Over the past 18 months or so, largely because of listening to Jim and Kyle on the Knife Journal Podcast, I have become more comfortable with fixed blade knives. During that say time I have become increasingly skeptical of the utility of large and ultra large folders. It seems to me that if you can carry one of these knives, you should probably just carry a fixed blade.

Browsing the fora I saw a thread on BladeForum about preferences for large fixed blades. The choice was between the ZT0200 and the Benchmade 810 Contego. Both are massive folders with blades at or near 4 inches. The ZT0200 (which is discontinued) is also a true boat anchor tipping the scales at almost 8 ounces. I have handled the ZT0200. In fact, I bought one, carried it around the knife show, and then returned it for a ZT0350 when I realized that the ZT0200 was trying, hard as it could, to pants me in public. To say the ZT0200 was big is like saying Robert Wadlow was tall. The knife was positively massive. It was just too big to warrant carrying or buying.

The problem with these big folders is simple--there is no time when I could carry them comfortably and not carry a fixed blade. Additionally, there are no tasks I could where these big blades work better than a smaller and more convenient folder or better than a beefy fixed blade. These folders, it seems to me, have taken the advantages of a folder--size and portability--and thrown them out the window. They have also, it seems, avoided the advantages of a fixed blade--durability and uncompromised handle shapes.

For me, personally, I can't imagine using or carrying a folder with a blade longer than 3.5 inches. I know that there are guys out there that are much bigger than I am and for those folks, a 4 inch blade seems reasonable. But these massive and overbuilt knives like the ZT0200 or, in the custom world, the Direware, I just don't see why someone would want one. This leaves aside the Fox Meskawaki and Cold Steel Espada XL sized blades which, frankly, are in the same class of products as the United Cutlery Sauron glove Andrew pined over. The Spyderco Military and the Benchmade 710 are all good designs with long blades but these aren't the knives I am referencing. Its not a prejudice against long blades, it is a prejudice against stupidly overbuilt blades.

This leads me to another point about the folding pry bar class of knives. There doesn't seem to be much of an emphasis on blade geometry resulting in poorer than necessary cutting performance. Its a matter of basic physics--thicker objects cut worse than thinner ones, all other things being equal. A reader recently emailed me and asked about my opinion on Striders. I pointed him to my Strider PT review and then we emailed back and forth.

He was surprised to learn that while I thought (and think) that the Strider was a good knife, it was no longer a knife I loved. The reality is that tastes and preferences change, but here it is not just that my tastes changed, its that I realized that those sorts of knives don't work for me.

Last summer I decided I wanted to learn how to start a fire with no matches. Very low bar, I know, but I have always been a Zippo fire starter. Then my son and I read My Side of the Mountain and he asked what a flint was. Sam, the book's main character, carried one and started fires all of the time with it, so I ordered one off Amazon and started working with it. I also started making kindling. Not only was it fun, it was also a great test for a knife. Breaking up small branches, making feather sticks, and the like is a super simple test for a knife--the lock, the handle, and the edge/steel are all given a good workout. Eventually we nailed the fire thing, even capable of starting fires in semi-damp conditions. Over time, I also noticed that the Strider PT was just terrible at these tasks. Its edge was just too thick. It could pry decently well, but it had ZERO game when it came to pulling down big curls of wood for feather sticks. It lacked an ability to slice. I stropped and sharpened, but I came to realize that the blade just behind the cutting bezel was too thick. Short of a full reprofilining, the PT was never going to cut and slice well. My Indian River Jack, on the other hand, was a slicing demon, passing the feather stick test and others with aplomb.

And its not just the thick blade stock that was a problem--the Techno (damn is that a great little folder) passed the test with flying colors too. Spyderco shrank that thick stock quickly and the thickness just before the cutting bevel is still pretty darn thin.

The problem with the Strider PT was the grind (update now reflects that). I found the Hinderer 3" slicer grind better, but still not as good. These overbuilt beasts seem to forget that their first task is cutting.

This isn't to say that these knives are a bad design. They aren't. Both are superior tools. They are just tools I have little use for in my suburban life. For hard use, metal piercing, door prying individuals the bulky cutting geometry of the Strider and the Hinderer is quite useful. For me, where I place an emphasis on cutting and slicing in my normal use, I just can't except the tradeoff. And really, I have found that the Paramilitary 2 has been plenty tough for the worst tasks I could give a folder including chopping up old linoleum, complete with hardened glue on the back. And the PM2 is still plenty slicey.

Michael's email prompted me to write down what I had already known--in an EDC knife I want something that cuts. These folding pry bars that are all over the place just aren't for me. And really, if we exclude Instagram as a "use" I am not sure just how many of us really NEED a knife like that for our daily tasks. Maybe my tastes will change back, but where I am right now, I just don't see the value in these massively overbuilt knives. I am not saying they are poor designs or bad blades, they just aren't for me. They might be for you, but looking at the tasks I do, even when I am outdoors, I am better suited by either a fixed blade or a folder that can slice. These overbuilt blades are neither and thus I am just not interested.