Every now and then we get a knife for test and review and the very first reaction out of the box is, “Wow! THAT is a big chunk of knife!” Now this doesn’t refer to the blade length. We’re not remembering Crocodile Dundee and his comment about that long blade of his. What we’re talking about is the heft in the hand. When we pulled the ZT Knives 0562TI out of the box it surprised us with how solid it felt - and that was almost purely due to the weight of it. Now, don’t get us wrong: this isn’t a heavy blade per se. But weighing in at 5.3oz it is a bit heavier than many folding lock-blades. That combined with the grip size, length, etc. made it feel... substantial.
ZT Knives has long been known for their quality control and precision in construction. The 0562TI reflects that reputation well. The 3.5” edge was perfect, even under a magnifying glass. There wasn’t a single sign of even skin oil on the polished surface and the sharpened edge appeared to be without flaw.
That blade opened with just the right about of ease and locked open with that reassuring CLICK we all like to hear and feel. An examination of the liner-lock showed complete engagement between the lock and the back end of the blade. The forward end of the liner lock actually has a small metal block milled into it and the blade only engages until it hits that block. With the blade thus engaged to the block, it is fully locked open.
The blade is about 1/6” thick and it maintains that thickness to within 1/2” of the tip giving strength to the majority of the blade length. That matters a lot more if you’re using the knife for prying anything and that is NOT a use most locking folders are well suited for.
Folded closed, the knife measures 4.8”, so the grip is large enough to fill even larger hands. Perhaps more important to the full feeling this knife gives you in your palm is the over 1” (on average) height of the grip slabs. This knife certainly doesn’t feel anemic in your hand. It feels like you’ve got a good hold on a non-slippery grip with a sturdily locked out blade.
Locked open the knife measures 8.3” overall. The blade is long enough for most cutting chores and the construction is such that it will put up with quite a bit of abuse. For cutting tests we resorted to testing it against what we had at hand. In the garage were various thicknesses and lengths of string, cord, rope and nylon webbing. We also had some of that ugly yellow plastic rope you find in so many water-oriented communities along with a couple of nearly destroyed plastic 5-gallon construction buckets.
The knife cut through all of the string and rope lengths we had without issue. Most of them didn’t even take much work; just a little bit of pressure. The nylon webbing took a good pull but the blade cut through it with a single stroke and left a nice clean edge on both sides of the cut nylon. The ugly plastic rope took a strong pull, but the blade still cut through with one pull.
The plastic construction bucket was where this knife saw abuse. We set the bucket upside down and stabbed the blade down into the bottom several times. The blade tip held up well and we succeeded in getting through-and-through punctures on every stab stroke. The spine of the blade narrows in front of the ridges near the pivot point and then widens back out again closer to the tip. That narrowing caused us some friction as the plastic tried to close around it after we stabbed the blade through. Of course, on soft tissue that would never matter and, truth be told, we don’t think anyone at ZT Knives thought we’d be stabbing buckets to test it.
The blade is manufactured from CPM-20CV steel and the grip slabs are titanium. The combination gives you, as described earlier, a nice strong feeling knife in your hand without having it weigh an unreasonable amount. The one-handed opening isn’t super difficult but doesn’t require a touch more pressure than you might be used to from less-substantial blades.
Overall we were left with a very favorable impression of the knife. It was of quality construction, manufactured from the higher end industry standard materials and it certainly took every bit of abuse we exposed it to in the testing process. For more information or to pick up on for yourself, check out more on the ZT Knives website.
