maskedman504
Member
TL;DR warning
Although I have owned various knives- mainly slipjoints as a young man, since I was 10; I often lost them. I decided several years ago that I would start to EDC a knife- knives one of the most useful tools ever. This was after I found THR and was mining as much useful information from the site as possible; such as, you need a 10/22
So, I was at Cabela's shopping for said 10/22 and I bought the Gerber skeletonized knife on a whim. It was $30- I thought it seemed like a decent mid tier knife. I carried it for about a year and it worked OK. It got dull quick, but I learned how to sharpen it. Also, being skeletonized, I noticed it collected a lot of visible dirt inside the frame; I learned I need to clean it.After reading and reading, I went to a local out boutique gearstore- the local Benchmade dealer. I handle several knives. There were many I liked. I ended up with an Osborne that I resold. It was a good knife and I believe had a reversible clip. This is the stage where I was determining whether or not I need a lefty pocket clip on my knife- and I do. The next Benchmade purchase was a Sibert MPR- no lefty on that one- but it was so beefy! And thick. In the end, I needed a lefty. I ended up with an assisted opening mini Barrage and I carried this knife for 2 years.(mini Barrage $105 -eBay)
Although I had sworn off Spyderco with my infatuation with Benchmade, the Techno really caught my eye. I decided to give it a go. After all, it did have a reversible clip, was a framelock and of an 'exotic' steel- what I really liked was the full titanium frame and the full flat blade grind. This name is my current EDC and the mini Barrage doesn't get much pocket time anymore. I had the knife given a custom 'nuked' finish by Randy Johnson- he anodized the scales and weathered them, carbidized the lockface, made a LSCF backspacer and acid etched and stonewashed the blade. (Techno from Amazon $165, custom work $++, titanium lanyard bead, $+)
I am glad I own all of these knives. I learned knife maintenance with the Gerber. Benchmade knives taught me differences in blade geometry and were my first step the 'next level' in a production knife. The Spyderco Techno has been a dream and is about as far as I think I can go in production blades- but who knows? I really have my eye on a titanium Sage 2. The comparison shows me differences in a weak lockbar vs a strong one- my Benchmade has some bladeplay but the axis lock is a favorite. I am not a hard use knife guy- but I use them. These three have all served me well for periods of time.
And, whoops, my first full custom Neil Blackwood is due in about a month.
