Spyderco Techno Review

Introduction

There is a lot to love about the Spyderco Techno. The materials, the design, the deployment method, the size, the fit and finish. This is a superior knife and a superlative EDC blade. You could spend twice as much or even venture into the custom world and the Techno would still be a competitive blade. There are a few drawbacks, but they are small in the overall scheme of things.


Here is the product page for the Techno with all of the specs. My independent verification has found them to be accurate, as is always the case with Spyderco specs. Here is my Techno that I received as a Christmas gift.

Product Description

The Techno is a small folding knife. It uses a thumb hole for deployment. It has a wire, over the top, deep carry pocket clip. The handle scales are made of stonewashed titanium. The blade is an almost classic drop point blade made of the American made Carpenter steel CTS-XHP. Here is the datasheet on CTS-XHP. The blade is also stonewashed. The knife uses a frame lock, also known in the Spyderco literature as the Reeve Integral Lock. There is a bright blue G10 backspacer. The knife is a production version of the Mouse (the Mouse is on top and the Techno below), a custom knife made by Polish knifemaker Marcin Slysz (pronounced "Sleesh"). The differences between the two are very slight. The Mouse has more crisply cut jimping on the spine of the blade and an additional screw to hold the knife together. The size and weight of the knife are basically identical. The Techno is produced for Spyderco in Taichung, Taiwan, one of the most highly regarded of Spyderco's OEMs, see here for more. The entire knife is very stout with thick handle scales and very thick blade stock, especially for a knife of this size. The grind is a very, very high (but not full) flat grind. The retail is around $155.

Design

Aside from a little extra weight and thickness, the Techno is very close to an ideal EDC knife in terms of design. The blade length is good, with a nice amount of belly and a true choil in front of the ricasso (the choil is the small cut out in the blade in front of the ricasso, that portion of the blade that is unground and near the pivot).


The true choil allows the user to sharpen the entire length of the edge and is very uncommon on Spyderco knives, which typically have a finger choil instead of a true choil. The shape of the handle fits the hand nicely, with a little bit of a curve away from spine of the knife. The handle is completely chamfered to make the knife comfortable in the hand. There is jimping, but it is pretty useless. As a design on paper, there is little to complain about. Even the weight and thickness is not too much of an issue as the extra material isn't excessive and lends a confident feel to the knife in hand.

Build Quality

Don't let that slab thickness scare you. This is a very refined build. I have handled and owned knives that are more than ten times the price. I have extensive experience with some of the more renowned knives on the market—the XM-18, the Sebenza, the Strider PT CC. In terms of build quality, tuning, and fit and finish, the Techno can run with the big dogs. I wouldn't compare it to a Michael Burch knife or a Begg custom, but in terms of production knives there isn't anything that is clearly better (the ZT0560 and ZT0561 are its equal). Even the vaunted Sebenza doesn't blow the Techno away. In fact, I actually like the Techno a little better. The pivot is smoother, the detent is better, and the lock up is just as good. Finally, unlike my XM-18, PT CC, and Sebenza, the pivot screw on the Techno has remained locked in place. Three weeks of intensive use has proven to me that the Techno is a very well built blade, as all of the Taichung, Taiwan Spydercos have been. Lock up is rock solid in all directions and very early, around 25%.

One small ding, noted by many reviewers, is the flimsy wire pocket clip. There are two styles of Spyderco wire clips, ones with higher tension like those found on the Spyderco Dragonfly II and ones like the clip on the Caly3 (purchase), which has a bit more flex to it. The Techno's clip is clearly in the second group. It moves around a lot and has even