Question on Pakistan knives.

Status
Not open for further replies.
F

Fatstrat

BANNED
Joined
Sep 27, 2008
Messages
58
Are all of them made of low quality steel?
I know most are junk. But I bought one many years ago at Smokey Mountain Knife Works that appears above par for most I've seen. Had it pro sharpened and altho not used alot, it has held the egde for several years. Were there different quality grades?
 
LOL, I suppose it's possible to buy a decent, made in Pakistan knife from SMKW.

It's also possible to win the lottery.

I've no idea which has better odds.....
 
i sharpen a lot of knives and when someone brings me a pakistan knife i tell them to go buy a good knife and throw the junk away.
 
There are millions of Pakistanis, surely some of their knife makers can/do make decent or even excellent blades, I think the problem is they compete on price/low labor cost for their exports, so yeah it seems most of what gets here from there is junk. An importer can get thousands of daggers or whatever from Pakistan for what, a dollar apiece, they can be sold for a pittance and still have a huge markup with big volume. And loads of buyers never know the difference between good and junk, or don't care.
 
There is NO quality control.

These are not made on a fctory assembly line with known steels and inspections for fit and finish. They are a cottage industry, hammered out by what amount to indentured servants as often as not.

If you got a good one, you could go to the same source for an exact duplicate (in appearance) and get a completely different level of quality.
 
Four years ago, I bought three knives from Pakistan at a garage sale, $5. each. Okay to look at, otherwise, pretty low-end knives, and that's being nice. In my collecting journal, between the three of them, the list of criticisms = 30+, everything from uneven blade grinds to crooked handles to dull edges to unsharpenable to uncomfortable grips to bondo filler at the handle/tang joint to loose sheaths to...on & on & on.

When you take into account that most are handmade, I can be a little more forgiving, but still, they aren't anything I'd spend a lot of money on. I might be tempted to buy one if I could inspect it in person first.

thx - cpr
 
In my personal experience, I thought that the few I have offered a reasonable quality/price. These are 3 fixed damascus blade designs, 1 damascus laguiole, 1 damascus vendetta, 1 standard stainless blade laguiole. The finish is a bit rougher, and the sheaths of the fixed blades are too loose, but at least in my experience the blades are quite acceptable.
 
The knife I have doesn't IMO appear to be cottage industy handmade like most flea market Pakistan knives. I checked the Smokey Mountain Knife Works online catalog, and they still sell the same model. It's the "Ole Smokey El Dorado Skinner".
Says "Stainless Pakistan" on the blade. But finish at least is a better than the average Pakistan knife. BTW, the price has gone up on it about $10. since I bought mine.
 
Last edited:
a friend used to haul steel that was shipped overseas. most of the steel was stainless which was bound for pakistan. he said most every roll was cheap soft stainless and by the time he made it from point a to point b he had tightened his binders at least a dozen times if not more from the steel being so soft. i dont think a poor pakistan knife maker is going to spend a lot of money on good stainless let alone heat treat it even if it was good stainless.
 
So this is really what our foreign policy vis-avis Pakistan should entail?

We need to ship them some D2 & 420HC! Pronto. Then I'm sure our little border misunderstandings will be smoothed over.
 
The knife in question is a factory made knife. But no matter. I have learned that it is made of 420 Stainless. Not very good knife steel. Thanks for the replies.
 
yoopernauts™;6061806 said:
We need to ship them some D2 & 420HC! Pronto. Then I'm sure our little border misunderstandings will be smoothed over.
Click to expand...


Good Lord, man! I wouldn't wish 420 HC even on the Iranians.! :thumbdn:
 
I'd rather use the opened lid from a can, to cut something, before I'd use a knife made in Pakistan.:thumbdn:.
 
The damascus knives which I have are made of 2 kinds of carbon steel, and the blades are pretty hard. The grind quality is ok as as well, there won't be an issue to resharpen etc which could happen with an inferior knife. What I experience as less good is rather details like sheaths that don't fit tight enough, and some lack of fine finish on the handle or the way that the handle is connected to the blade, also the balance is not always that great. But as I wrote before, in general and especially if you want "damascus on a budget" they are ok for the price. Definitely way better than the opened lid of a can :-)
Could it perhaps be that because I do not particularly care about the country of origin of a knife (as long as the quality/price is ok of course), that I have less prejudices?
 
It could be. But I wouldn't call years of aderse experience on eveyone el;se's part "prejudice". We have production knives and custom knives in theis country too. You got Pakistani "customs", an unusual source that finds properly made knives rather than the usual junk churned out for the mass market. That does NOT validate the usual junk as worth buying.
 
Fatstrat said:
The knife in question is a factory made knife. But no matter. I have learned that it is made of 420 Stainless. Not very good knife steel. Thanks for the replies.
Click to expand...

You started the tread saying that your knife seem to be a decent one and you have had it for years. Seems to me that the knife have had to be better then just okay, certeanly better then crap. You must had used it over the years to develop you opinon of it.
Then people start to say that pakistan knife are mostly/all crap(May be true, may be not. I don't have any) These people have not handle your knife and don't know anything about it, other then its made in Pakistan.

And now it seems you have lost pretty much all faith in the knife.:confused:

If the knife have work decently for you for years, its because it IS a decent knife!! :thumbup:
Its does not matter where it comes from or what steel its made of.
If it works, it works!
 
Hawkings said:
You started the tread saying that your knife seem to be a decent one and you have had it for years. Seems to me that the knife have had to be better then just okay, certeanly better then crap. [...]

If the knife have work decently for you for years, its because it IS a decent knife!! :thumbup:
Its does not matter where it comes from or what steel its made of.
If it works, it works!
Click to expand...

Fatstrat said:
... I bought one many years ago at Smokey Mountain Knife Works that appears above par for most I've seen. ... altho not used alot, ...
Click to expand...

Since he hasn't used it much, and probably only on light tasks, he still wouldn't know if it's a reliable knife, or if it means he should try others.

It isn't just Pakistan. There are whole lines of knives that are obviously cheap -- inexpensive and not good for much but show. They really are pretty obvious once you've been into real knives for a while.
 
Out of curiosity I purchased a Marbles brand Pakistan "Damascus" bowie knife from SMKW. The "Damascus" was so bad that I returned the knife. The rest was okay. But that "Damascus" had to go. I turned around and purchased a USA Bear & Son bowie from SMKW that was "Damascus" and it actually is a pretty nice looking steel. In fact, the whole knife wasn't too bad at all. I also got one of those "no name brand" Pakistan Musso Bowies. It actually does have a brand. Its Windless Steelcrafts but it is no where on the box or product. It is just an ornamental thing. It looked okay and I didn't want to just throw it away so I machined brushed the blade to make it look artificially aged and put in a glass case and hung it up really high. But it is not something you want to use. The blade tip bent when I used a staple gun as a hook to hang it up. So, based on my own personal experience with a couple of items they don't seem to be something you want to take on a date. Also, people are taking this knife and artificially aging them and ripping off dumb people. This happened to some guy on a message board similar to this board. Pakistan knives are for people that don't know what they are buying and I'm a little surprised that companies like Marbles is importing crap from there. I only bought them because I never see them otherwise. I won't be buying anymore. And like Esav mentioned, they have a cottage industry. The people that collectively put these things together probably hate you.
 
It makes no sense to me for Marbles or Windlass Steelcrafts to lower their own brand name by peddling cheap knife-like objects. Windlass Steelcrafts is the India-based owner of Atlanta Cutlery. Why dilute their name recognition like that when they already have access to a low price market?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top