#that said this is a mostly-theoretical piece that the designer was screwing around with until her boss said 'let's do this'.

[doolallymagpie]

that should read 3030 but MegaMek won't let you do that for some reason (even though the Matar was made during the Amaris Coup; regardless of whether it was a functional mech, it should be possible to build a pre-Wobby Lobby superheavy simply for that reason)

[panticwritten]

Jay on the Striders

Jay is one of my many para(me)s in my daydreams. The Striders are more paras pulled from Homestuck There are eight of them in the Cube. Two pre-scratch Daves. Two pre-scratch Dirks. Post-scratch Dave. Post-scratch Dirk. Davesprite. Hal, Dirk’s Auto Responder.

I think this is the first thing I’ve posted from Jay’s point of view, which is cool.

PSA: Jax is the certified Best, please be prepared for that.

So, I mostly wanted to write Jax and Dave interacting. Mostly Jax. And Jay accusing the (7/8 of the) Striders of being mother hens when uh. Yeah. Jay’s the oldest out of all us sibs, hahaha, so they’re kind of the ruler of mother hen land.

Word count: 3,838

TW:

Mentions of prior abuse

Fairly severe self-loathing

Loss of a family member

Casual references to character death

Abuse related anxiety

Humans will pack bond with anything.

Look at Roombas. They don’t even look like humans, not like an animal, no reason to think they might have feelings. They rove around, picking up crumbs. Round pieces of hardware, and still they—

We.

—have an urge to treat them as living things with feelings and emotions.

That said, my lab has always had its fair share of visitors when I let slip news of a new android, clone, or piece of machinery. Recently, a coarse scientist from another universe has been finding his way here. Connor comes to check in, now and then, looking through my new models. Sawyer and our other siblings sometimes come to see me.

Some days I wish they wouldn’t. Others, I wish they would visit more often.

Visitors come for help, occasionally. Sometimes, I’m the first stop, checking in before resorting to the magic so easily found in the Cube. Sometimes, I am the last resort. Most often, I’m called when they need discretion.

Mercenary clans asking for new equipment. I’ve had to keep a lock on that sort of work since Sawyer found out about the shackles. They were never meant to be used against us. I never intended that, but there were safeties in the design for that eventuality. The original human keeps a much closer eye on me now, likely flicking through the records in their Room as I work.

I smile at the thought, tightening a screw in Jax’s shoulder.

Sawyer likes to think they aren’t a busybody, that they don’t pry, but they watch people far more often than they let on. You can see my thoughts right now, can’t you, reading those journals?

But then, we’re a family and they mean well. I’m the last person in the Cube to critique anyone’s methods. Morally gray, the way Connor refers to it, is an understatement.

But, as I said, humans will pack bond with anything. Some more than others. There are a handful of people that will come just to talk to the various robotic projects I have.

Then there’s the Striders.

“So, I didn’t accidentally fuck them up or anything, right?” Dave asks. I’ve been around the block with this one enough to identify the anxiety under the soft chuckle he tacks onto the end of that. “Like, is their arm stuck like that forever? Wait, no, that’s dumb, I know, you can just replace the arm if it’s that bad, but—”

He cuts off when I glance over to see him turning a stray spring over in his hands. His face points toward Jax, though I can’t tell if he’s really looking at them through those sunglasses. I smile anyway, turning back to my patient.

Since the moment I acquired this space for my labs, it seems I’ve had at least one of them loitering at any given time. They latched onto the lab of an emotionally stunted clone, back when common talk was that I was torturing people back here. They certainly aren’t the only ones, but they’re the ones that feel the most like they belong. Like family.

Except one. The oldest one. The version of Dirk from the pre-scratch Earth within their universe clusters.

He used my servers, and I thought it was innocuous until I grew curious of what he was doing. I haven’t seen him in nearly a year, but that could be because I came so close to killing him the last time he was here. Even a prideful, abusive, antagonistic asshole knows when he’s not wanted in a home, it seems.

“What do you think, Jax?” I redirect his question as I delve deeper into their shoulder, probing for the broken connection. “Do you think you’ll live?”

“No, because I’m not alive, although I promise I know you’re being facetious,” they answer, the beginnings of what I know will be a long prattling loop. That should calm him down. They talk nearly as much as he does, and the flow of speech seems to help them both. “I will, however, be fine. I think it’s a few sections to the left, though. The broken line. I can almost feel it.”

A few weeks later, the others started hanging around. The first of the pleasant Striders to knock on my door was the post-scratch version of Dave.

I already knew D had to be a sweetheart underneath the layers he’d covered himself in, just based on my limited interaction with the other younger version of him outside of the lab. D’s slightly better adjusted than this one. Doesn’t try to cover it up when he shows emotion, vulnerability. Doesn’t jump at the gentle sighing of machinery in the labs.

Doesn’t break down if he topples a project or shatters a beaker. Though, that only happened once before he become comfortable enough in the lab to relax. He didn’t know how I would react, and I’m used to that.

Most of my siblings are the same way. Skittish, assuming that things will go badly because that’s how they were raised. I’d like to have more words with Dave’s ‘Bro,’ but I presume he knows I’m not a fan of his after I wiped all traces of his ‘work’ from the Cube.

I enjoy the three (four?) Daves’ presence more than I think I should. D asks about all of my projects when he stops by, lets me bounce things off of him when I hit a roadblock. Most of it is silence from him, or flat reminders of things I’ve already said, but it usually helps.

He’s the reason I managed to create the first real model of J355, named out of sentimentality and exhaustion. Well, him, the younger Dirk, and Hal. The earlier attempts were too buggy, overheated too much. We finally got the AI working, but I was so caught up in having a working AI I forgot what I needed the damn thing for.

“I still want to check the rest of your circuitry,” I murmur. “I don’t know what you get up to out there, but I’d rather take preventative measures than have you short out in the caves.”

“Shit, that could happen?” I don’t look at Dave, keeping as relaxed as possible. “How likely is that, do you think?”

“Don’t worry about it.” I tighten another screw, and Jax shifts uncomfortably. I think that one attaches to their neck, so it’ll likely be a little uncomfortable for a few days. “As long as we keep up with regular repairs they’ll be fine.”

“But if it does happen, just theoretically.” The nervous timbre to his voice has vanished, but the speed is faster, rhythm syncopated. Cover panic with cool affectations, it’s something we all do around here. “I just gotta ask how that would be handled. Like, middle of the caves. Dark, spooky, suddenly my source of light and my friend are both out of commission. Possibly in danger, doesn’t matter, I can handle it, but—”

1.2 couldn’t feel the way they did, not for the work we do. They had to either be capable of turning those feelings off or not having them at all. I was reminded of this when they first refused to complete a test on the clone group.

Not to mention the lingering glitches I couldn’t quite fix without tripping a hard reset. I nearly did, but D stopped me. I would have regretted it if I had gone through with it.

I had to start over.

I was as gentle as I could be when I told them that I couldn’t use them in the lab. They were still crushed. I still don’t know how many of their emotions are real versus simulation, the software was so buggy. At this point, it likely doesn’t matter.

“Dave?” He shuts up, and I hear him shift behind me. I tap a dented joint deep in Jax’s shoulder. I’ll worry about that when he isn’t here, when he can’t blame it on himself. It should keep until then. “You have the key to my lab, correct?”

“Wh—” I hear him shuffle behind me, then make an affirmative sound.

“So, even if that did happen it would be fine.” I withdraw and screw the panel shut, moving on to the next one while I scribble a note about the joint on a pad of paper. “You could bring them back here. No one would be mad at you. There’s nothing that could permanently destroy them, alright?”

“But…”

They befriended—surprise, surprise—another of the Striders, the sprite. They fell in with the lot of them, but those two are closer than I would have thought. J355 1.2 still visits me from time to time, and that makes me happier than I would ever admit to them.

Then D started working with the mercenaries, the Scouts. He doesn’t come by as often, though I’m not bothered. Everyone has responsibilities.

It was Hal, the young Dirk’s now-humanoid AI, that worked with me to create new algorithms for the next model. He never told me if he approved of the idea of creating a mid-level AI with a nearly suppressed emotional core, and I never asked. I just needed someone who would help me with the projects I would rather not share with the rest of the Cube.

Sawyer may be able to see them, and I may be willing to enact them, but I’m more than aware of how many of them look. Everyone knows I do questionable things, but I won’t parade it around. I know better than that.

I try a different tactic, stilling my hand in Jax’s back and leaning forward.

“Have you shown him your designs?” I ask them. I catch, this time, my voice rising into the cadence of a delighted parent. Connor, my siblings, and the other Striders would have a field day with that. Several field days.

Jax whirs, a whistling in the back of their throat that I’ve come to associate with excitement. “No, I haven’t! I should, though, shouldn’t I? That’s a friend thing, one of the ones I can do. Want to do.” They shift, slightly, but still again when their limp and exposed arm rattles against the table.

I place my instruments on the tray beside the table and tell them to wait a moment. Dave turns his head to track me as I walk away, but must look back because his words aren’t directed at me when he speaks.

“Designs?”

Jax simply whirs again, and I hear them bounce on their place on the table.

In the end, we created a lab hand that could follow instructions, but was intuitive enough to be more of an extension of myself than a tool. It was perfect. It had a low emotional bandwidth, low enough to do the work I needed done.

High enough to express that it felt like a part of the family. High enough to stop me from crossing the worst of the lines I dance around. I needed that, I think, something that knew everything and could still stand to be around me. Could keep me from making mistakes.

Then everything with Jordan happened. AA. The memories.

J-Negative.

I return to them with a thick stack of papers. Dave looks between the two of us, and I’m relieved to see intrigue overriding the Strider Mother Hen Instinct™ (I’m going to bar Sawyer from my lab the next time they manage to get me adopting their speech patterns) and his hero complex, exactly as planned.

“Which one’s the one you want next, the one on top? Or the bottom?”

They shake their head and beckon me closer. I oblige, dropping the stack on the table beside them.

“I could explain the organization system, but it would be boring and self-aggrandizing.” They shuffle through the papers with their working hand, and I can hear the smile in their gently undulating voice. “The latter would be an ego boost, the former would lower the coolness factor of this reveal.”

“By how much?” Dave chimes in, and I smile to myself, returning to my work. “Uncool enough that my B-”

My stomach turns over in the instant he pauses.

“That Dirk would shut it down?”

J-Negative got out of the cells. She was going to bring back Tchaikovsky. Or open another door. Any number of possibilities, really, most of which I’ve talked about with Hal.

It disguising itself as one of the more essential of the Sawyer siblings and hunting her down was one of the better outcomes. It making the choice, with Sawyer and I standing right there was a good outcome. If it had let go of her arm, she would have vanished. If it hadn’t pulled her into the short term memories, who knows what she could have done.

That’s what we tell ourselves, at least. Hal was almost as torn up about it as I was. Am.

Almost.

And the younger Dave’s started coming to the lab with Dirk more often. Maybe Hal told them to come, maybe the aforementioned mother hen instinct extended to me even back then. I don’t know.

We speculated what could have happened, how 2.16 could have made it. How it could have ended differently. None of it was good. None of it was acceptable. But it made it hurt a little less, knowing it really did make the right choice.

“Dave.” Jax says in a deadpan, distracting us both from his slip-of-the-tongue, but they evidently can’t suppress a rattle in their chest that nearly always comes as a precursor to laughter. Or, perhaps they do it on purpose. I can’t tell. “Dirk would be ecstatic to hear all about this radical shifting algorithm with which I rate my design priorities. You would be on a one way trip to a refreshing nap because your grasp on advanced mathematics and coding is tenuous at best.”

“Hang on just a—”

“Don’t even try to convince me of your hacking skills. There’s a reason Sollux programs our maps, not you.” They finally extract one of the more precisely detailed plans from the stack. “And this is, objectively, Fairly Advanced Shit compared to that.”

Dirk, on the other hand, deals with grief the same way I do and was more than willing to help me throw myself into my work. According to him, he wasn’t very close with 2.16, but he does live with Hal and Hal knew that I needed more healing than I had let on.

I tried uploading its programming to a new shell, but it wasn’t the same. It had all of 2.16’s memories leading up to that day, but it didn’t know exactly what happened other than that it had been destroyed.

But I knew. I knew.

So Dirk helped me change the algorithms. Sometimes Hal came, plugged himself into the server to look for inconsistencies and broken code. All three alpha Daves would come, the older one taking up his role as a sounding board for all of us, the younger ones making sure we didn’t run ourselves into the ground or take ourselves too seriously.

“Jax, be nice,” I chide. They pause to look back at me, brow raising into a smooth arc and clearly calling hypocrisy. “Nicer, at least.”

They disregard that, turning back to the still-waiting Strider. Both D and Dirk have made a point of telling me that they see more of his real smiles—smiles that he doesn’t try to hide when someone outside of his circle sees—since he started spending time with Jax. They seem good for each other.

“Alright, Dave, hold onto your shades or this might blow your mind.” They slowly unfold the paper, and Dave adjusts his sunglasses with a smirk. They pause before flipping the last fold, straightening up more. “Also, I think this will make you feel much better. About the possibility of me getting hurt, I mean. If me getting hurt was even remotely possible, considering I’m a literal robot. I’m not like Hal or V or (does AA count?) or, you know, any of the other sort of machines. I’m honest-to-god, homemade, artificial.”

They don’t sound like they’re going to stop any time soon, and Dave has gotten noticeably paler, so I flick the back of their neck. “Hey. Just show him.”

We did it, eventually, creating a hybrid of the two processors. At first, I thought 3.21 would be more like 2.16. They were cold in the beginning, in the new learning phase, until they met this Dave, the nervous one, and all of the best parts carried over from 1.2 started to come out.

They learned so fast. When I asked how they felt they were doing a month after they came online, they processed longer than I thought they would. They told me they felt loved, the same way you might tell someone it’s sunny outside, and returned to the 3DS I had given them not long before.

Which they had taken apart and put back together within an hour and were using it to make (what I found out later to be) a port to play the games faster, without taking up their hands.

Needless to say, I needed a few minutes to recover from that. The Striders agree that our being able to raise them to feel loved is not only mind-boggling but a massive relief. We all had dysfunctional childhoods, and that’s putting it mildly.

They lay the design on the table, Dave sliding from the counter to come look (and assist, since maneuvering a large sheet of paper is difficult with one hand). He runs gentle fingers over the blueprint, quiet next to Jax’s continued whirring.

I nudge them again. “Which one is it? I can’t see.”

“I drew it on the sixth. This month. Finished it at…” A buzz, while they find the archived information. “Six fifteen in the morning.”

I almost tell them that I still don’t know which one that is, but they continue.

“With the rose gold bolts. Darker synthetics with crow designs—tattoos—copper nails, amber eyes. Um.” They hum, and I grin when the image of it appears in my mind’s eye. “Shorter hair, I left the color to your discretion.”

They still wanted to do their duties in the lab, but by then I had more than enough smaller helpers around the place. I didn’t need them as much as I needed 2.16. Unlike their predecessors, I made them out of desperation rather than a necessity.

I was terrified of letting them leave the lab, knowing that it isn’t safe out there. Hell, 2.16 was right next to The Lounge, the safest place in the entire Cube complex, and it was destroyed. D talked me down when them asking to run around with the Striders practically threw me into a panic.

He came up with the idea of the designs. Total transparency. Real time downloads of their memories. If something happens and their body is destroyed or their local data is corrupted, I can reupload them into a new body. One they designed and picked out.

That soothed my nerves enough, though I still wasn’t completely at ease. They started exploring the Cube with a handful of others, improving the mapping systems. The young Dave’s been working on that with a group of friends ever since the Cube expanded a few years ago. The progress has increased exponentially with an android on their team.

“Think of it like this, Dave.” I see him look up in my peripherals, but I can finally see the broken connection. I try to keep my voice soothing. “This is a lot like your history with your time abilities. Mistakes lead to dead Daves. Dead Daves are awful, it’s traumatic when dead Daves happen, but they are far from the end of the world so long as we plan accordingly.”

I tug on the shifted connection, and it slips back into place. Jax’s arm tenses, a soft hum emitting from their shoulder as everything comes back online. Now, I watch Dave while I smooth Jax’s synthetic skin back over the mechanics on their back.

A carefully neutral expression stares back at me, and I smile in response.

“I know you worry about your friends, that you want to protect them,” I say slowly, carefully, while Jax flexes their fixed arm. They can handle the synthetics there, so I push my rolling chair to face the both of them. It’ll keep them distracted, from derailing me. Dave needs to hear this. “This is not something you have to carry on your shoulders. That’s my job. You don’t need to worry about breaking them.”

Eventually, they asked about 2.16’s memories, why it wasn’t around anymore. They asked to download the data.

I couldn’t say no. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.

It was the first time I had the experience of hearing the grinding in their neck symbolizing tears they aren’t capable of shedding. A warped, crushing version of their excited whirring I had already become so used to.

They balance their time more evenly between home and friends now.

Dave looks back down at the blueprint. He traces more of it. He sniffs, his posture portraying indifference, but his profile allows me to see him blinking furiously behind his sunglasses.

Silence stands in the lab for awhile, Dave staring at the blueprint, Jax staring at Dave, me staring at both of them. I hold my breath, waiting. For Dave to say something. For Jax to break the silence. For either of them to move.

He looks back up at Jax, a brilliant grin lighting up his face.

“Can I see some more of these?” His voice breaks on the last word, but the flicker of disappointment I’m used to seeing from him doesn’t come. My heart swells at that, but neither of them are looking at me now.

Jax immediately jumps into action, sliding off of the table and rifling through the stack of prints. They pull another out and smooth it over the first. They lean over the table, explaining the design to Dave.

I take the opportunity to back out, letting them chatter on. They’ll be at it for bit, until Dave gets tired. Until Jax notices and makes him go back to the flat.

I don’t know when I started thinking of them as more of a child than a machine, or even a partner. Maybe it was when they first came home after trip into the In-Between had sheared a portion of their head off (this Dave wasn’t there, thank god, I can’t imagine how he would have reacted to that). It could have been when they came back from their first week in charge of the body on the outside with a they/them/theirs magnet fixed to their chest.

I know I was far, far gone by the time they sat me down and told me that their new name was Jax.

[topicprinter]

People often say that web design and digital marketing niches are too saturated and that it's impossible to succeed. Here's my story that might help someone out. I live in Central Europe, so things might be a little bit different in other parts of the world.Background: I've been in the internet marketing industry for several years. Had ups and downs, went from zero to hero and vice versa several times. I made over 200 sites in my life and because internet marketing is too shaky, I decided that it was time to start a more safe business that will generate constant revenue. I'm not getting younger, so IM shakeups might give me a heart attack someday.So I started a web design company in February this year. I had zero references and zero of my past work to show because those 200 sites that I've made prior were optimized for one thing only (CTR), so they look terrible from the design aspect and I can't show them to prospects. Because I needed the references and something to show to future clients, I decided to offer my web design services for peanuts: 150 to 200€ per website. At this rate, I'd need 10 to 15 clients to pay all of my bills and company's expenses, but I decided to risk it.It took me 2 days to create a website for myself. I created landing page packed with promises for advertising and bought reseller hosting with 80GB capacity so I could host my future clients. The hosting cost me 150€ for 1 year and I calculated that I can pack it with about 100 clients (most of them need 200MB of space, some up to 2GB). If I charge them all 30€ per year for hosting, I'll get 2850€ of pure profit every year which isn't bad considering that I don't have to do anything except sending them the invoice every year. Hosting 300 sites would get me 8550€ of profit per year. This would more than cover all of my individual taxes for the entire year which is something I found worth striving for.I immediately went on Google Adwords and started advertising. I used Adwords in the past for some of my affiliate marketing projects and I mostly made losses, so I was super nervous about Adwords. In about 2-3 days I started getting calls and soon I got my first couple of clients. A dog training company, a dancer, a fitness instructor, couple of alternative healers, and so on. Nothing big, but enough to start the ball rolling.The first few months were painful. I worked 10+ hours per day and dealt with all kinds of crap. Every client had different expectations and needs and I promised to fulfil all of them. If I didn't know how, I learned. Simple as that.In about a month I got a call from a prospect asking me if I can create a vector logo. Of course I said yes although I had zero experience with vectors. My logo design process until that point was finding an appropriate free stock image, adding text and that's it. The client sent me the drawing, I installed Adobe Illustrator and spend the entire day (about 10 hours) working on the logo, watching tutorials on Youtube and learning everything about Adobe Illustrator. I asked for 20€ before I started working, so I was paid 2€ per hour for this job which of course it's peanuts. However, I knew that the next logo will take me 2 hours, and the next 1 hour and so on.After a while I got another client asking me about Adwords marketing. I never launched a campaign for a client and I was completely honest about it. I offered them a pro-bono advertising campaign and it was a success. I contacted a couple of my past clients to let them know that I can help them with Adwords (pro bono, I was a good Samaritan) and after three campaigns, I had enough self-esteem to offer Adwords marketing to just about anyone.So it took me a couple of months to transform my web design company into a company with a full range of digital services, although the primary focus was still web design.I finished tons of different sites in the first couple of months. I redesigned my website and included references to finished projects. I increased the price of my services a little bit and decided to offer a logo design service in the package for free. It was a package no one could refuse because I was still dirt cheap.Somewhere along the way, this happened. I got an email from a prospect asking me to design a website. The prospect sent me 3 examples of what kind of website they want. All of them were terrible and easy to create. Top bar, header, simple footer and content area (no sidebars, no nothing). I could set up everything with a blank WP theme and a little bit of customization in 2 to 3 hours, so I asked for 300€. They seemed like a medium-sized company, but 300€ should do it. I'm kind of shocked that I didn't say 250€ or some other bullshit. In a few days, I got a call from that prospect, asking me all kinds of weird questions.What's wrong with your sites?Do they work on mobile phones?Is there something you aren't telling us?At the end, the prospect told me that they have doubts because they sent inquiries to several web design agencies and most of the others asked for 800€+ and even over 2000€. I was mindblown and decided that it was time to increase prices. I can't sell a website for 800€ to a small business, but I learned that I can charge more to larger companies.Things were looking good for most of the summer. I easily generated enough revenue to pay my bills, clients kept on coming, but the work started to pile up. Somewhere around the end of summer, I talked to several people. I told them what keeps me from working faster and what kind of crap I'm taking from clients. They helped me come up with a few solutions.I decided to change my mindset and approach to dealing with clients.I expect every client to tell me exactly how many pages they need, so I can tell them the estimated price. If they change their minds in the middle of the process, the price goes up.I tell every client that the price isn't fixed. If they want something as an addition in the middle of the design process, the price goes up. If they aren't ready to pay extra, then they should go somewhere else.I tell every client about my work process. I will create a demo website so they can test the design. This takes me no more than a couple of hours. After they are happy with the design, they need to back off completely until they prepare every little piece of content that they want me to publish on the website. Once everything is sent to me, I'll start and not a minute before that.Once I've implemented these things, the work got a lot easier and faster. I might lose a couple of clients here and there because of it, but it's totally worth it. Right now I have much more capacity, I have more time and I could theoretically finish 5 sites in a week.Getting larger clientsBecause I have something to show for, I am occasionally getting larger clients with larger projects. I'm currently finishing two projects that will require me to work on them indefinitely for a couple of hours per month. I expect them to be finished in about 1 month if I get another project like that, I expect them to cover all of my company's taxes every month.The problem is that large companies don't search for web design services on Google, so it's hard to get them through Adwords. They pick web design agencies through word of mouth recommendations and I'm not an authority in the area. Yet.Getting off the AdwordsAdwords has done wonders for my business, but it's costly. There are tons of web designers in my country and not many of them are using Adwords. Why? Because they are getting enough clients without marketing.I realized that the future is in partnering with other businesses. I created a free website for an accountant. In return, he's going to be my free accountant for the next 2 years. Hooray. But what's even better is that his services are 20€ to 50€ per month. This means that he needs tons of clients to make a living. And most of these clients have websites and they will need a renovation sooner or later. So he is dealing with a lot of clients who need or will need a website, and I'm dealing with people who will need accounting services sooner or later. We established a copromotion (he lets his clients know that I'm the guy for web design and I let my clients know that he's the guy for accounting services). I don't know how many clients I brought him, but he brought me two clients (with several more coming up) in the past two months.I also partnered with two other companies that have lots of connections. However both of these companies want the work to be done through them, so my company isn't mentioned anywhere. I don't even talk to clients. They send the questionnaire to their prospects, I set up the price, they charge their margins on top of that, and that's it. I get paid, they get commission and we're all happy. So far I got 3 clients from one of these two partners in the past two months and the other partner will start promoting soon.What am I doing now?I got 4 new projects last week and I temporarily canceled my Adwords campaign to finish as many older projects as I can before the end of October. I'm also redesigning my website for the third time this year because I want it to look like there's a full-scale agency behind it.In November I expect magic to happen.I'll relaunch my Adwords campaign and triple the budget. Go big or go home.I'll stop being a charity organization. I finished about 50 projects this year and every week one or two past clients want something from me. Either help with something they screwed up on their site, or some other bizarre crap such as "Why does an image lose it's resolution when I paste it into MS Word?". I'll start charging by the hour.I'll increase the price of web design services because I've been dirt cheap for the entire year. I'll also publish the minimum price on my site, so I don't have to deal with people with budgets below my price.Logo won't be free anymore. Whoever wants it, will have to pay extra.I'll finish everything with one of my partners who I expect will bring me a few clients per month for commission.Goals for 2020Grow my company to the point where I'll be able to hire 1-2 people to help me out with everything.Open a LLCBecome an authority in the web design and digital marketing industry in my countryGet clients from countries where the price is x5. It's going to be hard, but I'm in talks with a few partners who can make things easier.The endSo there's that. I wish I'd ask more people for advice at the start because my whole journey was a pain in the ass until the end of summer.

[myqualitycollectioncrown]

Buck Marksman Review

Buck Marksman Review

The Buck Marksman, internally referred to as Model 830, is a drastic departure from the majority of what the Buck Knives brand is known for. It’s futuristic, sleek, forward-thinking, and it’s an incredibly compelling everyday carry knife once you learn how to use it properly.

Buck Marksman price check Amazon

For many, the Buck name is forever associated with the classic’s like the Model 110 back-lock hunting knife, but the Marksman is about as different from that classic stalwart as a folding knife can be.

Buck Marksman

Blade

Handle

Design

Value for money

Great

Buck deviates from its classic formula with this superb modern folding knife design.

Key Specs

Blade Length: 3.50″

Overall Length: 8.25″

Closed Length: 4.75″

Weight: 4.3 oz

Blade Material: 154CM

Handle Material: Aluminium

Locking Mechanism: Strong Lock System (SLS)

Deployment Mechanism: Flipper

Country of Origin: USA

Price Range: About $90

The Marksman is a design collaboration with Grant & Gavin Hawk, the father and son design duo that have brought numerous fascinating designs to market through other manufacturers. There was the Kershaw E.T. with a multi-piece handle that pivoted around the knife itself, and the R.A.M. and the brand new Induction with the Hawk-Lock toggle switch. Zero Tolerance produced two of their designs, the dirt-resistant 0500 M.U.D.D. and the automatic 0650. They also did the (recently discontinued) Ti-Lock with Chris Reeve which integrated the locking mechanism into the spine of the blade instead of into the handle – an interesting design for sure. In addition, they’ve made designs for CRKT, Boker, Mantis, and Camillus.

The big draw to the Marksman is the lock, called the SLS (Strong Lock System, seriously) which is a clever variation of a strap lock. We’ll dive into the lock more later, but it has several unique attributes that make the Marksman a captivating knife to use and carry on a daily basis.

The Blade

While Buck uses a lot of 420 high-carbon in their knives, the standard Marksman uses Crucible 154CM, which is a refinement of the classic 440C stainless steel with the addition of Molybdenum to increase hardness and edge retention – according to Crucible’s literature on the steel, 154CM offers 11-26% better wear resistance compared to 440C and can maintain several points higher hardness on the Rockwell scale. It’s not the newer CPM-154 variant which is produced through the powdered metallurgy process (which is used, among other places, on the Kershaw Launch line of automatics) but it is still a well-regarded “standard bearer” of mid-range cutlery steels.

Benchmade loves using 154CM, and it’s a favorite steel of mine. It can take a mirror polished edge and get absolutely screaming sharp, but it’s not bad to touch up on a set of stones and it holds an edge better than steels like AUS-8A or VG-10. Adding to the appeal of the Marksman is the Paul Bos heat treat. Bos runs Bos Services Co in Ohio, and does a lot of the in-house heat treatment for Buck. He’s widely considered an expert in the art of heat treatment, and the importance of his work is evident in that he gets billing on the side of the blade.

The blade itself is an ideal pattern for day to day use – 3.5” long with a drop point shape. The hollow grind on the blade ramps up towards the end of the blade, intersecting the spine about an inch behind the tip. Blade stock is 0.12”, thick enough so you don’t feel like you’ll randomly snap off the tip but thin enough to not get caught up in materials. As we’ll see, lots of things about the Marksman are “just right” compromises. There’s a sharpening choil at the base of the blade, but it’s got a “beard” – where the material flares out as the primary bevel transitions into the bolster, so the edge plunges downward. It’s not an annoyance when you’re using the knife, more-so when you’re sharpening it. A narrow oval thumb hole doesn’t protrude from the spine like a Spyderco, but rather is integrated into the profile of the knife and is just barely clear of the handle when closed.

The shape of the blade is a nice compromise between different usage styles. Since the primary bevel terminates well behind the tip it’s thin enough to penetrate material well, while the hollow grind makes the Marksman a good slicer. It’s not great for food prep, with the tip being mostly in line with the centerline of the handle and having a very shallow belly, but it’ll slice an apple in half like it wasn’t even there. A smooth satin finish on the blade is better than a bead blast but would still look better as a stonewash. I’ve sharpened the Marksman a few times now and it’s usually about a 20 minute task on a standard set of Sharpmaker stones – not as fast as, say, a Swiss Army Knife or something in 8Cr13MoV or AUS-8, but it’s not bad and it takes a wicked sharp edge pretty quickly.

Deployment & Lockup

Is this the best mid-range flipper ever? What? It very well may be. The Marksman uses self-contained ball bearings (in bright red races that can be seen when you peek through the scales when it’s closed) like a lot of modern flippers. It has a “light switch” style flipper tab with a little bit of jimping for traction, but the trick to the Markman’s superlative flipping action is actually the lock itself.

Most flippers these days (nearly all of them) are either liner locks or frame locks. The ball detent creates closed tension that when overcome by the user provides energy to flip the blade open. The downside with a liner/frame lock is that as the blade travels around the pivot to the open position, that detent ball rides along the tang of the blade and creates friction as well as sideways pressure. Eventually the detent ball will wear a small “track” into the tang and smooth out to a certain degree, but not ever to the same degree of the Marksman. It uses a strap lock that provides both closed tension as well as locks the blade in the open position.

It works with the machining on the tang of the blade, which has round cutouts where the strap fits into the blade in both the open and closed positions. When closed, there is a ramp that the strap presses against. Once the tension of the strap is overcome with the flipper tab, there is nothing pressing against the blade until it locks into the open position when the strap rides up over another ramp on the opposite side of the tang and drops into place. To release the lock you just lift the strap up.

Since there’s no friction while the blade is travelling, it opens incredibly well. Even the best-tuned frame lock flippers can’t approach the level of smoothness the Marksman provides. It doesn’t even have a particularly strong detent (like the muscular detent on the Factor Absolute) but it still snaps open with barely any effort, every single time. This kind of “outside of the box” solution is what the Hawks are famous for, such as their Out-The-Front automatic “The Deadlock” which has a unique inner mechanism that prevents blade play entirely when in the open position. It also makes the Marksman incredibly addicting to flip. The flipper tab itself works great to open the blade, as does the thumb hole – even used from the back in Spyder flick fashion. You can also flip the blade open by lifting up on the lock strap and flicking your wrist. There is a break-in period with the strap as it mates to the locking side surface of the tang – it has some stick initially and the strap itself is very stiff, but after a week or so of use it becomes super smooth.

It must be said, it’s extremely important that the user is familiar with how the Marksman works and how easily it free drops when it’s between the open and closed positions. If you’re not careful with the position of your fingers when you’re closing it, it will cut you very badly, as has been repeatedly mentioned by reviewers on Amazon and YouTube. Keeping your fingers clear of the path of the blade is a must with a knife that closes this smoothly.

Lockup is flawlessly secure, with no bladeplay at all in the vertical or horizontal axis. Blade centering on my example with off enough to see, but not enough to scrape the liners, and that doesn’t keep me up at night.

Features, Fit & Finish

The Marksman has a lot of cool stuff going on. The handle is a black anodized aluminum, with a series of horizontal stripes cut partially into the handle from the spine and the belly. The handles cut away under the strap lock, allowing you to see just the edge of the blade when it’s closed. The pocket clip is excellent: a stamped steel deep carry clip that mounts with two screws to the butt of the handle, it sits in a slot cut into the handle to locate it and can be flipped around for tip up right or left hand carry. It’s ideal: strong spring tension, a shallow curve at the end that doesn’t scrape paint or catch on things, and long enough to keep the knife firmly anchored in your pocket. It’s surprising how many knives these days get the clip wrong.

The strap is interesting, too. There are two screws that go through it to mount it to the backspacer, which also has a rectangle that protrudes through the strap to locate it front to back. There is a hole hidden in the backspacer along the butt of the handle which a small Allen key can be passed through to turn the set screw for the strap, adjusting tension to compensate for wear as the knife ages. Considering it’s steel-on-steel, the theoretical wear rate is incredibly slow, but it’s nice that G&G Hawk included this feature in case you want to adjust the preload.

The strap has jimping on both sides where you place your thumb to lift the strap so you don’t slip off of it, which can be a little rough at first on your thumb. A decorative pivot has torx fittings on both sides – the pivot barrel isn’t keyed to the handle – that allows you to hold the pivot on one side and adjust it on the other.

Fit and finish isn’t perfect on the Marksman. In fact, the Marksman I’ve been using for the last 8 months or so is actually the second Markman purchased off of Amazon. The first one had two of the body screws floating around loose in the box, which I quickly discovered was because the threads in the backspacer were stripped out. It was quickly exchanged for another example (thanks Amazon Prime!) but both examples exhibited a strange defect: a scratch running the height of the blade, from edge to spine, deep enough to feel with a finger nail, in the exact same spot.

There is also the somewhat uneven finish of the blade, a series of different color stripes along the primary bevel some of which are almost scratches. The markings on the blade are also a bit heavy-handed: one side displaying the “Buck USA” logo halfway down the blade, the other side with the Bos symbol, the marking “154CM” and “G&G Hawk Collaboration.” Some people say it’s easy enough to remove the labels with a scotchbrite pad, and maybe also even out the finish, but it’d be better if it had more minimal branding and a stonewash finish. Oddly, two of the body screws (which have flat heads) stand slightly proud of the scale, while they’re flush on the other side – all the way tight, however. The black anodization finish holds up about as well as can be expected – it’s better than paint but it does tend to wear thin around the edges, especially at the end of the handle, but it adds a little visual character.

Field Test

I, frankly, love using the Marksman. It’s a pleasure to flip open and flip closed incessantly. It’s also a great cutter. The blade shape is extremely practical, good for everything from cutting up food to popping nylon straps and breaking down boxes. The Marksman is decently thin behind the tip, making it a good knife for piercing cuts, and it almost replicates the initial puncture ability of a spear point due to the primary grind terminating well behind the tip. There’s not any belly for rolling cuts, so prepping dinner wouldn’t be fun, but this is a tactical knife. The Marksman (along with the Gayle Bradley) have me pretty convinced about the superior slicing abilities of hollow ground blades, and they turn what would be a mediocre slicer if it were flat ground into a great tool. Edge retention is good, approximately on par with how long Benchmade’s 154CM holds an edge, with wear showing up as micro chipping rather than rolling.

Ergonomics are fair. The aluminum handle’s grip is improved by the grooves cut into it but it’s still not as great for a hard use knife as something with more purchase like G10 or Micarta. There is a G10 variant of the Marksman available exclusively from SK Blades made in house at Buck that has green G10 scales as well as a Bos heat-treated S35VN blade, which is stonewashed and flat ground. These are limited production so availability is questionable, but priced at $125 the SK Blades exclusive seems like a good upgrade for the money. The ergonomics are basic but sound, with the handle and flipper tab forming a finger guard in the open position. The strap lock itself is a good flat surface to rest your thumb on, and the long shallow pocket clip doesn’t make any hot spots when you grip down on it. Demerits for a lack of a forward choil, but that’s just me.

As far as carry goes, the Marksman is solid. A weight of 4.30 ounces is fairly light considering the aluminum handles, bearings, and stainless strap lock. The protruding edges of the strap lock can be rough on whatever else is floating around in your pocket (phone screen, etc) so exercise care. As mentioned earlier the clip is exemplary, with perfect spring tension and a nice shallow angle to the end of the clip so it doesn’t grab on steering wheels and car doors. It can be slightly difficult to get onto your pocket, especially if you have thicker seams, and it makes quick work of denim due to the placement of the clip contact point relative to the grooves in the handle. This could definitely use improvement, but destroyed pants pockets are a way of life at this point. It’s slim in profile measuring under a half inch thick and the long clip distributes the weight well.

Alternatives

At around $85 on Amazon, the Marksman is a remarkably good value for the money. The Tanto version varies in price, sometimes going for more or less than the regular. It has a different handle design – a “fracture” pattern of grooves cut randomly into the grip, as well as a black oxide stonewash coating to the blade. The dramatic American tanto with a sharp angle isn’t for me. There’s the aforementioned SK Knives G10 version as well as the rare Marksman Elite, a limited edition of only 250 units. At $180 retail, it bumps the steel up to exotic CPM-S90V with a stonewash black oxide coating, a fuller groove instead of a thumb hole, and a blue titanium Cerakote finish on the handle with slick carbon fiber inlays. Maybe too pretty to use, but definitely worth drooling over.

The full size Benchmade Griptilian with plastic scales and a thumb stud is about $100, offering lesser materials and features for more money. It is a little bit lighter at 3.82 ounces, and the Axis lock offers knife fidgeters similar satisfaction as the SLS lock. The Benchmade Barrage combines an assisted open action with the Axis lock and a satin finish 154CM blade, also with plastic handles over steel liners, for about $130. There’s also a safety switch on the spine if you want to leave the blade locked closed.

Of course, around this price range is the elephant in the room – a Spyderco Paramilitary 2 retails for around $125 in the standard satin finish CPM-S30V and black G10 handles. It’s very similar in size to the Marksman, a 3.4” clip point blade and 8.28” overall (the Marksman rings in at 8.25”) but a half ounce lighter. It also offers a 4 way pocket clip and Spyderco’s fantastic compression lock. Another all-time great is the lightweight bodied Spyderco Manix 2 in CPM-S110V, with a 3.4” leaf shaped blade in one of the longest edge-holding steels on the market, and Spyderco’s unique caged ball bearing lock. At only 3 ounces, the Manix2 Lightweight may present a big shape in the pocket due to the bulging spine but will hardly weigh your pants down. Or your wallet, at about $120 retail. There’s also a version in CTS-BD1 with cool translucent blue handles for around $85, which is similar in performance to the Marksman’s 154CM blade and much easier to sharpen than S110V.

Much thinner and sleeker than the Marksman, with more a slant towards light everyday tasks, is the lust-worthy Boker Urban Trapper. Long, thin, and crazy light (between 1.7-1.9 ounces) the Urban Trapper is a superlative flipper – with a strong detent and an IKBS bearing pivot it pops open like a switch. The choice of materials is charming: cocobolo wood, carbon fiber, or black G10 over stainless scales, or a skeletonized titanium framelock.

CRKT’s high end version of the Homefront is also tempting, with textured aluminum handles, a hollow ground drop point blade in AUS-8A, and the ability to be taken completely apart in seconds with no tools to clean it. It might be a gimmick, but it’s a cool one. A little more expensive at $115, though, but offering similarly innovative thinking.

Wrap-Up

The US made Buck Marksman is an unexpected triumph of a knife, primarily because I’d never have expected Buck to make it. It’s incredibly innovative, but it’s innovation that actually works – and works well. It pushes the envelope of lock and flipper technology, and that’s the sort of phrase usually followed by a caveat like “which is why it’s flaws are easy to accept,” but the Markman doesn’t have glaring flaws. It’s easily up there in my book with the Spyderco PM2 and the Benchmade Griptilian for greatest full size EDC blades. It’s good value for money, solid lock, excellent flipper, useful blade shape, and superb clip make it hard to dislike. If you’ve written off Buck as half-baked Chinese junk, the Marksman is a sign of the shifting paradigm at the company – which recently experience a changing of the guard in February of 2017 with a new CFO and COO – towards making higher quality products, and making them in America. I highly recommend it.

The Good: Frictionless flipping action, brilliant lock, practical blade shape and geometry, perfect pocket clip, great cutter The Bad: Break-in period for strap can be challenging, some fit and finish issues, inexperienced users may injure themselves, tears up pockets, bearded sharpening choil Bottom Line: A home run for Buck, and highly recommended to every EDC knife nut.

Buck Marksman price check Amazon

The post Buck Marksman Review appeared first on Buy Best Knife.

from Buy Best Knife https://ift.tt/2K3BJVU via IFTTT