the silicone grease will help transfer any heat generated to the frame and keep the spring cool.
I just notice tonight that the frame lock may be getting a little loose already. I have strong hands and may have bent it too far -- that's not out of the question. Might take it apart and bend it back; hopefully there is still enough tension to keep it there. There should be an overtravel stop on that frame lock, and I suspect that's one reason this model was discontinued. I've noticed another current frame lock has a stop washer.
So, now I'm looking at other Kershaw knives. The one I'm liking most is the Knockout. Made in the USA with what looks like a slightly more robust locking design. I'd still have to move the clip so it rides higher in my pocket, of course, but other than drilling a retention for the times I want to run without a spring, it looks like it may work better for my needs. I do like the thumb studs as well; redundancy is a virtue in my mind.
Regards,
Josh
