Return of Lum Tanto

[Mk-211]

That Burgundy they used for the sprint run looks amazing.

I've always liked Tanto style knives, doesn't matter who's version.

Saw this demo yesterday, amazing knife.

[Cletus]

When is BHQ going to drop this Lum Tanto? anybody know?
Thanks

[Fine Swine]

I've always loved the Lum tanto blade, but this handle is a problem for me. To my red-green colorblind eyes, it just looks like the ugliest possible brown. It's unfortunate.

[riclaw]

When is BHQ going to drop this Lum Tanto? anybody know?
Thanks

Tuesday, August 20th @10:00 AM MT

viewtopic.php?t=95998&start=240

[Cletus]

Thanks! My wallet is 'almost' ready!

[camvdcs]

I passed on DLC version exclusive. I'm glad they made a satin version. It put a dent in my wallet.

[Cletus]

My wallet isn't just dented, it's smashed flat!

[NCJohn62]

My wallet isn't just dented, it's smashed flat!

Sezzle is your friend......or maybe not. I'm so screwed for the next few weeks

[riclaw]

My wallet isn't just dented, it's smashed flat!

Sezzle is your friend......or maybe not. I'm so screwed for the next few weeks

Yup. Still worth it!

[SpyderEdgeForever]

It is a good knife but I was hoping they made it with a FRN grip and back lock or some form of crossbar lock.

[Cletus]

I don't mind a liner lock. In some ways it's easier to use than many other types. I have never seen one break either. I DO have a gas station knife I keep around for laughs, (it's unbelievably horrid), and it's liner lock is more of a suggestion than an actual lock. But any quality built liner lock will last a lifetime.

[SpyderEdgeForever]

I don't mind a liner lock. In some ways it's easier to use than many other types. I have never seen one break either. I DO have a gas station knife I keep around for laughs, (it's unbelievably horrid), and it's liner lock is more of a suggestion than an actual lock. But any quality built liner lock will last a lifetime.

Is this because Spyderco liner locks are thicker and lock against the steel liners so that even with decades of fatigue they won't bend or break and let the blade cut our fingers?

[Cletus]

Yep, I would trust Spyderco more than any other manufacturer.

[grandpahack]

Props to BladeHQ and USPS, got one in hand two days after my order. I was very excited about a tanto blade as I find it to be a super useful profile, and not too many Spyderco tantos out there.

Unfortunately I think I am going to send this one back, and I'm not sure if I'll re-order. A few things bother me:

#1 - The liner lock is basically a very stiff, sharp edged metal tab. There is no texturing or chamfering, and while there is a relief on the opposite scale, all it does is make it easier to flay your thumb. (top to bottom: GB2, Military, Lum, Tenacious M4, Resilience S35vn). While looking at this photo, take a sec to note the significant difference in finish quality of the pivot end of the blade. The Lum is ragged, like they were running the hundred yard dash with the laser. By contrast, the others, while dirty from use and handling, have no significant machining marks.

#2 - The stop pin is super janky (blue circle). It is a d-pin, but oriented so the machined side is up, which is in sharp contrast to the nicely turned standoffs and brushed liners. Looking closely at old reviews/photos, this seems to have been there before, so my bad for not noticing that detail. However, the far worse issue is that the blade only contacts the pin on one side, meaning the blade and pin are not square to each other. The curved blue arrow shows the side where the blade contacts the stop pin - you can see light passing through on the other side...

#3 - The blade side of the lock interface looks like it was a manufacturing mistake. There is a step ground into the face such that the area of contact between the bar and blade is reduced by 40-50%. This and the stop pin taken together seem like a set up for near term lock problems. (I have lots of liner locks, so no inherent bias here). The red arrow is the edge of the step. The blue box is roughly the overall lock interface, with the three blue arrows pointing at the raised step of the lock interface that contacts with the bar. The single blue arrow marks where the blade contacts the stop pin when the knife is open.

#4 - A fixable issue, but irritating all the same, is that the liners and Spydie hole were not deburred, and in some places have a wire edge sharp enough to cut skin. FWIW I've noticed some laxity wrt to deburring on several of my recent purchases - the Spydie hole is a high-touch/high-yield spot - it should get extra attention before packaging.

And a whiny #5 - BTE thickness is 0.030". Not exactly super-slicey. My GB2 is 0.018" and my M4 Tenacious is 0.015" (!) with the factory edge as yet unsharpened.

All in all pretty disappointing for a $250 knife.

[Cletus]

I received mine today. It's well built with solid lockup. All the screws are tight and the bevel is even on both sides. I have no complaints.

[Rinzler]

Props to BladeHQ and USPS, got one in hand two days after my order. I was very excited about a tanto blade as I find it to be a super useful profile, and not too many Spyderco tantos out there.

Unfortunately I think I am going to send this one back, and I'm not sure if I'll re-order. A few things bother me:

#1 - The liner lock is basically a very stiff, sharp edged metal tab. There is no texturing or chamfering, and while there is a relief on the opposite scale, all it does is make it easier to flay your thumb. (top to bottom: GB2, Military, Lum, Tenacious M4, Resilience S35vn). While looking at this photo, take a sec to note the significant difference in finish quality of the pivot end of the blade. The Lum is ragged, like they were running the hundred yard dash with the laser. By contrast, the others, while dirty from use and handling, have no significant machining marks.

lock comparison annotated resized.jpg

#2 - The stop pin is super janky (blue circle). It is a d-pin, but oriented so the machined side is up, which is in sharp contrast to the nicely turned standoffs and brushed liners. Looking closely at old reviews/photos, this seems to have been there before, so my bad for not noticing that detail. However, the far worse issue is that the blade only contacts the pin on one side, meaning the blade and pin are not square to each other. The curved blue arrow shows the side where the blade contacts the stop pin - you can see light passing through on the other side...

stop pin and standoff annotated resized.jpg
blade stop pin gap annotated resized.jpg

#3 - The blade side of the lock interface looks like it was a manufacturing mistake. There is a step ground into the face such that the area of contact between the bar and blade is reduced by 40-50%. This and the stop pin taken together seem like a set up for near term lock problems. (I have lots of liner locks, so no inherent bias here). The red arrow is the edge of the step. The blue box is roughly the overall lock interface, with the three blue arrows pointing at the raised step of the lock interface that contacts with the bar. The single blue arrow marks where the blade contacts the stop pin when the knife is open.

lock interface blade side annotated resized.jpg
lock interface blade side step annotated resized.jpg


#4 - A fixable issue, but irritating all the same, is that the liners and Spydie hole were not deburred, and in some places have a wire edge sharp enough to cut skin. FWIW I've noticed some laxity wrt to deburring on several of my recent purchases - the Spydie hole is a high-touch/high-yield spot - it should get extra attention before packaging.

And a whiny #5 - BTE thickness is 0.030". Not exactly super-slicey. My GB2 is 0.018" and my M4 Tenacious is 0.015" (!) with the factory edge as yet unsharpened.

All in all pretty disappointing for a $250 knife.

I also received my knife and have the very same issues you describe above. Every single issue you note is found on my knife, including the weird lockup and lock face machining. The tooling marks don’t bother me so much but what does bother me is that the knife feels very unrefined. This half-baked attempt might have been fine 20 years ago but the consumer expects more today. The worst issue about this knife is the lockbar. It is a hard 90 degree sharp edge (in fact all the liner edges, including the lockbar, are so sharp that I can shave my fingernails on them). This is wholly unreasonable on a new production spyderco knife. It is painful to disengage the lock. All other liner lock knives I own from much cheaper cold steel knives, to a handful of spydercos (including the new BHQ GB2, and even a couple very expensive shirogorovs all have the edges broken, chamfered, or even contoured.

Whomever decided to do this (or actually not do anything in this case) at spyderco was counting on lum fans overlooking this glaring deficiency in favor of simply owning the re-run knife.

I’ll be returning this because the quality of the knife is NOT consistent with the price. Comparing this to the BHQ Gayle Bradley 2 in M4 is night and day difference in feature and quality. If spyderco can sell the GB2 in M4 as a refined design, I simply can’t accept a lum tanto in m390 that fell off a quality design cliff half way through at $70 more.

[NCJohn62]

Props to BladeHQ and USPS, got one in hand two days after my order. I was very excited about a tanto blade as I find it to be a super useful profile, and not too many Spyderco tantos out there.

Unfortunately I think I am going to send this one back, and I'm not sure if I'll re-order. A few things bother me:

#1 - The liner lock is basically a very stiff, sharp edged metal tab. There is no texturing or chamfering, and while there is a relief on the opposite scale, all it does is make it easier to flay your thumb. (top to bottom: GB2, Military, Lum, Tenacious M4, Resilience S35vn). While looking at this photo, take a sec to note the significant difference in finish quality of the pivot end of the blade. The Lum is ragged, like they were running the hundred yard dash with the laser. By contrast, the others, while dirty from use and handling, have no significant machining marks.

lock comparison annotated resized.jpg

#2 - The stop pin is super janky (blue circle). It is a d-pin, but oriented so the machined side is up, which is in sharp contrast to the nicely turned standoffs and brushed liners. Looking closely at old reviews/photos, this seems to have been there before, so my bad for not noticing that detail. However, the far worse issue is that the blade only contacts the pin on one side, meaning the blade and pin are not square to each other. The curved blue arrow shows the side where the blade contacts the stop pin - you can see light passing through on the other side...

stop pin and standoff annotated resized.jpg
blade stop pin gap annotated resized.jpg

#3 - The blade side of the lock interface looks like it was a manufacturing mistake. There is a step ground into the face such that the area of contact between the bar and blade is reduced by 40-50%. This and the stop pin taken together seem like a set up for near term lock problems. (I have lots of liner locks, so no inherent bias here). The red arrow is the edge of the step. The blue box is roughly the overall lock interface, with the three blue arrows pointing at the raised step of the lock interface that contacts with the bar. The single blue arrow marks where the blade contacts the stop pin when the knife is open.

lock interface blade side annotated resized.jpg
lock interface blade side step annotated resized.jpg


#4 - A fixable issue, but irritating all the same, is that the liners and Spydie hole were not deburred, and in some places have a wire edge sharp enough to cut skin. FWIW I've noticed some laxity wrt to deburring on several of my recent purchases - the Spydie hole is a high-touch/high-yield spot - it should get extra attention before packaging.

And a whiny #5 - BTE thickness is 0.030". Not exactly super-slicey. My GB2 is 0.018" and my M4 Tenacious is 0.015" (!) with the factory edge as yet unsharpened.

All in all pretty disappointing for a $250 knife.

I also received my knife and have the very same issues you describe above. Every single issue you note is found on my knife, including the weird lockup and lock face machining. The tooling marks don’t bother me so much but what does bother me is that the knife feels very unrefined. This half-baked attempt might have been fine 20 years ago but the consumer expects more today. The worst issue about this knife is the lockbar. It is a hard 90 degree sharp edge (in fact all the liner edges, including the lockbar, are so sharp that I can shave my fingernails on them). This is wholly unreasonable on a new production spyderco knife. It is painful to disengage the lock. All other liner lock knives I own from much cheaper cold steel knives, to a handful of spydercos (including the new BHQ GB2, and even a couple very expensive shirogorovs all have the edges broken, chamfered, or even contoured.

Whomever decided to do this (or actually not do anything in this case) at spyderco was counting on lum fans overlooking this glaring deficiency in favor of simply owning the re-run knife.

I’ll be returning this because the quality of the knife is NOT consistent with the price. Comparing this to the BHQ Gayle Bradley 2 in M4 is night and day difference in feature and quality. If spyderco can sell the GB2 in M4 as a refined design, I simply can’t accept a lum tanto in m390 that fell off a quality design cliff half way through at $70 more.

That makes three of us that pretty much have a word for word complaint on this knife. Pretty much the only things I can say were good about it out of the box were it was surprisingly well ground even for Seki City and it was well centered.

Now I was able to address all the cosmetic/ fit & finish issues without much effort when I had it apart to address the lockstick due to the tooling chatter marks on the lock bar face. I really didn't mind doing it because I like doing these sort of things and I may modify it even more later on because this is going to be a heavy user for me.

But the bottom line is as a Spyderco product this was hands down the absolute worst knife in regards to quality assurance that I've ever received from the company and clearly my experience isn't a one off.

[RadioactiveSpyder]

Maybe there’s such a big gap because there appears to be 2 PB washers on one side of the pivot in both the pics you guys show? I’ve come across that situation previously in Seki-made G10 Stretches and the knife did NOT lock up correctly when I took the second washer out. Might be worth giving it a try in this case though?

[grandpahack]

Maybe there’s such a big gap because there appears to be 2 PB washers on one side of the pivot in both the pics you guys show? I’ve come across that situation previously in Seki-made G10 Stretches and the knife did NOT lock up correctly when I took the second washer out. Might be worth giving it a try in this case though?

Given the number of things off about this build, an extra washer wouldn't be out of place. I looked under magnification and can confirm there is only one washer per side on my sample. It is the reflection of the washer on the liner that gives the impression of two. Unfortunately it is hard to get a good picture without disassembly (which I don't do to knives I'm returning).

[Hatuletoh]

Props to BladeHQ and USPS, got one in hand two days after my order. I was very excited about a tanto blade as I find it to be a super useful profile, and not too many Spyderco tantos out there.

Unfortunately I think I am going to send this one back, and I'm not sure if I'll re-order. A few things bother me:

#1 - The liner lock is basically a very stiff, sharp edged metal tab. There is no texturing or chamfering, and while there is a relief on the opposite scale, all it does is make it easier to flay your thumb. (top to bottom: GB2, Military, Lum, Tenacious M4, Resilience S35vn). While looking at this photo, take a sec to note the significant difference in finish quality of the pivot end of the blade. The Lum is ragged, like they were running the hundred yard dash with the laser. By contrast, the others, while dirty from use and handling, have no significant machining marks.

lock comparison annotated resized.jpg

#2 - The stop pin is super janky (blue circle). It is a d-pin, but oriented so the machined side is up, which is in sharp contrast to the nicely turned standoffs and brushed liners. Looking closely at old reviews/photos, this seems to have been there before, so my bad for not noticing that detail. However, the far worse issue is that the blade only contacts the pin on one side, meaning the blade and pin are not square to each other. The curved blue arrow shows the side where the blade contacts the stop pin - you can see light passing through on the other side...

stop pin and standoff annotated resized.jpg
blade stop pin gap annotated resized.jpg

#3 - The blade side of the lock interface looks like it was a manufacturing mistake. There is a step ground into the face such that the area of contact between the bar and blade is reduced by 40-50%. This and the stop pin taken together seem like a set up for near term lock problems. (I have lots of liner locks, so no inherent bias here). The red arrow is the edge of the step. The blue box is roughly the overall lock interface, with the three blue arrows pointing at the raised step of the lock interface that contacts with the bar. The single blue arrow marks where the blade contacts the stop pin when the knife is open.

lock interface blade side annotated resized.jpg
lock interface blade side step annotated resized.jpg


#4 - A fixable issue, but irritating all the same, is that the liners and Spydie hole were not deburred, and in some places have a wire edge sharp enough to cut skin. FWIW I've noticed some laxity wrt to deburring on several of my recent purchases - the Spydie hole is a high-touch/high-yield spot - it should get extra attention before packaging.

And a whiny #5 - BTE thickness is 0.030". Not exactly super-slicey. My GB2 is 0.018" and my M4 Tenacious is 0.015" (!) with the factory edge as yet unsharpened.

All in all pretty disappointing for a $250 knife.

I also received my knife and have the very same issues you describe above. Every single issue you note is found on my knife, including the weird lockup and lock face machining. The tooling marks don’t bother me so much but what does bother me is that the knife feels very unrefined. This half-baked attempt might have been fine 20 years ago but the consumer expects more today. The worst issue about this knife is the lockbar. It is a hard 90 degree sharp edge (in fact all the liner edges, including the lockbar, are so sharp that I can shave my fingernails on them). This is wholly unreasonable on a new production spyderco knife. It is painful to disengage the lock. All other liner lock knives I own from much cheaper cold steel knives, to a handful of spydercos (including the new BHQ GB2, and even a couple very expensive shirogorovs all have the edges broken, chamfered, or even contoured.

Whomever decided to do this (or actually not do anything in this case) at spyderco was counting on lum fans overlooking this glaring deficiency in favor of simply owning the re-run knife.

I’ll be returning this because the quality of the knife is NOT consistent with the price. Comparing this to the BHQ Gayle Bradley 2 in M4 is night and day difference in feature and quality. If spyderco can sell the GB2 in M4 as a refined design, I simply can’t accept a lum tanto in m390 that fell off a quality design cliff half way through at $70 more.

The lock bar actually did shave my thumbnail a little. I saw a little something fly into the air the first time I closed the knife and initially thought a small piece of G10 had broken off somehow, but upon closer inspection I found it to be a bit of my thumbnail. I bought this knife more as a collector piece than a user, so the sharp edges on the liners/lock aren't enough to make me return it, but it does seem rather unrefined for a $250 knife with a beautiful M390 blade. And I had planned to buy two--one to use and one to keep as a safe queen--but I think one will be enough.

Not a complaint, just an observation and question: did anyone else's Lum Tanto arrive with a very oily blade? Mine probably had the more oil on it than any other Spyderco I've purchased. Again, that's neither bad nor good, I just found it curious that a blade made from M390 of all things would be greased up like Groundskeeper Willie chasing a wolf through a school vent, when blades made from much more corrosion-prone steels have been more lightly oiled. In fact, I don't recall any stainless steel blades coming with oil on them. I very recently bought a Manix with 204P blade and VG10 Delica, and I'm certain neither of them arrived with oiled blades. And the Delica was made in Seki City just like the Lum Tanto, which would suggest it's not a difference between the various production locations. Not a big deal, but if anyone can explain it I'd be interested in theories as to why an M390 blade was so heavily oiled.