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Education The buying advice thread..

Discussion in 'General' started by mars-bar-man, 27 Dec 2013.

  1. mars-bar-man

    mars-bar-man Side bewb.

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    Considering the amount of threads that get thrown up in general about what to buy and what's good, I thought I'd set this up (partly because I need the use of it). Ask a question before buying and get thoughts, suggestions, flamed and advice!

    Anyway, I'm looking for a knife to go shank a bitch. Well, the looking for a knife part is accurate. The rest? Not so.

    Why do I want one? Opening packages at home, something that has a little ceremony to it. I could use a kitchen knife, but it just seems a little m'eh.

    I've been looking at:
    Tac-Force Desert Infantry

    Gerber Remix Tactical lock knife

    Given the vast amount of "finer things in life" people on this forum, I ask for your advice!

    Thanks :)
     
  2. Sloth

    Sloth #yolo #swag

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    I can't speak for the Tac-Force specifically, but if you're looking at folding knives I recommend going with an assisted open. The extra convenience quickly adds up, and I like the confidence that a good strong opening gives. You know it's fully open and locked every time.

    I was converted by a Kershaw Blur, glassbreaker model. No complaints, it's a solid knife that's held up well to household cutting tasks and some outdoor adventures. S30V steel blade is quite nice, fast and solid open, strong lock up. Kershaw's assisted opening mechanic is also very simple, one moving part aside from the blade.

    For blade choice, you'd probably want to look at something with a fairly straight blade and low tip to give box cutter like control. Tantos have a straight blade, but that high tip and extreme angle can be fiddly. I'm also a fan of partial serrations for a home utility knife, they're useful for cutting string, fabric, and those obnoxious plastic things that attach tags to clothes. If you intend to cut fruits or cheese and such on occassion you may want to stick with a smooth blade, particularly one with a full flat grind.

    And it's probably worth adding, be wary of knives made to look cool in a pocket!
     
    Last edited: 27 Dec 2013
  3. Yariko

    Yariko What's a Dremel?

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    SOG Flash II

    Neat and not too expensive, but very good quality for the price. You can get it with fancier blades, like tanto and also some camo paint on some of the Flash II blades if you like stuff like that.
     
  4. Sloth

    Sloth #yolo #swag

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    ^Solid choice. Having a safety may be handy in the UK as well.
     
  5. mrlongbeard

    mrlongbeard Multimodder

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    If you're in the UK you can't have an assisted opening one :waah:

    I'd go for a Svord Peasant Mini, nice wee knives, under 3" and not lockable so UK carry friendly too.
     
  6. Unicorn

    Unicorn Uniform November India

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    Good idea for a thread, but ultimately it gets untidy and hard to find anything. We would really need a general discussion sub-forum for this sort of thing to be useful :(

    As far as knives go, do an advanced search under my username, specify "display results as posts" and search for the terms "knife" "Spyderco" and "knives". I am a Spydie fanboy and have discussed the UK legal specifications for pocket knives at length in the past :thumb: Spyderco are a manufacturer of high end steel who actually design great models for the UK legal carry market.

    I will probably start a thread in hardware for this, but out of interest does anyone know of a good small business gigabit firewall that won't break the bank? I dug out my Cisco PIX 506e a couple of days ago, but it's so outdated that I am having to configure it via the console CLI and can only get into the PDM via an XP VM running IE6 and an extremely outdated, vulnerable version of Java.
     
  7. deathtaker27

    deathtaker27 Modder

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    I have used Sonicwalls which I found nice, but a pain to configure if your not use to them (they are between 500 and 1k) or draytek can be good, you dont have an old machine you could install an open source firewall on?
     
  8. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Opening packages?

    [​IMG]

    A few quid on eBay. The right tool for the right job.
     
  9. Unicorn

    Unicorn Uniform November India

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    I have about a dozen spare machines lying around, but would want something almost passively cooled because I'm working on getting the rack cabinet a little cooler and quieter. I suppose a low power dual core Pentium with a small bore liquid loop would do the trick, but I think a low power standalone system would be better. £500 is the most I want to spend on it. I'm already sitting on thousands of pounds of network gear for a very small network and some of it often feels unnecessary.
     
  10. ShakeyJake

    ShakeyJake My name is actually 'Jack'.

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    I really like the Gerber knives. I have an infantry knife that was great for work tbh it's a bit much for the public. I have to work quite closely with the public and the 10" blade was getting scary so I bought one of those little paraframe folders. Great little knives.

    Or just stop all this nonsense and buy a victorinox. I have a climber.

    Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk 4
     
  11. SuicideNeil

    SuicideNeil What's a Dremel?

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  12. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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  13. mrlongbeard

    mrlongbeard Multimodder

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  14. M_D_K

    M_D_K Modder

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    MBM I've been looking for the same thing, opening lots of parcels at work its just not fun with a box cutter, plus would be nice to have a knife that you could easily sharpen rather then keep changing the blades.

    I've been looking at Damascus blades as they also look rather nice :)
     
  15. Unicorn

    Unicorn Uniform November India

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    I carry and use my Spyderco Squeak in public and at work in school, and it's just about as sharp (fillets paper easily, kept that way on my Sharpmaker) as you'll ever need a knife to be but also not intimidating or scary looking. I keep a UKPK in the lid section of my tool box but I don't use it in school because its drop point 3" blade is much more intimidating than the 2" full flat of the Squeak. Box cutters are utterly useless and the disposable blades for them are crap for anything other than sacrificial cutting. You'd be on your hundredth box cutter blade before slightly dulling the edge on my Squeak opening boxes and other day to day pocket knife tasks.
     
    Last edited: 28 Dec 2013
  16. KidMod-Southpaw

    KidMod-Southpaw Super Spamming Saiyan

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    I was considering picking up a few knives while I was in Munich. Their Bavarian hunting stuff was absolutely stunning.
     
  17. ShakeyJake

    ShakeyJake My name is actually 'Jack'.

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    I think we can all agree that smaller is better. Mr. Policeman will probably not believe that the 12" kukri on your belt or passenger seat is for opening letters.

    I got away with it once because I had a sheepdog in the back seat and the truck bed was full of hay. He may not have bought my story if I was wearing a suit and driving a Corsa. Just saying......

    Sent from my Transformer Prime TF201 using Tapatalk 4
     
  18. SuicideNeil

    SuicideNeil What's a Dremel?

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    I tend to open letters & parcels at home...
     
  19. ShakeyJake

    ShakeyJake My name is actually 'Jack'.

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    Hah! Sorry for some reason I thought he was opening packages at work.

    My Gerber Paraframe recommendation stands though. Turns out I actually have the predecessor (called a ripstop) but it's a good knife. Sharp too. (Link goes to image of my hand injury. SFW just possibly not appropriate to imbed.)

    Edit - It was MDK that wanted to open parcels at work. I knew somebody did.
     
    Last edited: 29 Dec 2013
  20. Unicorn

    Unicorn Uniform November India

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    But what about the ones that you receive at work? ;)
     

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