- Joined
- Oct 13, 2007
- Messages
- 3
WORST. KNIFE. EVER. :grumpy::barf:
:thumbdn:
I feel pretty ripped-off after buying this knife. Cold Steel's ad copy and proof video make this knife look and sound like it's the butterfly knife updated for the 21st century stronger, sharper and faster. It's all BS. Stick to the butterfly.
Here's what's bad about this knife:
1. The lock is worthless. It's only as strong as your grip around the handle. If you're holding or using the knife with loose fingers, the lock will constantly fail, causing the blade to fall and hack into the cover part of the handle over and over if it doesn't hack into your fingers first. Seriously Cold Steel loves to say that the lock on this knife is stronger than the lock on a butterfly and I promise you that's BS. The lock might have a chance of being stronger if it actually stayed in place on its own, but it's horribly unreliable and after a day or two of use it just falls open on its own. Nothing holds it in place but a tiny little nub, and the cheap aluminum wears down after just a day or two of regular use and after that the lock is worthless until you get out your pliers and tweak the frame and then it works a little for like three days, gets stuck a few times, then fails completely later.
2. That brings me to number 2, which is the fact that the knife is "tempermental". That means that for some reason the aluminum frame of this knife likes to constantly warp just a little tiny bit in this direction or that direction, which effects the operation of the lock. In order for the lock to click into place and stay there, everything has to line up right. But since the cheap aluminum frame can't hold its shape worth a damn, sometimes the lock clicks firmly into place, sometimes it falls open and closed like nobody even thought of putting a lock on it, and sometimes it won't open at all and out come the pliers again. Yeah, you can open this knife with one hand sometimes. Then sometimes it takes two pairs of pliers.
3. The blade constantly strikes the cover part of the handle, unless you're really, really, really careful and handle the knife like it's a straight razor. And of course, the hollow-ground, Japanese VG-1 blade will slice a chunk out of the cheap-o aluminum handle just about every time. It also strikes the tip of the tanto blade from time to time even in the most careful of hands, so the inside of the cover looks like western Baghdad after just an hour or two of playing with it.
4. In that silly proof video, Cold Steel employees are seen handling this knife like a butterfly opening and closing it with flashy flipping moves. I've been using butterfly knives for 20 years, so I know a little about how to get a feel for a knife. I could tell the second I got this little piece o' crud out of the box and examined it for the first time that yeah, it's easy to flip OPEN with a fancy wrist-flicky move, but try CLOSING it with a fancy wrist-flicky move and the blade will usually hit the cover and sink into it. Seriously, I've had to get pliers out once again to pull the blade's edge out of the handle cover a time or two. So I go back and watch that video again, and if you watch closely, you see that Cold Steel's knife-flippy employees are shown flipping the knife OPEN over and over. The scene always switches after the guy flips the knife open, then he flips it open again from another angle but all the scenes where the demonstrator actually CLOSES the knife, you'll see that he does it fairly slowly so as not to damage the knife. The video does a pretty good job of making it look like the guys are flipping the knife open and closed every time, but they're not. Look closely.
5. There's no returning this knife if you open and close it even ONCE. Once you close the cover over the main part of the handle even one time, the friction between the two parts put ugly scratches on the main part of the handle. This visibly mars the surface beauty of the knife which renders it unreturnable. Even if you just open the knife and then close it and put it back in the box, you're stuck with it.
6. In the box with every new Triple Action is a set of very clear instructions, printed on bright yellow paper, that tell you how to open and close the knife using BOTH HANDS AND THE THUMB STUD. This is so they don't have to give you your money back when you inevitably damage the knife trying to use it the way they said you could use it in their promotional material. Cold Steel's ad copy and videos have loudly and clearly sold this knife as a clever new design in one-handed openers and an improvement on the butterfly knife.
7. Theres zero blade protection, but I guess I knew that before I bought it. Anyway, if you stab into anything, your fingers will probably slide off onto the blade. And this is one blade you dont want your fingers anywhere near. I will say that Cold Steel does know how to make a blade. Its just handles, folding mechanisms, and design ideas in general they seem to be struggling with.
Good things about this knife:
1. Its pretty. It's the "bling" of the knife world. Its the kind of knife you expect the flashy Miami drug dealer to have in some cheese-o vice cop movie all flashy and big and silver. The big chrome Desert Eagle of the knife world. Its a very visually engaging and even somewhat intimidating knife. But I dont live in a Robert Rodriguez film, so Im getting rid of this piece o crap and going back to CRKT.
Feedback welcomed.
:thumbdn:I feel pretty ripped-off after buying this knife. Cold Steel's ad copy and proof video make this knife look and sound like it's the butterfly knife updated for the 21st century stronger, sharper and faster. It's all BS. Stick to the butterfly.
Here's what's bad about this knife:
1. The lock is worthless. It's only as strong as your grip around the handle. If you're holding or using the knife with loose fingers, the lock will constantly fail, causing the blade to fall and hack into the cover part of the handle over and over if it doesn't hack into your fingers first. Seriously Cold Steel loves to say that the lock on this knife is stronger than the lock on a butterfly and I promise you that's BS. The lock might have a chance of being stronger if it actually stayed in place on its own, but it's horribly unreliable and after a day or two of use it just falls open on its own. Nothing holds it in place but a tiny little nub, and the cheap aluminum wears down after just a day or two of regular use and after that the lock is worthless until you get out your pliers and tweak the frame and then it works a little for like three days, gets stuck a few times, then fails completely later.
2. That brings me to number 2, which is the fact that the knife is "tempermental". That means that for some reason the aluminum frame of this knife likes to constantly warp just a little tiny bit in this direction or that direction, which effects the operation of the lock. In order for the lock to click into place and stay there, everything has to line up right. But since the cheap aluminum frame can't hold its shape worth a damn, sometimes the lock clicks firmly into place, sometimes it falls open and closed like nobody even thought of putting a lock on it, and sometimes it won't open at all and out come the pliers again. Yeah, you can open this knife with one hand sometimes. Then sometimes it takes two pairs of pliers.
3. The blade constantly strikes the cover part of the handle, unless you're really, really, really careful and handle the knife like it's a straight razor. And of course, the hollow-ground, Japanese VG-1 blade will slice a chunk out of the cheap-o aluminum handle just about every time. It also strikes the tip of the tanto blade from time to time even in the most careful of hands, so the inside of the cover looks like western Baghdad after just an hour or two of playing with it.
4. In that silly proof video, Cold Steel employees are seen handling this knife like a butterfly opening and closing it with flashy flipping moves. I've been using butterfly knives for 20 years, so I know a little about how to get a feel for a knife. I could tell the second I got this little piece o' crud out of the box and examined it for the first time that yeah, it's easy to flip OPEN with a fancy wrist-flicky move, but try CLOSING it with a fancy wrist-flicky move and the blade will usually hit the cover and sink into it. Seriously, I've had to get pliers out once again to pull the blade's edge out of the handle cover a time or two. So I go back and watch that video again, and if you watch closely, you see that Cold Steel's knife-flippy employees are shown flipping the knife OPEN over and over. The scene always switches after the guy flips the knife open, then he flips it open again from another angle but all the scenes where the demonstrator actually CLOSES the knife, you'll see that he does it fairly slowly so as not to damage the knife. The video does a pretty good job of making it look like the guys are flipping the knife open and closed every time, but they're not. Look closely.
5. There's no returning this knife if you open and close it even ONCE. Once you close the cover over the main part of the handle even one time, the friction between the two parts put ugly scratches on the main part of the handle. This visibly mars the surface beauty of the knife which renders it unreturnable. Even if you just open the knife and then close it and put it back in the box, you're stuck with it.
6. In the box with every new Triple Action is a set of very clear instructions, printed on bright yellow paper, that tell you how to open and close the knife using BOTH HANDS AND THE THUMB STUD. This is so they don't have to give you your money back when you inevitably damage the knife trying to use it the way they said you could use it in their promotional material. Cold Steel's ad copy and videos have loudly and clearly sold this knife as a clever new design in one-handed openers and an improvement on the butterfly knife.
7. Theres zero blade protection, but I guess I knew that before I bought it. Anyway, if you stab into anything, your fingers will probably slide off onto the blade. And this is one blade you dont want your fingers anywhere near. I will say that Cold Steel does know how to make a blade. Its just handles, folding mechanisms, and design ideas in general they seem to be struggling with.
Good things about this knife:
1. Its pretty. It's the "bling" of the knife world. Its the kind of knife you expect the flashy Miami drug dealer to have in some cheese-o vice cop movie all flashy and big and silver. The big chrome Desert Eagle of the knife world. Its a very visually engaging and even somewhat intimidating knife. But I dont live in a Robert Rodriguez film, so Im getting rid of this piece o crap and going back to CRKT.
Feedback welcomed.
Thanks for the idea.