My Knife Preferences

This post will give you a better idea of things that I personally like in my knives. I hope it gives you a deeper insight when I give my thoughts on certain blades. Sometimes when I buy a new knife, I know I won't like it all that much because it doesn't fit my preferences. My tastes have changed a lot over the years, but I think they've finally developed into a core of preferences.

So there's a few aspects that I really need in a knife. The big three would be size, value, and good ergonomics. I love my small blades as you all probably know. They fit my hands much better, are easier for me to carry, and don't scare people at all. I also like value in my blades, because I don't believe in paying more than a $100 for a knife when a $50 one will do just fine. Lastly, with ergonomics, if a knife doesn't feel good in the hand, then I'll never use it. 

When it comes to blade shapes, there's not any particularly ones I lean to. I like most simple and practical blade shapes. One of my favorite blade shapes would have to be wharncliffes. I love the look of them, and they always function well for EDC tasks. The only blade shape I hate is tantos. They don't function well for EDC and look too tactical for my needs. I also tend to like crazier blade shapes, since they look super cool and different. The reverse S blade on the Spyderco Cricket looks awesome. 

Another aspect of the blade is the steel. If you've seen some of my last few posts, you all will know I don't care about blade steels all that much. All of the budget steels are perfectly fine for my needs. I've used a lot of VG-10 over the years, and that's a steel I really love. I prefer full-flat ground blades as they're normally better slicers. I also like the look of blades with black coating. I don't own many, but they definitely look much cooler than the boring silver blades.

For opening the blade, I prefer thumb holes. Spyderco is obviously the most notorious for doing the best ones. After that, I'd say I like thumb discs. I don't like thumbstuds all that much, but I've found thumb discs are much nicer. I also love flippers. They're super fun to play with and get the blade out quickly. I hate spring assisted knives with a passion. Autos are pretty cool though. 

With handle materials, I prefer the plasticky, FRN type of materials. They can feel cheap if they aren't well done, but they make the knife much lighter, can easily be made in tons of different colors, and are grippy. Spyderco's FRN is probably my favorite handle material. I don't like G10 that much. I hate most metal handles, whether they're stainless steel, aluminum, or titanium. Sometimes I'll find well-done metal handles, like on the CRKT Jettison, Spyderco Cricket, or Kershaw Launch 4. I like handles that don't have dedicated finger grooves. They're too restrictive, and most of the time aren't comfortable. I prefer handles that are flowing, so you can put your hand wherever you like.

Most of my smaller knives don't have clips, but when they do, I prefer wire clips. Those don't scream that you're carrying a knife. Spyderco does the best wire clip, and honestly I think the only company that does. I can't think of any Kershaw or CRKT knives that come with wire clips. The one type of clip I absolutely hate is deep carry clips. I don't like how they carry for some reason. It's kind of annoying, because a lot of the smaller knives will come with deep carry clips. 

So yeah, I think those are all my knife preferences. Hope you enjoyed reading this. Thanks for looking!