Eafengrow EF11 Folding Knife D2 Steel Blade Knife with Wood Handle Pocket Knives

I thought this would be a light slender knife for occasional box cutting at work. However what I got was a high quality, very over built, and beautiful, short straight razor. Materials and workmanship could not be better. It won't do for my intended purpose but I'm so glad I bought this. It's a perfect knife to have on a table for occasional use or craft work of any kind. Razor sharp out of the box. I may buy a few as gifts. How they can sell this for $12 is a wonder. Highly recommend.

For a cheap knife, this thing is cool. It has no locking mechanism but I can open it with a wrist flick. If you read the description there should be no issues. I never had a knife like this so it’s a cool addition to the collection.Pros: Cheap, Sharp out of the box, Seems durable.Con: Wooden handle sides don’t match each other perfectly in color. Not a deal breaker for me but some people might care.

It's hard not to feel a little guilty buying a brand that has so blatantly making it's mark by copying the designs of others on the cheap, even more so when some have reported having the steel in their Eafengrow knives professionally tested with results that called into question whether the brand is really using D2 or boasting so fraudulently. That said, while I can sometimes (barely) justify spending a couple hundred on a fixed blade, I can't begin to justify that kind of money on a limited use, hinged folder that can’t be subjected to near the workload or abuse, regardless of the quality of steel. You’ve got well made full-length swords selling for far less than some pocket knives today! That’s just crazy! Even most small fixed blades have more steel in them than a large folder. As someone who uses his edged tools for more than show and tell and opening packages from amazon, $100+ for pocket carry isn’t something I’ll likely ever be in the market for.The design of this knife fit a niche I just couldn’t resist, a folder that seemingly replaces disposable razor knives and snap-offs, and an extremely hefty make at that. Regardless of whether it's actual tool steel or a feasibly unenforceable design infringement (I’m not sure which brand they might be copying with this design, but they’re not the only one’s selling this exact knife at a budget price on amazon), the price was too low to pass up. And for all I know they could be coming from the same factory in China, just with lower quality parts.I don't know if this blade is tool steel, nor is it cost effective to find out, if you don’t know someone who works in that type of lab. The blade hasn’t needed resharpening yet, after a couple weeks of light use. If it's not D2, that wouldn't deter me from buying this knife again. Not in the slightest. In fact, the quality I’m seeing with this knife has me almost eager to try out some other Eafengrow folders.The notion that the manufacturer might willfully misrepresent their product is FAR more of a deterrent than the type of steel in this case, as it makes you question every aspect of the design. I debated gambling on Eafengrow for weeks, since so many of their positive knife reviews were clearly graded based on the customer’s trust that what they'd bought was genuine D2. It’s important to know exactly what kind of steel you’re using, to better take care of it and know what the material can reasonably be subjected to.The knife's fit and finish is quite good. Not polished like a showpiece. It looks and feels made to be used, but still mighty handsome. And you won't find a sharper factory edge on anything shy of a straight razor built for shaving. The hollow grind makes for a great cutter and it’s tipped sharply, making the knife ideally suited for box-cutter or razor knife oriented tasks, especially those where the thinness of a disposable blade might cause it to break. I wanted it specifically for cutting leather and couldn't be happier with it’s performance in that regard.A beefy knife, with classical styling. The metal liners are almost as robust as the full 1/8 inch thick blade. The action is smooth, just enough tension not to be too loose or too stiff to be the cause of an accident. But, those carrying in loose pockets, might need to tighten the pivot screw a bit to avoid accidental opening, depending on how active you are. The knife doesn’t open easily when shaken, but if you shake it hard AND in right direction (toward the lever), it will open, not to mention something could inadvertently catch the protruding lever itself.Of course there’s no lockup on this folder. Considering the blade geometry, the blade shouldn’t ever close on you when cutting or piercing. But, in case anybody from Eafengrow is reading, pivoting bars could have been added at key points to better secure the blade both open and closed.If the use of D2 is critical to you, there's reason to be leery with the Eafengrow line, maybe even more so with this model considering the price point. Though we have seen more credible brands use D2 in the 20-30 dollar range, so who knows... If you're looking for a classic style folder with as hair popping edge this definitely fits the bill.Update: pictures added.

This is a crazy good value for 9 dollars on sale or 12 normal price. It's actually hard to believe they can make a knife this good and sell it for around ten bucks and actually make anything. The quality is shockingly good considering the price. Fit and finish is pretty good and overall build quality is solid as a rock. Call me impressed! Now out the package mine was WAY to free and would open and close with no friction basically so I simply tightened it up until it because stiff enough to open that I knew it wouldn't just open in my pocket so thats no problem really and mine had a pretty dull factory edge. Not really a problem at all for me because I'm a professional sharpener so it's getting my edge anyhow. While the factory edge was pretty well dull (what is dull to me would be considered very sharp to most people) but the edge bevel was consistent so that made it of no issue, the factory edge bevel started at the heel at about 22 degrees per side and tapered off to about 20 degrees per side at the tip so fairly consistent for a factory edge and of no issue for me beings I was going to drop it down to 15 degrees per side anyhow. My knife came at about 13-14 thousandths of an inch behind the edge so nice and thin and slicey and once knocked down to 15 degrees per side it's like a little laser beam slicer.Now for what makes it loose two stars.Eafengrow has been caught before with saying knives was in D2 steel only to be caught that it was actually 8cr14mov on most and a couple even tested at 5cr15mov. Now the new owners said that they guaranteed any knives stated to be D2 would be and I'm here to say that this knife is absolutely 100% not D2. Now I still think it's a great deal because it's a cool and useful little knife that is only 12 bucks normal price on prime and it's awesome for that price. But why not be honest and state the correct steel on the blade and in the listing rather than saying it's D2 and etching D2 on the blade when it's most definitely not D2. How do I know it's not D2? Because when I sharpened it it's no where near wear resistant enough to be D2 and in the cut test I did it scored right in the middle of where 5cr scores and it sharpened exactly how low alloy simply stainless steels sharpen telling me that it's either 5cr or 7cr and it's also very soft as can easiky be felt on the sharpening stones as well, soft as it 56-57hrc range and that's way to soft for D2 but it's in the range on where 5cr should be so I'm willing to bet that it's 5cr and gonna do a PMI scan on it in the work shop here shortly (I have access to a PMI Xray scanner to check steel compositions) and poke it with the HRC tester to see where it is hardness wise. Now for 10 bucks or so the edge retention is perfectly fine and will do great for light work like opening boxes and breaking down boxes and will be easy for anyone to keep sharp on any abrasive they have. They just shouldn't lie about it, they got caught the first time about 4 years ago and then caught a whole bunch more times and swore up and down that it would be fixed when the new owners took over and it would never happen again and guess what? It's happened again and that's unacceptable. I'm gonna keep the knife because it's a cool little piece and the price makes it not even worth returning. I really wish Eafengrow would stop making clone designs and would stop lying about steel and they would be a much more popular brand in the budget knife Community but as is we aren't a group that puts up to much with china companies that clone US knives and sell them and we aren't OK with companies that lie about the steel composition of the knife. They do make some really well built and good quality budget knives and a lot of them have been PMI tested and are the steel that's stated but there are still some that aren't and that's just wrong and they need to stop, just like they need to stop selling clones. Them closing Strider knives is just lame and is what makes me not even consider buying from them (this was an exception because of the price and I really like Russlock style knives) 99.9% of the time. I'll update this with what steel it test as and what the Hrc is with a Pic of the PMI scan and a pic of the hrc. Now with that sakd if the knife is in 5cr at 55-57rc it's still sell well sort 9-12bucks as it's a cool design and it will cut well as it's a fairly thin hollow grind so if they listed the steel correctly this is a 5 star knife for the price all day long BUT with them lying about the steel that forces me to remove two stars just because it's foolish and it's a case of China companies doing what China companies do and what drives people away from wanting to support China knife companies. Just price the knife right, run it at a reasonable hardness for that composition of steel and be honest about the steel (and stop cloning US knife designs) and all would be good. But no stay stubborn and keep on lying about the steels and driving people away because they can't trust the brand to be honest.