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Benchmade Mini Adamas: Anatomy of a Counterfeit Knife

The Knife Karen December 19, 2024

Counterfeits. Who cares about counterfeit products? Who are they hurting? There’s a segment of people who either don’t care about counterfeits, and in some cases, actively pursue such products. Why? Well, there‘s a few reasons. Some folks simply can’t afford to buy the genuine product, so they believe a counterfeit might give them a taste of what that genuine product is like (unfortunately, counterfeits are always inferior to the genuine versions, so that argument will always lead to disappointment). Other folks want to appear to others that they can afford the genuine product, and they really want to have whatever ...

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The Magnetic Attraction of the Winterblade Severn

The Knife Karen December 1, 2024

There are times in the world when a visionary person has new ideas that inspire us to take new roads, and that changes everything. Courtesy of ContextGallery.com Architectural designer Frank Lloyd Wright created organic structural designs that harmonized human habitation buildings with their natural surroundings, integrating architecture projects as part of the landscape. His work was not just natural camouflage, though. His work was always human-centric, creating spaces to be comfortable and immanently livable. He revolutionized floor plans away from compartmentalized rooms to become continuous, open, flowing spaces. Courtesy of eBay.com Hedy Lamarr, who is better known for her work ...

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Budget Blade Round-Up ’24: Mediocre & Junk Steels (Part 3 of 3)

The Knife Karen November 21, 2024

What would you do if you had a new C-note, a genuine Benjamin burning a hole in your pocket and you wanted to buy a new budget pocketknife? Would you know which to pick? Do you know what blade steel to get? In Part 1 of the 2024 Budget Blade Round-Up series, I discussed the methodology I used to collect a large inventory of Budget-level (all knives under $100) pocketknife blade steels from 17 online pocketknife retailers (there originally were 40, but most of the 23 others had uselessly crappy website search filters, and a small few had pathetically small ...

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Budget Blade Round-Up ’24: Decent Steels (Part 2 of 3)

The Knife Karen November 21, 2024

What would you do if you had a new C-note, a genuine Benjamin burning a hole in your pocket, and you wanted to buy a new budget pocketknife? Would you know which to pick? Do you know what blade steel to get? In Part 1 of this series, I discussed the methodology I used to collect a large inventory of Budget-level (all knives under $100) pocketknife blade steels from 17 online pocketknife retailers (there originally were 40, but most of the 23 others had uselessly crappy website search filters, and a small few had pathetically small budget pocketknife inventory levels). ...

Blade SteelsHardness Testing<$10014C28N440AAnalysisD2FolderNitro-V

Budget Pocketknife Blade Steel Round-Up 2024: What’s Out There & Performance Factors (Part 1 of 3)

The Knife Karen November 21, 2024

What would you do if you had a new C-note, a genuine Benjamin burning a hole in your pocket and you wanted to buy a new budget pocketknife? Would you know which to pick? Do you know what blade steel to get? Yes, buying a new knife can be a lot more complicated than a basic impulse buy of a crappy, cheap, gas station design, but there’s also more to consider than just a scientific review of blade steels metallurgy. Now I can’t help you with your own, unique aesthetic preferences, your specific brand loyalties, or any potential penchant for ...

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Benchmade Mini Adamas: Mammoth MagnaCut at a Problematic Price

The Knife Karen September 1, 2024

Early last year (2023), after reading so many posts on Larrin Thomas’ KnifeSteelNerds.com blog, I decided I wanted to see for myself what all the hype was about with MagnaCut steel. When I began looking, everyone’s favorite super steel wasn’t nearly as available as it is this year. Only a few brands had knives with MagnaCut blades, and most of them were oddly yet seemingly proud to sell theirs with an HRc rating of 60-61. Given MagnaCut’s hardness potential of up to 65, this wasn’t what I was looking for. It’s almost as if these knifemakers were either not trying ...