It made me happy to read the nice replies, thank you.
I’ll take some time later and put some pictures of the Stretches up.
As far as cost to find my grail knife uh yeah and no. argh
I started with Chris Reeve $400.00 plus knives until I bought my first Spyderco Paramilitary 2 which outperformed the Sebenza (Spelling) those all got sold.
In short I have spent thousands of dollars and sold and recovered some of it
Still cheaper than hunting or boating which some people invest in.
What really got me into the Stretch was wanting to try out VG-10 Steel but not wanting tiny blades and preferring belly in my blades. Somehow I had tried nearly every steel but VG-10 having listened to far too much hype about so many others and they all without exception left me a bit disappointed.
Looking at you S30V, S35VN, S110V, CTS-204P M390. See a pattern here? All extremely high carbide so called powdered super steels. All will hold a working edge for a long time or should I say a fulley functional dull cutting edge.
My favorite steels are as follows from most to least favored.
VG-10 All around solid performer easy to make extremely hair shaving sharp, holds that extreme sharpness for a long time and only needs minor touch ups excellent corrosion resistance better than S30V.
What does the VG stand for ? VERY GOOD? If so, it sure is. I consider this the perfect all around equally balanced steel for knives.
CTS-XHP this is another solid all around performer exhibiting very similar properties to VG-10 holds a screaming edge longer than VG-10 and is a little more difficult to bring back but not by much. It is ver corrosion resistant.
ZDP189 very sharp steel great cutting characteristics holds a very sharp edge a very long time dulls a little at a time not all at once like the high carbide S30V listed above. Have not had to sharpen yet. Superior edge retention.
LC200N again very similar to VG10 with added bonus of never going to rust no matter what, VG-10 seems to hold a screaming sharp edge better though. This steel is equally easy to bring back to screaming sharp maybe a little easier than VG-10.
M4 awesome steel can get wicked sharp very easily and it holds it for a very long time only downside is corrosion, but it is not as bad as some make it out to be.
Elmax a very nice steel it will however corrode swifter than people think blade can be made very sharp but reverts to functional sharp like some of the ones I first listed.
H1 strange stuff very strange metal, have it in several salts with serrations it is really tough and does seem to get better with use at holding its edge but there is a certain lack of bit to the steel like it is a polished cut instead of a more toothy cut from H1
After this the rest of the steels are of lesser degree of interest.
I have a cruwear Military need to break it out and get some wisdom with that steel.
So all in all VG-10 is really incredible and well rounded, I find it funny there was soooo much hype about S30V being the balanced super steel and Blade HQ Charts are just way off. It is no where near as balanced as VG-10 or as corrosion resistant.
It looks great on paper was developed for knives. Is an excellent steel but VG-10 is better in my opinion in real world use.
The design of the Stretch is just perfect. It is a perfect marriage with VG-10 they both exhibit the same Qualities those being all around balanced.
My Militaries are a close second.
Paramilitary 2 follows.
The rest I have owned thus far fall into specialized camp.
The Hundred pacer for example is awesome but you pop that fang in an office and people get nervous. I use it in the kitchen and love it in that role.
My favorite fixed blade is Lances Waterway my go to fixed blade kitchen cooking knife:)
Native salt is a light weight working in the yard knife I can get wet hot dirty and use it never going to rust no matter how much Sweat gets on it, tried this with a Para3 inS30V rust and pits in the steel, that was the end of S30V with me.
I will buy models that only come in S30V but they have to have a super redeeming quality or else I won’t even look at them.
For example the Ikuchi by Paul Alexander trailing point blade like my Hundred Pacer trailing points are awesome, super low profile and a rounded flipper HELLO to bad S30V is being used CTS-XBO would have been a better choice but still going to buy one.
