xzonin13
Platinum Member
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2017
- Messages
- 478
Credit to reddit user kscarbaj for the custom scales/thumbdisk and credit to MXG gear for the custom clip
https://www.reddit.com/user/kscarbaj
https://mxggear.com/collections/zt0920 (the 920 has the same clip as the 640 so all of these clips work)
Essay warning! TLDR: Buy this knife, it's great, but also buy custom scales/clip so be prepared for an investment beyond MAP.
Howdy folks! Once the Zero Tolerance 0640 was announced last year, I knew it was almost the perfect knife for me. Almost. In terms of sheer design, it hits all the right buttons. Emerson design but ZT quality, long blade but not too long, slender but not too slender, incredibly pointy but with a robust blade stock, solid jimping where you need it without covering the knife (cough contego cough). The only aspect of the design that doesn't really work for me is the choice to leave the extended tang exposed, giving the appearance of a front flipper without being a reliably effective front flipper (you can do it maybe 5% of the time and it kills your thumb). Having owned a 0620, I like that model's use of two stop pins instead of one. If they went with that approach on the 0640 they could have lost the somewhat ugly exposed tang, but if that's my only complaint with the design then that's acceptable to me. So it's almost perfect in design, but there's two glaring red flags in the aesthetic choices that ZT made with this model.
First, the pocket clip just plain sucks. I've had a 0920 in the past and it's the same clip, props for them using titanium instead of spring steel but the complete lack of ramp and height makes it a chore to get either knife into your pocket with the stock clip. On the plus side, it does mean you don't notice the clip at all when it's in hand and there's zero potential for hot spots. But, it's also quite low carry, somewhere between a Para3 and a 0393. Luckily, there's tons of aftermarket clips that fit this hole pattern. I tend to use MXG gear for my clips, always gotten high quality work from them and this knife was no exception. The new deep carry clip is more noticeable in hand, but the design is good enough to eliminate any real hot spots. More importantly, it completely transforms the pocketability of this knife. SO much easier to get in and out, and much more discrete even if it's not the ultra deep carry of a 0562. Unlike the Para3, I would not say a clip upgrade is a necessity for this knife, but if you love this knife as much as I do and want to carry it daily, you will be thankful for a new clip.
Moving on, there's the giant green elephant in the room. ZT's exploration of colored carbon fiber seems to have a roughly 50% success rate. I'm not sure whose job it is to approve new colors, but they're not doing good. The 0850 and the 0462 with blue and red respectively look phenomenal. Sure, CF purists can say that anything besides a standard 1x1 or 2x2 black weave isn't necessary, but it is nice to provide some visual variety in my collection of CF scaled models. However, much like the rusty brown of the 0460, this 0640 (just noticed that symmetry) has what to me is the ugliest shade of green I've ever seen. Maybe a darker forest green or a brighter jade green could have worked, but the shade they let the factory make is just plain ugly. Still, the design itself spoke loudly enough to me that I was willing to give it a shot. After about a week of owning it, I gave up on trying to like the green and started looking into custom scale makers. I've always enjoyed modifying my knives, but up until now that's been limited to anodizing and replacing clips or hardware. Some quick googling pointed me to the maker kscarbaj on Reddit, and it was easy and reasonably fast to get a set of scales made. I decided to go with a marble CF because I don't have any marble in my current collection and while the new 0470 doesn't really push my buttons it did remind me how cool marble can look.
Just for the fun of it, I also had kscarbaj to a matching thumbdisk out of the same marble CF. I have no complaints with the standard disk, but I thought it would be interesting to try. It'll be curious to see how CF holds up to long term use as a thumbdisk, and it's not as grippy as the stock disk, but depending on your preferences the lack of grip might be a good thing. In use, a less grippy disk just means you have to be more conscious of your thumb placement and pressure when opening the blade. Outside of use, it just plain looks great. I think it really pops with the scales and keeps the theme of the knife very nicely. The new scales completely transform the knife, and have pretty much kicked out the rest of my collection from my pocket. The maker did a great job with everything, and I'm thinking about ordering more varieties.
This knife is just plain gorgeous now. Sleek and fancy but aggressive and solid, it's now the perfect representation of my taste and interests in this hobby. 20CV steel, non-serrated and non-coated blade, titanium frame lock (I know you can argue it's a liner lock but I'll save that for a later post), carbon fiber scales, and a deep carry titanium clip. In use, this is an incredibly comfortable knife that is slim enough to be easily manipulated between hammer, saber, reverse, pinch/samurai, or forward grips. The jimping is significant without being painful (cough manix cough), although I've never gotten the point of the underside jimping at the tail on any knife design (0562/0393). The blade is ground somewhat thick behind the edge but that's par for the course with ZT's, so if that's ok with you then you won't notice any difference. Cutting through paper or cardboard is easy and comfortable, and while it's not perfect for food prep it'll get the job done.
In summary, with the modifications I've done, I'll be hard-pressed to buy new knives after this one. It so perfectly fits my tastes that any future knives I buy will need to either be a unique mechanism or design flavor. Having owned a Sebenza 21, this is my personal Sebenza in terms of perfection. Future modifications may still be done, I'm going to extend the sharpening choil a bit and I may anodize the titanium and upgrade the hardware to titanium. Normally anodizing is one of the first things I do, but I kind of like the look of the raw titanium paired with the solid black CF. Let me know what you all think! I also have a set of copper shred carbon fiber scales as well as some other options for clip and thumbdisk, let me know if you want to see pictures of those as well. This knife is quickly becoming my grown-man version of a dress-up doll. Emerson and ZT knocked this one out of the park, and my aftermarket makers completely perfected it.
Also pictured in the photos: Pen - WE Knife TP-02, Light - Olight S1R II Baton - Hank from Urban EDC Supply
https://www.reddit.com/user/kscarbaj
https://mxggear.com/collections/zt0920 (the 920 has the same clip as the 640 so all of these clips work)
Essay warning! TLDR: Buy this knife, it's great, but also buy custom scales/clip so be prepared for an investment beyond MAP.
Howdy folks! Once the Zero Tolerance 0640 was announced last year, I knew it was almost the perfect knife for me. Almost. In terms of sheer design, it hits all the right buttons. Emerson design but ZT quality, long blade but not too long, slender but not too slender, incredibly pointy but with a robust blade stock, solid jimping where you need it without covering the knife (cough contego cough). The only aspect of the design that doesn't really work for me is the choice to leave the extended tang exposed, giving the appearance of a front flipper without being a reliably effective front flipper (you can do it maybe 5% of the time and it kills your thumb). Having owned a 0620, I like that model's use of two stop pins instead of one. If they went with that approach on the 0640 they could have lost the somewhat ugly exposed tang, but if that's my only complaint with the design then that's acceptable to me. So it's almost perfect in design, but there's two glaring red flags in the aesthetic choices that ZT made with this model.
First, the pocket clip just plain sucks. I've had a 0920 in the past and it's the same clip, props for them using titanium instead of spring steel but the complete lack of ramp and height makes it a chore to get either knife into your pocket with the stock clip. On the plus side, it does mean you don't notice the clip at all when it's in hand and there's zero potential for hot spots. But, it's also quite low carry, somewhere between a Para3 and a 0393. Luckily, there's tons of aftermarket clips that fit this hole pattern. I tend to use MXG gear for my clips, always gotten high quality work from them and this knife was no exception. The new deep carry clip is more noticeable in hand, but the design is good enough to eliminate any real hot spots. More importantly, it completely transforms the pocketability of this knife. SO much easier to get in and out, and much more discrete even if it's not the ultra deep carry of a 0562. Unlike the Para3, I would not say a clip upgrade is a necessity for this knife, but if you love this knife as much as I do and want to carry it daily, you will be thankful for a new clip.
Moving on, there's the giant green elephant in the room. ZT's exploration of colored carbon fiber seems to have a roughly 50% success rate. I'm not sure whose job it is to approve new colors, but they're not doing good. The 0850 and the 0462 with blue and red respectively look phenomenal. Sure, CF purists can say that anything besides a standard 1x1 or 2x2 black weave isn't necessary, but it is nice to provide some visual variety in my collection of CF scaled models. However, much like the rusty brown of the 0460, this 0640 (just noticed that symmetry) has what to me is the ugliest shade of green I've ever seen. Maybe a darker forest green or a brighter jade green could have worked, but the shade they let the factory make is just plain ugly. Still, the design itself spoke loudly enough to me that I was willing to give it a shot. After about a week of owning it, I gave up on trying to like the green and started looking into custom scale makers. I've always enjoyed modifying my knives, but up until now that's been limited to anodizing and replacing clips or hardware. Some quick googling pointed me to the maker kscarbaj on Reddit, and it was easy and reasonably fast to get a set of scales made. I decided to go with a marble CF because I don't have any marble in my current collection and while the new 0470 doesn't really push my buttons it did remind me how cool marble can look.
Just for the fun of it, I also had kscarbaj to a matching thumbdisk out of the same marble CF. I have no complaints with the standard disk, but I thought it would be interesting to try. It'll be curious to see how CF holds up to long term use as a thumbdisk, and it's not as grippy as the stock disk, but depending on your preferences the lack of grip might be a good thing. In use, a less grippy disk just means you have to be more conscious of your thumb placement and pressure when opening the blade. Outside of use, it just plain looks great. I think it really pops with the scales and keeps the theme of the knife very nicely. The new scales completely transform the knife, and have pretty much kicked out the rest of my collection from my pocket. The maker did a great job with everything, and I'm thinking about ordering more varieties.
This knife is just plain gorgeous now. Sleek and fancy but aggressive and solid, it's now the perfect representation of my taste and interests in this hobby. 20CV steel, non-serrated and non-coated blade, titanium frame lock (I know you can argue it's a liner lock but I'll save that for a later post), carbon fiber scales, and a deep carry titanium clip. In use, this is an incredibly comfortable knife that is slim enough to be easily manipulated between hammer, saber, reverse, pinch/samurai, or forward grips. The jimping is significant without being painful (cough manix cough), although I've never gotten the point of the underside jimping at the tail on any knife design (0562/0393). The blade is ground somewhat thick behind the edge but that's par for the course with ZT's, so if that's ok with you then you won't notice any difference. Cutting through paper or cardboard is easy and comfortable, and while it's not perfect for food prep it'll get the job done.
In summary, with the modifications I've done, I'll be hard-pressed to buy new knives after this one. It so perfectly fits my tastes that any future knives I buy will need to either be a unique mechanism or design flavor. Having owned a Sebenza 21, this is my personal Sebenza in terms of perfection. Future modifications may still be done, I'm going to extend the sharpening choil a bit and I may anodize the titanium and upgrade the hardware to titanium. Normally anodizing is one of the first things I do, but I kind of like the look of the raw titanium paired with the solid black CF. Let me know what you all think! I also have a set of copper shred carbon fiber scales as well as some other options for clip and thumbdisk, let me know if you want to see pictures of those as well. This knife is quickly becoming my grown-man version of a dress-up doll. Emerson and ZT knocked this one out of the park, and my aftermarket makers completely perfected it.
Also pictured in the photos: Pen - WE Knife TP-02, Light - Olight S1R II Baton - Hank from Urban EDC Supply
