So on Tuesday I did the unthinkable...
I cancelled my s110v mule order, and my SB Stretch pre-order, in order to buy a South Fork. It's supposed to show up tomorrow, but looks like it may be held up by the storm on the East Coast.
This one has been on my radar for a while and I finally just had to take the plunge... I'd like to hear what people have been using theirs for. Phil's post in the fishing thread today was nice to see!
The cancellations were painful, but I just can't afford them all right now, and it's not my style to flip... Congrats to the lucky punter who gets my mule! I figure my k390 will keep the tears at bay, lol.
:)
Talk up the South Fork!
Oh, you will love it, I use mine almost every day in the kitchen.Apophis wrote:So on Tuesday I did the unthinkable...
I cancelled my s110v mule order, and my SB Stretch pre-order, in order to buy a South Fork. It's supposed to show up tomorrow, but looks like it may be held up by the storm on the East Coast.
This one has been on my radar for a while and I finally just had to take the plunge... I'd like to hear what people have been using theirs for. Phil's post in the fishing thread today was nice to see!
The cancellations were painful, but I just can't afford them all right now, and it's not my style to flip... Congrats to the lucky punter who gets my mule! I figure my k390 will keep the tears at bay, lol.
:)
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bornagainprimative
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- Location: Southern Ontario, Canada
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Phil Wilson
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Aprophis, appreciate your purchase, let me know how the South Fork works for you.
Shunshi, good idea on the inner tube. As an option for a bit more grab on the G10, tape off the handle to blade joint and sand the handle with some 320 or 220 grit wet/dry paper. Use water or Windex to keep paper from loading. This will bring up the glass fibers in the G10 and make it pretty sticky in the hand. Phil
Shunshi, good idea on the inner tube. As an option for a bit more grab on the G10, tape off the handle to blade joint and sand the handle with some 320 or 220 grit wet/dry paper. Use water or Windex to keep paper from loading. This will bring up the glass fibers in the G10 and make it pretty sticky in the hand. Phil
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senorsquare
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The Southfork is awesome. Mine gets the most use in the kitchen:
Untitled by senorsquare, on Flickr
Untitled by senorsquare, on Flickr
Untitled by senorsquare, on Flickr
Untitled by senorsquare, on Flickr
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senorsquare
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- Location: Lotta Rock, AR
Thanks for the tip Phil, and the great knife. I appreciate your working with Spyderco for this South Fork collaboration.Phil Wilson wrote:... As an option for a bit more grab on the G10, tape off the handle to blade joint and sand the handle with some 320 or 220 grit wet/dry paper. Use water or Windex to keep paper from loading. This will bring up the glass fibers in the G10 and make it pretty sticky in the hand. Phil
Got one when they first came out, got my son one when they were available at a slightly reduced price. Awesome knife, something that will be passed down in the family. Hope my grandkids and theirs, appreciate the design and functional beauty of this knife. Guess I need to get mine out and fondle it. Cut some taters, celery, and ownyone yesterday to make potato soup. My elderly mother loves it. Have to put my good knives up, she wants to hide them for some reason :confused: I guess when you near 90 you should be able to hide a few things. 
Thanks Phil for the design and thanks Spyderco for making such a great knife.
Thanks Phil for the design and thanks Spyderco for making such a great knife.-
hunterseeker5
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- Location: Usually somewhere on the east coast
A beautifully made knife in a lot of respects, but I had a few gripes:
1) Given how beautifully rounded and buffed the handle was, why on earth were the choil and spine left so sharp? Would a few seconds to break those edges really have done that much to the price?
2) The knife was ground shockingly thick. Not only was the stock very thick, the knife was a full .7mm thick above the apex. That is the same as spyderco's "tactical" knives, which this isn't. It also happens to be the same above-apex thickness as you get on a Busse ASH1 which is a significantly larger knife. (.32inches thick at the spine, yes you just read that right) Phil Wilson's knives are beautifully made and heat treated, but part of where he got his name was from grinding knives killer thin. Spyderco has demonstrated their capability to do this on a whole suite of different knives, not to mention virtually all kitchen cutlery is significantly more acute than this, so why this knife didn't carry that character trait from Phil Wilson over I don't know.
Regarding kitchen use: it really doesn't work terribly well. The Seto gyuto was in the .3mm thick (above the apex) range, less than half that of this Phil Wilson knife. It also has a much higher grind, which both facilitates less wedging when cutting through rigid things such as veggies, and keeps your knuckles up off the cutting board so you can cut with the full length of the blade. The Phil Wilson's guard doesn't allow you to do this. I won't fault it for this, it wasn't designed as a kitchen knife, so its not unreasonable to expect a purpose-built piece of cutlery to out-perform another knife which wasn't designed for that application. Don't get me wrong, in a pinch its physically capable of cutting a great number of different things in the kitchen or otherwise, but I'm saying its simply not optimized. If I drop a piece of cucumber on the upturned edge of my gyuto, it'll cut it in two, but on my Spyderco Phil Wilson it won't.
Still a nice knife, perhaps it irks me more because its 95% of the way from being a great knife to being an epic knife, and it fell on the last hurdle. If you bought a lesser knife, riddled with flaws, you'd shrug it off, but when you're so close to something pretty legendary.......
1) Given how beautifully rounded and buffed the handle was, why on earth were the choil and spine left so sharp? Would a few seconds to break those edges really have done that much to the price?
2) The knife was ground shockingly thick. Not only was the stock very thick, the knife was a full .7mm thick above the apex. That is the same as spyderco's "tactical" knives, which this isn't. It also happens to be the same above-apex thickness as you get on a Busse ASH1 which is a significantly larger knife. (.32inches thick at the spine, yes you just read that right) Phil Wilson's knives are beautifully made and heat treated, but part of where he got his name was from grinding knives killer thin. Spyderco has demonstrated their capability to do this on a whole suite of different knives, not to mention virtually all kitchen cutlery is significantly more acute than this, so why this knife didn't carry that character trait from Phil Wilson over I don't know.
Regarding kitchen use: it really doesn't work terribly well. The Seto gyuto was in the .3mm thick (above the apex) range, less than half that of this Phil Wilson knife. It also has a much higher grind, which both facilitates less wedging when cutting through rigid things such as veggies, and keeps your knuckles up off the cutting board so you can cut with the full length of the blade. The Phil Wilson's guard doesn't allow you to do this. I won't fault it for this, it wasn't designed as a kitchen knife, so its not unreasonable to expect a purpose-built piece of cutlery to out-perform another knife which wasn't designed for that application. Don't get me wrong, in a pinch its physically capable of cutting a great number of different things in the kitchen or otherwise, but I'm saying its simply not optimized. If I drop a piece of cucumber on the upturned edge of my gyuto, it'll cut it in two, but on my Spyderco Phil Wilson it won't.
Still a nice knife, perhaps it irks me more because its 95% of the way from being a great knife to being an epic knife, and it fell on the last hurdle. If you bought a lesser knife, riddled with flaws, you'd shrug it off, but when you're so close to something pretty legendary.......
Nice straightforward assessment. I still don't have it in hand, stuck in the Tar Heel state last I checked. It sounds like the production run may have made some compromises for the broader market, but I don't think I'll mind. I certainly didn't buy this because I'm lacking a nice gyuto and I don't mind knocking back some edges from crisp machining, lol. I look forward to holding it and finding out how it feels, cuts, carries, whatever. Also, at least one can still thin it out if/when desired :)
Thanks all for the pics and comments.
Thanks all for the pics and comments.