Any long-term users of the Delica or Endura?

el gigantor

el gigantor

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If any of you folks have carried a Delica or Endura for several years, how have the knives held up to rigorous use over the long-term? The E4 is one of my favourite platforms but I haven't owned one long enough to see how the internals have degraded over time. I dunno....just something I've been thinking about today. Cheers for whatever input I receive!
 
I've carried a Delica for more years than I can remember and never had any problems. There is an Endura that has been laying on a table by the back door for many years that gets grabbed and used as a catch-all for everything that needs cut without any issues. They operate as smoothly today as they did brand new ... only thing they've ever needed was sharpening and a touch of lube once in awhile.
 
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I’ve used an endura and endela extensively. Endura in vg10 and endela fully serrated in vg10. Only issues were the pocket clips. The endura snagged and snapped. The endela snagged and bent several times.

I’ve snagged several pockets clips over the years from several different brands including Spyderco. These two knives have handled it the worst.
 
This should be a good thread. I've been using my delica for 2 months at work and love it. The steel is incredible, the blade thinness and style. I smile every time I find something that needs cutting and I get to whip it out and flick it open.

I would figure long term it would hold up like any other lockback. That is to say an old well used buck 110 or similar, which I would guess would be a long time
 
I've carried a Delica 1 through 4 since the Delica came out. Started out carrying it as a cheap serrated edge option while working as an EMT. Carried that Delica till I got a combo-edge version as an Army medic. Ended up giving that one away to a soldier in my squad in need of a good knife. Briefly had a Delica 3 but did not like the blocky butt of the scales. When the 4th version came out, I got a SE ZDP-189 version to carry at work as a CNA. When the FFG version came out I picked up one as an EDC. Still have both of those - the SE version is my car console knife, and the FFG version is my default EDC when I can't decide what knife to carry.

In all that time I never had any issues with them. Probably the closest to a problem was the lock not properly engaging one time. Closer examination revealed gunk around the pivot that was keeping the lockbar from fully engaging. Think I used the tip of a paperclip to clear the debris initially and it locked right up. Later when I got home I hosed it with WD-40 and cleared it out better with some small brushes. After that I just periodically kept an eye on that and had no further issues.
 
Had and sold an endura 4 for a year that you could say I abused. Held up fine, no blade play, had it apart a couple times and reassembled without issue. Only sold because the I like the Police 4 lightweight so much better! Also no problems with it, or my Pacific Salt 1 that is based on the Endura 3 platform iirc. I have never had a problem with the Seki spoon style pocket clips bending or braking in the 4 years I've been on board owning Spydercos either. The paint does wear off, I may strip it off one of my knives and try to acid etch it black again but not sure how that'll go.
 
I have a Delica 4 that I carried pretty much every day for 5 years, from 2014 to 2019. I got a lot of use out of this knife and it's now enjoying a well deserved retirement.

It had some vertical play from when it was new, at first it was only really noticeable when applying pressure when cutting on a cutting board. The amount of movement increased over the years to the point where I can now feel the flex when cutting through something like thick cardboard.

Other than this irritation the knife has performed flawlessly. Of all my knives it's probably the one I've bonded with the most.


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They are both very long lasting knives. I’ve carried a delicas for many years and only replaced them when lost. Only recently I started playing around with other designs, but still find myself pocketing delica on most days.
 
My first Spyderco was a Delica with the plastic integral clip. My second Spyderco was a Delica with the plastic integral clip. This was in the late '80's.

This was not intentional. I was at a friend's house and showed him my Delica (being SE, it scared him!). A couple of days later he shows up to return my 'lost knife'. I didn't even know it was 'lost'. It wasn't.

Apparently, he found ANOTHER Delica (also an SE). Once I cleaned off all the mud and gunk and oiled it, it worked fine. The only thing wrong with it was that the plastic clip was broken off. Five minutes and a Dremel tool cleaned that up, and now I had two Delicas.

I carried and used both for years and never found a cutting job they could not handle. They have disappeared over time, but I would have ZERO issues with getting another one (I'm not in a rush, I have a lot of other Spyderco choices to use at the moment).
 
el gigantor said:
If any of you folks have carried a Delica or Endura for several years, how have the knives held up to rigorous use over the long-term? The E4 is one of my favourite platforms but I haven't owned one long enough to see how the internals have degraded over time. I dunno....just something I've been thinking about today. Cheers for whatever input I receive!
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I carried a Delica 4 (edited to change the D2 model to D4. It was the second Delica model I had carried, but it was a D4) for 15 years when I worked in a warehouse, mostly the same black/VG10 saber ground one. I still have it clipped to the back of a small Gerber multi-tool pouch in my car console. My wife and I each have a ZDP-189 Delica as well. I can say that they've all held up well and worked fine,. All of them show some their use, but that's to be expected. They're all over 10 years old. I have no regrets about carrying one to work.

I've used it to open boxes, carve styrofoam for packing, cut pallet strapping material, and even (don't tell anybody) stuck the open knife into the bottom of a packing box over my head and used it as a lever to move the box forward until I could reach it from a cherry picker (thank you for a dependable backlock, Sal). I've also dropped it from 20 feet up onto a concrete warehouse floor and the only thing that happened was that it got a little dusty (I really like FRN for a work knife).

I carried it to the beach near St. Simon's pier a couple of times, got it wet in the Atlantic, rinsed it out and dried it, and today you'd never know it was in the ocean. It's like a Bic pen. It's not pretty, it's not fancy, it's not "cutting edge" (ha, ha. See what I did there? I kill me), but it works today just like it did when I bought it new.

I know I sound like an ad for Delicas, but all this is my genuine, long-term experience with them. And that's why my carry knives are almost always Spydercos... they just work, time after time after time.
 
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