I am of two minds about TOPS. Some of their designs are pretty nice, while others are ridiculous. (I won’t say which for fear of zinging somebody’s favorites.) I think of them as being in a class with ESEE knives and Ethan Becker’s designs made by Ka-Bar. This is an arena I haven’t played in much. I have two Beckers, none of the others,
One feature that unites a lot of these designs is the crinkly finish on the 1095 blades that Snubby referred to. One of the Beckers, the BK14 Eskabar (because it is a cross between the ESEE Izula and the BK11) has this crinkly finish. Rather than dealing with the mess of applying a stripper, I just scraped down the crinkles with my folding Razel, leaving a fairly smooth black finish, not as appealing as bare 1095, but better that I started out with.
BTW, I really like Ethan Becker’s knives and will probably get a couple more. I have not yet been tempted to open my wallet for TOPS or ESEE.
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Not in jail.
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