Spyderco Forums

I have a special problem in the fact that i am NOT a knifecollector who buys knives as safequeens or investements and hides them in a safe.
I am also not a knife user that whips out his blade and uses it to cut steel or baton wood.
Altough i EDC I always hesitate to use my Spyderco to cut things, and will cut things with other tools then my :spyder: when available.
I just don't want to my spyderco knives to develop unneeded scratches, wear and tear, or get dirty.
I will use it when needed but only if there is no other option :D
Does anyone else have this problem?

In general no, but once in a while I feel too lazy to clean my knife from a glue, if I have to cut a tape and use hobby knife.
Most of my knives are safequeens or I would call them display queens, but I have 8-9 knives in use and do not hesitate to use the to cut usual staff like cardboard, wood, plastic and so on. My beautiful C83 Persian has tons of scratches everywhere, but I certainly enjoy it cutting staff. You will be able to see use on my Natives and Calys, but it is a pleasure to cut with them. Still hate to cut a tape

The first few scratches are the hardest, then its all about cutting anything I can when I can which equals= more fun time with my knife.

Nope. I'm not saying I'd use some of my nicer Spydercos, or ones that were gifts, to cut sandpaper, punch holes in car doors, or edge my lawn, but I regularly carry a few that others might consider "rare" and use them to cut the type of things I normally cut. Heck, a little over a year and a half ago, I used a "pre-release" Chaparral to cut what seemed like miles of cardboard, tape, brown paper, and bubble wrap when I was packing up to move.

I know what you mean. I feel like i should buy 2 of every model that way i can use one of them and keep the other perfect.

I tend to baby by handle/scales more than the blades. If something needs cutting and a knife can reasonably do it, the Spydie in my pocket gladly gets to be used. However, I'm very particular about not keeping my keys, change, etc in my pocket with my knife. Keys can ding up the Ti on my UKPK or Sage 2/4 quicker than snot. (#000 steel wool has saved me in the past!)

What Spydie I'm carrying on any particular day is more dependent upon what else I'll be carrying in my pockets rather than the expected cutting chores for the day. Its wrong, I know. Because of this my Delicas and Salt 1 get a lot of pocket time!

Use 'em. That's what they do best. I do have some that see only light duty, but they all pretty much get some use. Why carry them if you don't intend to use them?

Hey Jim,
I don't have a fear of using my knives, but I don't abuse them either.
If I know I'm gonna have to do something that may damage a knife, I will try to find an appropriate substitute. It could be a hammer, pry bar, screwdriver, or chisel. Sometimes even a different beater knife.
For regular cutting chores, my Spydercos are my go to tools.
Later,
Don

if i were u, i would not have that kind of feeling,,i ll even find a situation when i can use my spydides for cutting,, :D ....for me the more scratches it has, the sexier it will bee :) as long as u don't abuse them....

I go out of my way to cut things that don't need to be cut. I also don't buy knives that I will be unwilling to use.

I am guilty of this too, Jim. (I guess I wasn’t aware that there are others who also suffer from this affliction). My wife laughs at me when I whip out my SOG to slice through something vs. one of my several Spydies. Just last night, for example, I received my new Salt I. The first question my wife asked me was, “Do you intend to actually use this one?” I responded, “Uh, I think so. Yeah.” For my daily carry, I have a Ladybug Salt PE, SOG Mini Micron Tanto, and SAK StayGlow Rambler. Guess which knife sees the most use? Yup. You guessed it. The inexpensive SOG. :o Oh how my Spydies cry…

I have a big Persian that Ed Schempp gave as a prize in a Spyderco contest that I can't bring myself to use because it is so gorgeous. I'm willing to use every other Spydie I have, although I haven't gotten around to a number of them yet. I do sometimes carry a Junkyard Dog or a Becker for stuff I don't want to subject my Spydies to.

So in principle I use every knife I own and will get around to the Persian some day.

In short, no. To be fair, I don't have any "really nice" Spydercos, but I'll use my Stretch for anything from cardboard, plastics, tape, rubber or vinyl, in the garden, for minor food prep, etc. However, I very rarely/never pry, and am usually fairly careful with the cutting edge.

If you want to restore like new, blades can be polished, pivots can be cleaned, etc. But Spyderco produces some of the highest-performance cutlery in the world, and they're meant to be used.

I feel similar when I have a new knife, until it does finally start showing some wear and scratches. Then It's no holds barred use it for what I bought it for.

I don't usually find myself needed to cut much more than packaging, letters, strings, etc. I also like to keep my knives nice. If I have a dirty or tough cutting task, I'll likely go get a Cara Cara or Tenacious, not the S90V Para 2, or vintage Persian that might be in my pocket. It seems a lot of folks around here look down on collectors as if they're doing something wrong for not beating on their possessions. But, I get as much enjoyment from just holding and admiring a Spydie, as someone else might get from sawing through a radiator hose.

gbelleh wrote:I don't usually find myself needed to cut much more than packaging, letters, strings, etc. I also like to keep my knives nice. If I have a dirty or tough cutting task, I'll likely go get a Cara Cara or Tenacious, not the S90V Para 2, or vintage Persian that might be in my pocket. It seems a lot of folks around here look down on collectors as if they're doing something wrong for not beating on their possessions. But, I get as much enjoyment from just holding and admiring a Spydie, as someone else might get from sawing through a radiator hose.

I wouldn't say I look down on collectors. Collectors are a necessary part of any hobby, to preserve things that are otherwise "used up" by the users. Car enthusiasts are the same way. The problem for me is, I hate seeing something that was designed to perform collecting dust and never being used for its intended purpose. I feel like something amazing is being wasted, sort of like a thoroughbred race horse who spends his whole life in the stable and is never allowed to run free. When I see a vintage muscle car with 20 miles on the odometer, I instantly think about the life that car has been denied, but at the same time I appreciate and respect the collector who was able to hold back and preserve that car for the rest of us to see and enjoy, albeit in a different way than it was designed to be enjoyed.

So, If it wasn't for collectors, many great vintage things would be gone forever, but at the same time I just have this kind of sad feeling that such amazing things are never put to use. It's a fine line between the two. I can understand a person getting their enjoyment out of just looking at and handling something...I have a collection of old '80s toys that are never played with and I have some things that are in packages that will never be opened, that I enjoy just looking at. At the same time, I'm jealous of the kid out there somewhere who had an awesome youth playing with those toys.

So basically, the user in me is jealous and wants to use those knives that the collector hides in the safe, but the collector in me appreciates the care taken to preserve rare things for future generations.


By the way, if you have to saw through a radiator hose, your knife needs sharpened

I love to use my Spydercos and feel I bad that I have so few tasks with which to actually put them to use. I always have at least two on me, one of which tends to be a nicer model while the other is my harder use knife. I'm glad that I got a factory 2nd Military a few years back, as that is my knife that gets to handle the more difficult tasks and the one I let people use when they need a knife (they always get a warning that my knife is very, very sharp :p ). If something happens to my Millie, I didn't pay much for it and knowing that it's a factory 2nd (despite not being able to find a single thing wrong with it) puts my mind at ease. My favorite knife to carry right now is my Southard, which just so happens to be my most expensive folder as well as one of the nicest, but I get excited every time I get to cut something with it. Why buy a nice knife if it isn't going to serve it's primary purpose, cutting things?

I think that knives get prettier when they show wear :eek:

I only have this problem very early during ownership of a new knife. Even then, it only occurs if I am already thinking of selling it (for some hitherto unknown reason like incompatible ergonomics.)

Once it's a user then I like the patina it develops. Wabi-sabi, perhaps.

Let me chime in with a quote from Sal.
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"We've built a few collector pieces but most Spydercos are hungry and like to eat. As mentioned, open, close, cut, clean, oil, cut, cut, cut... To a Spyderco, that is living. All of the effort that we put into designing and building the knife is found in using the knife; The horsepower in the steel, the edge, the ergos, sophisticated mechanisms, carefully chosen materials or custom made materials, history of and refinements to the design, etc. Letting it die in the box is to lose 75% of what we put into it."




-Sal Glesser, President of Spyderco

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This is one of the main reasons that I USE the heck out of my knives. They built 'em for us to use 'em. Do it.

I just cannot let them die in the box. I use them all. I have none that do not get used.