wilsonblogclassic® Originally posted Saturday, November 10, 2007

Me and my Dodo...

Like a lot of "gun people" I like a good knife too and can usually be found carrying one in my front pocket just in case I might have a need for it.

Usually what I look for is a more "utility" type knife than anything else, a blade that can do a myriad of little cutting chores with no fuss. Duties like cutting boxes, string twine or rope, not to mention the millions of other uses a good utility blade can have throughout a normal day.

I bought this Spyderco® Dodo just over a year ago and it has given me great service, I consider it one of the best utility type pocket knives that I have ever owned. It's a weird looking knife that does take some getting used to (if you ever do), but as a purely functional tool it excels. Its main asset is the oversized grip that gives you plenty of leverage. The hooked blade is quite useful as well and can handle many types of work. The knife locks by means of a ball bearing device that falls into the back of the blade locking it open, it seems a very sturdy and secure design and in over a year of using this knife, including at times some very hard use, I have never had the blade close on my hand. This knife does have a couple of weak points, the pocket clip I consider the most serious. The pocket clip is not attached to the grip like most of this company's other products. Usually this company's pocket clip is a flat piece of spring steel directly affixed to the knife handle and is very secure. On this model a separate spring wire clip held down by a tension screw was used. I have had the clip come off twice in the last year and although it is an easy fix it can be a little annoying. The only thing that I would worry about would be the clip itself, since it is outside the pocket there is a chance it could be lost. This knife's other weak point, and a minor one at that, is the blade tip, it is very finely pointed which does require a little extra caution while using to make sure that it doesn't get broken.

This knife is no longer made; it went out of production shortly after I bought mine. Apparently like its namesake the Dodo wasn't fit to survive. I guess many knife buyers just couldn't get past the knife's odd looks and never gave this great product a fair chance. Of course the knife's designer can take the blame here, he had to know that the peculiar blade and grip shape was more than enough to put traditional knife buyers off but then he makes it even worse by coloring the grips florescent blue? I believe a more sedate version with black grips was also offered to appeal to more traditional knife buyers, but probably too little, too late.

I had thought about buying a second Dodo, just as a "back-up" for the first, but since it went out of production they have nearly doubled in value and I'm afraid that's much more than I am willing to pay for a working knife. I'll just keep using my worn little Dodo, since mine has been sharpened (several times) and used as intended it doesn't command any collector premium like the ones that sit unused, collecting dust on dealer's and collector's shelves, too bad, they don't even know what a great knife they're missing.