Massdrop 101: Baking Basics

So you picked up a budget bearing knife as a ‘project’ knife to putter around with and you’re looking for ideas? One thing you can do is polish the bearing works, smoothing both the flip and the close action until you've got some semblance of a noiseless flick open and a smooth, gravity drop shut. This can be done many, many different ways, as many ways as there are to smooth and then polish metal; your humble narrator prefers to use a Dremel, using the following steps. I should probably make some kind of disclaimer statement here - this guide is for people already handy with a Dremel. If you’re not already handy with one it’s best not to learn how to use one while handling pocket knives or other sharp and pointy things. Hand held high RPM rotary grinding tools can be surprisingly violent if they get out of your firm grasp, they can impart an astonishing amount of kinetic energy to small sharp things you're trying to polish, sending them flying further and faster than...

Please do enjoy your Thanksgiving (for those of you in countries where that means something), but please, please, please--whatever you do--don't wear either of these tacky watches while you're doing it!

I’ve been a collector of Blades since before my teens, and a retailer coming up on 15… or maybe 20 years. Drop has really been kind of an interesting experience for me, because I do occasionally get to see some unusual tech and sometimes EDC items that otherwise I might not have been aware of. And maybe it’s because I have a deep love of cutlery and bladed weapons, but I find myself trolling through the site looking at it what’s available; and it’s just it’s pretty much the same. And the bladed community here is just always confused me.. every single knife is about the same, they’re almost all drop points and although the handle materials change and brands change.. it’s really just the same knife over and over and over again... occasionally you’ll see a tanto or a slight variant; but rarely… and almost never a serrated blade. And I’m just deeply amazed at this diversion of serrated blades. And I’m just surprised there isn’t more of a request for diversity here.... and I...

And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...