5 Knives I’d Love to See Resteeled
Okay, so “resteeled” is not actually a word, but you, as a knife knut, understand EXACTLY what I mean. Of course, it would be fine to get everything in the latest “King of the Hill” steel, which as I write this is Magnacut. But that’s pretty boring. Instead, I am going to try to pair knives and steels that would be fun to see, either because the steel fits the knife’s design philosophy or because the pairing would bring something new to the table that the market currently doesn’t have.
Spydiechef + SPY27
Like a lot of the knives on this list, the Spydiechef is super thin. Thin steel is just the way to go as it makes the knife a better cutter, but what if you combined one of the best ground knives ever with a steel that was super user serviceable? Getting those sticky sharp edges that come with a fresh sharpening on a knife as thin and slicey as the Spydiechef already is would be a positively intoxicating combination. My son got a carving knife for Christmas and the edge came mirror polished and hair splitting sharp. Seeing something like that on a EDC folder like the Spydiechef would be super duper cool. The fact that it makes a very capable kitchen knife would basically turn the Spydiechef into one of those custom high carbon steel Japanese custom knives. This combo is too good to pass up and emblematic of what I would like to see in resteeled knives. Spyderco, any possibility of this?
Chris Reeve Sebenza + CPM 3V
The name Sebenza is derived from the word “work” in Zulu, so why not give the knife a really tough steel. There are lots of tough steels out there, L7, Cru-Wear, Z-Tuff, and CD#1, but I like 3V for its high wear resistance and toughness and non-terrible corrosion resistance. Too many of these ultra high toughness steels just forget that we humans are ugly bags of mostly water (TNG reference) and live in environments that have lots of water. The end result is that many of these steels speckle like a red head in the sun. 3V strikes that good balance between toughness and corrosion resistance in a way that makes it ideally suited for a beautiful tool like the Sebenza. Let the ultimate work knife work. And if you were getting really crazy, I could really get into one of the even tougher steels mentioned with a polished DLC blade. Yeah I watch Metal Complex…what of it?
TRM N2 + Rex 121
Speaking of extreme stuff, let’s get one of the best slicers ever with one of the hardest steels ever. I want to see what extreme edge retention would do in the N2. Of course, a very thin blade might be chippy and God forbid you chip this steel and have to reprofile the edge, but it would be really cool for those first few minutes. Now that I have thought about it more, maybe it would be better for a very high wear resistant steel to land on the Bulldog. Less chipping and wear resistance problems.
Kershaw Bel Air + M4
M4 is the Shelby Cobra of the knife world—a mid 60s (or even older) steel that still crushes it. It was only recently that the Blade Sport competitors switched away from M4 in favor of newer, higher tech steels. But M4 still has a place in the heart of all knife steel nerds. Its inclusion on a knife is the secret handshake of knife nerds everywhere. “Oh, you are a person of refined taste, I see your knife’s blade is M4. And please pass the Grey Poupon.” The Bel Air is a knife that I hope sells well so Kershaw will keep making it. It is basically the N2’s brother from another mother with a super slicey blade and good carry. Combining those traits with an M4 blade would be killer.
Spyderco Dragonfly 2 + Nitinol 60 aka SM-100
NOTE: This is technically not a “resteeling” of the knife as the replacement material is not steel.
Of course there would be a Dragonfly 2 on this list. And while the easy money is to release one in Magnacut, seriously Spyderco, easy friggin money, I would love to see this ultra-rare, ultra high performance material on my favorite knife. What is SM-100? Spaceship stuff. Literally. It was a compound developed in the 1950s for use on space craft. When heated it returns to its original shape making it very useful for high temperature environments like passing through an atmosphere. It also happens to have some pretty great properties for a knife blade. But it is very expensive, hard to find, and very hard to heat treat, often warping during the process in a way that cannot be repaired. So it is absolutely a no go for knives made on a production scale, but this is my site and I can dream in whatever way I want. Last bonus? It is usually gold when used in knives. A gold bladed DF2? Count me in. Price tag of $500 to account for the fact that about 1 in 2 blades make it through heat treat? Why fucking not? That’s around what Spyderco charged for the Drunken, which is probably the worst “real” knife I have ever reviewed, but if the Drunken sold despite its horrid egros, maybe a DF2 with God-tier blade material would as well.
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