Knives

In case you are wondering, this post is not going to be an advertisement for anything; I do not get paid to tell about products I like.  Then again, even if I don't get paid for it, I like telling other people about products I've found that I like.


By the way, I don't often have much brand loyalty.  If there's one product made by a company I particularly like, then I like the product but not necessarily the company as a whole.  If a company makes multiple products I like, I will like the company, but I don't necessarily have to like everything made by the company.
For instance, if I had to choose one car company as my favorite, it would be Ferrari, but while I like many Ferraris, from the '60s and '70s to the present, there are some that I don't really like (especially the 208 GTB and early model Mondial, which probably nobody liked, as they were horrible).
  But if one of the company's competitor's makes a better product, I may consider that instead.  Many people who have a particular loyalty to a brand can't stand any criticism of it.
For instance, as one car magazine said about cars that reach "fanboy" status, the "fanboys" will continue to insist their favorite car is better than all others, protest results of tests and reviews in which it's not the winner, etc.
Although I might be like that, I severely doubt it.


As you probably know if you know me fairly well, Cold Steel is my favorite knife company and the company whose knives I usually buy.  However, although I believe Cold Steel is a good company that makes some excellent products, all of its knives aren't perfect all of the time, as I'll explain later.
Here are some thoughts on knives (including buying Cold Steel knives):


1) Unless Cold Steel has a very good sale or incentive (such as their seconds and closeouts or knife fighting DVDs for free with the purchase of a certain knife), look for their knives on Amazon.com, Keenzo.com, eBay, or elsewhere, as I've seen many items much cheaper on some of those places before.  If the prices are the same on Cold Steel's Special Projects website and on the other one you've looked at, make your pick.
Cold Steel still has seconds and closeouts you may be interested in, such as some of their machetes for around $10 each, here:
http://www.ltspecpro.com/secl.html 
Those of you who got a chance to handle my 12" spear point machete (more of a long knife than a machete) might be interested.  I may have already said this previously, but shipping is $9, so you may want to buy multiple items at once, like I did, to save on shipping costs. 


2) Cold Steel's folding knives come with a variety of styles of locks: liner, leaf spring, rocker, Ultra Lock, and Tri-Ad, to name the major ones.  I've gotten both a black Scimitar with a VG-1 blade and a blue anodized Ti-Lite with a Titanium handle and a VG-1 blade.  Both have liner locks, and on both knives, the blade now can wiggle back and forth.  While these might be the odd ones out, I am not going to get any folding knives with a liner lock in the future.  What I am going to do is get a CS knife with the company's new Tri-Ad lock, which on one impressive folder (mainly because of its size), the Extra Large Espada, held 600 lbs.
My Scimitar's blade stays pretty sharp, but for some reason, my Ti-Lite can  kind of get sharp with some effort, but seems to dull immediately.  That might be an anomaly, particularly since both its blade and the one on my Scimitar are made with VG-1 steel...anyway, I'm particularly disappointed with my Ti-Lite right now, since it only really serves to look pretty.


3) In response to this post, a friend asked me, "What about Benchmade?"
While I don't have any knives made by Benchmade, my dad has a Benchmade switchblade that's pretty cool, and I'd kind of like one, but I don't really want one, especially since they're not legal, and I really don't want to get.  Also, some of Microtech's out-the-front automatic knives are very cool, but they're highly illegal for civilians - you can get them only for military of law enforcement use.  Those are some knives I would like, as well as Altair's retractable stealth blade (from the video game, Assassin's Creed), but both are illegal and the retractable wrist blades I've seen for sale come unsharpened and I'm unsure of their quality.


4) Right now I'm fairly displeased (actually, quite angry) with the current knife and gun laws, and the whole encroachment on our freedoms by the federal government.  Thomas Jefferson would go crazy if he could see the state of America today...reading an Uncle Eric book about government makes it clearer.
I'd better not continue, or I'll just be ranting about the government's increasing control and the stupidity of these laws.
Well, here are lists of knife laws, as well as an article written about these oppressive knife laws.
State knife laws:
http://home.netcom.com/~brlevine/sta-law.htm


http://www.donath.org/Rants/StateKnifeLaws/

Oppressive knife laws article:
http://knife-expert.com/st-opp.txt


5) Since "carrying knives concealed in case of attack" (paraphrased) is specifically inexcusable in some places, I may have to carry a knife for self-defense openly, like on my belt, but not only does a knife usually get in the way there, in many places, a "dirk or dagger" is illegal even to open carry.  
It looks like I may have to get an Extra Large Espada some day.










Thoughts?


-Max out