Spyderco Chicago Folding Knife 18

super little knife!

Great small knife. I work in a supermarket, always cutting cardboard opening packages. Nobody bats an eyed lid with this little guy, a bit stiff out the box but breaks in nicely, you have to find the right angle to middle finger flick with Spydie hole slow rolls great as well. The ergos for me are fantastic, I have a small hand and it just melts. Had to give it a strop out the box. Handle texture is grippy feels like its not going to slip, great knife highly recommend.

I bought this knife wanting a small EDC knife that would be more sheeple friendly yet still be capable for my every day tasks. I considered a Spyderco Squeak as one handed openeing is important to me but opted for this as I'm so used to having a liner lock. First impressions were on how small the knife is. I won't mark it down for this - I ordered it knowing the measurements but really you can never be sure until you get it in your hand. That said the more I use it the more I get used to it. One problem is that it can be a little fiddly to open with large hands and I have caught the tip against my little finger a couple of times. For reference I'm used to 2 1/2" (Swiss army knife size) blades. The blade is very sharp from the box and holds it's edge well. For day to day tasks I found it a little too small though that said I was never really hindered too greatly. The problem was more that a task may take a little longer or require a touch more precison. The thin blade slices well though is not best for just scoring loose tape on boxes as you would with something thicker. G10 scales are very good and the pocket clip is excellent. I carry it on ordinary smart/suit trousers and you can forget it's there. Weight is fine. One plus with the small size is that it leave plenty of pocket space and does not interfere with other pocket contents. So what marks it down? Well as I've said size is always going to personal but what I was dissapointed in was build quality. First up where were a couple or sharp burrs around the thumb hole. For this price/brand I was quite upset by this. Second problem is the liner lock. As I mentioned above I bought this model simply as I'm so used to a lock and thought this would be a good choice. I was wrong and should have bought a sqeak. After a very short time I realised that you simply do not need a lock on a knife this small but I would go as far as to say that on the Chicago the lock actually ruins the whole knife. It is way too stiff for such a blade and verges on painful to operate with one hand putting the blade away and there is not enough cut out to get your thumb into either. You can do it but you really have to slow down to do it and that is not acceptable for an EDC knife. Often I used two hands to put it away and again that defeats the point of it being one-handed. This problem then continues with deployment too, as with the lock giving so much preasure it's very difficult to get a fast deployment (ie. thumb flick). I don't mind this so much in a sheeple-friendly sense but it also makes folding it away less satisfying too. On arrival the blade centering was poor (sitting about 3/4 to the right). This can be improved by adjusting the pivot but again this exacerbated the stiffness problem. I own a Spyderco Tenacious and a Sage 1 and though not really fair to compare to the Sage, I would say the Tenacious is miles ahead of this Chicago in terms of it's operation. Aside from the points above the overal quality of the knife is quite good, making it more saddening that I cannot be more positive about it. From the day I ordered it through to writing this I really wanted to like this knife but it just has not happened. Really I wish I had sent this knife back and bought a Squeak or perhaps saved up the extra for an Urban, though the Urban is a lot of money for what it is. Perhaps an Ambitous or a Persistence would be a better consideration. Either way I'm stuck with it now.

The 440c blade is small but handy. It's not a steel to brag about, perhaps, but can be easily made razor sharp. I find myself carrying this more than any other knife at the mo', due to it being readily pocketable, easy one hand use, sheeple friendly, and very sharp.