New toys - Big Post

[jbake]

New toys - Warning Big Post - only 1/5 On Topic

Howdy,



Over the last couple of months, i've picked up some new toys. Finally had enough time to take some pics, so I thought I'd share:



Streamlight Key-Mate:

I really like this little LED light. I keep it on my keychain all the time and man has it been handy. It's actually pretty bright. It uses four 1154 button batteries. Mine is white. They also make a green and maybe one other color. Twist on/off.


http://www.cba.ua.edu/~jbaker/showandtell/DSC_2522.JPG


Here's a comparison with my Micra and other keychain light. And yes, I keep all this stuff on my keys and I find myself using it all the time.

http://www.cba.ua.edu/~jbaker/showandtell/DSC_2543.JPG

They're sitting on my PowerBook. No, the bullet holes aren't real.




Another light I've been wanting for a while is an Inova X5. I know this light is old news, but I've been putting off buying one until I could find one with red LEDs. Red light is good for preserving your night vision - I know... Green is supposedly better - but I'm a traditionalist. My dad gave me one of those old crook neck mil surplus flashlights when I was a kid. It came with red filters and that's what I've used ever since.



This silver X5 is supposedly water proof. It has 5 LEDs that are pretty bright and fairly well focused. It is marketed as a flood and that's pretty accurate. This is NOT like my SureFire 6P. It has a rubber momentary push switch and can be twisted for constant on.



I'll take this light hiking, camping, and I like to keep it near the bed at night. If I have to get up to check on one of the kids, etc. I don't blow out my night vision. It has the side affect of freaking out my wife



Oh, you'll see another Inova product in this pic. The yellow thing is a "24/7". It has two white light modes, red light, yellow light, and some crazy slow and fast flashy lights. Oh, it also blinks SOS in morse code. I hike with that and keep it in the car. I figure if I ever break down, I'll sit it on the back of the car to keep some fool from running me down.

http://www.cba.ua.edu/~jbaker/showandtell/DSC_2537.JPG


A while back, I posted a thread about what knife you let slip through your fingers. I Always wanted a Microtech LCC. Well, I finally got one.



What a great knife. I hear that MT is having some QC issues right now. This knife does not show it at all. It is built like a tank and is a big heavy folder. I'm actually thinking about buying another just like it and elevating one to a safe queen.

http://www.cba.ua.edu/~jbaker/showandtell/DSC_2558.JPG



Check out that Clip

http://www.cba.ua.edu/~jbaker/showandtell/DSC_2560.JPG


And now the spyderco content:

I wanted a bigger knife for MBC. So naturally I grabbed a Chinook II. This thing is huge. The G10 is grippy (just the way I like it). The handle is ergonomic - no worries about it slipping. The action is soooo smooooth. The blade is simply incredible. I really appreciate the fact that it's drilled and tapped at all four corners. My only question at this point is why wasn't there a Boye dent??? If I REALLY grip this knife, I can feel the lock depressing. I don't think that I'll disengage it, but still, I would have felt a little better with the dent.

http://www.cba.ua.edu/~jbaker/showandtell/DSC_2570.JPG


http://www.cba.ua.edu/~jbaker/showandtell/DSC_2572.JPG


http://www.cba.ua.edu/~jbaker/showandtell/DSC_2576.JPG


http://www.cba.ua.edu/~jbaker/showandtell/DSC_2567.JPG


http://www.cba.ua.edu/~jbaker/showandtell/DSC_2583.JPG

That is one massive lock.



Well, that's all for now. Hope you enjoyed the eye candy.





Edited by - jbake on 5/12/2004 12:22:55 AM

[DAYWALKER]

jbake buddy...

My dentist bill will be forwarded to you! I got cavities just looking at them!

Train safely bro! And catch some Z's!!!

Chad

Forgot to mention: GREAT PICS!!!
God will put you over...if you let Him! John 14: 13,14...try it, it WORKS!

Edited by - DAYWALKER on 5/11/2004 11:23:28 PM

[Ted]

Jbake, I love these threads. Cool stuff you got there!. I wish that keymate would run of one 1xAA with a step-up converter.
The Microtech sure looks good. What's that handle material? G-10 or Canvas Micarta?

Ted

[Kaizer]

jbake,

Awesome pics!

Awesome-er toys!!

Have a great day,
Kaizer.

A door half open is a door half closed. But a knife half open is a knife fully closed.

[bigcat]

jbake...Maybe i can answere your question as to why no david boye dent?
If the chinook ll is anything like the my chinook l, the locke has to be fully depressed in order to unlock it and if it had a dent in the lock it would be impossible to unlock. I think the knife was designed with this built in safty factor so that it could not be accidently closed.
Another safty factor built into the knife is that the blade does not snap shut when you close it until it is almost fully closed. This is so that it will not snap down on your fingers when closing it because it has a heavy blade and could do some real damage if it caught your fingers. These things were meant to be.

BigCat

[samosaurus]

Nice catch! <img src="spyder.gif" width=15 height=15 align=middle border=0><img src="smile.gif" width=15 height=15 align=middle border=0><img src="spyder.gif" width=15 height=15 align=middle border=0>

Sam

"have scars will travel.."

[aggat]

nice pics!!!
I have a Inova x1 and a blue microlight , and now I&#180;m looking for one x5....

[thombrogan]

Great stuff, Jbake!

Also, don't fret about not having green. According to the FAQ's at the various flashlight and candle forums, green kills your nightvision, but it's used because it's reminiscent of night-vision goggles.

[boxer93]

jbake,
nice toys. I got one of those 24/7 for Christmas. The pyscho flash mode is great. Nobody will every miss that.
Chris

Be Excellent to each other.

[Civilian]

Great post and great pics. In my experience with astronomy red light is better.

[Alan2112]

Great gear! RKBA!

[CKE]

Great post! I love my MT LCC. They are awesome knives. You take some really good quality pics. Take Care and enjoy the toys!!!

"everything else is just a jeep"

[thorin hammer]

I don’t know if I misread, but did you describe the scanner? Neet lights. I use a two led twist on light. It has 100 hours of run time on three AA batteries.
http://www.ccrane.com/white-led-flashlight.asp


Edited by - Thorin Hammer on 5/12/2004 9:00:51 PM

[jbake]

Thanks for the kind words about the photos - it's a hobby of mine.

Ted: The scales are micarta on the LCC - it is a little on the slick side, but I still really like this knife.

bigcat: Thanks for the info re: the lock. Only problem is my Chinook II will close at about half the lock depth. I wonder if I have a bum lock... Anyone else with a C II know?

Thom &amp; Civi: Good info about the green vs. red light. A couple of guys at the office told me green was better - good to know the real deal.

Thorin: The scanner? No I didn't mention it, it was just &quot;decoration&quot; for the pic. It's actually a transceiver made by Yaesu (model FT-50 RD HP). It's an amateur (HAM) radio that transmits up to 5 watts depending upon the band. It transmits on the 70cm / 2meter bands and it does have a &quot;wide receive&quot; capability - so it will act as a scanner from 76MHz to 999MHz (cellular blocked). It requires a license to operate (well to transmit anyway).

Later...

Edited by - jbake on 5/12/2004 9:39:00 PM

[Shards of Narsil]

Real beauties jbake, both the gear and the pics.

Any chance of knowing your camera and setting specs? I'd love to get my shots up to your standard.

Gona get me a Streamlight now too.

P.S: Do you mean 'nightvision' green (i.e. turquoise)? It's not as good as red still, just better than some other colours...

Edited by - Shards of Narsil on 5/13/2004 1:31:37 AM

[The Deacon]

Took this just now, with the lock of my Chinook II disenganged and the blade just slightly short of the locked position. Think this is pretty close to the amount of depression needed to disengage the lock. A Boye dent, at least on mine, would make it into a fixed blade. Only have the one, so can't say if mine is typical or not, perhaps others will chime in on this. Nice toys jbake! Enjoy!

Paul

[brownie0486]

jbake: Nice pics and blades.

I have the LCC and Chinook2 as well. Carry the Chinook2 most every day with the exception when I'm taking the Persian which I like as much as the Chinook2.

Don't worry about the lockbar disengaging on the C2. It was designed so that the lock has to be almost completely depressed for it to release the blade.

MBC lock strength rating on the C2 is way above what any folder should be subjected to. It was designed to be rode hard and put up wet [ sorta speak ].

One of my all time favorites and a constant companion most of the time. Had my contractor pretty much abuse an original in 440V and that review can be seen at www.folders-r-us.org under knife tests. It survived some real world hard work with no damage. George is rough on his equipment and the C1 is the first knife he has not broken within a few weeks.

Brownie

[jbake]

Hello Shards:
Apparently there is a LOT of discussion about whether red or green is best. I have got to go with red. I have tried green and it's just hard for me to look at. I think that is just that I'm accustomed to the Red.
Some interesting links, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.candlepowerforums.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Number=203850&amp;page=0&amp;view=collap sed&amp;sb=5&amp;o=&amp;fpart=1&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.candlepowerforums.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&amp;Board=UBB3&amp;Number=80886&amp;page=&amp;vi ew=&amp;sb=5&amp;o=&amp;fpart=1&amp;vc=1&quot;&gt;here.&lt;/a&gt;

As for the shots:
I used a Nikon D100 with a Sigma 70-300 in Macro mode. This is NOT the best lens in the world, but it will do.
I always shoot RAW and usually in Aperture mode. But for these I shot program (I was outdoors and it was well over 85 degrees F and HUMID so I was in a hurry). I bracketed a lot and just kept the best shots.

I've found with this stuff that outdoor lighting is the best. That might be different if I had some decent lighting equipment. I do sometimes shoot indoors with bounced flash. I used a tripod and I did a preset white balance. The White Bal is key in determining whether or not you're going to have strange color casts. I see a lot of digi pics that would be great except for the white balance.

Knives are tough because the shiny stuff will blow out your highlights (you can see I DID NOT do a very good job with that here on the chinook blade and lock.) Try to meter off them to correct that (although the rest of your pic may be dark. Since I shot digital, each image has it's settings imbedded in it. I'll scrape them together and PM you.

I cleaned them up, and sized them down in Photoshop 7.0.

Edited to say: You do NOT need a Digital SLR to take good pics. In fact, it seems that most of the compact digital cameras have awesome macro modes.

Edited by - jbake on 5/13/2004 9:10:29 AM

[Jurphaas]

Hi jbake - Now you're talking! Toys for Boys, yeah that's our thing. Good tools and gadgets to show off and use hard.

Looks like that guys who like knives also like lights and other tactical stuff.
Hope you're happy with all your good stuff.

Clipits work!

[jbake]

Deacon &amp; Brownie,

Thanks for the info and for the pic.
I just looked at mine and realized it's unlocking at about the same point.

You're right, a dent would make that tough to close (would have to jam my key down in there or something.

Brownie, I read that review on your site. It was one of the reasons I decided to get one.

Thanks again guys.

[Shards of Narsil]

Thanks jbake!

Well the Photon Freedom I have is a BRIGHT turquoise one, so I think red will work much better for Nightvision. Go for it!

Nikon is a real good worker from what I can see. Will give your suggestions a try, sweet sweet pics <img src="wink.gif" width=15 height=15 align=middle border=0>