Did you see the "blade falure" post?

[Evil D]

One liner and one scale, both the same material. Each seems like it would be thick enough for a cutout, but I could be wrong. Maybe the cutout for the overtravel tab takes up too much room in that area? I don't know. That's why I'm not a knife engineer I guess.

That would be my guess. Too much already happening on the lock side.

[phillipsted]

This is the nature of manufactured product in the 21st Century- if you sat down and did a complete Failure Mode and Effects Analysis on your average car you'd spend the rest of your life hiding under the covers at all the 'what ifs'.

Long and short is- until there's been a proper analysis of the failure, we won't know zip :)

Nicely, put, demoncase. I chalk this up as a "triumph of engineering" myself. Without engineering analyses, large scale affordable manufacturing simply would not exist in the modern world.

TedP

[mikerestivo]

Did that happen in this case? I read the BF thread a few days ago and didn't see any of that.

Nah. None of this has happened from what I've seen here. I didn't read the BF posts.

FCM415 commented about it and was well spoken about the "witch hunt" phenomenon. In other posts (mostly on outside forums) I've seen some folks jump to conclusions pretty early and start condemning either the end user or the manufacturer. This thread has been good in my opinion.

[78lilred]

Yeah, that's what I keep telling myself, everything fails from time to time and it's all just paranoia. The whole thing just gave me a weird buyer's remorse on something that I initially had no interest in at all (originally I didn't even like the looks of the Southard and had no interest in buying one) and then came around to liking it and slowly started to see the beauty of the design. Then when I finally got one in my hands I had that light bulb feeling lol.

Depending on the rear in your foxbody you have a higher chance of watching the axles walk out of the tube or the 5.0 splittng in half. Owning the Tuff and the Southard both are built very well and would take all chores similar minus chopping(stop pin abuse)

[Mike Blue]

Nah. None of this has happened from what I've seen here. I didn't read the BF posts.

FCM415 commented about it and was well spoken about the "witch hunt" phenomenon. In other posts (mostly on outside forums) I've seen some folks jump to conclusions pretty early and start condemning either the end user or the manufacturer. This thread has been good in my opinion.

Demoncase makes an excellent point about failure analysis.

Spyderco is a first class company who will do right by the customer given no warranty conditions preclude that. I talked to Sal about this blade at SHOT just a couple days ago. He is confident. 1:3000 blades fail? He does not know any answers until he sees the blade, and, if it shows up in Golden, it will be analyzed. I am confident about his thought processes as far as where possible problems, some of those I and others discussed earlier, could exist and NONE of us will know until that is done.

Personally, I have too many knives to use at once but would not hesitate to buy a Southard, or any of Spyderco's line, because of one incident. There are simply too many variables that are not yet known.

[Donut]

I guess I always assumed the stop pin cutouts were in the scale/liner like so many other knives. What is the reason to have the cutout in the blade instead?

Take a look at how the parts of a flipper move while opening. I think you will see that putting a pin somewhere that won't get in the way... is a difficult task.

[Syncharmony]

Ugh....someone talk some sense into me. I can't lie, this thread has really bummed me out on my new Southard purchase.

Honestly man, if anything this should motivate you to want to use the knife the way you want to. Worst case scenario, it does fail and it has to be replaced by Spyderco. It shows them that there is a design flaw and something needs to be done about it. More likely though, there is no flaw. It'll perform just as well as your Military, and that will put your mind at ease. I know you have a pang of panic, I mean, I feel the same way. I just bought my Southard at the end of December so when I first read that thread, it bothered me as well. However, an isolated incident is not worthy of true panic. Once I realized that, I stopped worrying.

Regarding the blade shape, it carries so well in part because it doesn't have the traditional leaf shape. When I saw it in pictures I thought it was a little odd but getting it hand I instantly loved those little dips and grooves. I love how your thumb slides into that first groove when you choke up a little. Catches the thumb better than the jimping actually. The smoothness of the stonewashed blade makes the spine a real pleasure to run your fingers down. I think it's part of what helps make the blade feel so expensive.

[Evil D]

Depending on the rear in your foxbody you have a higher chance of watching the axles walk out of the tube or the 5.0 splittng in half. Owning the Tuff and the Southard both are built very well and would take all chores similar minus chopping(stop pin abuse)

Man don't get me started on my rear end....right now it's suffering the punishment of about 450lb/ft of torque and is bone stock aside from 3.73 gears. I know all too well that the axles are on borrowed time lol.

[Evil D]

Regarding the blade shape, it carries so well in part because it doesn't have the traditional leaf shape.

The leaf shape I have in my head is very very narrow edge to spine, I don't even know if it's still considered leaf shaped. Basically, just draw a curved line over the points on the spine, or "fill in" those dips so that the spine is just slightly humped, not even as much curve or belly as the edge of the blade has. I definitely wouldn't add a thumb ramp that's for sure.

I have had a couple chances to use it now, but only for cutting some corrugated. It slices just as I predicted it...almost exactly how the Yojimbo 2 slices apart from the wharnie difference. The hollow grinds are about the same height and the spines are the same thickness. The Yo2 I think might be a little deeper of a hollow grind though, which does make it thinner behind the edge, but it also causes it to wedge worse than the Southard.

I was thinking today about the handle to blade ratio, and then I got to thinking about how, if they just found a way to maximize the blade length on the Military and fill that handle with blade, I be they could get almost 5 inches into it without changing the length of the handle.

[chuck_roxas45]

Was the knife sent in yet?

[78lilred]

Man don't get me started on my rear end....right now it's suffering the punishment of about 450lb/ft of torque and is bone stock aside from 3.73 gears. I know all too well that the axles are on borrowed time lol.

I know of a few local cars that haven't had the axles spit out and have cracked off 9.90s, they are on really borrowed time. 5.3 swapped with heads/cam/250 shot.

[Evil D]

I know of a few local cars that haven't had the axles spit out and have cracked off 9.90s, they are on really borrowed time. 5.3 swapped with heads/cam/250 shot.

My short block and cam came out of a high 7 second car that launched at 7500 and regularly destroyed built rear ends. The guy's last words when I bought it was "don't let it hook" LOL.

[78lilred]

haha very nice, yeah the 8.8's hate being shocked on slicks with trans brake or puck clutch drops.

[gpo1956]

And people wonder why the JFK assasination controversy is still going strong after 50 years.