Spyderco Spydercard

It's a funny looking knife, but it inspired the designers of other wallet hide-out knives.

I recently came across a Spydercard( C01).  They were very popular and people still collect them partially because of their scarcity, partially for the story associated with the knife designer.

First the knife. 

The Spydercard is the size of a credit card and 0.2 inch thick.  That’s about the thickness of 4 credit cards.  Designed to slip into your pocket or wallet, this 3.4 inch long knife opens to exposé a 2.4 in cutting edge.  The handle lock, like that used on the Square Head, secures the blade in the open position as well as the closed position. 

The AUS6 steel it is made from, was at the time, an entry level steel.  To keep costs down and provide reasonable performance, many knife manufacturers used AUS6.  This steel is comparable to 440A with a little extra kick.  The kick is vanadium.  This element forms tiny particles of vanadium carbide at the steel’s grain boundaries increasing hardness and edge retention.  The 14% chromium not only forms carbides but also forms an important transparent thin film of chromium oxide that protects the steel from oxidation or staining better known as rust.

Spydercard’s most popular blade configuration, as I remember it when I sold them, was the partially serrated.  On a small blade, especially with a hard-to-hold handle, increased cutting performance is critical.  This isn’t the sort of knife you pack for hiking the northwest Cascades, but you might pack it if you thought you might have to cut something to escape.

That's my wallet, a little over stuffed for my taste, but I could lose a few cards and squeeze that knife in.

The Designer

I wasn’t able to find much about the designer, Eduard Bradichansky.  He is described as a Russian Jew who immigrated to Israel, I assume, to escape the repressive Russian government.  He has been described as a gunsmith and jeweler who later worked with Spyderco designing what became known as the Spydercard and the Shabaria (C59).  He was apparently killed in a Hamas attack so brutal that identification was made based on dental records and the presence of Spydercard and Shabaria prototypes.  Sounds mysterious doesn’t it?

Well, I’m not going to ask Spyderco what really happened and wasn’t it just too convenient he had the prototypes on him.  I’m not into conspiracies.  I’ve always found that any conspiracy involving more than two people breaks down over time.

A little better look at the Spydercard's serrations

You know what they say, two can keep a secret especially if one of them is dead.

Poking the bear

The last knife gun show was a little slow at times, but I try to have fun with the prospective customers.  But sometimes things get out of hand…..

After inspecting every knife and asking such penetrating questions like what does Rockwell scale mean and what’s the name of the miner who dug the chromium, he started to walk off.

“Enjoy the museum show, sir.”  I said

He paused mid-step.  “Museum show?  Don’t you mean gun show.”  He had an amused look on his face.  Why not?  After all he just caught someone with a little mistake that might be amusing to him.

“No sir.  We’re the Lippincott Valley Satrap, largest recreationist group in the United States.  Once a year we put on our great show.”

“This isn’t a gun show?” 

“Thank you for the compliment sir.  We strive for perfect fidelity.”

“I don’t understand.  This isn’t a gun show?”

“This year we are recreating a gun show.  Last year we did a road rally that was so good, it took honors.  We’d like to do it a second time in a row." 

“So you’re telling me this stuff isn’t for sale.  Is that what trying to say.”

“No sir, I’m not trying.  I’m telling you, everything you see is owned by our members and part of their personal collections.  Nothing is for sale, well, almost nothing.”  I paused for a second and gave him my fingers-in-the-candy-bowl guilt look.  “A few guys have a small museum store.  You can buy stickers, pins and membership, but that s about it.”

“What about the guy over there selling raffle tickets?  Are you going tell me those are phony too.”

“No sir, those guys are real.  We always let NRA and Friends of the NRA set up and sell.  It adds a dimension of reality, doesn’t it?” 

He hadn’t fallen completely yet but I could tell he was having doubts, so I stopped talking and waited for him to step into it.

“What about the hawkers in the aisles holding guns?  I saw two men transfer money…”

“Part of the set up.  “It’s funny money we buy from a movie prop house.  Look, did you try to buy a gun from someone walking about?”

“Well, I talked to one guy, but he wouldn’t come down…”  I could see understanding was beginning to break through.

“That’s because he didn’t recognize you.  These guys set it up in advance with other members and everyone gets their stuff back, including the faux greenbacks.”

“I don’t believe you,” he said.  But I knew it was time to set the hook..

“Look buddy, I don’t care what you believe.  It’s no skin off my ass.  Go ask the ticket seller what kind of show this is.  But I got to tell you, if this is some kind of scam to get your money back, that’s not going to fly with them.  The club president assured me the sign outside the door would be clearly marked.”

I’d like to use that old Groucho Marx line about him leaving in a huff and a half, but he didn’t.  He just turned around and walked calmly and directly to the front of the show and the ticket window.  I’m not sure how that went.  I heard sirens shortly after he left my table.  I don’t know what happened, and I’m not going ask, either. 

It’s fun to go to the zoo, but you mustn’t tease animals too much.  You never know who’s really in the cage, do you?

Gifts

There are few gifts nicer than a pocketknife. 

If you don’t agree with that statement it is probable because no one ever gave you a pocket knife.  Recently I’ve been gifted with two.   Honestly, it’s impossible to determine if I like one more than the other.  It’s quite possible I like both of them equally.

My friend Tom sent me a nice Buck Slimline from customer appreciation days at Buck HQ.  As I understand it, many of the knives available at these days are of limited production and one and done uniqueness. 

Thanks Tom! 

The Buck Slimline is a nice one hand opening lock blade.  The steel is 420HC that has been cryogenically quenched.  Buck likes this steel a lot and with good reason.  It makes a great blade for general use.  420HC contains 0.45% carbon and 13% chromium.  The cryogenic heat treatment helps ensure the best combination of steel phases.  This all adds up to a stainless steel blade with a RHC of 58.  The blade is stain resistant and is hard enough to hold an edge, not be brittle and can be sharpened with ordinary stones. 

I love the black handle with blood red drizzle.  My love of Bucks started in college with the Buck 110.  I can’t tell you how many camp fires I’ve built with that Buck.  Now I have another, but it’s just too pretty to use!  I’m deeply touched by this Buck.

1996 Bullet Knife

My friend Paul passed on a number of years ago.  I met him because I was a shooting buddy of his wife and we grew close. Paul was a soft spoken man and I always found him to be dependable and keeper of his word.  These are virtues I value.  

I recently got his Remington 1996 bullet knife.  It’s in great shape, Paul seldom carried anything he thought was too fancy.  The knife has a master blade as well as a smaller blade.  It also comes with an awl, corkscrew, bottle opener/straight blade screwdriver and a nasty looking can opener. The blades are 440 stainless and the bolsters are nickel silver, a copper alloy containing copper, nickel and zinc, but despite its name, no silver.

The boxed knife lived in a drawer mostly because Paul, I suspect, was saving it for when he would really need it.  But I saw a very different connection.  The knife is called the Trailhand and Paul was a good man to ride the trail with.

P.S.  That is pretty tacky of you, Kevin, to post your price list as a comment on my blog without asking me.  If I had to guess, I would suspect you're friendless and will probably die alone and forgotten.  Make changes now while you still can.

Shadow Tech’s Claw

The large prototype folding Karambit

Originally, like so many martial art weapons, the karambit originated in southeast Asia. Inspired by the claws of big cats, the natives initially used this design for mundane activities, like raking roots, gathering threshing and planting rice.  Over time. circumstances forced the development of farm and every day implements into weapons of self-defense.

According to wikipedia:

“The karambit is held with the blade pointing downward from the bottom of the fist, usually curving forwards however occasionally backwards. While it is primarily used in a slashing or hooking motion, karambit with a finger ring are also used in a punching motion hitting the opponent with the finger ring. Some karambit are designed to be used in a hammering motion. This flexibility of striking methods is what makes it so useful in self-defense situations. The finger guard makes it difficult to disarm and allows the knife to be maneuvered in the fingers without losing one's grip.

The short Filipino karambit has found some favor in the West because such proponents allege the biomehanics of the weapon allow for more powerful cutting strokes and painful "ripping" wounds, and because its usability is hypothesized as more intuitive, though there continues to be debate about this matter.”

It takes hardly any effort to find self-promoting YouTube videos of how to use a fightin’ karambit.  Any of these complete videos can be purchased, …our operators are standing by…

The problem with fixed knives is they are not easy to conceal, a necessary condition of modern society.  Shadow Tech has been making fixed blade karambits for some time now.  They are currently, in a secret laboratory/dojo, developing two folding karambits.  And joking aside, they look pretty great.  I’ve only seen prototypes but they were very close to production models. 

Make that 2 to go, please.

I expect a there will be a little tweeking before and possible after release.  After all it is only mythology in which Venus springs forth from the ocean in all her perfection.  I do know the knives will be made from Crucible’s 154CM steel.  Some of the best knife companies use 154CM steel for their blades.  ST is using it for liners, liner lock and clips also.  The clip will be reversible and the knife rides tip up.  At least that was the plan when John and I talked about it.

Many knives, many fine knives have only a portion of the liner lock behind the blade

The liner lock will throw its complete thickness behind the blade spreading out the force of folding over a wide surface.  My limited experience suggests that may require a little more effort on your part to unlock the knife.  Pushing the liner lock over may require you to dig your thumb a little deeper in the lock, but you can image the painful consequences of having the lock fail.

ST tells me they will have two sizes, a large aggressive blade,

Large size

And a smaller blade. 

The small size

John tells me there will be several ways of snagging the blade’s opening stud and/or geometry to open the blade as you draw it from your pocket.  That’s very cool.  

Still remember what one veteran told me:

“I carry in my pocket.  If there could be trouble I move the knife from my pocket to behind my belt.  If I think there is going to be trouble, the unopened knife is carried in my hand.”

A karambit has the potential to increase even an unskilled person’s survival potential.  Give that and Shadow Tech some consideration.

Find your Shadow Tech at https://www.stknives.com/ 

Benchmade CLA

I just got my hands on Benchmade’s auto knife, the CLA.  I kept thinking the C stood for something military, or governmental-like, central or clandestine.  Instead it stands for the plebeian word, composite.  But don’t be fooled by that.  It may say Composite Lite Auto, but it’s a sweetie by any name.

The CLA is a relatively new addition to their black class of autos.

The heart of any knife is the steel.  The CLA has a 3.4 inch blade made of 154CM.  That’s Crucible Industries’ martensitic stainless steel.  Martensitic?  So much about steel can be laid at the feet of carbon.  If steel has a low enough level of carbon, the iron is arranged in patterns called ferrite, but it can’t hold very much carbon.  Hot iron can dissolve more carbon than cold, so as the metal cools out of the furnace, a form called austenite develops.  It can hold more carbon than ferrite, especial when hot.  Cool the hot austenite and it has to get rid of the excess carbon like a bad check.  Unfortunately by then everything is frozen solid, so austenite does the only thing possible: it changes shape to martensite.  This change in crystal system is what gives classic samurai swords their curved shapes, but that’s for another time.

The blade is tempered to 58-61 RHC.  Martensite can be made harder, but it also becomes brittle.  Brittle is the arch enemy of any blade.  Being a stainless the blade contains 14% chromium, which forms a transparent oxide film protecting it from all but the harshest conditions.  It’s called stain-less and not stain-proof for that reason.  The main difference between 154CM and 440C is the higher level of molybdenum.  Moly, as she’s known, also forms carbides like chromium.  These carbides help stabilize the crystals in the steel from deforming under pressure, which provides edge retention as well as strength.  The blades come as plain or partially serrated.  I normally prefer the plain edge based on looks, but the partial serration looks damn good too!

Enough about steel.  I never worry if knife companies like Benchmade, SOG or even Case are using the right steel.  They wouldn’t still be in business if they couldn’t get the best possible properties out of the metal.

Note the safety next to the large button.  The button is off set to add a layer of security.

The CLA’s handle is 4.45 inches long, under a half inch thick and curved to better fit your hand.  The scales are composed of G-10.  This material is a composite of woven glass cloth and epoxy resin cured under pressure.  It is very mechanically stable and resistant to most acids, solvents and bases as well as being an electrical insulator.  It’s entirely possible when cockroaches have replaced humans as the dominant species on earth, G-10 will still be hanging around.

Like all Benchmade autos the spring is stout enough to open the blade with authority.    Even a superficial examination of the knife shows the safety lock next to the release button.  I’ve always liked that.  You can off-safe it with your thumb and then simply roll on to the button to open the knife.  That’s nice!

The open box construction makes it easy to clean and oil.  Note the jimping at the back of the blade.

The pocket clip is left/right reversible and the knife is designed to be carried tip up.  The clip is placed to give you relatively deep pocket carry.  A hole next to the clip provides an attachment point for lanyards and retention devices.  It’s a nice knife and if I carried it over water or deep snow I’d use a retention line too!

The back of the blade has several lines of jimping which are carried onto the knife handle.  Jimping provides an additional friction surface as well as another tactile indicator of knife and blade orientation. 

I wish I could tell you how it cuts, but frankly it’s not necessary.  Benchmade knows how to sharpen an edge and how to correctly temper 145CM steel.  This knife is going to cut.  Besides, is slicing up a strip of cured horse hide really going to tell you how sharp it is?

I like the way the CLA feels in my hand.  I wouldn’t hesitate to carry this knife for everyday chores as well as off the beaten path contingencies.  If trouble comes looking, you might be very happy to have your own CLA!

Stay Sharp in 2016

New Year’s Day calls for a roasting pan full of pork, smoked sausage and sauerkraut at my mother-in-law’s house. The food preparation is relatively simple, but conflicts do arise. 

I am convinced that my martial arts instructor got it wrong.  He once told us the Chinese ideogram for trouble was two women under the same roof.  He’s wrong.  It’s an elderly mother and her daughter under the same roof.

Despite that, everything went fine except for the knives.  I have never seen two kitchen knives so dull.  Fortunately, I had my Spyderco Sharpmaker available.  Even more fortunately, I own a pair of coarse diamond sharpening rods.

The silver diamond rod and a dull santoku

Spyderco has made diamond rods for a number of years, but the cost for diamond-impregnated rods was above and beyond affordable.  Recently breakthroughs have brought the cost down so mere mortals like myself can afford them.  A retail cost of $80 for two rods isn’t terrible.  They also make a cubic boron nitride for the same price.  

The key, Spyderco’s Joyce Laituri told me, is not to bear down hard, but to let the diamonds do the work.  It only took a few swipes on each side to get the knife which wouldn’t tear paper to one that cut paper.

I've worked through the medium and ended with the white fine stone.  Spyderco makes an extra fine, but I suspect I really don't need it.

From there it’s working through the dark medium stones and the white fine stones.  I would suggest not always starting the sharpening stroke at the back of the edge or choil, but also at the knife tip.  I find that gets a better edge faster.

Years ago I was told about another knifemaker who used his Spyderco Sharpmaker backwards.  He started down at the bottom of the V formed by the two stones and brought his knife upward as well as towards himself.  

This makes sense.  You want to draw the wire edge, where the real sharpness is, outward from the blade.  When you strop an edge on leather or the cardboard backing of a paper pad, that’s what you are doing.

You can do the same thing with a fine stone too!

That edge doesn't have a micro-serration.  It's just badly damaged.  (It's a crappy photo, hard to hold the knife at the right angle and camera.)

The little santoku knife was dull, but the little Spyderco paring knife was beyond dull.  Holding the knife upside down and staring where the edge should have been was unusual.  I’ve never seen an edge that looks like tiny polished diamonds before.  Fortunately, the diamond rods took the chips and gouges out right away and let me work to the fine stones without too much trouble.

You see the side of the blade, but the not the edge.  It isn't because I've sharpened to a sub-atomic edge, but because its sharpen enough to come to an edge smaller than the resolution of the eye. 

I’ve always enjoyed sharpening knives.  There is a rhythm that seems to resonate with me.  It’s peaceful, calming work.  I stand or sit and under my finger pressure steel turns into an edge, one of man’s oldest and most important tools.  There is a connection between me and first person who wondered if they could make a favorite tool work again.  I like that.

Have a Happy and Sharp New Year in 2016!

Spyderco 204D a pair of diamond rods or 204CBN a pair of cubic boron nitride rods:  $58 plus shipping  Contact me.  Searcher12@gmail.com

Collecting

The recent (Dec 2015) stabbing in London by some Other Dickless Asshole (ODA) will surely result in a call to de-fang the British citizenry even more.  There has already been a call by English doctors to eliminate pointy kitchen knives.  Even the presence of a Stanley utility knife in your work belt can land you in an English jail until you can explain to the judge’s satisfaction why you needed one.  I hope your employer feels like appearing in court to bolster your claims you have to cut up cardboard boxes as part of your job.

It’s hard to understand how anyone could think they can eliminate pointed knives.  Fleming’s James Bond pauses in “Dr. No” to sharpen a purloined dinner knife into a sharp point before escaping from his cell.  It just took a concrete surface and a little time.  This is a basic prison skill known to, unfortunately, millions.

Here in America we also have our share of ODAs and the incidents they create.  While the anti-knife people are present, so far they haven’t made too much of an impact.  Part of our protection is granted by the 2^nd Amendment.  This amendment isn’t only about guns, which aren’t mentioned.  It talks about arms, which can be guns, knives, spears, axes, clubs, canes, bow and arrow and other material objects.

But given the right circumstances an anti-knife backlash is possible.  One only has to recall The Woman’s Home Companion’s article about switch blade knives, “The Toy That Kills.”  Following movies and plays like “Rebel without a Cause” and “West Side Story” the media published stories about violent youths and changing sexual mores and conservative America demanded to be protected.  The politicians of that era responded by making Switchblades illegal.  How a switchblade is more deadlier than any locking knife or fixed blade was never explained. 

Politicians, fearful of exhausting their political power and prestige by addressing the real causes of crime, did/will scapegoat inanimate objects as a way of placating the voters.  That object could be your knife collection.  What’s a collector to do?

Pick up a copy of Knife Laws of the U.S. by attorney Evan Napper.  It’s worth $25 and a couple hours of your time.

One of his interesting ideas is to join a knife collecting club.  I suspect it would be better to join a physical one with meetings you can attend rather than an e-club.  Another valuable step is creating a listing, either spreadsheet or index cards with each knife entered, date obtained, value and written description.  This extra effort could help validate your claim that you are an active trader/purchaser and a “official knife collector” as well as make collecting more enjoyable.

One word of advice.  Use a ‘scientific’ description of your knife.  It is an early Vietnam era, serialized, survival knife by Gerber and not just Gerber seven-inch stabby thing.

Speaking of stabby things, did you know the classic KA-BAR fighting knife was made in Cleveland, among other places?  At the last knife gun show I ran into a fellow who told me how he built up stacked leather washer handles on KA-BARS working his way through college.  Since he was my age that ruled out WWII and Korea.  He indicated he had quite a few seconds at home, as a nick or chipped blade couldn’t be sold.

I don’t know if it’s a true story, but it would be interesting to see what he considers ‘quite a few.’

I just attended a local knife club meeting and one fellow denied he was a knife collector, but was rather a knife gatherer. That description fits me much better than collector.