Alcyone & the knife joker!

[bjz]

I was recently on a road trip and had zero intentions of acquiring another pocket knife, but when I rolled into Bishop, CA and saw signs for the Knife Joker shop, I decided I had to stop in (there are no dealers near to where I live so in general, it’s been order and hope for the best for me).

Between a bunch of great options including the rockjumper (fantastic handle…hands down one of the best I’ve tried) and the sage 5 lw (if it weren’t for having such a thick blade, this might be my second favorite knife design period), I chose to go home with a first gen Alcyone!!!

I’m right handed, so for me, it has great ergonomics (I mean, fantastic), a blade more on the thin-ish side of things (I generally don’t need super heavy duty blades) and those scales are just great texture, appearance and edge finish.

All this has been said in other posts, but I wanted to say thanks to Sal for such a great design in an affordable package!!! And, thanks to Travis at the knife joker for letting me “try out” so many options in hand while there…if y’all ever find yourselves in Bishop, stop by and check his joint out! Zero frills, just cases full of Spyderco goodness!

That is all.

[z1r]

I was recently on a road trip and had zero intentions of acquiring another pocket knife, but when I rolled into Bishop, CA and saw signs for the Knife Joker shop, I decided I had to stop in (there are no dealers near to where I live so in general, it’s been order and hope for the best for me).

Between a bunch of great options including the rockjumper (fantastic handle…hands down one of the best I’ve tried) and the sage 5 lw (if it weren’t for having such a thick blade, this might be my second favorite knife design period), I chose to go home with a first gen Alcyone!!!

I’m right handed, so for me, it has great ergonomics (I mean, fantastic), a blade more on the thin-ish side of things (I generally don’t need super heavy duty blades) and those scales are just great texture, appearance and edge finish.

All this has been said in other posts, but I wanted to say thanks to Sal for such a great design in an affordable package!!! And, thanks to Travis at the knife joker for letting me “try out” so many options in hand while there…if y’all ever find yourselves in Bishop, stop by and check his joint out! Zero frills, just cases full of Spyderco goodness!

That is all.

Need pics!

[bjz]

Need pics!

I’ll see what I can do later or tomorrow…

[metaphoricalsimile]

I'm curious why you call out the Sage 5 LW as having a thick blade when it's only a tiny bit thicker than the Alcyone and is the same blade stock thickness as the Rockjumper.

[bjz]

I'm curious why you call out the Sage 5 LW as having a thick blade when it's only a tiny bit thicker than the Alcyone and is the same blade stock thickness as the Rockjumper.

Sorry if my statement was a bit misleading…compared to some knives the sage blade isn’t that thick. If I were picking a more general-to-hard use knife the sage would be great! I’ve developed a liking for slimmer knives such as the chap, UKPN, Watu, Byrd harrier 2 and even kapara. In hand, the alcyone blade stock was visually noticeably thinner at the spine than the sage…to me.

[Wartstein]

I'm curious why you call out the Sage 5 LW as having a thick blade when it's only a tiny bit thicker than the Alcyone and is the same blade stock thickness as the Rockjumper.

Sorry if my statement was a bit misleading…compared to some knives the sage blade isn’t that thick. If I were picking a more general-to-hard use knife the sage would be great! I’ve developed a liking for slimmer knives such as the chap, UKPN, Watu, Byrd harrier 2 and even kapara. In hand, the alcyone blade stock was visually noticeably thinner at the spine than the sage…to me.

That´s interesting.

- If you are refering purely to blade stock, the Alcyones bladestock is "just" 0.2 mm thinner (2.8 mm) than the Sages (the "usual" 3.00 mm) - so the Alcyone probably has more tapering going on, so the blades gets thinner towards the tip sooner and more?! Something I´d like, since like you I prefer "slimmer" folders, when it comes to the blade stock.

- Actually one of the things I prefer on the Sage on paper (never had one) over its "main competitor" in the small comp.lock knife arena, the Para 3 (had one for just a good month): The 3.00 stock of the Sage vs the very thick 3.7 mm of the Para 3)

- Bladestockwise the Kapara actually is as thick as the Sage: 3.00 mm. The taller Sage blade should even be a factor that helps the Sage having a "thinner", slicier geometry (to be clear: I had a Kapara and really liked it and its performance, don´t get me wrong!)

- Last question: Of course you got the "old", very beautiful "textured" G10 scales, right?
Actually, though I am not sure, I am afraid the Alcyone could be discontinued anyway and only its big brother, the Polestar will remain in the line up but with the uniformely grey, "not textured" scales?

[sal]

Hi Bjz,

Thanx for the review and the plug on the model. One of my better designs in my opinion, but I'm biased to be sure.

Let us know your thoughts on the design / model after some use?

sal

[bjz]

Hi Bjz,

Thanx for the review and the plug on the model. One of my better designs in my opinion, but I'm biased to be sure.

Let us know your thoughts on the design / model after some use?

sal

Sal, I purchased while on a road trip and made a point of stashing it away…I returned home yesterday and while I carried it a bunch, the only thing it’s been used to cut was opening the stack of mail. I’ll report once I have more time in but design and ergo’s are awesome for a knife in this size range. I chose it over the new persistence LW; suspect I’ll like it more than my efficient; and it already has a para 3lw, stretch SS and SE native lw boxed up and ready to go on the market!

When schedule allows, I regularly volunteer at a local food bank stocking shelves and building boxes for disbursement, and there is a lot of cardboard that gets broken down. I’ve been using an efficient for this but suspect that the alcyone is gonna do as well or better.

More to come!

[bjz]

I’ll try and keep this quick, and stress that these are my perceptions.

First off, I was definitely not claiming the sage was too thick of a knife! For what I was looking for, that extra little bit of thinness in the alcyone was one factor in my decision and had I been able to afford BOTH I would have, but it was one of the other.

The kapara is my current favorite knife for my typical use and is such a different beast than almost any other Spyderco I’ve had the ability to hold…sooooo much edge available! The only others in the same ballpark for me are the tenacious and Caribbean. The alcyone is sliding into a mid-small blade position in my lineup, mostly because I just can’t warm up to the para 3 lw. I thought it was going to be the persistent but nope, turns out it’s the alcyone!

I picked up the older model with the cool scales and bd1! I’m actually regretting not getting the polestar as well! I might call Travis up and ask him to send me one. He had some of both.

To be honest, I definitely didn’t NEED this knife, but I stopped in and Travis spent a bunch of time letting me check stuff out, so I was compelled to make some changes in my travel budget to accommodate a purchase. I just wish it could have accommodated a sage and Caribbean as well

For someone like yourself, wartstein, you would likely be more happy with your tenacious! The functional grip area on the tenacious and alcyone is about the same, and the tenacious has a bunch more blade length! Sometimes that’s a problem though…the old ladies that hang out at the food bank i volunteer at get very wide-eyed when i pull out an SE tenacious! Heck, even my grizzled biker-brawler ex-coworker would give me a funny look when I opened it up. The alcyone should draw a lot less attention!

I’ll try and post pictures tomorrow or this weekend

[Wartstein]

.......
For someone like yourself, wartstein, you would likely be more happy with your tenacious! The functional grip area on the tenacious and alcyone is about the same, and the tenacious has a bunch more blade length! Sometimes that’s a problem though…the old ladies that hang out at the food bank i volunteer at get very wide-eyed when i pull out an SE tenacious! Heck, even my grizzled biker-brawler ex-coworker would give me a funny look when I opened it up. The alcyone should draw a lot less attention!

I’ll try and post pictures tomorrow or this weekend

Thanks!
Looking forward to that pics!

[hereiamu1]

Some eye candy

[bjz]

Some eye candy

PXL_20220128_215938878.jpgPXL_20220128_215924059.jpg

^ this is a lucky fella there! Apparently these combos with bd1n and the old scales were curtesy bonuses for purchases made through SFO during a short holiday period…when I first saw this I called up SFO and asked if they had any left for purchase but alas, they were out. I’m still super happy to have gotten one with the old scales though!

[bjz]

A bunch of images next to some of my favorite knives:















And a couple that are essentially on the “to move on” list because of the alcyone:

[Bemo]

The blade on the Alcyone and the Persistence are virtually identical. That's a hard call. Of course, I opted for both. My Alcyone and Polestar are the first version and I have to say I love that crosshatch (almost gray tweed) pattern G10 but am looking forward to the CTS BD1N. It's really interesting to compare and contrast the Alcyone and the Persistence. Alcyone is a Sal design and Persistence is an Eric design. They both fit in the same design envelope yet feel so different in hand ( I will point out that Dad's design got the better steel *cough*).

[sal]

Hi Bemo,

Eric's been working on better steels in the "Tenacious family" line. I believe he's got some S3VN already in the market.

But you are correct in that Eric and I do have different styles on some things, but on most design features, we're pretty close. I think Eric has the "better eye". We work with outside designers to be able to provide you with more variety, yet still maintain the quality..

sal

[Bemo]

Hi Sal,

Thanks so much for the response. Yes I have the S35VN in the Tenacious and am anxiously waiting for it to (hopefully) appear in the Persistence!

[olywa]

Hopefully not too late to resurrect this thread. I had an original Polestar that I gifted to a family member when I first heard rumblings about the steel possibly being upgraded to BD1N. I liked it well enough, especially the checkered G10 scales, but was kind of ambivalent about BD1 and had other Spydies in that size range that I preferred.

When I saw the new Polestar in BD1N I was kind of disappointed on the change to a smoother gray scale. But then I spotted an Alcyone in BD1N with the older checkered scales and decided it was time to try out the Polestar's little brother. So glad I did! Fit and finish are superb, blade grind is even and it came very sharp. I'm a big fan of BD1N from a performance/value perspective and the ergos work really well for me. I'm considering a Lynch deep-carry clip but honestly, the stock clip works very well and basically disappears in-hand even under hard use.

Great job Sal, and thanks for the steel upgrade! Like baby bear said, this one is "just right".

[Bemo]

Those who disparage "Chinese" made knives really need to try either a Polestar or Aclyone. Heck my Harrier 2 with G10 is an amazing value. So looking forward to the next chapter in these knives. And honestly, with inflation, these may become my go to's in collecting.

[bjz]

^ the harrier 2 frn is an even more amazing value!

[Bemo]

Hopefully not too late to resurrect this thread. I had an original Polestar that I gifted to a family member when I first heard rumblings about the steel possibly being upgraded to BD1N. I liked it well enough, especially the checkered G10 scales, but was kind of ambivalent about BD1 and had other Spydies in that size range that I preferred.

When I saw the new Polestar in BD1N I was kind of disappointed on the change to a smoother gray scale. But then I spotted an Alcyone in BD1N with the older checkered scales and decided it was time to try out the Polestar's little brother. So glad I did! Fit and finish are superb, blade grind is even and it came very sharp. I'm a big fan of BD1N from a performance/value perspective and the ergos work really well for me. I'm considering a Lynch deep-carry clip but honestly, the stock clip works very well and basically disappears in-hand even under hard use.

Great job Sal, and thanks for the steel upgrade! Like baby bear said, this one is "just right".

OlyWa, care to share where you found that? I found the Polestar in BD1N but haven't found the Alcyone yet.