I own one of these (with black handle) and never had those problems (but never touched the screws, so I don't know if they are that soft). Didn't even need a break-in period for the flipper, and is smooth since day one. Those inconsistency problems you mentioned about chinese factories. It's on my coffe table for miscelaneous home use (opening packages, boxes, paracord, etc.), and gets used almost daily mostly for light cutting. Never tried to carry it due to the clip. Of course, with steel that cheap, needs a sharpening or stroping every couple months, but I have gotten more than it's worth out of it.
I have two of those and they were incredible smooth flippers from the start. Had another Enlan model though with the same screwhead that needed adjustment. I simply took my dremel and made a small jack in the head enough to work with a normal screwdriver.Worked perfectly.
You can adjust the screw by grabbing it in the Jacob's chuck of a drill. Also, all of the screws on Enlan knives are threadlocked with the permanent type loctite. Using a lighter you can apply heat to the screws and remove them (this weakens the loctite). You can also buy the tool on gearbest for about $5 or dremel a slot in the head and use a flat-head.
Jonathan at Lazy Lizard Gear supplies a replacement pivot screw and phosphor bronze washers, this transforms the knife for a couple of $. GearBest sell a tool to adjust the pivot for $8. I have a lot of these knives including the Boker Magnum one.. I haven't had a screw strip yet. The black coated blades are usually smoother. By the way the jaws on a drill chuck fit the screw very well, Thanks for the video.
My favourite enlan is the EL-19A. It has such a unique blade shape, It's great just aesthetically, even ignoring the cheapo 8cr13 steel and not-the-most-smooth mechanism. For the price? No complaints! Plus that triple liner lock design is pretty awesome.
Ganzo knives have really made it into my EDC while keeping my more "expensive" ones at home. Not because it's cheap but it has features I like and it's about $20. Doesn't use weird bits. Only issue is out of the box, the centering is usually too left or too right.
I have had a couple of these foe some time, and like them. The pivot screw problem I solved, buy taking the top of an old two piece metal pen body, cutting shorter to reduce the diameter, then notching it in the three positions of the Enlan screw. Works great for me to adjust if needed, Dont know about the scale screws, I have never taken them off.
I have the EL-02, the axis lock was very stiff. Managed to make a tool out of 3 chopsticks and some tape (works reasonably well), took out one of the 2 springs and now its a nice folder. Enlans have some nice designs, but Sanrenmu and Ganzo seem to have better quality overall, in my experience.
Enlan knives are definitely not the best but I will say that I have a few that I quite enjoy. The EL-01 that I have is much like this one. But stiff but I used a drill chuck to loosen up the pivot. That worked pretty well. I also took mine apart quite easily, no stripped screws, and polished the washers and liners around the pivot and that improved the action greatly. My biggest complaint about this knife is that the grind on mine is really really thick behind the edge. But it is fun to play with and has done a good amount of beater/extreme abuse and is still no worse than it was when I got it.
The biggest advantage of hollow ground blades is ease of stropping them. Just lay the blade down flat and the hallow grind gives you the perfect angle. Hence why straight razors are almost always hollow ground.
Think this is the first time this has been brought up but your table is a rustic/ older wood type table. Have you ever just felt the urge to test the stabbing ability on the table lol. Came to mind as soon as you grabbed the knife in a reverse grip lol.
Hi, i had the same knife, here in Europe is sold by a company called Rui, it's basically the same cheapo from china, mine was very smooth out of the box but it started to loose some screws, anyway to adjust the pivot i used the head of a drill.
When I bought mine it was still using a three-hole pivot, still proprietary but easier to adjust with snap ring pliers. It is still doable with this new pivot, but much harder. This knife was very over engineered in my opinion. Both the liners and the blade stock were too thick. The over-weighted handle contributed to its stiffness and inability to flip out. However, this knife for its weight and size, and most importantly its price, is very durable, and because of these factors, this knife is extremely popular among Chinese knife collectors. I have a friend who pried open an elevator door with this knife during a malfunction.
I have that knife in a few colours and in rosewood. It is my favourite ENLAN, and I agree with you, it is because of the looks and comfort in hand, NOT because of the performance of the pivot - that part sucks. A knife needs a good detente for the flipper to work. BUT, I don't agree with the price argument, well part of it. I have some VERY nice knives that cost $15USD where the quality is quite a bit better than the EL-01, and those are made by Ganzo. GearBest has a proprietary tool for under $5USD - but still one should not need to buy such a tool.
Reminds me of the Cold Steel Hold Out II that had. I worked on for a month to make it where I could open it one handed ... The blade never deployed easily with any speed. Traded it off and yes I was highly disappointed and almost swore of the Triad lock.
I have this knife it's a brute. Flipper sucks on mine and as for the lug I took a dremel and cut a notch in the center, so I can use a flathead screw driver to adjust it. I keep mine in my metal detecting bag and just dig and abuse it and if it gets lost well, it was 10 bucks so no big loss lol
Bought 5 of them, got the tool for $6, bought brass washers and polished the insides of them all. Fucking fantastic little beater now. Tough little knife. Have them in tool boxes and tackle boxes, trunk etc. I have my expensive knives for other tasks but these are great and little cheap beater blades.
@cutlerylover The master of this knife is @lazylizardgear here on youtube or lazylizardgear.com. He offered these with wave feature added, pivot screw mod so you can use a standard screwdriver and also a finger choil mod. No new vids from him for a while and looks like his website is down but his old EL-01 vids are great.
robbielex .. Yes, lizard has this knife well covered. I've had 2 for over a year, the black and the Orange ones.. I'm super happy. I installed a ball bearings washer on the black one and it's just damn sweet! The Orange one is still stock, except for the wave that I cut into it and it works great!! I'm going to cut the black one too, so it to will have a wave cut into it. Great knife for the money
I own this and had the same problems with the blade not moving smoothly. I didn't try messing with it until I received the pivot tool. What a waste. The screws all strip out so I still can't take it apart to clean it or even see what the problem is.
The Enlan knives seem to be pretty hit and miss with their quality. I'm still using an EL-02 because of your recommendation for a cheap knife a few years ago, and despite having a fairly stiff axis lock it works fine. Lots of reviews from people saying they broke immediately or didn't work at all though.
Do you carry with your knife in your pocket or belt and the clip outside or reverse? So clip on the outside knife inside (hidden) or exposed? Quite curious
Jeff, I'm curious to your opinion on Damascus knives. By the way thank you for all the great videos, you are my favorite youtuber and I always look forward to checking youtube for a new cutlery lover video! Thanks Jeff!
hey no problem glad you enjoy the vids, well when I first got into knives I thought Damascus was like gold, any knife would instantly be better in Damascus, lol I still like it but for the looks not always the better option for performance just depends on what Damascus, there is low quality and very high quality options out there but overall I still like it in general :)
I replaced all the screws, replaced the nylon bearing with a ball bearing. My EL-01's and El-04 are still my beater edc, 6 years after I bought them. For the price, no better knife.
Hey Jeff I think you should check out tax-force knife brand thier on amazon and are pretty cheap.now I'm no knife person like you but to me their actually pretty good.
@cutlerylover I was attracted to this knive too, but seeing the propietary lug on it was enough for me not to buy it. With all your years of experience I would not have expected you to make this mistake of thinking you could adjust it without some tool?
I like reviewing all kinds of cutlery, not just the ones I know I will like, I saw the proprietary screw head in the picture way before getting the knife but it didnt bother me since its for a review and not just a new knife to use for years on end...so me choosing knives is different that people who just want a new knife to use all the time, some reviews are to say wow this is nice you might want to try one, other reviews end up being hey stay away from this you may not like it...
cutlerylover Yeah I get that, but you kinda acted surprised about it in the video while I'm sure you - just by the look of it - must have known it would be an issue. But you still picked it for reviewing, cause it's cheap and looks cool. In general I stay away from any knife that look like they will have "wizard of oz'' issues, to quote another famous RUclipsr...
All of the frame screws are stripped on mine too :/ doesn't matters its a 25$CAD knife but that's sucks ! my Y - START JIN02 (25$CAD chinese knife) is far superior to this one (D2,balls bearing,scews are good,axis,) they just need to put better screws and the thing will be in good shape !
enlan has 2 different pivot screws...they sell one of the pivot screw drivers on gearbest...not sure if it's for the pivot screw on that knife...or the other model. but here it is: www.gearbest.com/multitools/pp_259135.html?wid=21
I'd probably buy 20 of these considering nothing at the 2017 shot show interested me and ALL of it was WAY overpriced. it wasn't overpriced by a little, it was overpriced by a lot.. Benchmade, Spyderco, SOG, CRKT, might as well start making mid-tech customs with some of those BS retails. I'm especially appalled by Benchmade. It's almost like they are making us out to be idiots
OK, I've got the same knife and experienced the same exact experience. First you can buy the tool on eBay for 6 bucks. I took mine apart and polished bronze washers and polished the contact points on the blade then it flipped with no wrist. But the detint is way to big. So with that said the knife is a piece of crap.
if you make a loop with black electrical tape, sticky side out, and stick it to what ever you're trying to unscrew, you will most likely never strip a screw head ever again
county582 yup exactly, but the bit doesn't really go through it unless it's a Philips head... also this trick doesn't work well for slotted screw heads, for those I use a chisel and a hammer
county582 glad you could find it useful, amd yeah I'm the same way, when ever I buy a new vehicle or piece of equipment I immediately swap out every screw, nut, and bolt for high quality stainless versions with quadrex her heads... that way I can dismantle everything with a multitool
Yes Rob G, I am aware of the happy hour discount! Feel free to message me as we have a group of 4-5 guys who meet up weekly for the group rates. Usually on Fridays. Cheers!
I own one of these (with black handle) and never had those problems (but never touched the screws, so I don't know if they are that soft). Didn't even need a break-in period for the flipper, and is smooth since day one. Those inconsistency problems you mentioned about chinese factories.
It's on my coffe table for miscelaneous home use (opening packages, boxes, paracord, etc.), and gets used almost daily mostly for light cutting. Never tried to carry it due to the clip.
Of course, with steel that cheap, needs a sharpening or stroping every couple months, but I have gotten more than it's worth out of it.
Same for me, it's a cheap knife but I found it pretty good, especially considering the price
its cheap but i love my enlan i have the same one and used it for 3 years still love it
4:00 Jeff brought some heat with "Proprietary cat treat shaped pivot head." Thanks for the LOL.
I have two of those and they were incredible smooth flippers from the start. Had another Enlan model though with the same screwhead that needed adjustment.
I simply took my dremel and made a small jack in the head enough to work with a normal screwdriver.Worked perfectly.
You can adjust the screw by grabbing it in the Jacob's chuck of a drill. Also, all of the screws on Enlan knives are threadlocked with the permanent type loctite. Using a lighter you can apply heat to the screws and remove them (this weakens the loctite). You can also buy the tool on gearbest for about $5 or dremel a slot in the head and use a flat-head.
Jonathan at Lazy Lizard Gear supplies a replacement pivot screw and phosphor bronze washers, this transforms the knife for a couple of $. GearBest sell a tool to adjust the pivot for $8.
I have a lot of these knives including the Boker Magnum one.. I haven't had a screw strip yet. The black coated blades are usually smoother.
By the way the jaws on a drill chuck fit the screw very well,
Thanks for the video.
Have you ever thought or designed your own knife? With all the experience you have, i think it would be really interesting and turn out amazing
My favourite enlan is the EL-19A. It has such a unique blade shape, It's great just aesthetically, even ignoring the cheapo 8cr13 steel and not-the-most-smooth mechanism. For the price? No complaints! Plus that triple liner lock design is pretty awesome.
Your wrist action is flawless
Ganzo knives have really made it into my EDC while keeping my more "expensive" ones at home. Not because it's cheap but it has features I like and it's about $20. Doesn't use weird bits. Only issue is out of the box, the centering is usually too left or too right.
I have had a couple of these foe some time, and like them. The pivot screw problem I solved, buy taking the top of an old two piece metal pen body, cutting shorter to reduce the diameter, then notching it in the three positions of the Enlan screw. Works great for me to adjust if needed, Dont know about the scale screws, I have never taken them off.
I have the EL-02, the axis lock was very stiff. Managed to make a tool out of 3 chopsticks and some tape (works reasonably well), took out one of the 2 springs and now its a nice folder. Enlans have some nice designs, but Sanrenmu and Ganzo seem to have better quality overall, in my experience.
Enlan knives are definitely not the best but I will say that I have a few that I quite enjoy. The EL-01 that I have is much like this one. But stiff but I used a drill chuck to loosen up the pivot. That worked pretty well.
I also took mine apart quite easily, no stripped screws, and polished the washers and liners around the pivot and that improved the action greatly.
My biggest complaint about this knife is that the grind on mine is really really thick behind the edge.
But it is fun to play with and has done a good amount of beater/extreme abuse and is still no worse than it was when I got it.
The biggest advantage of hollow ground blades is ease of stropping them. Just lay the blade down flat and the hallow grind gives you the perfect angle. Hence why straight razors are almost always hollow ground.
Think this is the first time this has been brought up but your table is a rustic/ older wood type table. Have you ever just felt the urge to test the stabbing ability on the table lol. Came to mind as soon as you grabbed the knife in a reverse grip lol.
Hi, i had the same knife, here in Europe is sold by a company called Rui, it's basically the same cheapo from china, mine was very smooth out of the box but it started to loose some screws, anyway to adjust the pivot i used the head of a drill.
When I bought mine it was still using a three-hole pivot, still proprietary but easier to adjust with snap ring pliers. It is still doable with this new pivot, but much harder.
This knife was very over engineered in my opinion. Both the liners and the blade stock were too thick. The over-weighted handle contributed to its stiffness and inability to flip out. However, this knife for its weight and size, and most importantly its price, is very durable, and because of these factors, this knife is extremely popular among Chinese knife collectors. I have a friend who pried open an elevator door with this knife during a malfunction.
I have that knife in a few colours and in rosewood. It is my favourite ENLAN, and I agree with you, it is because of the looks and comfort in hand, NOT because of the performance of the pivot - that part sucks. A knife needs a good detente for the flipper to work.
BUT, I don't agree with the price argument, well part of it. I have some VERY nice knives that cost $15USD where the quality is quite a bit better than the EL-01, and those are made by Ganzo.
GearBest has a proprietary tool for under $5USD - but still one should not need to buy such a tool.
Reminds me of the Cold Steel Hold Out II that had. I worked on for a month to make it where I could open it one handed ... The blade never deployed easily with any speed. Traded it off and yes I was highly disappointed and almost swore of the Triad lock.
I have this knife it's a brute. Flipper sucks on mine and as for the lug I took a dremel and cut a notch in the center, so I can use a flathead screw driver to adjust it. I keep mine in my metal detecting bag and just dig and abuse it and if it gets lost well, it was 10 bucks so no big loss lol
Bought 5 of them, got the tool for $6, bought brass washers and polished the insides of them all. Fucking fantastic little beater now. Tough little knife. Have them in tool boxes and tackle boxes, trunk etc. I have my expensive knives for other tasks but these are great and little cheap beater blades.
drill chucks work on the pivot screw like a dream
Excellent honest knife review,Jeff!!!!!
hope you can get your hands on some WE and Kizer knives. Would love to see a review on some of them.
@cutlerylover The master of this knife is @lazylizardgear here on youtube or lazylizardgear.com. He offered these with wave feature added, pivot screw mod so you can use a standard screwdriver and also a finger choil mod. No new vids from him for a while and looks like his website is down but his old EL-01 vids are great.
robbielex Ok,Thanks for your little input, Toe Booty!!!
robbielex .. Yes, lizard has this knife well covered. I've had 2 for over a year, the black and the Orange ones.. I'm super happy. I installed a ball bearings washer on the black one and it's just damn sweet! The Orange one is still stock, except for the wave that I cut into it and it works great!! I'm going to cut the black one too, so it to will have a wave cut into it. Great knife for the money
hey Jeff I'm really into knives but don't know a lot about blade steels could you point me in the direction of a good place to learn more about them
I own this and had the same problems with the blade not moving smoothly. I didn't try messing with it until I received the pivot tool. What a waste. The screws all strip out so I still can't take it apart to clean it or even see what the problem is.
The Enlan knives seem to be pretty hit and miss with their quality. I'm still using an EL-02 because of your recommendation for a cheap knife a few years ago, and despite having a fairly stiff axis lock it works fine. Lots of reviews from people saying they broke immediately or didn't work at all though.
You can buy the pivot tool on ebay for $8 shipped. There are only two left after I bought one.
Not a horrible deal for the low price tag. Hey Jeff, any thoughts on the link I put up last vid?
I'd love to hear your opinion about the Paragon warlock, I've been trying to decide whether or not to spend the money on it
Do you carry with your knife in your pocket or belt and the clip outside or reverse? So clip on the outside knife inside (hidden) or exposed? Quite curious
Jeff, I'm curious to your opinion on Damascus knives. By the way thank you for all the great videos, you are my favorite youtuber and I always look forward to checking youtube for a new cutlery lover video! Thanks Jeff!
hey no problem glad you enjoy the vids, well when I first got into knives I thought Damascus was like gold, any knife would instantly be better in Damascus, lol I still like it but for the looks not always the better option for performance just depends on what Damascus, there is low quality and very high quality options out there but overall I still like it in general :)
For most "damascus" knives, de-lamination under torsion or sheer us a real issue. No damascus knife has ever won the ABS challenge.
drill head works great for the pivot screw
have you tried to adjust it with the 3 prong drill chuck? seems like it might fit well.
Would you ever consider a review of the Kershaw Blur in S30V?
possibly I have had several blurs never one in s30v though
cutlerylover I happen to own one, I could try to ship it to you haha
Hey could you do a review on the Tac Force TF-469 gentleman's folder? It's $8.20 on Amazon and I'm really curious if it's descent or not.
Can you do a review on the kershaw filter please it's about 15$ at Walmart or I'll send you mine if you'd like
I replaced all the screws, replaced the nylon bearing with a ball bearing. My EL-01's and El-04 are still my beater edc, 6 years after I bought them. For the price, no better knife.
Hey Jeff I think you should check out tax-force knife brand thier on amazon and are pretty cheap.now I'm no knife person like you but to me their actually pretty good.
@cutlerylover I was attracted to this knive too, but seeing the propietary lug on it was enough for me not to buy it. With all your years of experience I would not have expected you to make this mistake of thinking you could adjust it without some tool?
I like reviewing all kinds of cutlery, not just the ones I know I will like, I saw the proprietary screw head in the picture way before getting the knife but it didnt bother me since its for a review and not just a new knife to use for years on end...so me choosing knives is different that people who just want a new knife to use all the time, some reviews are to say wow this is nice you might want to try one, other reviews end up being hey stay away from this you may not like it...
cutlerylover Yeah I get that, but you kinda acted surprised about it in the video while I'm sure you - just by the look of it - must have known it would be an issue. But you still picked it for reviewing, cause it's cheap and looks cool. In general I stay away from any knife that look like they will have "wizard of oz'' issues, to quote another famous RUclipsr...
This is the highest end knife I've ever seen
All of the frame screws are stripped on mine too :/ doesn't matters its a 25$CAD knife but that's sucks !
my Y - START JIN02 (25$CAD chinese knife) is far superior to this one (D2,balls bearing,scews are good,axis,)
they just need to put better screws and the thing will be in good shape !
I believe they use red lock tight on it
they also sell the tool for the pivot.
enlan has 2 different pivot screws...they sell one of the pivot screw drivers on gearbest...not sure if it's for the pivot screw on that knife...or the other model. but here it is: www.gearbest.com/multitools/pp_259135.html?wid=21
looking at it...I think it is the tool for that knife...
thanks, great review
I'd probably buy 20 of these considering nothing at the 2017 shot show interested me and ALL of it was WAY overpriced. it wasn't overpriced by a little, it was overpriced by a lot.. Benchmade, Spyderco, SOG, CRKT, might as well start making mid-tech customs with some of those BS retails. I'm especially appalled by Benchmade. It's almost like they are making us out to be idiots
L V finally someone calls out Benchmade for what they've become.
why dont you review balisongs now?
Not all Enlan knifes are that bad of quality. They just don't have a great standard
OK, I've got the same knife and experienced the same exact experience. First you can buy the tool on eBay for 6 bucks. I took mine apart and polished bronze washers and polished the contact points on the blade then it flipped with no wrist. But the detint is way to big. So with that said the knife is a piece of crap.
if you make a loop with black electrical tape, sticky side out, and stick it to what ever you're trying to unscrew, you will most likely never strip a screw head ever again
Mordy Fisher
You mean just double over the tape and place on the screw? & force your driver/ bit through it?
county582 yup exactly, but the bit doesn't really go through it unless it's a Philips head... also this trick doesn't work well for slotted screw heads, for those I use a chisel and a hammer
Mordy Fisher
Nice! I'm an electrician & nothing pisses me off more that's why I use square lock screws as much as possible. Thanks a lot for the tip 👍
county582 glad you could find it useful, amd yeah I'm the same way, when ever I buy a new vehicle or piece of equipment I immediately swap out every screw, nut, and bolt for high quality stainless versions with quadrex her heads... that way I can dismantle everything with a multitool
I like it!
one lives in my tool box, not great but it was free lol
Let's make knives great again.....ps....more story time to make me happy again.
13.37 means Leet
You can get a tool apparently
Why do people always try to break into my house
good video
hollow grinds... * *throwing up with a lot of noises* *
number 6!!!
Kane Vankampen #178!
I'm looking for a good for 70$
your mom
eqqhwehas I fucking hate little kids like you
Go trump Ok, Thanks Toe Booty!!!
Tactical Patriot2000 a BJ
Yes Rob G, I am aware of the happy hour discount! Feel free to message me as we have a group of 4-5 guys who meet up weekly for the group rates. Usually on Fridays. Cheers!
Looks like a Torx head screw
I think wealljuggleknives just got his channel deleted.
Folderek super
What happened to Wealljuggleknives? What crime did he commit? The truth is out there! Anyways, I bought one Enlan knife and never again.
lol 8cr13mov isn't THAT bad! 😆
It looks like a Kizer knife
you mean 'duh', not 'thud'
2
drop top
Cat treat shaped! ha
3:15 Made in China...
Majority of knives are Made in China... Even name brand ones.
To be fair it would probably cost twice as much to make a knife that crappy in USA.
Most CRKTs are made in China and Taiwan. They are FAR from crap quality
TRUMP2017!