Today was fun.
Philo saved us from trip-sci, and I sorta failed for lit essay.
Well enough small talk. On to the review.
I was playing with this knife all the way home from the army market to NUS to home.
Ran into a gang of ACS people on the bus. They were staring at me, not sure if it was because I'm from RI, or because I was testing out the blade play on the delica. (Zero blade play vertically, a very little bit left to right, like 0.25 a mm)
Please bear in mind that I'm a complete amateur, and if you want a proper review go to cutleryscience.com. This is just first impressions.
So the knife I got was a Spyderco Delica 4. First impression was that it was pretty small, but upon comparison with my large Swiss army knife, it actually wasn't.
The blade is Japanese VG-10, and is stamped on the left side with the Spyderco logo, the maker's name and the steel. My handphone camera is far too lousy to show that, so just take my word for it. The steel itself is pretty cool. It's as shiny as swiss knife INOX, but it apparently is a lot harder. The blade shape is classic Spyderco-hump with a 14mm opening hole right under it, then a straight spine leading to a drop point.
The serrations on the blade are convex ground, and alternate in a 1 large-2 small pattern, also a Spyderco trademark. I found them excellent for cutting rope, although I'd rather have the plain edge near the handle and the serrations near the tip for more control on wood carving and such.
The serrations are only ground on the left side, like most knives.
The plain edge section comes sharp as a razor out of the box, and if I still had any arm hair left after testing my now sold mtech, it'd be gone by now. I also learned not to polish it edge-to-cloth, when it left a nasty hole in a piece of rag. I tested the edge on the hair of my leg, and it came off so cleanly that I might as well have been using those box cutters I was playing with last year.
The tip is sharp, but not strong enough to do prying work. The spyderhole is a pretty good replacement for lock bars- it took a bit of getting used to, but it feels so much more comfortable. One thing to note is that you can't do rapid flick-out openings, the blade is under spring tension as well as a lock. The Delica isn't a good fighting knife, but I'm not going to use it for fighting, so it doesn't matter.
The handle is FRN plastic lined with VG-10 steel liners on the inside-it's a lot stronger than it looks. The grip is textured and feels pretty solid. On the back of the knife there are these little ridges, which improve grip and control when the thumb is on the spine. The whole thing can be taken apart and cleaned, useful after a kayaking trip or something. This is something I always wanted on a SAK, because my first one is coated with salt after OBS, and I cant get all of it out.
The checquering on the blade is going to be hell to clean after Monday's fish dissection.
The knife uses a back lock, which makes one-hand closing a bit more difficult. One thing I like about the knife is that the clip can be moved anywhere, although I got it arranged for a right-face point down. I'm probably not going to be moving it around because I like it where it is, and I don't own a torx wrench.
Overall it's a pretty awesome knife and definitely worth the money (80 dollars, thanks to shawn for providing 10 dollars).
This is probably the last folding knife I'm getting for a couple of years.
On a completely side note, I got three pieces of 1m nylon, and used it to make a zip extension for my bag.
