Lawyer Filler Two: Stabby Boogaloo
Irradiated by Stingray
As promised yesterday today’s boring filler is all about my thoughts on the Mantis Slimline 3
As with the monacoe, I’m whelmed. At its price point, this knife has no major drawbacks, and only a few nitpicks against it. The balance is good, and the belt clip grips very securely. The grip is not exactly world-class comfort, but it’s reasonably secure and not uncomfortable. The 420 steel is rather soft, but that means it’s easy to sharpen (which you’ll do a lot anyway). There’s a bit of a ring of flux, or adhesive, or whatever they affixed the red rivets with around each one, but it’s not tremendously obvious. Since one of the main attractions on this knife is it’s svelte profile, it bears mentioning that yes, this knife is very slim:
Pardon the glare. Oleg Volk, I ain’t. That’s a dime next to it. From outside edge to edge on one of the rivets, it’s just over 1/4″ wide. The sheath provides decent retention, but it doesn’t take too much in the way of sharp jostling to get it to pop free. This does make it great for easy draw/sheath motions if you’re doing something like opening and/or breaking down cardboard boxes. On the downside of the sheath, the belt clip is one way. Inspecting it, you can see it’s detachable with some screws and nuts:
“Handy!” you might think to yourself. “Now if I need it on my other side for some reason, it’s just a couple nuts and the clip is reversed!” Sadly, not so much. Here you see where the clip has the curve of the sheath molded into it. It simply doesn’t fit the other side.
Given that it’d take maybe an extra 1/8″ of material and a slight repositioning of the screw holes to make it flippable, I’m not sure why they chose to go with the one-way mount. Even at $35 that shouldn’t add more than a penny or two to the overall production cost, I imagine. The only other drawback on the knife has apparently self-corrected. When I first got it, I gave it a standard soap-n-water wash with a bit of scrubbing for good measure and set about cooking dinner, since I figure any knife I own had better be able to pull double duty in the kitchen from time to time. All washed and cleaned, I went to cut a stick of butter with it. Needless to say, I was rather surprised when the cut surfaces of the butter came up streaked black from the finish on the blade. I attempted to recreate this effect for this post, but in the knife’s favor, all the finish stayed applied this time. I don’t know if they just didn’t do much in the way of cleanup on the blade before it went out the door or what, but given that it did get a thorough wash before meeting the butter, it was a tad unsettling.
All in all, this is a solid knife. At $35 and 420 steel, it’s perfect for chores in the garden you don’t want to ding up your Emmerson on, or throwing in the truck to have on hand for the various situations that crop up semi-regularly when you have a truck. Or car, for that matter. A decent and reliable cutting tool you’re not overly attached to is always a good thing to have around in a vehicle. It even looks fairly slick, too.
And since I’m still waiting to hear back from LabRat, proper application of knife to lawyer will have to wait until I find out just how badly the little pustule we’re fighting behaved.
