Wanted to love Enuff; knife is great, sheath a fail
Posted: Sat May 25, 2013 2:45 am
My Spyderco Enuff (leaf blade) arrived on Friday 5/24/13, and I was very excited to meet it. I am not the type who gets a knife and then proceeds to immediately start cutting everything in sight and torture-testing it, so really what I did was sit down and look it over. In and out of the sheath a bunch of times.
The knife is great: It's a stout, compact little handful and that's just what I wanted from it. It's too heavy to be a neck knife, but that's ok (even though I had held an outside hope that it might be suitable for that).
At first glance, the sheath seemed good as well. I was wary because I had read people's complaints that it might not hold the knife well enough, but I held the knife upside-down and shook the assembly a bit and it really didn't seem like under normal circumstances the sheath would let it go. That's good. It's true that I like about 50% more retention force than most knife sheaths provide; that's why I bought myself a bunch of kydex and rivets, a rivet press, and a heat gun. I've made myself several kydex neck knife sheaths because stock sheaths were unsatisfactory to me.
Well, time went by, evening came, and I picked up the Enuff once again to ... well, you know, to fondle it some more. This time, I was playing around with the feel of the knife while it's sheathed. Uh oh. That was when I found out that there is lateral wiggle. Too much of it. The sides of the blade are not held securely, and so they can slap around inside. What's worst of all, though, is that evidently, the EDGE CAN AND DOES CONTACT THE PLASTIC INSIDE THE SHEATH.
What that means, and what I tested for, is that the edge can be dragged side-to-side inside the sheath while it is in contact with the plastic. The knife came with a nice, sharp factory edge, but it didn't take more than a few rattles to see that edge start to be affected. There is a portion of it that is flattened slightly because it touched the plastic inside the sheath as it wiggled.
It looks like I'm going to be seeking to make myself a sheath for my Enuff. I'll probably appropriate the Tek-Lok from my Moran Featherweight, and hopefully be able to put together a serviceable carry rig.
I do have to admit to being somewhat disappointed.
The knife is great: It's a stout, compact little handful and that's just what I wanted from it. It's too heavy to be a neck knife, but that's ok (even though I had held an outside hope that it might be suitable for that).
At first glance, the sheath seemed good as well. I was wary because I had read people's complaints that it might not hold the knife well enough, but I held the knife upside-down and shook the assembly a bit and it really didn't seem like under normal circumstances the sheath would let it go. That's good. It's true that I like about 50% more retention force than most knife sheaths provide; that's why I bought myself a bunch of kydex and rivets, a rivet press, and a heat gun. I've made myself several kydex neck knife sheaths because stock sheaths were unsatisfactory to me.
Well, time went by, evening came, and I picked up the Enuff once again to ... well, you know, to fondle it some more. This time, I was playing around with the feel of the knife while it's sheathed. Uh oh. That was when I found out that there is lateral wiggle. Too much of it. The sides of the blade are not held securely, and so they can slap around inside. What's worst of all, though, is that evidently, the EDGE CAN AND DOES CONTACT THE PLASTIC INSIDE THE SHEATH.
What that means, and what I tested for, is that the edge can be dragged side-to-side inside the sheath while it is in contact with the plastic. The knife came with a nice, sharp factory edge, but it didn't take more than a few rattles to see that edge start to be affected. There is a portion of it that is flattened slightly because it touched the plastic inside the sheath as it wiggled.
It looks like I'm going to be seeking to make myself a sheath for my Enuff. I'll probably appropriate the Tek-Lok from my Moran Featherweight, and hopefully be able to put together a serviceable carry rig.
I do have to admit to being somewhat disappointed.