Is it true that Japanese sword makers were forced to do their famous process (bend and work the metal again and again) because of some other deficiency in their process (either source material or knowledge), and Europeans swords were just as good, but much faster to make because of superior starting materials/knowledge? So in a sense, the superiority of Katana swords is a myth?
I have to find the source. I’m not sure how good it is. But I’ve heard katanas are junk swords that work just fine because most of the time any cuttystabbything will do just fine.
There’s also that somewhat famous (infamous?) Lindy Beige video on the subject on YouTube. But I get a sense that there’s a lot of opinion and subjectivity when it comes to a historian’s perspective.
I'd think that it's more likely that all swords are about as good as any other. If katanas really were junk swords to the point where it made a material difference, Shogun would've used imported western sword designs (pre-isolation) and today's modern katanas would have ended up being just western swords.
I'd have assumed thay "any cuttystabbything will do" applies to basically any kind of sword.
People focus too much on swords, anyway. Pole weapons were the primary melee weapons for most combatants, including samurai, with swords being akin to sidearms.
But there are certainly trade-offs in design. Katanas are good at chopping unarmoured opponents and being sharp. The crossguard of a longsword can and was used to bludgeon an armored opponent, who would be basically immune to cuts. So if I abducted you and forced you to pick a sword from a lineup, then fight someone to the death, you'd want to know who you were fighting and what they had, and pick based on that.
That is true. The same reason why mediaval swords used a similar process, not folding but twisting the steel. The reason are impurities in the ore deposits. Japans deposits have more of them than e.g. European ones. Which kind of enabled more advanced metalurgy in Europe, ultimately leading to stuff like spring steel.
The folding and reforging reomves these impurities from the steel and changes the carbon content, making the stell more flexible or harder and thus sharper but also more brittle. Quite ingenious, if you aske me. Nowadays, Japanese deposits can be exploited with electromagnets, resulting in basically pure iron ore making all that metalurgy more or less unnecessary.
Not that Japanese swords were bad, they were as good as any other sword in killing people. So no katana superiority, but neither any deficiencies compared to European swords.
Also be aware that swords used to be the medival equivalent of modern day pistols. More or less.
I'm not a metalworker at all (I just spent a bunch of time last year researching it while diving down a rabbit hole of forging YouTube videos). However, I did stumble upon a longer explanation of this.
Folding steel is only required to remove impurities, so in theory high-quality steel doesn't require much folding (if any). However in Japan due to the volcanic nature of the land, the iron deposits are full of impurities which lead to the need for folding. After you've done enough folding you end up with a billet which is basically the same quality as western steel. In other words, there's nothing intrinsically better about the steel in a finished Japanese sword (if anything the starting materials are worse).
But again, I'm only speaking a someone who read about this and other bits of metalworking last year in a spurt of interest in the subject. Wikipedia claims otherwise:
> The folding removes impurities and helps even out the carbon content, while the alternating layers combine hardness with ductility to greatly enhance the toughness.
But in my mind this does raise the question "why don't all modern swordsmiths all use this technique if its objectively superior?"
I don't think that's quite right. An early name for Steel is Wrought Iron. The Iron had to be wrought, or worked, to remove the impurities. The main one is reducing the carbon content, when the metal is folded it allows the carbon to burn off as carbon dioxide, when the process is repeated often enough you can get the carbon content down to the low single digits. Until the invention of crucible steel this was the only way of producing steel.
Certainly perhaps the Japanese steel may have contained other impurities and been harder to refine but certainly European Iron had to be worked to make Steel.
Yeah, you're quite right. I guess I should've said it required more folding (given how much the folded aspect of Japanese steel is sold as being a key aspect of what makes it "unique")?
I think that's probably a bit of a simplification. My understanding is that the Japanise swordsmiths were able to forge weld a higher carbon cutting edge onto a softer steel blade. That is what gave them the properties of strength and edge keeping.
Because spring steel is even better. Before that, European swordsmiths did the same with Damast-steel. Spring steel made stuff like rapiers, short swords and so on possible. And long-swords, which only worked with spring steel against solid plate armor.
Katanas retain their sharpness better, so, as they are harder. And carried in wooden scabords and not metal ones as European sabres and such.
Japan is notoriously mineral-poor, so they had to put in extra effort that is not necessary with better raw materials. Further, I suppose this scarcity means that swords become more of a prestige item, meaning that you can put in more effort when manufacturing one. In contrast, when decent steel is cheap (relatively; we're still taking pre-industrialisation), then you might do something more akin to mass-production.
Those blades would have been so expensive in relative terms that I truly wonder how much real combat they were used in. In any war the peon's get the worst of it. Anyone rich/ senior enough to have them wasn't going to be on the front line.
Then there's the fact that the handle was usually attached by a single mekugi ( bamboo or ivory peg ) which is not strong from an engineering point of view and completely at odds with that engineering marvel of a blade but perfect for swapping out the handle to match the fashion occasion.
As always, there were crap ones and expensive ones. Same as everywhere. Also quite funny, the most expensive part, even today, of a katana from a Japanese smith is not the blade but all the other stuff.
IMHO, Katanas became or rather retained their religious status with Japan closing down and more or less freezing social development. The knighlty sowrd was somewhat replaced in that role in Europe with the introduction of firearms and the fall of Knights.
> Those blades would have been so expensive in relative terms that I truly wonder how much real combat they were used in. In any war the peon's get the worst of it. Anyone rich/ senior enough to have them wasn't going to be on the front line.
There are parallels in modern warfare.
Javelin missiles cost $175k, and are fired by troops making $20k/year. It gets even more disparate when you move into things like fighter jets.
Yes, Japanese blacksmithing and metal industry is very highly skilled to compensate the poor quality of iron ore available in the region.
The "ore" (called Tamahagane) is sandy/rocky stone material which needs to be forged repeatedly to remove impurities and get a higher carbon content in the steel. Then the forged bars are broken down, pieces sorted by carbon content and forge welded back together. This is a very labor and skill intensive process.
There was a really good blacksmithing video in YouTube about making a Katana from Tamahagane. Unfortunately I can't find it now, but my searches come up with many low quality vids on the subject.
If you're feeling adventurous, you can buy some Tamahagane sword steel ore from here:
> The "ore" (called Tamahagane) is sandy/rocky stone material which needs to be forged repeatedly to remove impurities and get a higher carbon content in the steel.
FWIW tamagahane is already a steel, made from processing ironsand. Tamahagane is not the raw material.
Ironsand is found throughout the world, but outside of the japanese few made actual iron (or steel) out of it historically, because there are usually better sources of iron available.
NZ is an other country which is very poor in iron ore but it has a lot of ironsand, some of its beaches are ironsand (which is genuinely dangerous: it heats up quickly and very high in the sun). While the japanese were largely the only historical users of ironsand, I think NZ is the only one which industrially smelts ironsand.
There aren't any iron ore mines in my corner of the world either. The material traditionally used was called "lake ore", which is iron-rich stones collected from lakes that are the result of activity from iron-consuming freshwater bacteria.
Some blacksmithing enthusiasts still work with lake ore for a fun challenge.
There is a lot of mythology in this area about steel folding, which acts to even out the amount of carbon in the steel and remove impurities as slag. The corresponding Western process is "Damascus steel" and you can still get decorative "damascening" (which is often just faked on the surface).
In that sense, I agree. I mainly wanted to highlight that there are "Damascus"-style products that are more than regular steel with laser etched patterns.
In that sense, I agree. I mainly wanted to highlight that there are "Damascus"-style products that are more than regular steel with laser etched patterns.
> So in a sense, the superiority of Katana swords is a myth?
It depends on what you mean by superiority. Perfect for local needs? Yes. Very good against an unarmoured target? Yes. It is also an important status symbol because of its price and artistic beauty. It also requires some amount of skill to use, because of its single edge and the angle at which you need to strike in order to cut. That increased its status as an elite tool.
They managed to do something that would not have been possible in this part of the world without the elite craftsmen. In that sense, it was superior to its competitors.
But was it superior to other swords? It's comparing apples and oranges. It could not deal with the heavy armor seen in the West. But many Western swords could not either. Some could because they were heavier or pointier... but that would have made them poor against unarmoured or low armored targets. You couldn't use it on horseback either, but the Japanese had longer versions for that.
It was a very good and beautiful tool, that's what it was.
I don't think this is true if you turn your eye towards later sword technology.
By the 14th century, Swiss sabers were simply more generally performant than just about anything that came before. They could stab almost as well as a long sword, and slash almost as well as a scimitar, with good balance, and the added advantage of having both a cross guard, and a light basket hand guard.
(Personally I think swords are an over-romanticized weapon, and almost wholly inferior to spears in large scale melee combat, but they still evolved like every other piece of military technology, and earlier designs like the katana have a lot of obvious design flaws when compared to what you see on the battlefield in the 14th, 15th, or 16th centuries)
Swiss Saber looks to be primarily one handed, whereas Katana is two handed. They both have somewhat similar long/curved blades though. And they both have the cross guard.
By competitors I meant locally or in areas with similar issues of poor raw materials.
Otherwise, I completely agree with you. The Swiss saber was made to deal with similar targets as the Katana, so it performs in similar ways with the added benefit of having all the features you would expect on a western sword. Another sword that is quite similar to the Katana is the Kriegsmessers, which is also two handed. Both benefited from the advance in European warfare technologies while the Katana kind of stalled in it's perceived "perfected" form.
Swords are over-romanticized now but I believe that it was also the case in the past. Any hardened soldier could have told you that spears or pikes where what won wars. Yet it's the sword we see and hear the most in art. The myths surrounding the Katana are probably as old as the sword itself.
viridian says "Personally I think swords are an over-romanticized weapon, and almost wholly inferior to spears..."
Yes, and even inferior to the staff. Here is a (1599!) plea to Englishmen to cease wastefully killing each other in duels (esp. with Italian mores/swords/styles) b/c those swords/styles are unsuited to generalized warfare (and thus provide no useful training for the common defense) and also are inferior to other more common weapons/styles, esp. the short staff, in single combat:
"Now for the vantage of the short staff against the sword and buckler, sword & target, two handed sword, single sword, sword and dagger, or rapier and poniard, there is no great question ... the short staff has the vantage against the battle axe, black bill, or halberd: the short staff has the advantage, by reason of the nimbleness and length: he will strike and thrust freely, and in better and swifter time than can the battle axe, black bill, or halberd, and by reason of his judgement, distance and time, fight safe. And this resolve upon, the short staff is the best weapon against all manner of weapons, the forest bill excepted...Also the short staff has advantage against two swords and daggers, or two rapiers, poniards and gauntlets(19)...
wherein Silver analyzes the interaction of various weapons in great detail, underscores the advantages of the short staff in most situations and in doing so presages Theodore Roosevelt:
"I have always been fond of the West African proverb: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick: you will go far!'"
He's talking about single combat. I don't think that's relevant to battlefield.
I expect stick would have the problem of not killing. A sword can easily stab someone dead or maim and any hit is (significant) bleeding. A hammer could bludgeon someone dead in a hit.
But a staff? I don't know about that. Yes you can hit somebody in a duel from afar and keep your distance, yet you hit them 5 times and they keep coming at you.
I believe that you are downplaying the effect of being hit across the head with a staff. It is no different than a hammer in the sense that you can break someone's limbs and kill them with a blow to the head. Combat staffs were not non-lethal.
Take for example the Bo that can easily break bones and can bend even a Katana with a proper strike.
user5994461 says "He's talking about single combat. I don't think that's relevant to battlefield."
In "Paradoxes of Defense" Silver talks about both:
a) He believes that dueling traditions adopted from other cultures are wasteful of English life and limb and provide little or no training for use on the battlefield. It was important that each well-bodied Englishman be able to serve his country in a war. Once war was declared, there was scant time for training with new weapons and the dueling skills were not very useful.
b) He discusses most weapons and considers their use in one-on-one, one-on-two and battle situations.
user5994461 says "I expect stick would have the problem of not killing."
Many have been killed/wounded by a "stick"(AKA rolling pin, tire tool, baseball bat, 2x4, flashlight, etc.). But "sticks" per se vary from a short stick, e.g., police baton, to a short staff, e.g., 1-2 inch diameter by ~1 meter length, to a longer staff (maybe ~3 meters and longer). Sizes differ for different cultures. Some "sticks" have lead/iron weights in them. Some are wrapped with metal.
A larger weapon is usually capable of dealing harder blows. "Sticks" kill by breaking heads and bones (ribs, shins, arms and legs, the neck, eyes, throat), etc. Usually they disable immediately (hard to fight with a broken leg or if your larynx has been crushed). It would be foolish to fight with a broken arm or missing eye if one could simply play dead.
user5994461 says "...yet you hit them 5 times and they keep coming at you."
You need a bigger stick or some exercise. Oh, and don't mess with those Orcs!8-))
Silver(author of Paradoxes of Defense) was likely more familiar with this than you or I. I don't doubt his experience.
I was more thinking of a stick like a spear without a tip. Not a bat or a short police baton.
One challenge with all these examples is that they are used because they are handy not because they are efficient. The police baton is perfect example of something used to NOT kill (manifestations would be terribly bloody if the police was responding with swords or daggers), it's better than nothing but you don't want to go to battle with that.
If we're talking medieval fighting the other party has significant padding if not a gambeson, and they're not waiting idle to get your best hit. If training with wood weapons is any indication, the one with a stick variant loose everytime, they can hit but they get closed upon anyway and stabbed/slashed.
If you make the (long) stick a spear, a tip that can cut and stab, it's a great weapon. You'd certainly want to have a spear not just a long stick.
user5994461 says"If training with wood weapons is any indication, the one with a stick variant loose everytime, they can hit but they get closed upon anyway and stabbed/slashed."
A wood mock up of a sword would, of course, not be as useful against an iron sword (especially if deployed in a sword-like manner) as would a 6-foot staff of hickory. What kind of "wood weapon" are you speaking of? Are you speaking in the context of some "dojo" or some style of martial art?
One problem with dojo drills is that the opponent must "hold back" due to possibility of injury. Also, in a dojo, only one style (e.g., use of the rapier) is usually being taught: not unsurprisingly all other styles somehow fail to measure up. There are many reasons for this: unskilled users, absence of in-house expert ("sensei", "master", etc.) in the opposing style, the power of suggestion.
Don't confuse choreographed drills in a dojo with a real fight/battle. Some dojos sell the belief that their weapon of choice (longsword, rapier, long staff, Klingon Bat'Leth, short staff, firearm, knife, bare hands, etc.) is the "one and true" weapon that will protect you against all comers. But they'can't all be dominant in all situations and that is part of what Silvers' "Paradoxes of Defense" says.
In a real fight the pole cracks skulls, breaks legs and arms and is thrust into mouths, noses, eyes and necks before an opponent's blade can reach the poler. A "stick", as you call it, can be as long but is likely quicker than the sword, cannot be easily damaged by the sword and as Silvers summarizes, is superior in battle.
Pictures of men wearing gambesons show exposed faces and limbs. The gambeson likely lowers mobility (and might be uncomfortably warm). It resembles a bulletproof vest, most which spend their time in the closet. And, as you may know, a man with a knife can make short work of a man in or out of a bulletproof vest (there are gaps).
> It could not deal with the heavy armor seen in the West. But many Western swords could not either. Some could because they were heavier or pointier... but that would have made them poor against unarmoured or low armored targets. You couldn't use it on horseback either, but the Japanese had longer versions for that.
That's what different sword grips were for, though. It is common to grasp a sword by the blade, in order to parry, or to use it as a kind of spear, or even to reverse the grip on the weapon, and striking with the edges of the cross-guard - as you would with a hammer.
> That's what different sword grips were for, though. It is common to grasp a sword by the blade, in order to parry, or to use it as a kind of spear, or even to reverse the grip on the weapon, and striking with the edges of the cross-guard - as you would with a hammer.
In a serious battle however, you'd simply call the squire to fetch you a war-hammer, a spear, or whatever other weapon you needed.
European weapons are fascinating: they had a different weapon for every kind of battle situation. One polearm to pull people off of horses. Another polearm to break through shields and armor. Etc. etc.
The Halberd for Europeans, the Qiang in China, the Naginata of Japan.
Across the world, it has been demonstrated that to make a "better sword", you put the sword on the end of a long stick. Such a weapon requires less training, and the greater amount of wood makes it lighter and cheaper to manufacture.
The additional swing weight allowed Halberd users to regularly break shields and punch through armor. Length and swing-weight are key.
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Swords almost universally were status symbols. It was expensive to make a sword no matter what culture you're in, so carrying a fancy sword indicated nobility.
Smaller weapons (and smaller shields) like swords were for status and every day situations. Bucklers / Rapiers don't make any sense as a battlefield weapon. But when you consider the day-to-day life, walking around a city... the smaller blade and smaller shield suddenly make sense.
I asked a question like this on Ask Metafilter[0] and got some detailed answers. The consensus among metallurgists, rather than swordmakers, is apparently that almost everyone had crap iron to work with, and various techniques for dealing with that; but Japanese process was better overall because the rarity/expense of iron in Japan meant more effort (expense) put into labour. It was easier to get a cheap, crappy blade in Europe.
No, it is a complete myth, something that virtually all sword makers across the world were doing. Japanese iron ore was actually higher quality than most, and they had plenty of iron ore for sword making (though iron was later imported during the industrial revolution).
Damascus: its hard to make and expensive. My son has a shop, and makes it by his own process (surface polishing, forge welding, custom 50-ton press, cut and repeat) and provides it to boutique knife makers. He can create blanks as necessary. And sometimes do a deal where he takes a cut of the knife sale, to enable smaller makers to use this premium quality product.
There are a lot of steels called Damascus now, probably more accurately called Damascus Style. Basic idea is to keep heating and folding the steel, then hammer it flat, then heat and fold again and again. Then, once you fashion the knife blade you etch it in acid and it shows up all the striations from the folding.
Interesting patterns can also be made starting with lots of pieces of steel like a handful of bolts and you heat and twist them together.
If you go to Birmingham Museum (the UK) One, they have an exhibit of swords from the late samurai period that have be re hilted by a guy who went to Japan and spent several years learning the traditional methods.
Just to add on: the wavy hamon pattern is created by applying clay to the steel. When the blade is then quenched the clay slows the temperature change beneath it keeping that part of steel blade softer then the rapidly quenched cutting edge. The advantage of this was the soft spine would be tougher (less brittle) while the harder edge could be made sharper.
It was, yes. Today, many knife makers (including the parent comment) make pattern-welded steel by alternating high/low carbon steel. It's not traditional damascus or wootz. It looks beautiful, but it's not "real" damascus.
Here's a link where folks have 'rediscovered' how to make real wootz/damascus. It's the most academically rigorous attempt I'm aware of, and I'd call it a success:
Crucible steel techniques were always carefully guarded and never "public", but never really "lost". This stuff popped up regularly through history in various cultures, the Wootz smelters in south India were, I believe, still in operation when European colonizers were able to document the process. And by the mid 19th century it was fairly well understood by modern metallurgy.
It's just hard to do and requires a giant furnace. The folded stuff modern hobbyists are making looks almost the same and can be done in a propane forge.
As far as I understand, the interesting qualities of Damascus steel, beyond the patterning, are flexibility and the ability to stay sharp. AFAIK the "rediscovered" Damascus steel demonstrates both, if properly made, so it should be close enough to the historical prototype.
Yes, you are correct. We know that what is marketed as damascus steel today is not at all the same.
"Damascus steel" today is mostly made for visual effect and the name is used for marketing purposes. I personally think this is ok, since there is no competition with actual damascus steel.
The visual/marketing focus on so-called "Damascus" steel is almost ridiculous:
I own a "Damascus" knife. Like many well-designed modern knives, it uses a core of hard steel in the middle (VG-10 in my case) clad between two layers of soft steel. This is a very good design, enabling one to always have a hard steel for the cutting edge while also having the durability of soft steel from the bulk of the knife matter.
Now a moment's thought shows that the "Damascus" part - which is on the outer cladding layers - has absolutely nothing to do with the cutting edge, and is therefore entirely superfluous from a functionality standpoint :)
AFAICT the Damascus steel in this example is the decorative soft steel on the outside with a thin piece of brittle hardened steel on the inside to keep the edge sharp
Having attended University of Forged in Fire for many years, I am now an overconfident internet authority on knife making. What you are referring to is call "san mai", not Damascus.
I think you're both right - yes, the harder-steel-in-the-middle is what gets called 'san mai' (though smiths all over the world have forge-welded harder steel to softer iron for tools and in knives for a long time), and the parent was describing a knife with decorative 'damascus' patterns on the outer layers of a harder steel center. I have a similar Shun [1] I got from Williams-Sonoma years ago, which slices onions as usual, but looks good doing it.
Not really. The technique is well known and pretty simple.
If there are differences between old and modern Damacus steel, it's mostly down to impurities in materials, but you can get all kinds of different results depending on material and technique. Some are vary similar to the original.
Damascus steel, old or new, is kind of shitty for practical purposes when compared to ordinary, good quality tool steel we have now, so it's all about the looks anyway.
The knowledge has been lost, but also probably never really existed. The legendary damascus steel had a specific mix of impurities, things other than carbon and iron, but the smiths of the time could not have known of those impurities. They would simply know that iron from certain sources/mines was magically better. When those sources of iron ran dry, damascus steel stopped being a thing. Today it is more of an ornamental pattern than a practical improvement in the blade.
On the opposite side, Japanese swordsmiths worked with very pure iron heavily refined from sources like river sand. It didn't have many impurities, resulting in rather soft steel. That in turn mandated all the folding that Japanese swords are famous for. Damascus steel was good ingredients turned into great steel. Japanese steel was mediocre ingredients turned into good swords.
It seems likely 3 factors were important in creating "real" Damascus steel. The key one being the mixture of elements in the raw ore that specifically came from the mines in a specific region of southern India, and once that ore ran out the "secret was lost".
There's also the knowledge of the forging process - namely the temperatures, heat treatment processes used, and what organics (aka carbon) got mixed in.
Actually, the iron they were able to refine wasn't terrifically pure because of the source they had for it, sand. The folding wouldn't have done anything to make pure iron into a better blade.
What all that folding did do, however, is ensure that all the impurities in the metal were evenly distributed throughout the blade, thus allowing lower quality metal to be used to make high quality blades.
Damascus is used colloquially to refer to pattern-welded steel where a maker forge welds a stack assembled from thin strips of steel where a high nickel alloy is alternated with a low nickel alloy. The different steel alloys have similar properties so they form a solid piece but the heterogenous structure is revealed by etching with acid and the alternating strips of high and low nickel alloy make pretty patterns.
Kershaw (previously a premium brand, now available at walmart) is one of my favorite knife brands. The steel can take a razor edge and sharpens easily.
I've owned 30+ nice knives over the last 15 years, and the Kershaw Leek that I lost a few years back was one of the sharpest I've ever had. Great tool.
My favorite knife is a Kershaw Blur, which uses S30V from Crucible. It is not, however, easy to sharpen. Nowadays at least, most of the easy to sharpen Kershaws are made from cheaper Chinese solutions, which are not as hard but definitely easy to sharpen.
Yea, easy to sharpen steels are like AUS-8 and 8CR and other cheap Chinese steels.
Kershaw's lower end line are often full of really cheap Chinese steels. Same with CRKT.
I've taken a "buy good knives" stance. My favorite is definitely not cheap, but it gets a ton of carry time. I'd also hate myself if I lost it lol
But if you're the type to carry a knife, a good knife goes a long way and getting a knife steel on it that can last is also a good way to go. Modern super steels are insane.
Steels with significant amounts of vanadium carbide like S30V should be sharpened with diamond abrasives, as the carbides are harder than most natural stones. They will still take longer to sharpen than less wear-resistant steels, of course, but it should eliminate the difficulty in actually producing a sharp edge.
The company that owns Kershaw also owns Zero Tolerance, which is a higher end brand. They use steels like S35VN and 20CV, which are fairly high end steels. 20CV is roughly equivalent to M390.
Not many steels sharpen really easily and stay sharp long. Usually you lose edge retention for ease of sharpening. M390 and 20CV are hard to sharpen but hold an edge really well.
My personal favorite is M4, it has superb edge retention, is tough to sharpen, but isn't as stainless so is often coated to prevent rust. Definitely my favorite though. It's just a joy to use.
Kershaw has a US-made product line and a China-made product line, which typically use different steels.
The steel used in most US-made Kershaws is Sandvik 14C28N. This is very likely the steel you're thinking of, and the owner of knifesteelnerds.com rated it as his favorite budget steel[0]. It has extremely high toughness (resistance to chipping/breaking) and a fine grain structure that allows it to take a very sharp edge without microscopic rolling/chipping. Some other steels are used, including 420HC on low-end models, CPM154 on automatics, and several steels commonly found on more expensive knives in special editions.
Chinese Kershaws usually use 8Cr13MoV, and don't put much effort into heat treatment. Some use D2, which is semi-stainless, somewhat hard to sharpen, and low-toughness (it chips easily), but high in wear resistance. Some low-end models use even cheaper steels.
I have a benchmade made of ATS-34 from Hitachi. Soon after, they seemed to switch to US steels (S30V and 154CM). I always wondered if it was due to changes in import tariffs.
I've started collecting Spyderccos over the past year and have really enjoyed trying out different steels. So far I have knifes in S30V, S35VN, Cruwear, 52100, M390, and 20CV. Realistically S30V/S35VN is great for almost all everyday users; on the other hand power users may want to look at higher end steels like M390. If you've never carried a knife recommend starting with a Spyderco PM2.
Where does one go for unbiased knife reviews? I see a recommendation like this (and I know Spyderco is a respected brand) and then have nowhere to get impartial confirmation of it.
I just Googled "folding pocket knife edc reviews" and one of the top three results was "EDC.ninja". Now maybe they're the Consumer Reports of everyday carry products, but somehow I doubt it. So where can I go instead?
I absolutely love Nick Shabazz's youtube channel. I also occasionally check out Michael Christy's channel, which is pretty hardcore and aimed more at steel/sharpening enthusiasts instead of your everyday joe types. Bladeforums has a lot of smart people discussing knives, but I wouldn't call it a site specifically for reviews per se.
Do you want reviews on specific knives or specific steels used in knives?
/r/knifeclub generally has decent reviews from time to time on the knives themselves (build quality, design, ergonomics, annoyances) and there are some ok YouTubers that review knives as a channel (this sort of content gets really repetitive and common themes for a brand start to emerge) but in depth steel analysis tends to exist mostly on blogs like the article linked or YouTubers that are more focused on knife sharpening skills, or content that overlaps on industrial or academic metallurgy.
Like most hobbies you can geek out on, you quickly reach a point of diminishing returns on your investment. If you don't plan on diving in completely and just want a single really high end pocket knife go budget $300-$400 (you may not spend it all), survey the landscape and buy what appeals to you most, otherwise you're going to sink a grand or two into sampling everything trying to discern the differences yourself.
It's pretty much impossible to get an unbiased review of everyday carry knives because personal bias is the whole point of the industry. If you just need a knife for regular things like cutting open fruit and boxes, then almost any cheap thing with a cutting edge will do. People who bother to hold opinions and do detailed reviews of pocket knives are coming at the subject from an essentially aesthetic perspective.
It's sort of like looking for unbiased reviews of mechanical wristwatches. If you just want to tell time, a $20 quartz Timex will work fine. Once you step away from the criteria of basic functionality, you're entering the land of opinions.
Edit: this comes across kind of judgmental, which is not what I meant. I just mean that the knife you like is going to come down to your own opinion, and the only way to form that is to check out lots of options and other opinions and see what you agree with.
The Buck 110 is widely considered a "classic" folding knife, but it is way too clunky and heavy to make a good EDC knife. I have heard lots of good things about the Ontario Rat II, especially the D2 version which you can pick up for about $40, but have never tried it myself. The Rat II is generally considered a good "starter" folding knife. Personally I'd recommend going straight to Spyderco - for $100 you can get something really high quality which you will enjoy and use. I got my brother a Para 3 LW and it set me back $98. He seems to like it.
Spyderco Delica. Good steel that isn’t too hard to sharpen (VG10) and common enough that you don’t have to pay out the nose. Fiber reinforced nylon handle is strong and light.
Edit: without getting into the deep details of different steels, just keep in mind that many ‘higher end’ knives tend to be harder/more brittle than your every day Walmart special. This provides real advantages in edge sharpness and retention, but you don’t want to go using them as a pry bar as they are more likely to snap. Knives are for cutting, not prying.
Also, 20 min on YouTube to understand sharpening goes a long way.
For fixed-blade knives, Morakniv is extremely popular. They don't use the fanciest steels, and the design is outright boring... but it works really well, it's very cheap for what it is, and scandi grind is the easiest one to maintain.
Huh. I have a benchmade 940 and honestly I'm not a fan. The main thing is that I don't like thumbstuds for deployment, especially since the lock is sticky. Also the ergos never felt great; the knife is too slim for me. I never tried a griptillian, thanks for the rec!
It’s for people who like to carry around an expensive item. If you need a knife for your work, odds are that a box cutter is the best choice since you don’t have to worry about dulling the blade. This is what I used to carry. Most people with the expensive EDC knives work in an office and use them for cutting open packets of m&m’s
There is some truth to what you are saying: 95% of people really don't need a fancy knife with a high end steel. On the other hand, I think there's more to it than just wanting to "carry around an expensive item." I enjoy the craftsmanship and engineering that goes into making a nice knife. I find that a three-inch knife blade is useful in a way that a one-inch box-cutter blade is not, for example when I want to peel an orange or sharpen a pencil. I also carry a knife since I believe a knife may be helpful in an emergency situation - imagine, for example, you are in a car accident and your seatbelt jams. With a good knife you could easily cut yourself out - much harder to do with a boxcutter.
Perhaps ... I was not trying to value-judge the carrying of expensive knives for non-critical everyday tasks; that's fine. I was questioning recommending newcomers to spend so much to find out if they enjoy knives. :)
Personally, if Morakniv [1] made a folding knife[+], it would probably be just right for me. :)
I have one smallish for picnics and such, but haven't tried their larger knives. I think I personally would lean towards something a bit more "modern-feeling"/technical.
I guess if money was no object, and I were more of an actual "knife-guy", I would try something from Fällkniven [1].
105 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 208 ms ] threadThere’s also that somewhat famous (infamous?) Lindy Beige video on the subject on YouTube. But I get a sense that there’s a lot of opinion and subjectivity when it comes to a historian’s perspective.
I'd have assumed thay "any cuttystabbything will do" applies to basically any kind of sword.
Now I’m curious and have to explore this further.
But there are certainly trade-offs in design. Katanas are good at chopping unarmoured opponents and being sharp. The crossguard of a longsword can and was used to bludgeon an armored opponent, who would be basically immune to cuts. So if I abducted you and forced you to pick a sword from a lineup, then fight someone to the death, you'd want to know who you were fighting and what they had, and pick based on that.
The folding and reforging reomves these impurities from the steel and changes the carbon content, making the stell more flexible or harder and thus sharper but also more brittle. Quite ingenious, if you aske me. Nowadays, Japanese deposits can be exploited with electromagnets, resulting in basically pure iron ore making all that metalurgy more or less unnecessary.
Not that Japanese swords were bad, they were as good as any other sword in killing people. So no katana superiority, but neither any deficiencies compared to European swords.
Also be aware that swords used to be the medival equivalent of modern day pistols. More or less.
Folding steel is only required to remove impurities, so in theory high-quality steel doesn't require much folding (if any). However in Japan due to the volcanic nature of the land, the iron deposits are full of impurities which lead to the need for folding. After you've done enough folding you end up with a billet which is basically the same quality as western steel. In other words, there's nothing intrinsically better about the steel in a finished Japanese sword (if anything the starting materials are worse).
But again, I'm only speaking a someone who read about this and other bits of metalworking last year in a spurt of interest in the subject. Wikipedia claims otherwise:
> The folding removes impurities and helps even out the carbon content, while the alternating layers combine hardness with ductility to greatly enhance the toughness.
But in my mind this does raise the question "why don't all modern swordsmiths all use this technique if its objectively superior?"
Certainly perhaps the Japanese steel may have contained other impurities and been harder to refine but certainly European Iron had to be worked to make Steel.
Katanas retain their sharpness better, so, as they are harder. And carried in wooden scabords and not metal ones as European sabres and such.
Those blades would have been so expensive in relative terms that I truly wonder how much real combat they were used in. In any war the peon's get the worst of it. Anyone rich/ senior enough to have them wasn't going to be on the front line.
Then there's the fact that the handle was usually attached by a single mekugi ( bamboo or ivory peg ) which is not strong from an engineering point of view and completely at odds with that engineering marvel of a blade but perfect for swapping out the handle to match the fashion occasion.
IMHO, Katanas became or rather retained their religious status with Japan closing down and more or less freezing social development. The knighlty sowrd was somewhat replaced in that role in Europe with the introduction of firearms and the fall of Knights.
There are parallels in modern warfare.
Javelin missiles cost $175k, and are fired by troops making $20k/year. It gets even more disparate when you move into things like fighter jets.
The "ore" (called Tamahagane) is sandy/rocky stone material which needs to be forged repeatedly to remove impurities and get a higher carbon content in the steel. Then the forged bars are broken down, pieces sorted by carbon content and forge welded back together. This is a very labor and skill intensive process.
There was a really good blacksmithing video in YouTube about making a Katana from Tamahagane. Unfortunately I can't find it now, but my searches come up with many low quality vids on the subject.
If you're feeling adventurous, you can buy some Tamahagane sword steel ore from here:
https://www.dictum.com/en/steel-cca/japanese-sword-steel-tam...
FWIW tamagahane is already a steel, made from processing ironsand. Tamahagane is not the raw material.
Ironsand is found throughout the world, but outside of the japanese few made actual iron (or steel) out of it historically, because there are usually better sources of iron available.
NZ is an other country which is very poor in iron ore but it has a lot of ironsand, some of its beaches are ironsand (which is genuinely dangerous: it heats up quickly and very high in the sun). While the japanese were largely the only historical users of ironsand, I think NZ is the only one which industrially smelts ironsand.
There aren't any iron ore mines in my corner of the world either. The material traditionally used was called "lake ore", which is iron-rich stones collected from lakes that are the result of activity from iron-consuming freshwater bacteria.
Some blacksmithing enthusiasts still work with lake ore for a fun challenge.
The blog I would refer people to is https://acoup.blog/2020/10/02/collections-iron-how-did-they-... (in general as well as that post); I don't think they've covered katanas specifically but they are great on detail.
For example, there is this smithy that is local to me: https://www.darksword-armory.com/medieval-weapons/elite-seri...
> also known as pattern welded steel swords
Pattern welded steel is not the same thing as the ‘original’ Damascus steel from 1000+ years ago.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel
It depends on what you mean by superiority. Perfect for local needs? Yes. Very good against an unarmoured target? Yes. It is also an important status symbol because of its price and artistic beauty. It also requires some amount of skill to use, because of its single edge and the angle at which you need to strike in order to cut. That increased its status as an elite tool.
They managed to do something that would not have been possible in this part of the world without the elite craftsmen. In that sense, it was superior to its competitors.
But was it superior to other swords? It's comparing apples and oranges. It could not deal with the heavy armor seen in the West. But many Western swords could not either. Some could because they were heavier or pointier... but that would have made them poor against unarmoured or low armored targets. You couldn't use it on horseback either, but the Japanese had longer versions for that.
It was a very good and beautiful tool, that's what it was.
By the 14th century, Swiss sabers were simply more generally performant than just about anything that came before. They could stab almost as well as a long sword, and slash almost as well as a scimitar, with good balance, and the added advantage of having both a cross guard, and a light basket hand guard.
(Personally I think swords are an over-romanticized weapon, and almost wholly inferior to spears in large scale melee combat, but they still evolved like every other piece of military technology, and earlier designs like the katana have a lot of obvious design flaws when compared to what you see on the battlefield in the 14th, 15th, or 16th centuries)
Otherwise, I completely agree with you. The Swiss saber was made to deal with similar targets as the Katana, so it performs in similar ways with the added benefit of having all the features you would expect on a western sword. Another sword that is quite similar to the Katana is the Kriegsmessers, which is also two handed. Both benefited from the advance in European warfare technologies while the Katana kind of stalled in it's perceived "perfected" form.
Swords are over-romanticized now but I believe that it was also the case in the past. Any hardened soldier could have told you that spears or pikes where what won wars. Yet it's the sword we see and hear the most in art. The myths surrounding the Katana are probably as old as the sword itself.
Yes, and even inferior to the staff. Here is a (1599!) plea to Englishmen to cease wastefully killing each other in duels (esp. with Italian mores/swords/styles) b/c those swords/styles are unsuited to generalized warfare (and thus provide no useful training for the common defense) and also are inferior to other more common weapons/styles, esp. the short staff, in single combat:
"Now for the vantage of the short staff against the sword and buckler, sword & target, two handed sword, single sword, sword and dagger, or rapier and poniard, there is no great question ... the short staff has the vantage against the battle axe, black bill, or halberd: the short staff has the advantage, by reason of the nimbleness and length: he will strike and thrust freely, and in better and swifter time than can the battle axe, black bill, or halberd, and by reason of his judgement, distance and time, fight safe. And this resolve upon, the short staff is the best weapon against all manner of weapons, the forest bill excepted...Also the short staff has advantage against two swords and daggers, or two rapiers, poniards and gauntlets(19)...
From George Silver's Paradoxes of Defense:
http://www.pbm.com/~lindahl/paradoxes.html
wherein Silver analyzes the interaction of various weapons in great detail, underscores the advantages of the short staff in most situations and in doing so presages Theodore Roosevelt:
"I have always been fond of the West African proverb: 'Speak softly and carry a big stick: you will go far!'"
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/speak-softly-and-carry-a...
I expect stick would have the problem of not killing. A sword can easily stab someone dead or maim and any hit is (significant) bleeding. A hammer could bludgeon someone dead in a hit.
But a staff? I don't know about that. Yes you can hit somebody in a duel from afar and keep your distance, yet you hit them 5 times and they keep coming at you.
Take for example the Bo that can easily break bones and can bend even a Katana with a proper strike.
Even pool cues will kill when used in bar fights.
In "Paradoxes of Defense" Silver talks about both:
a) He believes that dueling traditions adopted from other cultures are wasteful of English life and limb and provide little or no training for use on the battlefield. It was important that each well-bodied Englishman be able to serve his country in a war. Once war was declared, there was scant time for training with new weapons and the dueling skills were not very useful.
b) He discusses most weapons and considers their use in one-on-one, one-on-two and battle situations.
user5994461 says "I expect stick would have the problem of not killing."
Many have been killed/wounded by a "stick"(AKA rolling pin, tire tool, baseball bat, 2x4, flashlight, etc.). But "sticks" per se vary from a short stick, e.g., police baton, to a short staff, e.g., 1-2 inch diameter by ~1 meter length, to a longer staff (maybe ~3 meters and longer). Sizes differ for different cultures. Some "sticks" have lead/iron weights in them. Some are wrapped with metal.
A larger weapon is usually capable of dealing harder blows. "Sticks" kill by breaking heads and bones (ribs, shins, arms and legs, the neck, eyes, throat), etc. Usually they disable immediately (hard to fight with a broken leg or if your larynx has been crushed). It would be foolish to fight with a broken arm or missing eye if one could simply play dead.
user5994461 says "...yet you hit them 5 times and they keep coming at you."
You need a bigger stick or some exercise. Oh, and don't mess with those Orcs!8-))
Silver(author of Paradoxes of Defense) was likely more familiar with this than you or I. I don't doubt his experience.
An English nursery rhyme:
Sticks and stones
may break my bones
But words shall never hurt me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sticks_and_Stones
One challenge with all these examples is that they are used because they are handy not because they are efficient. The police baton is perfect example of something used to NOT kill (manifestations would be terribly bloody if the police was responding with swords or daggers), it's better than nothing but you don't want to go to battle with that.
If we're talking medieval fighting the other party has significant padding if not a gambeson, and they're not waiting idle to get your best hit. If training with wood weapons is any indication, the one with a stick variant loose everytime, they can hit but they get closed upon anyway and stabbed/slashed.
If you make the (long) stick a spear, a tip that can cut and stab, it's a great weapon. You'd certainly want to have a spear not just a long stick.
A wood mock up of a sword would, of course, not be as useful against an iron sword (especially if deployed in a sword-like manner) as would a 6-foot staff of hickory. What kind of "wood weapon" are you speaking of? Are you speaking in the context of some "dojo" or some style of martial art?
One problem with dojo drills is that the opponent must "hold back" due to possibility of injury. Also, in a dojo, only one style (e.g., use of the rapier) is usually being taught: not unsurprisingly all other styles somehow fail to measure up. There are many reasons for this: unskilled users, absence of in-house expert ("sensei", "master", etc.) in the opposing style, the power of suggestion.
Don't confuse choreographed drills in a dojo with a real fight/battle. Some dojos sell the belief that their weapon of choice (longsword, rapier, long staff, Klingon Bat'Leth, short staff, firearm, knife, bare hands, etc.) is the "one and true" weapon that will protect you against all comers. But they'can't all be dominant in all situations and that is part of what Silvers' "Paradoxes of Defense" says.
In a real fight the pole cracks skulls, breaks legs and arms and is thrust into mouths, noses, eyes and necks before an opponent's blade can reach the poler. A "stick", as you call it, can be as long but is likely quicker than the sword, cannot be easily damaged by the sword and as Silvers summarizes, is superior in battle.
Pictures of men wearing gambesons show exposed faces and limbs. The gambeson likely lowers mobility (and might be uncomfortably warm). It resembles a bulletproof vest, most which spend their time in the closet. And, as you may know, a man with a knife can make short work of a man in or out of a bulletproof vest (there are gaps).
That's what different sword grips were for, though. It is common to grasp a sword by the blade, in order to parry, or to use it as a kind of spear, or even to reverse the grip on the weapon, and striking with the edges of the cross-guard - as you would with a hammer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGr0aE7UQpQ
In a serious battle however, you'd simply call the squire to fetch you a war-hammer, a spear, or whatever other weapon you needed.
European weapons are fascinating: they had a different weapon for every kind of battle situation. One polearm to pull people off of horses. Another polearm to break through shields and armor. Etc. etc.
The Halberd for Europeans, the Qiang in China, the Naginata of Japan.
Across the world, it has been demonstrated that to make a "better sword", you put the sword on the end of a long stick. Such a weapon requires less training, and the greater amount of wood makes it lighter and cheaper to manufacture.
The additional swing weight allowed Halberd users to regularly break shields and punch through armor. Length and swing-weight are key.
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Swords almost universally were status symbols. It was expensive to make a sword no matter what culture you're in, so carrying a fancy sword indicated nobility.
Smaller weapons (and smaller shields) like swords were for status and every day situations. Bucklers / Rapiers don't make any sense as a battlefield weapon. But when you consider the day-to-day life, walking around a city... the smaller blade and smaller shield suddenly make sense.
[0] https://ask.metafilter.com/153280/Steel-is-strong-but-flesh-...
See this answer on a subreddit dedicated to high quality answers by historians: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/77tq5r/japan...
Interesting patterns can also be made starting with lots of pieces of steel like a handful of bolts and you heat and twist them together.
If you go to Birmingham Museum (the UK) One, they have an exhibit of swords from the late samurai period that have be re hilted by a guy who went to Japan and spent several years learning the traditional methods.
Here's a link where folks have 'rediscovered' how to make real wootz/damascus. It's the most academically rigorous attempt I'm aware of, and I'd call it a success:
https://craftsmanship.net/the-wootz-hunter/
It's just hard to do and requires a giant furnace. The folded stuff modern hobbyists are making looks almost the same and can be done in a propane forge.
"Damascus steel" today is mostly made for visual effect and the name is used for marketing purposes. I personally think this is ok, since there is no competition with actual damascus steel.
I own a "Damascus" knife. Like many well-designed modern knives, it uses a core of hard steel in the middle (VG-10 in my case) clad between two layers of soft steel. This is a very good design, enabling one to always have a hard steel for the cutting edge while also having the durability of soft steel from the bulk of the knife matter.
Now a moment's thought shows that the "Damascus" part - which is on the outer cladding layers - has absolutely nothing to do with the cutting edge, and is therefore entirely superfluous from a functionality standpoint :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_mai
1: https://shun.kaiusa.com/
Damascus steel, old or new, is kind of shitty for practical purposes when compared to ordinary, good quality tool steel we have now, so it's all about the looks anyway.
https://www.surlatable.com/miyabi-kaizen-ii-chefs-knife/2403...
They're considered high-end but still pretty common. That said, Damascus is more of an aesthetic these days.
On the opposite side, Japanese swordsmiths worked with very pure iron heavily refined from sources like river sand. It didn't have many impurities, resulting in rather soft steel. That in turn mandated all the folding that Japanese swords are famous for. Damascus steel was good ingredients turned into great steel. Japanese steel was mediocre ingredients turned into good swords.
This page has interesting info. https://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeven-9809.ht...
It seems likely 3 factors were important in creating "real" Damascus steel. The key one being the mixture of elements in the raw ore that specifically came from the mines in a specific region of southern India, and once that ore ran out the "secret was lost". There's also the knowledge of the forging process - namely the temperatures, heat treatment processes used, and what organics (aka carbon) got mixed in.
What all that folding did do, however, is ensure that all the impurities in the metal were evenly distributed throughout the blade, thus allowing lower quality metal to be used to make high quality blades.
Anyone happen to know where they're sourced from?
https://knifeinformer.com/discovering-the-best-knife-steel/
Like many makers, they use many different steels across their collection, so you'll need to be more specific. See: https://kershaw.kaiusa.com/blade-steels
Kershaw's lower end line are often full of really cheap Chinese steels. Same with CRKT.
I've taken a "buy good knives" stance. My favorite is definitely not cheap, but it gets a ton of carry time. I'd also hate myself if I lost it lol
But if you're the type to carry a knife, a good knife goes a long way and getting a knife steel on it that can last is also a good way to go. Modern super steels are insane.
I had an S30V leek I got from CK& T and carried for many years that I eventually lost to airport severity.
I wouldn't call S30V easy to sharpen though.
The company that owns Kershaw also owns Zero Tolerance, which is a higher end brand. They use steels like S35VN and 20CV, which are fairly high end steels. 20CV is roughly equivalent to M390.
Not many steels sharpen really easily and stay sharp long. Usually you lose edge retention for ease of sharpening. M390 and 20CV are hard to sharpen but hold an edge really well.
My personal favorite is M4, it has superb edge retention, is tough to sharpen, but isn't as stainless so is often coated to prevent rust. Definitely my favorite though. It's just a joy to use.
The steel used in most US-made Kershaws is Sandvik 14C28N. This is very likely the steel you're thinking of, and the owner of knifesteelnerds.com rated it as his favorite budget steel[0]. It has extremely high toughness (resistance to chipping/breaking) and a fine grain structure that allows it to take a very sharp edge without microscopic rolling/chipping. Some other steels are used, including 420HC on low-end models, CPM154 on automatics, and several steels commonly found on more expensive knives in special editions.
Chinese Kershaws usually use 8Cr13MoV, and don't put much effort into heat treatment. Some use D2, which is semi-stainless, somewhat hard to sharpen, and low-toughness (it chips easily), but high in wear resistance. Some low-end models use even cheaper steels.
[0] https://knifesteelnerds.com/2020/06/15/what-is-the-best-budg...
It’s great to be able so easily to forge or material removal shaping of many blades. A lot of thanks to all these merchants.
Mining https://acoup.blog/2020/09/18/collections-iron-how-did-they-...
Smelting & Charcoal Making https://acoup.blog/2020/09/25/collections-iron-how-did-they-...
Blacksmithing https://acoup.blog/2020/10/02/collections-iron-how-did-they-...
I just Googled "folding pocket knife edc reviews" and one of the top three results was "EDC.ninja". Now maybe they're the Consumer Reports of everyday carry products, but somehow I doubt it. So where can I go instead?
https://www.google.com/search?q=folding+pocket+knife+edc+rev...
/r/knifeclub generally has decent reviews from time to time on the knives themselves (build quality, design, ergonomics, annoyances) and there are some ok YouTubers that review knives as a channel (this sort of content gets really repetitive and common themes for a brand start to emerge) but in depth steel analysis tends to exist mostly on blogs like the article linked or YouTubers that are more focused on knife sharpening skills, or content that overlaps on industrial or academic metallurgy.
Like most hobbies you can geek out on, you quickly reach a point of diminishing returns on your investment. If you don't plan on diving in completely and just want a single really high end pocket knife go budget $300-$400 (you may not spend it all), survey the landscape and buy what appeals to you most, otherwise you're going to sink a grand or two into sampling everything trying to discern the differences yourself.
It's sort of like looking for unbiased reviews of mechanical wristwatches. If you just want to tell time, a $20 quartz Timex will work fine. Once you step away from the criteria of basic functionality, you're entering the land of opinions.
Edit: this comes across kind of judgmental, which is not what I meant. I just mean that the knife you like is going to come down to your own opinion, and the only way to form that is to check out lots of options and other opinions and see what you agree with.
Edit: without getting into the deep details of different steels, just keep in mind that many ‘higher end’ knives tend to be harder/more brittle than your every day Walmart special. This provides real advantages in edge sharpness and retention, but you don’t want to go using them as a pry bar as they are more likely to snap. Knives are for cutting, not prying.
Also, 20 min on YouTube to understand sharpening goes a long way.
If you want a dedicated knife with a bigger blade, a Buck folder with a plastic handle will cost about $30 and last a long time with minor care.
Next step up from there would probably be the least expensive Spydercos, or a multitool if you want more stuff.
Domain specific:
Apart from results from reddit, twitter, nytimes, popularmechanics.com.Search link: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffcm&q=folding+pocket+knife+edc+re...
I like Spyderco a lot, but I made the switch to BM and haven't looked back.
I have a few gold class, I suppose this will be my next purchase: https://www.benchmade.com/15085-201-mini-crooked-river.html
I have a collectors version of the 940 (940-81), and def get what you're saying about the ergonomics.
https://www.jerzeedevil.com/threads/benchmade-gold-class-940...
No idea what to suggest instead, but suggestions are easy to find.
Personally, if Morakniv [1] made a folding knife[+], it would probably be just right for me. :)
[1] https://morakniv.se/en/
[+] And someone made carrying a folding knife legal in Sweden ...
I guess if money was no object, and I were more of an actual "knife-guy", I would try something from Fällkniven [1].
[1] https://fallkniven.se/en/home/