Up front is my newly-arrived Lil’Temperance2 (C69GP2) with its distinctive milled-G10 in a green that pleases me. A Lil’Temperance3 stands just behind it.
Gotta say, finding a Spydie built two decades earlier and still in mint condition, as my Dyad and Lil’Temp2 are, has been quite a rush (not unlike my finding a test-fired-only SIG P226 built in West Germany during 1994).
The Lil’Temps’ juxtaposition and the rearward one of a C82 D’Allara2 (nearer) and D’Allara3 (farther) represent a new urge in my attraction to Spyderco.
If you think you’re close to knowing about Spyderco, find a recent model, then, if you like it, find an earlier version and ponder what Sal was thinking. Lots to chew on, yet not to know, if design and variations on a design are your thing.
So, here are some impressions about the Lil’Temp2 to join the ones that were added to the Forum in real time way back when.
The handle is very thick, thicker than the Lil’Temp3, but surprisingly not as thick as the similarly stout M4 Shaman I’ve been carrying recently. Because of the latter’s contouring, the Lil’Temp2 feels very much thicker, and is indeed blocky (I can like blocky); perfect, I imagine, for its intended self-defense application.
The handle has just enough real estate for the saber grip of my largish hand; it’s marginally shorter than the Shaman’s (when its finger-choil remains ungripped), but the Lil’Temp2’s rearward handle-grooves do keep my ring and pinkie fingers fully and comfortably in place. Oddly, the grooveless (and thinner) Lil’Temp3 handle seems just as secure, but perhaps it would not be quite as secure as the Lil’Temp2 in an unpredictable mêlée. In a defensive outward-reverse grip, my index and middle finger are super-glued right into the rearward grooves with my thumb pressing down on the handle’s butt.
The Lil’Temp2’s thumb-ramp, somewhat reminiscent of the earlier C60 Ayoob’s, is almost entirely sandwiched between the handle’s two scales and thus offers a thumb-rest that is both larger and more comfortable than my C70 ATR2’s screwed-on cobra-hood (and in the outward-reverse grip, the edge of the palm is nicely supported). Speaking of the Ayoob, the Lil’Temp2, though FFG, has a vaguely smushed-in Ayoob vibe.
I have resisted the trailing-point blade-shape for a long time (my first Spyderco one came unavoidably as part of the earlier C44 Dyad) but with the Lil’Temp2, I think I now “get it”. A trailing-point can offer as much edge-length in a shorter blade as a longer one (and thus be permitted in more jurisdictions). And the acute point it offers at the stabbing angle is mostly the edge’s apex, the spine coming in behind the point and apex (MJ’s Yojimbo relies on the spine’s flat, after penetration, to press the point and apex in and down).
Measured to the tip from the handle (where the handle would intersect a line imagined between pivot and tip), the blade-length on both Lil’Temps is nearly equal (with a nod to the Lil’Temp2) but the edge-length on the Lil’Temp2 is maybe a half-inch longer. Perhaps more interestingly, compared to the Shaman’s blade-length, the Lil’Temp2’s is a half-inch shorter, but its edge-length is actually a tad longer. And the distal taper of the Lil’Temp and Shaman, each 3 mm thick at the Spydiehole, is way more pronounced on the former.
As I have asserted in other threads, all hand-filling folders can be used in self-defense, if not as well as ones designed for that purpose. What interests me is how SD folders can find more daily uses.
Because of its pronounced belly and distal taper, the Lil’Temp2 (with even more belly than the Lil’Temp3) can be rocked back and forth into matter needing separation, and even redirected as on a dime, each relatively easily. And it has less blade than the leaf-shaped Lil’Temp3 to get stuck; it barely sticks on the Australian-made hard-cheddar cheese that has my dogs’ interest at the moment.
The Lil’Temp2 shares with several other older Spydie models a peculiar feature not usually seen in more modern ones. L to R, Lil’Temp2 (2001-2004), D’Allara2 (2006-2007), SuperLeaf (2010-2012), and Lil’Temp3 (2017-2018), this last the least extreme.
When these knives are closed, they have a fugly protrusion; when opened, this “eyesore” forms part of a very comfortable thumb-ramp. Form follows function.
All for now.
EDIT TO ADD: Forgot to mention that now-rare (easy to add, hard to remove) sharpening choils occur on the Lil’Temp2 and D’Allara2.
