Gonna start a flame war but...Found a $1 folding Ozark knife at walmart. Is it great? No - but for tool kits, spares, etc....Gonna try it

It's a buy at $1. Toss it in the car, pack, toolkit and forget it's there til you need it. Use it, abuse it, for a buck who cares?

Any knife is better than no knife.

Unless the first time you use it it breaks and cuts your hand. I've had that experiance with cheap tools, cheap tool breaks messing up the head of the bolt/nut and costs twice as much in the long run because you have to replace cheap tool and repair the dmaage it caused.

agreed

Hi,

That knife is one of my EDC's and I use it for work. It will take an edge, can be tightened and I have thrown sparks with it from a ferro rod. Yes, its a dollar, but it is less expense. No, I do not expect it to hold up to abuse, but for daily urban life, it more than suffices. Moreover, it carries with less notice than my Mora. LOL!

Finn

It's only a buck. It's better than nothing, etc.

However, it's worth noting that, because of the cheap China steel, one person's experience may be entirely different than another person's experience. The steel is not going to be uniform across all knives. Also, there is a fair chance an impurity in one knife will cause the blade to have a freak shatter at an impurity. A Google search revealed at least one incident of this knife's steel shattering during normal use.

All of this is expected, right? It's only a buck.

I've seen them broken inside the package at wallyworld on more than one occasion. Doesn't inspire too much confidence in their ability to safely handle normal tasks, never mind some slight abuse.

I think I would rather spend a few dollars more for the Gerber mini-paraframes they also sell. I've seen them going for around $8 and, IMO, the few dollars more is well worth it.

I agree, but it's important to note the sense of loss is based on quality, not price. I had a knife from Big 5 that was on sale for $10. I sharpened it, and it held an edge for the 2 years I carried it. The knife recently "walked away" when I set it down for a brief moment at the gym. I have "lost" more expensive knives, but that knife from Big 5 was my all-time favorite pocket knife.

For me personally, there is no real price difference between $1 and $10 if the quality is a substantial increase. It's only $9 more for much less future headache. It's not like the difference between a $100 knife and a $1,000 knife, where the law of diminishing returns comes into play.

I am in the Middle East and we have lots of Chinese stuff in the market. Some are good by my standards ( whatever they are ) and have held up for urban EDC ( normal use, opening boxes ..etc. ) They don't stay sharp for months, of course, but I have yet to have a multitool fall to pieces, or a knife break in half as I read sometimes.

Most ( near all ) my stuff is cheap. And I intend to keep it this way as long as I have not seen a major event in my life that changes my mind.

The other day I visited a new hyper store, and saw some multitools from Leatherman ( Wave, Blast ..etc. ) as well as the chinese ones ( John Benzen - Chicago tools ). The price ratio between Leatherman and Chinese MTs is around 7:1

OK, prepare your flame thrower , LOL :
I prefer to buy 7 J Benzens, than 1 Leatherman.

Ouch! ouch! ouch !
LOL

My folding knives are generally in the $3-6 price range , and they are OK for occasional use of opening boxes , scratching extra glue or removing labels ..etc. . But didn't break any of them so far.

A low price doesn't necessarily mean poor quality. Mora knives are an example - good quality, but usually around ten bucks or less. I've got a couple and they work very well. They just don't have any bling.

My circumstances involved a fair amount of non urban settings; in those situations, quality is more important that price. The thing to do is to find meaningful quality at a reasonable cost. It can be done.