Spyderco Forums

Hey folks, I have something that's not so much a complaint, as an observation. In the past 3 months, I've purchased 4 spydercos, a Fred Perrin fixed blade, Vallotton, Centofante3, and an Endura 4 ( non ffg)

The first thing I check for when I open a new knife, is to see what the edge is like ( second is lock up) Both of which I normally don't check my spydercos for, because they are normally perfect. However, I was pretty disappointed when I received these knives, as non of them were " Spyderco Sharp" or would even cleanly push cut phonebook paper. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to run my finger on the edge ( except the vallotton, that was about as sharp as an eraser) but they weren't anywhere near the sharpness I've come to expect. Mind you, all the Perrin, Endura, and Centofante needed was a few minutes on a strop and they became freakishly sharp. The Vallotton took close to two hours on some stones then strop to get it to what any knife person would call sharp. Maybe I'm over thinking it, but I'm just used to taking a Spyderco out of a box and treating it like a lightsaber because of how sharp they were. Has anyone else noticed this recently? I hope I'm the only one.

Stay sharp

David

Hello! If as you say the second thing you do is lock up your knives after looking at them, then how sharp they are won't really matter, does it? I usually don't sharpen knives that I don't use.

I do put my own edges on knives before I take them with me to use. A factory edge pretty much doesn't matter to me besides I've found factory edges to be chippy anyway. Here's the edge I put on my M390 Millie.

Gorgeous edge! I mean lock up as in the lock up on the knife, how strong it is. Also, I'm very sad I missed the M390 Millie

With spydercos I normally let the factory edge dull out then put my own on ( The always have the perfect amount of tooth to them)

DavidReid wrote:Gorgeous edge! I mean lock up as in the lock up on the knife, how strong it is. Also, I'm very sad I missed the M390 Millie

Thanks, the lockup is great. Initially, it was earlier than where I was comfortable but after a couple of days cycling, it got to where I was comfortable at.

DavidReid wrote:With spydercos I normally let the factory edge dull out then put my own on ( The always have the perfect amount of tooth to them)

Yeh, I just like polished bevels but I usually end up with a brown rod micro which I find ideal for my EDC uses. :D

Have they all been through the same place?

My Superblue Caly3 was terrifying as was my Lil Matriarch. That's not exactly a Stanford survey though...

I've had a couple that weren't very sharp. It happens. They're sharpened by real people, not machines.

Evil D wrote:I've had a couple that weren't very sharp. It happens. They're sharpened by real people, not machines.

Well said , out of about 15 the only one that wasn't as sharp was the vallotton .
I belive as D says in his review, this is due to the angles.
As it is the thickness too resulting in a need for experience sharpening at these degrees .
I can't complain I've had other brands that were truly blunt.

Bladekeeper wrote:Well said , out of about 15 the only one that wasn't as sharp was the vallotton .
I belive as D says in his review, this is due to the angles.
As it is the thickness too resulting in a need for experience sharpening at these degrees .
I can't complain I've had other brands that were truly blunt.

Yeah, at some point sharpness is directly effected by the thinness of the apex. You can sharpen something to 60 inclusive and have the apex as refined as possible but it will never be as sharp as an equally refined 30 inclusive edge. That knife in particular is so ridiculously wide at the tip, I was actually impressed with how sharp it was out of the box for what it is. It took a lot of work to get the tip of mine sharp enough to really pop hair off as easily as my other knives, but I still can't get it sharp enough to whittle hair.

DavidReid wrote:Hey folks, I have something that's not so much a complaint, as an observation. In the past 3 months, I've purchased 4 spydercos, a Fred Perrin fixed blade, Vallotton, Centofante3, and an Endura 4 ( non ffg)

The first thing I check for when I open a new knife, is to see what the edge is like ( second is lock up) Both of which I normally don't check my spydercos for, because they are normally perfect. However, I was pretty disappointed when I received these knives, as non of them were " Spyderco Sharp" or would even cleanly push cut phonebook paper. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to run my finger on the edge ( except the vallotton, that was about as sharp as an eraser) but they weren't anywhere near the sharpness I've come to expect. Mind you, all the Perrin, Endura, and Centofante needed was a few minutes on a strop and they became freakishly sharp. The Vallotton took close to two hours on some stones then strop to get it to what any knife person would call sharp. Maybe I'm over thinking it, but I'm just used to taking a Spyderco out of a box and treating it like a lightsaber because of how sharp they were. Has anyone else noticed this recently? I hope I'm the only one.

Stay sharp

David

Well another sad news. I do not care about how sharp NIB knife myself, anyway I can do it much better then Spyderco,
but as yet another sign of Spyderco degradation. Some time ago Spyderco has best NIB edge, and now this is gone too...

Have they all been through the same place?

Nope, three different dealers.

I think I've just been spoiled as far as out of box sharpness. Now that I know that it's done by hand, I'm very impressed with the evenness of the edge. I think I might play around with the Vallotton's blade a bit, I'd love to thin it out. Thanks for all the replies folks, I guess when I opened the Perrin yesterday and it wasn't quite as sharp as I wanted, I had a hissy fit. It's rather embarrassing now.

That is impressive.

I have handled quite a few Spyderco's over the years and not all of them are equally sharp, but in general they are far more often than not. Getting four in a row of less than quality sharpness is very unlikely. Try to buy a lottery ticket and see if you can balance entropy.

Cliff Stamp wrote: Try to buy a lottery ticket and see if you can balance entropy.

I think you meant karma, Cliff

My most recent, Native 5, felt sharp initially but lost it quickly, doing not much at all. Dropped the angle and refined the edge and it's truely a thing of beauty now.

I'm wondering if it got too hot the way you theorized your Nilakka had?

Ken

That was an attempt at probability humor as I was using Entropy as a measure of disorder / expected behavior.

Most knives which are power sharpened without water will tend to show an improvement after hand sharpening. More makers are switching to wet grinding for this and other reasons. If you check out Striders channel on YT you can see Mick's set up which is relatively simple but looks very effective.

Cliff Stamp wrote:That was an attempt at probability humor as I was using Entropy as a measure of disorder / expected behavior.

I know. I was just piggy backing on.

Ken

DavidReid wrote:The first thing I check for when I open a new knife, is to see what the edge is like ( second is lock up) Both of which I normally don't check my spydercos for, because they are normally perfect.

I haven't been impressed with the factory edge on any plain edged Spydies. It is a usable edge, it will cut things, but you can do a lot better yourself. I spent a little time putting a real edge on my brother-in-law's Ambitious today, it looks like that Military now and I am missing quite a bit of hair on my left arm.

David I agree, Spyderco's should be sharp, as without that, all we have is a HOLE in a blade.

All my oldies are keen screamers, the best was the BG42 Milie sprint, WOW. ALL were sharp, and it is expected, after all we are not buying INFI Planks here.

We cannot have Striders(the other holish thing in the Blade Company) sharper than Spydies, Spydies are a sharpening company first, home of the Sharpmaker and awesome ceramics.

I don't buy nearly as many knives as some people here, but all of my Spydercos were sharp out of the box.

chuck_roxas45 wrote:Hello! If as you say the second thing you do is lock up your knives after looking at them, then how sharp they are won't really matter, does it? I usually don't sharpen knives that I don't use.

I do put my own edges on knives before I take them with me to use. A factory edge pretty much doesn't matter to me besides I've found factory edges to be chippy anyway. Here's the edge I put on my M390 Millie.

I envy you Chuck. That edge looks gorgeous.