Svord Peasant Knife Friction Folder Green Polypropylene (3.25" Satin)

Fun design meets inexcusable execution

I bought both this and a blue Mini Peasant a year ago. BHQ was great as always.

On the Pro side: Very lightweight for its size, I love the vibrant handle colors and the way the ground part of the blade visually contrasts with the forging "scale" left on the rest of the blade, ergonomics are quite good, it can be opened and closed one-handed easily once you get used to it,… read more the friction "lock-up" works pretty well.

So why such a poor review? Abysmal materials and workmanship. On both knives, the edges have specific areas 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch long where they always chip. They were chipped when they came from the factory (with the most lopsided grinds and abysmal factory edges I've ever encountered, by the way), they chipped when they were initially sharpened on a Spyderco Sharpmaker at 20 degrees per side, and they chipped when they were reprofiled to 18 degrees per side on my Edge Pro, even though I specifically avoided my diamond stones to help prevent the chipping. What's worse is even minor use (I cut up ONE small Amazon box) drastically enlarges and deepens the chips, but only in those specific areas, the rest of the edge is perfectly fine.

The fact that this problem is present on both of my knives leads me to suspect Svord is either using inconsistent heat-treating, or is selling blades with major occlusions in them. I understand it's a $14 knife, but I would've been infinitely happier paying an extra $5 for a blade that was actually coherent.

In addition to the chipping problem, less severe problems also abound in my examples. Both have handles that are severely dished on their outside surface from improper injection molding, both have brass screws that deform VERY rapidly under any and all screwdrivers, even proper non-wedged gunsmithing screwdrivers, and my Mini-Peasant also has the extremely common undersized and/or misplaced stop pin that allows the edge to run right into the lower screw when closing the knife (look it up, it's an extremely common problem Svord has known about for years and doesn't seem to care to fix).
Finally, as an added bonus, the tang of the blade around the pivot of my Mini Peasant is severely dished, giving my blade a persistent "lean" to the left and preventing me from fully tuning the friction characteristics of the knife.

Again, I get that it's a cheap knife, but I've got half a dozen Opinels I paid $12 or less for that have all given me outstanding, hair-popping, decently-lasting edges with no persistent rolling or chipping.
If Svord can't deliver a proper knife at this price point, it's their responsibility to raise the price until they can. I, myself, am absolutely done with this company.

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