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QSP Erised Fixed Blade Knife w/ Leather Sheath

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QSP Erised Fixed Blade Knife w/ Leather Sheath

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Product Description

Only if you spell the name of the QSP Erised backwards do you start to understand its true potential. As nice to look at as it is to use, this full-size, full-tang fixed blade can solve all your wants and needs in the field Read More

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Oct 31, 2020

9Cr14MoV is an AUS-8 knockoff steel that's not as good a knife steel as 9Cr18MoV. Mostly because it's got a lot less molybdenum and chromium in it. Still that's not a world ender on an inexpensive fixed blade and the fit and finish are a good sign.

Uncertain why it's got that pattern. Some steels get a Widmanstatten like pattern on the surface when they're being burnished which I always like; this is not that, it frankly looks like they skipped a couple of intermediate polishing stages and went from coarse to extra fine. Like polishing a bed of gravel, right? Seems less artistic and more 'well I guess it turned out ok anyway' -- but the big thing for a user is that small stuff will stick to the blade worse this way. I would have gone with a regular polish, were it me, but I don't know whether 9Cr14MoV takes an actual mirror edge anyway. Jumping to the point: does the 9Cr14MoV mean this knife must suck? Answer: No, it's a fixy, the rules are different. Should be OK if you understand you're buying a budget steel blade. Longer version: the pluses and minuses of low alloy steel (they're tough but don't hold an edge or otherwise resist wear as well as higher alloy knife steel) seem to be less of a liability on longer fixed blades. The short version as to why is that the shorter your steel is, the more hardness and carbides are a plus -- they contribute to hardness but also brittleness. On a short folder blade, brittleness is less of a factor for the same reason it's easier for you to snap a long twig into two pieces than it is to snap a half inch piece of that twig into two pieces -- it's hard to apply sufficient torque over that distance to bend the steel past its yield point. Steel snaps at its weakest point under shear tension, and somewhat paradoxically, the longer your piece of steel is, the more likelihood that the point seeing heavy tension will have a natural weak spot in it. What's all this mean? Well, it's a bit of an overgeneralization but knife steels we tend to regard as 'cheap' in pocket knives often make better fixed blades than the uber steels we like in pocket knives, even though they're lower hardness and require more edge maintenance. They withstand more abuse, by which I don't mean someone trying to damage the knife, but rather things like shear forces coming while you attempt to saw through something with your knife, or a chip breaking off when you baton a piece of firewood. The edges are more prone to roll than break, the tip is more likely to bend than snap off, the blade is less likely to crack and break even though it's easier to permanently deform. Does that mean that because the knife steel is cheap, this will be an amazing knife? LOL, no. I don't know that I'd go that far, it doesn't exactly work that way. There's a lotta stuff that makes fixed blade steel great instead of just ok and 'cheapness of the alloy' really isn't one. We're talking more like the ruggedness being the silver lining of the cheapness than it is a raison d'etre for the steel alloy. But if you'd pick this knife up if it were in AUS-8, and go out and do your best bushcrafting routine with it, you'll probably find it to be just fine. The handle looks like they put some real work into it. Mosaic pins, narrow bolster, good grip polish. I'd like it a bit better if they'd extended the tang back out of the handle a quarter inch or so to give it a natural 'pommel hammering' point that wouldn't immediately threaten the integrity of the wood handles. Most importantly it looks like it'll have decent ergos, which is honestly on most fixed blades FAR more important than how much you have to touch up the edge. Whoever named the knife is a J.K. Rowling fan. Mirror blade, Mirror of Desire, desire backwards being 'erised'. Not sure I woulda used this name myself, it's kind of like one of those jokes that you need a whiteboard to diagram out for your friends before they laugh at it. But everyone has an off day. Bottom line: I have no need for this knife, but am curious how well it stands up to heavy use, so if one of you do have a need for it, and you get it, make sure you leave a review of the performance.

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reswright

3851

Nov 1, 2020

Kabar does some good work. The thing with them is that it's nearly all D2, and for them that's a good thing. D2 steel is to Bob Dozier as 420HC is to Buck and AUS-8 is to Ontario, and 1095 is to TOPS -- you see the fruit of specialization. I don't think there's a production knifemaker that gets more out of D2 than Kabar because they're working every angle of it if you'll pardon the pun. They put designs into production that will work well with D2. More to the point (cough), if most all the knives you're ever building have the same steel, then you've got a huge jump on being able to do that steel just right. All the machine presets on your production line will be ones that favor that steel, all the muscle memory that laborers build will be for that steel, for grinding, or honing, or polishing, or deburring or crowning or oiling or whatever you want to consider, are going to be for techniques that work well on D2. And all the solvents and polishes and abrasives and grinders you keep in stock can all be ones that work really well with D2, your blade treatments will be ones that work well with the specific formulation of D2 that you're getting from your supplier, and you can standardize your training process all around best practices for D2. I'd kinda like to see a few more Chinese manufacturers focus in on one steel in particular and thus start developing master level processes for it. I'm seeing a couple get consistent with Sandvik and it's encouraging but none of them are really at that point where the magic starts to happen and people start talking about the HT the way they talk about it with Kabar D2 and Buck 420HC.

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method_burger

563

Nov 1, 2020

reswrightagreed, i much rather have a company do a few steels really good, then always go for the new and fancy steels. like when zt first picked up s35vn and elmax, first thousand runs were horrible back in the days. and frankly midrange steels if properly heat treat and ground can reach very good performance. and some custom makers still use older steels to great effect like 440c, 14c17n, d2, a2, etc. i mean, if you're still in business using the same steel from 30+ years ago, that says something about how far a steel can be pushed to its mechanical limits as a knife and your skills as a knifemaker. frankly, if someone doesnt like a steel, its most commonly because of some internet prejudice they picked up in a youtube video, since most people don't use their knives enough to find the difference in most steels or havent found the optimal way to use a steel (like, if you want to cut cardboard using soft steel, a thin edge with a 400 grit finish is generally preferred over a convex mirror)

VipeX

191

Oct 31, 2020

The Mirror finish seems better irl. https://youtu.be/gOW_7MohXnM

Omniseed

1972

Oct 31, 2020

VipeXYeah that looks way smoother

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AJAugust

353

Oct 31, 2020

Why is there a texture on the mirror finish? Did the manufacturer really intend to do that?

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AJAugust

353

Nov 1, 2020

Thanks for the info. ‘Orange peel’, that’s exactly what it looks like. It’s a finish that is really not appealing to me, at least, it should not be on a knife blade.

method_burger

563

Nov 1, 2020

AJAugustlol i dont think it is appealing to anyone on a knife blade. but you can control how aggressive the orange peel is depending on your final grit/polish. if you look at.... cheaper new cars, you can find some of these patterns on the clear coat orange peel on bolsters it looks pretty good with the correct scale pairing. but it is a tricky thing to pair correctly.

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md23

Oct 31, 2020

Love the QSP Bison I picked up here, with the D2 and blue Micarta, which prompted me to get a QSP Parrot (which is very well made for twenty bucks), but this one is a no. Don't like the choice of steel and the blade finishing looks awful. Sheath looks strange as well, almost like aiming for a snakeskin/fakeskin look? LOL, I thought the odd name was going to address and announce some weird new textured mirroring effort, but it seems either the photos are awful, or they don't get the concept of mirror finish. They indeed have this one backward. No desire here.

Womprat

Oct 31, 2020

Locked

Cheapo steel, cheapo sheath, but about double the price it’s worth? Hard pass.

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Womprat

Oct 31, 2020

Nope.

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Womprat

Oct 31, 2020

Oh, so persuasive. I’ve decided to order five of them now that you’ve called my intelligence into question.

weasel210

Oct 31, 2020

It looks like a shiny Damascus that was never etched.

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1esk19

Oct 31, 2020

Real talk: it's gorgeous, but what kind of quality can we expect from a $53 knife? Also, ballsy move to name it after a mirror and then leave it with that rough finish.