Native5 LW

[DougC-3]

My order is showing as shipped with USPS showing an expected delivery date of this Saturday. They just jacked the price up to $117, so it looks like it was a typo.

Hopefully they sent everything as ordered and aren't trying to screw around. Either way, I'll know this weekend and follow up with how it went.

Strange... at this link, they are still showing it for $64.99:

http://altatac.shop.rakuten.com/p/spyde ... 87570.html

Mine has already shipped for $64.99 with free shipping. Actually several places are charging not too much more. Knifeworks lists it for $77.85 (preorder) and National Knives had it for $78.99 (out of stock now).

[Capt'n Boatsalot]

I ordered from this altatac outfit yesterday (thanks sdedalus83 for the tip!) and had a shipping confirmation this morning. But a few hours later I received notification that they were out of stock and refunding my order. A bit disappointing, but not too surprising. No big deal - I will pick one up eventually. I do hope some forumites were able to take advantage of this deal.

- Capt'n

[DougC-3]

Every lockback I have had has had a small amount of up down play. I mean really small, needing to really pull up down on the blade to detect it. I cannot ever notice it during use, if I could I would return it. The one exception is my forum native5. It is so tight. The native5 lock is cut different in the tang than other backlocks. You can tell when you disassemble. I wonder if the LW version has the same improved back lock?

Side to side play doesn't really matter because it is adjustable and I have always had to adjust it sooner or later either way. Sure, out of the box adjustments shouldn't be necessary but it isn't the end of the world either.

:

Ran across this in the October Spyderco Byte:

This highly evolved design faithfully incorporates all the advantages of the Native 5—a full-flat-ground CPM S35VN blade, improved back lock mechanism, and textured index-finger choil and thumb ramp—with a linerless fiberglass-reinforced nylon (FRN) handle featuring Bi-Directional Texturing™ for an ultra-secure grip.

[sdedalus83]

Mine came today, kind of like a hybrid of the Mini Manix and the Dragonfly 2. This'll be my new daily user.

The buying experience with Rakuten was really good. I had originally ordered the partially serrated Manix 2 a couple of months ago when they had the $25 off 75 for new customers. There was a paypal snafu and I had to cancel the order and resubmit it. The code wouldn't register, so I emailed them and forgot about it. A couple of weeks ago I was going through my filtered mail when I found the response; they said the discount would be honored and I would just need to place a new order and they would do a partial refund. The only knife they had that I was really able and willing to buy was the stretch, but with the Native just released I waited and checked a couple of times every day to see if one of their stores would have it. When I saw it a few nights ago at nearly $15 less than anywhere else, I ordered it and added the Maglite solitaire to get the total over $75. Both arrived today, and the partial refund just hit my account.

For $53, I'm quite pleased with the experience and the products.

[DougC-3]

Mine came today too, two days after ordering, and didn't have any quality control problems, no play vertical or horizontal, and the edge grind was not perfect but pretty good. The swedge was ground very evenly and had some very regular and sort of nice looking minute grind marks that matched from side to side, but was smooth to the touch. I'll try to post a pic later.

[DougC-3]

(Some of these shots are partially grazed sunlight to bring out grind detail, so the steel appears much darker than real life, especially when the blade nearly fills the frame and the camera meter is trying to do its job of rendering the whole photo as 18% gray.)

With Native (1) and Forum Native 5 for comparison




Swedge grind marks show on both the Forum knife and the Lt Wt, but are much less obvious in real life


Following 2 shots show Lt Wt edge grind




The following 5 macro shots show a 21 x 14mm frame size (the lens's closest focus).

Lt Wt swedge grind close up


Spyderbug on Lt Wt


Next two shots -- the Lt Wt swedge, on my knife, was ground just about perfectly from end to end, with the two sides matching perfectly at both ends.




The forum Native 5 swedge grind for comparison -- both are a good bit harder to see (and not easy to feel) in real life.


Blade finish shot comparison with my 154CM Manix 2, my only stone washed blade