DLO Live! Ep 10. General Q&A and EDC Knife Discussion

It is a bit of a short notice, but I figured another livecast is in order.
I want to spend a few minutes on different topics starting out with some thoughts on EDC carry knives and then we will move into a general Q&A. I have seen an increase in optics questions lately, so this will be a good time to address those. If there is time, I'll touch on our current political situation in the US.

"After" show notes:
The knife store I talked about is https://www.omahaknife.com/ The owner is a solid guy with a lot of field experience with different knives and different steels.

Here are the specific knives I use for daily carry when I am home:
Spyderco Spydiechef with its absolutely rustproof LC200N steel and very functional blade design
Spyderco Paramilitary with Maxamet steel blade. It stays sharp for a long time, but re-sharpening it is not for the faint of heart.
Old Benchmade AFCK. Unfortunately they do not make these any more (I have three of them). I have mixed feelings about Benchmade, but they do make good quality knives and do so in the US.
Spyderco Military with M4 steel blade when I want something a little bigger.
Spyderco Native5 with S110V steel. Another tricky steel to sharpen.

All of these are somewhat pricy and keep in mind I am comfortable sharpening difficult blades.

When I travel, I am a little more concerned about losing a knife or having to leave it with TSA, so I switch to less expensive knives in the $30 - $50 range. I also stay away from knives that are assisted or use a flipper since I do not always know where my travels will take me and I need whatever I carry to be non-threatening and least likely to alarm a police officer or nervous bystander.

My current favourites are ESEE Zancudo and Ontario RAT Model2, both with D2 blades. They are very functional, inexpensive, and do not look terribly threatening. If you want something a little larger, try ESEE Avispa and Ontario RAT Model1. Make sure you go for the D2 blade.

All four of these are made in Taiwan.

There are other budget D2 blade knives that are made in China. I started looking at the recently and they appear to be of decent quality. The ones I have looked at are CJRB Fieldspar and Centros. I also have CJRB Ria that uses some sort of mystery steel that I am curious about and QSP Parrot that is a new brand for me. All of these have blades made out of thicker stock than the ESEE and Ontario knives mentioned above, so they are somewhat less efficient at many conventional cutting tasks. The build quality is very decent for the sub-$50 price though.