PocketKNIFE

Two things drew me to this nondescript, brandless knife. The first thing is that it came in the absolute fakest Benchmade box...

(Dramatic pause.)

...In the world.

And here's the reverse, for good measure.

In case the sticker on it didn't tip you off, this absolutely is not any kind of Benchmade. Let's just say, somehow I highly doubt the validity of that Lifesharp promise on the back of the box in this particular case. Another clue to an astute observer might be that this doesn't resemble any particular model of knife they've ever made.

Except, it must be said, for one other detail. Which is in fact the second thing that drew me to this knife.

It has a Benchmade Model 42/62/63/etc. style extension spring latch. Boing!

Those of you who are regular readers know this is exactly the kind of thing that gets my motor going. And it's not something you find very often coming in at $14 from Dongguan, China. Alas, the only designation I can find for this is its product description, which melodiously states: "Benchmade Guro EDC Balisong Knives Tactical Butterfly Knives Trainer Flipping Practice Folding Knife Combat Multifunction Tool Gift."

The "Guro" is a full 5-3/4" long closed, and an absolutely massive 10" long when latched open. Because Long Knife Is Long, the blade is 4-1/2" with a drop point and a depression in it that I am not in this context going to call a "blood groove," because that's silly. There is a large choil at the base, but only on one side because this is a traditional dual kicker pin design. No Zen pins here. The blade's alloy is of course unspecified, but don't expect miracles and you won't be disappointed. It is 0.110" thick and is very shiny, to the point I think it might actually be chrome plated.

Actually, the entire thing is hella shiny thanks to the deep metallic blue finish on the handles which upon close inspection is somewhat iridescent and is sprayed on over the outside of the handles. A bit like anodized titanium or the scales on a butterfly's wing, its color seems to come from refraction rather than any type of pigment because the hue shifts where the knife is smudged, and comes back when it's cleaned. In the areas where it's sprayed on more thinly, or in the corners and groves, it takes on magenta and then gold tones instead. It's not sprayed on very evenly and doesn't appear to be terribly durable, either, since my knife arrived with several bits of the finish already rubbed off on the edges and sports a few thin spots and holidays even from factory fresh. The thing also fingerprints like crazy.

The Guro rings in at an absolutely ridiculous 170.2 grams (6 ounces) thanks to its all metal construction which gives it a mix of both old and traditional cheap Chinese balisong construction along with some new. It's an odd combination.

The handles are for instance single piece solid castings, like we're used to on the cheap potmetal flea market butterflies from the bad old days. Within you can see that the glossy blue finish is indeed sprayed on, because it's not sprayed on the insides where you can see it peters out. The handle material appears to be brass.

But, inexplicably, it has that spring latch.

The blade also rides on a quartet of nice brass washers, which is certainly unexpected. That means the action on this knife is better than it has any right to be -- on both ends. Thanks to these plus the long heavy handles, the flipping feel is quite free albeit rather slippery with the gloss finish.

The results of the wiggle test put us back on track for Chinese cheapness. The pivot holes in the blade aren't very precise, so a lot of slop and play is left in the blade.

And it wouldn't be a Chinese knife at all if it didn't have some aspect that wasn't completely inexplicable, and in our case it's this:

The latch shank is threaded, and the head is a knurled nut that can be screwed up and down it.

This includes being able to screw the latch head up the shank so far the knife can't be latched. Or, if it's already closed, such that you can't unlatch it. Theoretically this is "tunable" although why you would ever want to do so is beyond me. Once you have it where you like it, which is probably at its maximum anyway, a drop of threadlocker on there would probably be a good idea.

On the bright side, the extension spring ensures that the latch stands to attention well away from the handles and blade at all times when it's out, so it can't strike either one and blemish your, er, collector's value.

This thing is bigly yuge. Really. There is no clip provided, but it's probably too long for pocket carry anyway. It did come with a very cheap and nasty nylon belt pouch with a Velcro closure that's so boring I didn't even bother to photograph it.

And now, what I just know you've all been waiting for.

The Guro is not too tough to take apart, surprisingly. The pivot screws are T9 Torx heads with some decorative carvings in them, and they are completely round Chicago screws with no clever tricks or design aspects to them. You can undo them easily enough by undoing the male sides with the knife latched, or just grabbing either side one each with a pair of screwdrivers.

Inside are our four brass washers, completely unlubricated from the factory in my example (which I rectified before putting it back together), the latch spring, and nothing else.

The latch itself is easily the most nicely manufactured part in the entire ensemble.

Call me old and out of date if you like, but I do remember those dark days when the grind on every cheap knife -- even low end brand name ones -- was crap. Therefore I am continually surprised when I receive garbage knives like these that still manage to show up with a competent edge on them. The Guro has an unexpectedly even edge on it that is quite sharp enough to do yourself a mischief with it if you handle it incautiously.

It is also actually within true. I'm absolutely astounded.

The Inevitable Conclusion

I can't fathom why whoever is selling these decided to try to brand them as "Benchmades." I have to wonder who they think they're actually going to fool. This would be a perfectly fine cheap bali ready to stand by its brethren on the dusty card table at your local flea market without the baffling branding decision, anyway.

Make no mistake about it, some aspects of this knife are definitely crude and still of the old school. But what we're getting out of the PRC for what you pay these days is continuing to amaze me. Admittedly, so far we've only had a sample size of two. And I've deliberately picked the ones that give me the impression that they might have something to offer. But on the whole I've definitely seen worse, and sometimes that's the finest praise you can give a thing.

My AD-15 Lite with custom micarta scales

Oh boy.

This thing. This thing is a jape and a half. I know we don't usually do it this way but I'm going to start with the box.

"Microtech," my pinfeathered ass. And I'm sorry, is that... is that the Philosoraptor?

It is, isn't it?

Alright, so there have been a ton of attempts to make a karambit knife portable, practical, or otherwise able to be put away in some manner. Various methods of folding, some clever, some less so. Well, here's how this one does it:

That's right, it's an out-the-front karambit. Double action, too. In and out. It is immensely satisfying.

This bears no official model number or designation, and as you can imagine the actual manufacturer isn't specified anywhere on it, nor its box. But its seller did render it "Mi Crotech" in the product description, just like that with a space in it. Probably so they don't get the banhammer for trademark infringement. It was of course only a couple of bucks from China and if you ask me it's well worth the price of admission.

And this knife is huge. 5-7/8" long retracted, 8-1/2" deployed. The blade is about 3-1/4" long with a wicked talonlike curve in it and yes, that means that the switchblade track inside also has to be curved. The blade is 0.110" thick and the entire knife is a meaty 0.542" not including the clip. It's not very sharp and the blade is made from who-knows-what, but that's really besides the point. The body, at least, is aluminum which is what you want on a cheapo OTF. That's because the plastic ones tend to break quickly. I don't foresee this one having that issue.

It does have a clip, a meaty one that's not reversible. It's mounted at the back, along with the actuation switch so you can fire it off with that cool guy reverse grip. There's just one minor problem with the clip, which is that for right handed users at least it's on the wrong side of the knife.

If you carry it in the typical way, first of all a lot of it is left sticking out. But the biggest issue is when you draw it it'll be backwards, with the switch on the wrong side for you to reach it. If you're a lefty, though, you've got it made in the shade.

It is heavily spring loaded and fires with a forceful and satisfying thwack. As a double action out-the-front it is theoretically possible to misfire but I haven't had it happen yet despite fiddling with it hundreds of times so far since I got it. I didn't have to do anything to the action out of the box; no lubricant, no tuning. I haven't even bothered to take it apart yet and I'm honestly not sure I will. The lockup is remarkably solid and there's surprisingly not much rattle in the blade in any direction when it's deployed. Which is practically unheard of in a cheapo Chinese auto.

Where it falls down, of course, is in the blade grind. And probably the steel, too, but we'll never know. (The product description claims it is "D2." If you believe that, might I also interest you in this deed for the Great Wall of China?) This came with practically a butter knife edge from the factory, and the machining in the blade is visibly very crude. Our old friend is here indeed, familiar old highly visible unpolished machine marks all down the bevel. The blade is partially blackened, partially exposed steel. It is incredibly pointy, to its credit, but that won't help you open your mail.

You'll have a rough time sharpening it, too, because as is tradition the edge geometry is way out of whack. A fair bit of material will have to be removed to get both sides of the grind even. And inward curving karambits are hard enough to sharpen to begin with, while it's functionally impossible to do so if all you've got a flat whetstone. You will have to use some manner of rod sharpener on this, or maybe one of those horrible drag-down-the-edge zip sharpeners. This might actually be one of the only valid use cases for such a thing, actually.

The gargantuan nature of this knife really cannot be overstated. It's not a slasher movie prop; it's a slasher movie villain all by itself. I Know What You Did In Shenzen.

The Inevitable Conclusion

This is glorious crap and I love it. This knife is absurdly stout and a blast to fiddle with. You like it for exactly the same reason you like B movie schlock. It's not meant to be great, and that's exactly why it kind of is.

The only problem with it is it's not especially competent at the knife part of being a knife. It's dull, fixing that will be a bitch, the layout is wonky for carry, and you wouldn't want to anyway. It also wasn't very cheap in objective terms, for being "cheap." $22 American freedom bills were spent on this, and while I've certainly gotten less for that amount of cash at various points in history, even just in recent days we've seen how I've gotten more.

You may recall from my post a couple of days ago about the surprisingly competent (and very cheap) Jin Jun Lang JL-13A that one of its points of incompetence was a design that allows the latch to strike the blade, like so:

Well, sure I put a stop to that.

This half-gram piece of plastic slots right into the handle like so:

And means the latch will only swing in a 180 degree arc such that it stops just short of the tip of the blade.

It works the other way, too.

Grab it here:

https://www.printables.com/model/811990-latch-no-strike-spacer-for-jin-jun-lang-jl-13a

Solving real world problems for a hilariously tiny number of very specific people. That's how we do around here.

That's right, today is a treat especial for anyone who is of a very, very specific bent. You know who you are.

Here's a bit of white whale. Or maybe not a whale. More of a white gopher? These cheap crossbar/Axis lock knockoff folders from Walmart have become strangely sought after lately. Possibly that's just down to their memeworthiness, or maybe it's the novelty factor.

Because of that they've actually been rather difficult to find. I'm sure that's a combination of Walmart not actually distributing all that many of them for whatever reason (see the Braille skateboard fiasco, for instance, to see just how inept Walmart's merchandising and logistics can be), plus now that the cat is out of the bag I'm sure various punters are buying them up in the hopes they can be scalped later at a profit.

But here one is, and both sides of its packaging:

The other day I rolled a natural 20 and found one of these while I was pawing through a random Walmart's camping section several towns over from mine. Just one. And I checked their web site, which claimed that they didn't have any.

There doesn't seem to be any name or formal designation for these other than the SKU, "6835" for this variant, although there are (were) to my knowledge three different types of these.

So what is this and who cares? Well, @cetan already did two good posts on these previously, both the current and previous incarnations. TL;DR: This is a an "Axis lock" style folder that Wally World now sells for $5. If you can find it. Good luck with that.

That's cheaper than most of the cheapest Chinese knockoff crap you could order from Wish, Temu, or Dealexteme. That's cheaper than any flea market trash, any gas station knife, any bladed crud you might find in the glass case at your favorite bong shop. And frankly, I think it's an astonishing result of massive economies of scale that you can get anything at all for that little money these days.

But is it any good?

Well, you know how it works around here. I'm going to talk about that. A lot.

The 6835 is an otherwise unassuming folder that's 7-1/8" long open, 4-1/8" long closed, and knowing those numbers you won't be surprised to learn that its drop point blade is precisely 3" long measured from the tip to the forward edge of the handle. There is even a real choil at the base of the blade, and the grind goes all the way down to it. Talk about luxury! It's pretty light at 74.8 grams (2.64 ounces). The blade is 0.110" thick at the spine which is not hugely stout, and is made of... uh... Well, no one seems to know.

The thing is, the blade steel isn't specified. Anywhere. Not on the package, not on the knife itself, and certainly not on the Walmart.com product description (which has since been pulled anyway). The package goes out of its way to specify that the handle scales are made of polypropylene, which is very strange, but doesn't say anything about the blade other than "stainless steel."

If I absolutely had to guess I would say it's one of the cheaper Chinese alloys, 3cr or maybe 7cr if we're lucky, 420C, or maybe at the very outside a lower grade 440. But I'm not holding my breath for that last one.

The 6835 has dual thumb studs for opening and sports a non-reversible deep carry (!) chromed clip. The clip's actually not so bad, but its mounting screw heads are not flush and if you wear thick pants (jeans) they may snag on the seam a little.

Screw heads standing proud is actually kind of a theme, here. The pivot screw heads on both sides also stick out on both sides, roughly the same amount as the toggles for the lock.

Ah, yes. The lock. This knife, for $5, sports an honest to goodness Benchmade "Axis" style crossbar lock. A few years ago this would be unfathomable, not least because Benchmade held the patent on this until it expired in 2016. Now, it seems, anyone can have a shake. And I do mean anyone.

"Anyone" also apparently means no one. In this case, anyhow. There is no indication whatsoever on the knife's packaging or anywhere else as to who actually manufactures this thing. There's only "Distributed by Walmart Inc.," and "MADE IN CHINA." No points for guessing the latter. Ozark Trail is Walmart's private label, and historically most of the those knives have been manufactured by Hangzhou Great Star Tools Co. Ltd., who are a Chinese OEM who also manufacture Sheffield and Swiss Tech knives, among a myriad of other things. That is probably the case here as well, but thus far impossible to prove.

But cheap as it is, it works. Now, out of the box mine would not do the "Axis flick," where you can hold the lock back and swing the blade out without touching it. But it didn't take much tuning to get this happening (more about that below, of course).

Though there is one itsy bitsy, teensy weensy, tiny little comment I have to make there...

The lockup is very solid and actually surprisingly precise. But there's a square point on the heel of the blade left behind where the pocket is machined for the crossbar to rest with the knife in its closed position. And it's got a burr on it that knocks against the crossbar ever so slightly even when it's fully held back, which is a detectable tactile notchiness if you open the knife that way. I cured this by giving that corner about four strokes on a diamond sharpening stone while I had the knife apart.

There are a few other foibles that indicate that this is a cheap knife that's probably not assembled with much care. For instance:

The polypropylene (apparently) scales look like aluminum at first blush, but they're not. They have a subtle machined texture in them. But my knife, which I'll point out was completely unused and it went straight from the package to photography, had these visible rub marks in the scales on one side. The packaging does leave part of the handle exposed and that's probably to save a penny on plastic. That might have something to do with it.

The blade grind is not bad, but certainly not spectacular and no one will mistake this knife for premium. As is perhaps contractually obligated on cheap Chinese knives there are rather pronounced machine marks on the bevel, and no time or care has been spent polishing or stonewashing or even painting the blade. But on my example there is also some marring evident towards the point. This doesn't affect anything. But it says "cheap, cheap, cheap" like a basket full of newly hatched chicks, loud and clear. It was usably sharp from the factory but only just.

While we're at it, here's the trueness. It's not perfect, but I've seen worse -- and I've certainly seen worse that cost a lot more. One side is definitely slightly visibly steeper than the other, though, and that'll have to be ground out if you ever want to do a proper sharpening on this.

With exactly a 3" blade length the 6835 is precisely at the gold standard legal carry length limit for most places. Here it is compared to a couple of knives which at their combined MSRP would buy you just under 49 of these:

The 6835 is a shade smaller than the usual benchmark Kershaw/Emerson CQC-6K, but while we're talking benches is about the same footprint as a Benchmade Bugout 535. Except...

With full scale-on-liner construction the 6835 is significantly thicker than the Bugout. Which makes sense, because being thin is kind of the Bugout's entire deal. Regardless of that, svelte is not what this Ozark is, at 0.528" thick across the scales, not including the pivot screw heads (0.647") or the clip (0.702"!).

For a $5 knife, the 6835's feel is... mixed, but not as terrible as you would expect. Despite the lined texture in the scales I find it to be a little bit slippery. There is a big positive index finger cutout in it, though, and some pretty squared off jimping on the back of the blade forward of the pivot. Once tuned the opening action can be nice, although out of the box (or rather, off of the hang card) mine was pretty dire. One thing I can say, if I'm allowed to get to these points out of order, is that once I got the pivot cleaned up, properly lubricated, and the screw tension tuned such that the blade could be flicked open there is a small but noticeable amount of up-and-down play in the blade once locked open. It's not a lot, and it's miles better than a flea market knife from yesteryear, but it is there.

Right. Smash.

This is what you get inside. Before we dig too far into detail, here is a different detail.

Dismantled, but with the crossbar lock in place, here's what that looks like. It follows the typical dual hair spring design; there is one of these on both sides.

The crossbar is a single piece and does not unscrew in the middle like some. It is captive with its springs in place, but can be removed from the liners after complete disassembly via the cutouts in the liners you see above.

The halves are spaced with two shouldered barrel pins that are threaded in both ends. The blade endstop is a simple crosspin that is not shouldered and can fall out of either side with the scales removed. A pair of T6 head screws hold both the liners and scales by going into the spacers. I found all of the screws with a smear of colorless Chinese threadlocker (or perhaps just glue) on them, but they were all torqued inconsistently. Some came out nearly of their own accord, and one took a worrying twist to make let go. The pivot is a T8 head and you will probably need two drivers to bust it loose because it is a plain round Chicago screw pair with no indexing or D flat or anything. So it's prone to just spin rather than unscrew if you don't have a way to grab both sides at once.

All of scale screws are the same including the rearward one that goes through the clip, but the clip has a smaller secondary screw that drives into a hole in the liner as well. It's shorter and a narrower diameter.

The blue accent details around the pivot appear to be anodized aluminum and are just friction fit, held down by the pivot screws. Be careful; they'll remain resolutely in place until you're not paying attention, then leap out and roll away.

The blade rides on white PFTE washers but the effect of this is rather diminished because the insides of my knife were slathered in some kind of unctuous, sticky crud that if I didn't know better I would describe as like Cosmoline. I'm sure this is to prevent corrosion during the long boat ride from China, but it's got the opposite effect of a lubricant and it made the pivot draggy and sticky. Even moreso than the situation the too-tight screw tension would create. Cleaning all that crap off with naptha and greasing the action up with silicone oil improved things significantly.

About this much, in fact.

The Inevitable Conclusion

There are definitely worse spends of your money than one of these. I have to say, I'm surprised -- but not too surprised -- about the level of superficial quality in one of these. It didn't come out of the box quite right, and although making it right wasn't hard it'd take some foreknowledge of what you were doing.

For the price, this knife is phenomenal. Not in an objective sense, mind you, but nor is it actually bad. A decade ago, though, $5 would buy you a piece of unusable trash. You know the type: One of those "Eagle" flea-market-card-table knives, or one of those horrible things they used to sell in lots of 100 pieces on QVC. Rattly, bendy, plasticky, with handles and blades snapping near instantly, and a barely functional lock if it has one at all. This knife is somehow none of those things which is noteworthy in and of itself.

What we don't know, and what only time can tell, is how well it holds up. Especially the edge. We spend a lot of money on fancy supersteels to have a knife that'll take a keen edge and keep it. A fancy supersteel is exactly what I guarantee you this knife hasn't got. So the next task will be to put on the whetstone and see if it can keep from having to come back for more than ten consecutive minutes after some real world use.

So stay tuned.

For those who are indecisive about their knife steel, there is the Kershaw Rake.

Here it is along with some wood. This is another one of Kershaw's composite blade steel knives, with a spine made of 14C28N and an edge made of D2 tool steel. They're joined together in a jigsaw-like fashion so the hard wearing D2 winds up where it counts, but the part you touch all the time is made out of a more corrosion resistant alloy.

This is another Tim Galyean design like the Junkyard Dog, and that's a knife that this'll inevitably draw a lot of comparisons to. They both share pretty similar design philosophies and identical construction techniques, although the Rake is smaller and is also has Kershaw's "Speedsafe" spring assist mechanism whereas the Junkyard Dog doesn't.

The Rake can be opened either via the flipper or with its dual thumb studs, and is a true liner locker with steel liners on both sides, overlaid with G10 scales. It's a hefty 162.6 grams (5.73 ounces) and just about 8" long open. The blade is 3-1/2" long with about a 3-3/8" usable edge, 0.120" thick, with a very upswept almost scimitarlike profile. The blade is very broad and the curve in it makes the closed knife even more so: About 1-5/8" across, all told at the widest point.

That doesn't necessarily translate to thickness, though, and the Rake is 0.537" in cross section not including the clip. Not surprisingly, almost exactly the same a the Junkyard Dog (that's just over half an inch, like 17/32").

There's a lot to recommend the Rake for, despite its quirks. Fast snappy deployment, ambidextrous, rugged, and well built. It is not a svelte knife for people with small pockets, though, nor one that's unlikely to attract comment if you bust it out in public.

One thing I don't like about it is the clip, which is inferior to the one on the Junkyard Dog. It's reversible, at least, but it's kind of small and where it's positioned plus the pronounced boomerang curve in the knife when it's closed makes fishing it out of your pocket more of a fiddle than you'd think. That's why it has that tiny braided lanyard on it in all my photos.

In lieu of a disassembly photo, because I can't be bothered, here's one of how it rides instead.

Compared to some of its brothers. It is noticeably larger than the CQC-6K (left) but shorter than the Junkyard Dog (right).

The Inevitable Conclusion

The Rake a very usable and well thought out design -- possibly minus the clip -- and if you want a big stout knife it's hard to go wrong with it. The pronounced curve and belly makes it a great slicer even for camp food prep, if you're into that sort of thing, while not being a dainty little fillet knife lookin' thing that feels like it'll break the minute it touches some bark.

It's so competent, in fact, that it's really tough to come up with anything funny to say about it. Other than the name, anyway. Why's it named after a gardening implement?

Welcome, ladies and gentleman, to the Atropos Trapper.

This rather dapper (rhymes with Trapper) balisong has asymmetrical handles that...

...Wait. What the hell?

The Trapper isn't a balisong at all. And it's not quite a gravity knife, either. It's like somebody stuck an Opinel and a balisong in that machine from The Fly, slathered it in beard wax, and this is what came out the other side.

I guess you could call it some kind of handle locker? The Trapper actually has no real mechanical lock at all, but when the handle halves are separated the blade freely pivots and falls out the front. Once deployed, it is held in place by way of a cross-pin that engages with its heel when you bring the handles back together. Your grip on the handle halves serves as the "lock," and as long as you're holding the handle the blade's not going anywhere.

The cross pin is through this large brass thumb screw, which theoretically adjusts the tension on that C shaped flap of brass that ever so lightly touches the larger of the two handle halves and keeps them together with just a kiss of friction.

Atropos Knives -- or rather, Atroposknife as they seem to render themselves -- is a Russian company that makes a variety of mostly balisongs. Several of which are indeed quite funky. They also make a couple of leather products. Their entire jam looks quite hipster, but this is easily the funkiest thing in their entire lineup.

Well, it was, anyway. The Trapper now appears to be discontinued.

The numbers. The Trapper is 4-5/8" long exactly when closed, and 8-1/4" opened. The 3-7/16" blade has a drop point profile with a full flat grind, made of D2. For some absolutely unfathomable reason there is a fingernail nick in the blade as well, although this doesn't help you open it in any meaningful way nor is it actually necessary. The whole knife is quite broad as well, about 1-1/8" across. The thickness measurement is confounded somewhat by not only the clip, but by that weird thumb screw sticking out of one side. But without either of those it is precisely 0.30" thick. That is, three tenths.

The handle profile is completely rounded over the edges and is made of aluminum with a satin finish that feels very nice in the hand. The entire ensemble weighs 71.8 grams or 2.53 ounces. It's very lightweight.

There is a pocket clip on it as you can see which is either titanium or aluminum very carefully bead blasted to look like titanium. It works okay but it's rather short, and if you pluck it you'll get a note like plonking a leaf on a rumba box.

Carrying it in your pocket is theoretically a fraught undertaking because like I mentioned earlier it doesn't really latch shut in any way. It looks like the brass thingy should be able to fold over and hook the opposite side or something, but it doesn't move and it wouldn't be long enough anyway. The possibility, then, of this just falling open in your pocket presents itself.

Luckily it came with this stitched leather pouch, which doesn't feature a belt loop or closure or anything, but might help you slip it into the pocket of your flannel shirt. The color is not an optical illusion in that picture, by the way. The leather really is dyed a deep forest green.

The Trapper is deceptively small. It's rather svelte, and I think it gives off an art deco kind of vibe. Compared to the usual CQC-6K here you can see that it's not really much longer, and is actually shorter than a typical balisong knife.

The Inevitable Conclusion

This thing is cool.

Impractical, not terribly utilitarian, and devilishly strange to manipulate, but cool. It is just possible at the outside with sufficient practice and skill you could open and close this one handed. But I'm not about to invest the effort, or the blood. This is for looking at, not for using.

It's time for some tat.

Every once in a while I get struck by the perverse urge to see if, just for once, the price/quality curve can be escaped. In short, I wind up ordering some junk from China just to see how it is. And then we wind up here, doing this, like the cutlery equivalent of Stuart Ashens. Except instead of a brown couch, I have a white void.

Welcome, then, to the current state-of-the-art of the Chinese balisong knife.

This is a Jin Jun Lang JL-13A and you might be surprised to learn that this knife is neither a counterfeit, nor a knockoff of anything. It's an honest to goodness genuinely original design and you can tell just by looking at it that it's not the same cast-zinc-handle flea market bullshit that we've all become accustomed to hating. And after being pleasantly surprised at what was inside the last Jin Jun Lang knife we looked at, I wasn't too broken up about spending a princely $10.30 on this.

By the way, I've been privately told that I ought to start including pictures of my knives in more interesting environments than the Infinite Expanse. Preferably, if I am to be swayed by the current influencer's best practices, including some wood.

Thunk. There you go.

Part of what intrigued me about the JL-13A is just what you can see it is by looking at it. This is an all stainless steel balisong, even including the handles, that's a shade smaller than the norm and includes a pocket clip. Be still my heart, could this finally be a viable low cost knockaround EDC balisong?

The surface finish is not excessively shiny, and has a subtle brushing or rather more likely, machined finish that looks not at all unlike that on a Leatherman tool. It has some swoops and a pair of finger cutouts on the inner edges of the handles, but the styling doesn't fall into the trap of being excessively overwrought. I like the way it looks. I'm glad they left it raw rather than trying to paint it which probably would have wound up being done badly.

This knife is 4-3/4" long closed and 8-1/8" open, with a blade that's about 3-5/8" long measured from the front tips of the handles. The usable edge is 3-7/16", and there is what could almost be considered a choil at the base if not for the fact that the grind on the edge just barely doesn't reach it. The blade is 0.111" thick at its thickest, which is in the center thanks to the small false edge on the back. The profile is a definite and very pokey spear point. I believe the blade is either 3cr or 5cr steel, but I can't find any sources to authoritatively back this up. But based on how it looks and feels, plus the last Jin Jung we handled that's a pretty good bet. The total weight is 117.9 grams (4.15 ounces) and thanks to the all steel construction it feels quite hefty in the hand.

There are a lot of features I like to see on a balisong like a kickerless/zen pin design, spring loaded latch, and fancy bearings. All of these things of course make that price tag climb up, up, and up. The JL-13A is thus a traditional dual kicker pin design, although the pins are very straight, pretty evenly pressed, and no major swarf or swage marks are evident. So that's nicer than average.

The latch is this big through-pin design, and swings on one of the spacer pins in between the handle halves. It is not spring loaded and it rests very positively in its semicircular cutout. It will not drop free no matter how hard you gorilla-grip the handles together and even I with all of my might and wisdom, plus any other attributes you'd care to name, can't bust it loose with my pinky. I can just about do it with my ring finger. Rest assured, when this sucker is latched it is latched. It will never, ever pop open in your pocket. But this makes deploying it rather a faff.

The latch has no endstops on its swing in either direction if you're not careful it is unfortunately capable of striking the edge of the blade. This is true of most traditional balisongs but is a problem that's been solved in various ways with the premium knives from the big boys. Not so here. Centripetal action should serve to keep the latch out away from the blade during handling... provided you're not a muppet. Any users trimmed in carpet fur with ping-pong ball eyes might want to employ a little extra care.

Handling feel is where the rubber meets the road with a balisong, as it were, and that's where I think the JL-13A scores highly considering its price. The handles are machined, but obviously they're not machined to a super high degree of precision. The details that are there are not sharp, with vague edges. It's obvious it was done with minimal tooling passes to reduce cost. But the edges that would otherwise be square are all chamfered, and the heavy weight of the handles contributes to definitive swinging feel. The rebound action is pleasingly positive off of the kicker pins. The knife isn't too noisy, except for the latch. And if that sort of thing really bothers you it's not hard to remove (more on that later, as usual). The handles don't produce any resonance or vibration. They're short, but not quite short enough that I have to modify the way I hold the knife like do on a truly mini balisong like, e.g., a Benchmade Model 32. In my hands, anyway.

The wiggle test reveals all, and the JL-13A is machined well in precisely the one place where it counts, which is the pivot screw holes. For an $11 knife, this degree of pivot play is excellent.

With its slightly reduced length, this knife is definitely EDC-able without being too ridiculous. A clip is provided as you see here, and it lives on the bite handle where such a thing belongs. It's not reversible due to the offset in the spacer screws which is a shame, because as usual it's on the wrong side of the handle for right handed pocket carry in my opinion. But it's there, and it's surprisingly well made and nicely sprung such that it grabs adequately but draws cleanly, without snagging, clamping like a vise, or biting the stitching out of your pants.

Since our last Jin Jung turned out to have ball bearing pivots in it I was really hoping that would be the case here. That would be rad, but alas. No such luck.

The JL-13A is built about as you would expect, with the pivots riding on a quartet of hard plastic washers. I believe they are polycarbonate. The pivot screws are the normal Chicago type with nice wide heads that accept a T9 bit which is an odd size for this sort of thing. The rest of the screws are T6 which is a bit more like what you'd expect. Disassembly is easy, although for the pivots you will need two T9 drivers.

The edge is pretty nice. The JL-13A is tolerably sharp out of the box, able to lop the corner off of a sheet of plain paper with minimal effort. The edge grind is pretty consistent all the way down its length with the exception of falling short of the choil at the base by a minuscule fraction.

It does manage to remain straight down to the point, which is something that cheap knives tend not do do, and...

...It is genuinely within true which is astounding. (The little hook on the end was from before I stabbed it into my deck, and I believe was caused by contact with the latch.)

If you encounter one of these in the wild, the "genuine" article -- as genuine as this sort of thing can possibly get, anyway -- has a laser etched logo. Not stenciled, not silkscreened.

The model number designation is similarly laser etched near the front kicker pin. The knife bears no other markings. No country of origin, no blade steel descriptor, nothing.

The Inevitable Conclusion

For $11, this is a fantastic knife. Even in an objective sense, it's reasonably competent albeit by no means premium. As is tradition it has one character flaw built in, which is in this case the ability for the latch to hit the blade if you're not careful. But with a little tuning by way of carefully fiddling with the kicker pin notches with a fine round file, the latch lockup could be considerably improved and what you'd be left with is a highly functional bali- that you really could use on a day to day basis. With, importantly, the freedom of knowing that you won't be fucking up one of your $300+ limited run brand name collector's pieces.

It's not perfect. But I like it.

We need to go ~~deeper~~ cheaper.

This is the Böker 01BO007. No snappy names here; this knife's designation is so bad, it even manages to mix the letter O and several zeroes. Various product descriptions on the web simply call this knife the "007." It's not much of a stretch of the imagination to guess why. I believe that at the time it was available this was the least expensive automatic knife in Böker's entire product lineup. New, it was available for $33.

The "007" is a compact side opening automatic with single piece machined aluminum handles, with an AUS-8 blade. It's 3-3/4" long closed and 6-3/8" long open. The blade is about 2-5/8" with a drop point profile and a bead blasted finish that makes it look rather strange in pictures when the light fails to catch it. It's 0.115" thick with a subtly hollow grind and a noticeable belly. Böker, meanwhile, call it "3-1/8" long because they measure from the center of the pivot, which I think is rather silly. By the real world measure, i.e. the part of the metal that's actually exposed and touchable, this knife would actually be short enough to count as "legal carry" in most jurisdictions. Except if it weren't, you know.

Yeah. That.

It weighs in at exactly 69 grams (nice) or 2.44 ounces.

The 007's slab aluminum handles are actually really thick in proportion to the knife's overall size. It's 0.509" thick, near as makes no difference to half an inch, without the clip. This definitely makes it noticeable in your pocket.

It's noticeably thicker than the Usual Article, and feels even more so in the hand.

The handles are also an unusual color. They're not silver. They're not tan. The best I can come up with to describe is is "champagne." It is exactly the color of the digital camera your grandmother bought in 2004.

Unlike your grandma's camera, though, this has a pocket clip. It's one way only, no alternate positions available at all, and sits on the side opposite the fire button. There's also a lanyard hole on the end.

The fire button is the only real gripe I have about this knife. I don't really have any problem with the cheapness showing through here or there, or even with the color that makes it look like it still has every photo it ever took still on the memory card it came with. It's that the fire button rests in a little machined in depression which makes it sit exactly flush with the top surface of the handle and that makes it singularly difficult to actually press.

The button's throw is about 1/8" total depth and you not only have to mash it below the majority surface of the handle, you actually have to press it so far that it goes down noticeably below even the surface of the valley it rests in. The best way to go about it is to get a fingernail down on it. If you have fat fingers or gloves on, good luck. And if you fail to smash it hard enough, which is likely, the lock plunger is slightly tapered so the the knife tends to actually only partially deploy about 1/4", like so:

When you're using this as a fidget toy or a daily carry, this merely deeply irritating. But if it happens to you after the ruffian has told you to stand and deliver and you've already drawn your knife and said, "Aha!" Oh boy, is your face going to be red.

The Inevitable Conclusion

As part of Böker "Magnum" line, this is definitely a budget knife. Böker goes to great lengths to declare that these are designed in Solingen, Germany. But in the fine print they admit they're made in China. That's not inherently a bad thing; we've seen before that you can indeed get a fine piece of cutlery out of the Chinese. This one, though, is a bit middling.

I don't think there's any collector of knives, no matter how serious, who doesn't eventually wind up with something like this.

But not usually on purpose. I think as your collection grows, the probability begins increasing that some well-meaning punter will finally say, "I heard you like knives, so I got you this." If you also own at least one motorcycle, I think the probability instantly becomes 1. And then you'll have one of these. Forever and ever.

This is, verily, the S-Tec Knife-Wrench. There are numerous others of its ilk. This is the chrome variant, and boy is it ever chrome. I spent this entire photo shoot battling reflections of my lights, of my camera, and of my knuckles. And battling fingerprints. (And there's no use enhancing the images to learn something you should't know, Mr. Deckard. I already checked them.) Other colors are available.

The Knife-Wrench is 4-7/8" long closed and weighs a hefty 145.1 grams (5.12 ounces). Open it's about 7-1/2" long thanks to the rather stubby drop-point blade that's 3-1/16" measured from the inside of the wrench cutout. The blade is so short because the designer was at least smart enough to ensure that it does not pass through the ring spanner on the end when the knife is closed. The entire ensemble feels quite thick as well at 0.483" not including the clip. The blade is 0.113" thick and claims to be "440," but is more likely authentic mystery steel.

But here's one mystery solved: The open end of the wrench is 14mm, and the box end is 17mm. I did look this knife up on Amazon and its product description contains some whoppers. To start with, it claims "Wrench Is Functional" and implies you could actually use it to do up bolts.

Don't use this as a wrench.

To start with, it's not solid. It's a sandwich of thin steel liners spaced out with shouldered pins, with the blade in the middle and scales made of god-knows-what heaped on top that only superficially look like a wrench. The mechanism is a plain liner lock that's exactly the level of crude you expect from a novelty knife. It is at least spring assisted, and there is a flipper nub sticking out of the back as well as dual thumb studs.

The pivot is by way of a simple Chicago screw, and the blade rides on one nylon washer on one side, and one steel one on the other. Which is odd.

Here are some more highlights from the bullet list:

• Purpose: Fighting (what?)
• Patent pending* (the asterisk is never explained)
• Manufacturer: Top Quest Inc

Well, I looked up Top Quest, Inc. just for grins. They make novelty shit. We may get some mileage out of this in the future, who knows. It appears that they only sell directly to businesses, and while I do have an EIN I could abuse for this purpose I probably can't reach the dollar value of commitment they're probably looking for. It's a shame that we'll probably have to find distributors of their wacky products if we want any more of them in the future.

Since I definitely can't be arsed to take this knife apart, we'll see if we can gauge some key metrics from the outside. Here's what the blade centering looks like. Curiously, the blade isn't off-kilter in the handles, it's perfectly straight. Just, offset noticeably to one side, down the entire length. Maybe that has something to do with the mismatched washers, which are just visible in the photo above. The nylon one is the one on top in the picture, for anyone keeping score at home.

There is a non-reversible pocket clip, which is so tightly sprung that it's basically useless for anything other than ripping the seams off of your pants. It is very thick and if we must say one positive thing about it, it seems extremely unlikely to break. I think you'd tear its mounting screws out, first.

The factory edge grind is not exceptionally fine, but actually looks halfway okay, provided...

...You don't look at both sides of it at once.

Normally I would use some kind of tortured superlative here claiming this is the least pointy knife I own. It's not; I definitely have ones with blunter noses. But this one is supposed to be pointy, but actually it looks like this. So that's got to count for something.

Most of the manufacturing budget seems to have been blown on this rather nice laser etching of the logo, which is definitely the most competent detail in the entire operation.

You'll never guess where it's made.

The knife bears no other markings.

If you're wondering about all these macro shots, by the way, I do not have a fancy macro lens arrangement. They're all done through this cheap linen magnifier from the 1970's:

The Inevitable Conclusion

Whoever thinks they're giving this to you will walk away feeling self-satisfied about how clever they think they are. Little do they know.

For when you have to open every motherfucking box in the room, accept no imitation. The Böker Kalashnikov 74 is a side opener that is, ah-ha-ha, fully automatic. Priced at around $60, with some variants as low as $40, this is one of the least expensive side opening autos you can get that's an actual brand name, and not just Chinese garbage. That makes is a good entry point for somebody looking to get into automatic openers.

Unlike all of the other stuff I've shown off thus far, the Kalashnikov is very much a switchblade. Just press the shiny button and it goes off bang.

Note also the decorative pivot screw commemorating Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47 among other things. Exactly why Böker is commemorating him is anybody's guess, since one thing he didn't design -- at least to my knowledge -- was knives. But they have a small range of cutlery dedicated to him, not just this knife.

And in fact, it goes off bang so hard it literally has recoil:

Snick.

This variant of the Kalashnikov, the 74, weighs 100.5 grams (3.54 ounces) and is 7-1/2" long open with a 3-3/8" flat ground spear point blade and a roughly 3" usable edge. It's 4-3/16" long when closed, and 0.662" thick (about 5/8") without the clip. The clip bulks it out to 0.828" thick (a shade under 7/8").

Said clip is a non-reversible deep carry with three little finger divots in it, and holds the knife tip up in your pocket with the fire button facing inwards.

If you're a lefty, Böker does make a small selection of left-handed variants with the button on the other side. This isn't one of those, though. Mine is the OG, and right handed.

And actually, about that fire button. Because switchblades/automatics are so tough to sell and ship due to various legal hurdles, Boker themselves actually sell these without the spring. As manufactured, this is just a regular button locking flick-opener. But Böker's authorized resellers -- Blade HQ, Blade Ops, Knifecenter, KnifeWorks, Cutlery Shoppe, and DLT Trading -- will sell you one how it's meant to be with the switchblade spring installed. And usually for much cheaper than Böker's list price, as well.

The blade on this version is AUS-8 although there are now D2 variants available. This knife is part of Böker's "plus" series and is made in Taiwan; it's not a German made knife.

The Kalashnikov 74's handles are solid slabs of aluminum, one each. There's a fine pebbly texture cast into each one. At first glance you might think they're polymer or glass filled nylon or something, but they're metal through-and-through. There is no liner spacer but the handle halves are spaced with three sleeves on the screws, and finally with a cross pin that the heel of the blade crashes into with quite a bit of force every time you open it.

One knock against it is that the axial play when open is actually quite poor. If the pivot screws are tuned such that the knife opens reliably under its own spring action, there's a noticeable amount of wiggle left in the blade. The pivot just rides on plastic washers and I'm not going to show you that, because reassembling a side opener after taking it apart is a massive pain in the ass. The clip can wiggle around on its single mounting screw, as well, which over time mars the black finish underneath where it meets with the handle slab. If you're keen you can probably spot it in one of the pictures above.

The Inevitable Conclusion

"The surest way to make every man or boy covet any thing is to make that thing difficult to obtain."

Switchblades are difficult to obtain, and due to that mystique they tend to be expensive. I like the Kalashnikov 74 specifically because it isn't expensive, and that's even in spite of the cheap blade steel and minor character flaws that illustrate its price tag. Premium materials and a premium feel in an automatic are the domain of knives that cost many hundreds of dollars, and that's something the Kalashnikov doesn't do.

It's good size, opening it is extremely satisfying, and the price is right. That makes it a knife you could, if you can get away with it, actually use and not just keep in its box until the day you inevitably sell it on.

Happy Front Flipper Friday to all who celebrate.

Despite the fact that I tell myself I don't even really like front-flippers, they keep showing up at my house.

A true cry for help, I think.

Today's Front Flipper is the Ray Laconico designed, CJRB Ekko

This version has CJRB's budget powder steel AR-RPM9, 3.25" (8.26 cm) in length with green micarta scales. The micarta is very smooth and, depending on opening method, can feel a little slippery but I've not had any real issues.

Straight spine with a nice deep swedge ground out at the front.

Perfectly centered out of the box with really great action.

I like the fact that it's a sheepsfoot with a little bit of belly on it. I like the fact that you can easily spydie-flick it open (and are not forced to use the front flipper).

It's not an out-of-this world knife but a nice solid choice. I got it used, as I do most of my knives these days, and so the price was really good. Looking forward to putting this into the EDC rotation.

So, you want to see a cheap knife? This is a cheap knife.

And it has twice as many ball bearings as your flipper knife. You want to know why?

...Because this knife is also a fidget spinner.

I bought this on Wish in 2019, and I paid $7 for it. Here is the listing for it, if anyone is morbidly curious. Apparently you can't buy it from there anymore. You could probably find one elsewhere if you looked.

But as usual with this sort of thing our problem is with designation, because it has no brand or real model number that I can find. I did find it here for instance, where it's called the "CCN-02964," a moniker which I can find nowhere else on the internet, and is sold for $36.95. But then, that product listing also calls it "titanium" (it isn't), and "one of a kind" (it isn't). So make of that what you will. Oh, and I also found this Etsy seller hawking these as "hand made" (which it definitely isn't) and with enough chutzpah to list the fucking things for $199.

Two hundred smackaroos. For a knife. I bought. On Wish. For $7.

I'm starting to think that maybe I'm in the wrong racket.

For some perspective, not to mention the delicious incongruity, creating this glamor shot involved the application of software worth a combined total of 104 times the value of this knife.

(This is a "stacked focus" macro shot, where in this instance seven photos bracketed at different focus depths are composited together to create a single unified whole where the entire object is in focus.)

Anyhow. This flipper is a solid metal affair that is neither titanium nor aluminum as various product listings may insist -- a magnet sticks to both handle slabs readily -- that weighs a solid 134 grams (4.73 ounces) despite being only 4" long when closed. The blade is a 3" long pseudo-Wharncliffe profile that's actually more like a tanto point but backwards. The blade is 0.110" thick at the root (precisely 2.8mm) with a noticeable false edge on the spine and a small choil. The entire ensemble is 0.394" thick not including the fidget disks, or exactly 10mm. Methinks with those dimensions this was made out of readily available stock to achieve a minimal bill of materials cost. With the disks it's 0.585" or 14.9mm thick and there is no clip or provision for carrying whatsoever. Probably because such a thing would get in the way.

Here's another one of them stacked focus shots. This is ever so much fun.

The fidget spinner disks are centered exactly on the handle slabs and, as you would hope, the entire knife spins quite freely on these thanks to some thrust ball bearings underneath. At 4" long it's a bit of a handful as a fidget spinner, so if you have anything less than monkey paws (which I do, thankfully) you might find it tough to spin.

By the way, giving it the old propeller action while the blade is out is definitely not recommended...

...Unless you have some appropriately bodacious gloves.

There's no thumb stud and when the blade is closed it's housed completely within the handles with nothing protruding except the flipper on the back. This is a frame lock knife and, yes, the blade pivots on ball bearings as well. It snaps open quite authoritatively after you overcome the traditional, and very positive, detent nub in the lock.

The lockup is actually reasonably precise and there is no noticeable play either around the axis or across it when the blade is out. Of course, axial play is cheap and easy to deal with when you're using thrust washers, since you can just crank the hell out of the pivot screw at the factory and the blade'll still be able to open. But remember, this thing has four of 'em. For $7.

This also means that the blade sits damn near centered between the handle slabs at rest, which is frankly impressive for a knife that costs less than the screwdriver I used to take it apart. (And also a metric a consistently forget to check for, at least in my brand name knives that are not objectively crap.) For those of you used to the ghastly excuses for knives you used to get from the PRC in those dark days of the 90's and early 2000's, we've sure come a long way.

Oh, and speaking of which.

Here's what you get inside. The knife is held together by only two screws, the big one through the pivot -- which is a regular Chicago screw -- and a little one in the tail. The other two screws only hold on the fidget disks, and don't strictly need to be removed to dismantle the knife. There's a single shouldered pin that serves as the opening end stop for the blade, and that's your lot.

Except for two pairs of honest to goodness thrust ball bearings, with real steel balls and everything. You get two little ones on the blade pivot...

And two bigger ones, one each under each fidget disk.

...

Now I'm going to let you in on a secret. I've owned this knife for five years, and I don't think I've ever cut anything with it. At most, an envelope or two (although it probably has about 48 million revolutions on the spinner bearings). That means we can still see what the factory edge is like, because I haven't dulled it nor have I bothered to sharpen it or otherwise fuck with it in any way.

So here we can finally see where the nickel was saved. Various product descriptions call this "razor sharp," which... As is tradition, it isn't. The edge is pretty rough and toothy, and largely "feels" sharp by way of effectively having a zillion little micro-serrations in it left by the coarse grind. These won't last long if you actually used the knife for anything; it'd need a complete real resharpening pretty quickly, I suspect.

You can see the other cost cutting measures in the blade as well. There are quite visible machining marks in the bevel, for instance. No polishing or dressing was done whatsoever, because that sort of thing takes time and care, and time and care cost money. Does it matter, from a functional perspective? No. But you'll find things like that are what separate premium knives (or even just mid-grade brand name ones) from generic cheap ones.

The Wish listing alleges the blade is 3cr13, but the etching on the blade says 440. Who can say which is true? With these sorts of things, it's possible that it's neither. That's the other thing you get when you buy direct from the Mainland: Each and every specification could be a lie. And probably is. You have to be okay with that when you part with your $7.

As expected the edge is also quite out of true. Looking down at the edge, the grind on the right is noticeably steeper than the grind on the left, even without magnification. Think of all the fun you could have some afternoon straightening that out.

The Inevitable Conclusion

Surprisingly, you get a lot for your money with this thing.

Just because something is cheap doesn't mean it's bad. But just because something is not bad doesn't mean it's actually objectively good. This zen koan was brought to you by somebody who probably owns way too many shitty knives.

Here's a quick photo essay on what $9.99 will get you (currently $8.99 with coupon at amazon) from "DuraTech"

It came in a serviceable cardboard box and not just bubble wrap or anything like that. The pocket clip provides the retention inside the box. Added bonus inside the box: extra oil (I hope it's just oil) soaked into the cardboard:

The scales are very grippy and will probably tear up a pocket or two. Pocket clip is pretty decent deep carry. Screws and clip are not recessed. Right side-only. Also, I'll need to get another photo of it but the clip has a lateral bend in it that parallels the shape of the scales. Very odd looking.

Centering was slightly off but not bad (my photo is also off so it over-emphasizes the angle)

Grind is really good for a $10 knife. Even on both sides, no issues. 8CR13MOV steel but unknown hardness so we'll see how it holds up. Here it is with it's little protective sheath out of the box.

Everything was looking good but, of course, there is a catch. It is, after all, a $10 knife. Probably the worst detent I've ever seen. Getting the detent ball out of the hole gives you a click loud enough to be heard in the next room. I may have to try and capture it on video. The knife is almost impossible to open with the flipper tab and completely impossible to open with the thumb studs. Even if the detent was dialed in, the thumb studs are almost useless given how close they are to the scales. I might remove them entirely.

So, if you'd like a knife with a flipper tab and thumb studs that is actually two-hand open, this may be the knife for you!

Or FinnWolf? Finnwolf? It's rendered inconsistently. I'm going to go with "Finn Wolf."

Anyway, I have a lot of knives that are highly collectible, or drawer queens, or otherwise very fine. This isn't one of those. Here it is.

It's a lockback folder with a composite body. What's so weird about that? (It's not that Cold Steel calls the material "Griv-Ex," either, because they have a dumb name for everything. The handles are just glass filled nylon.)

Well, here's what the blade profile looks like:

The Finn Hawk is one of the very few folders in the world with a Scandi grind. That is, one single angle all the way down to the edge. No secondary bevel at all, just this wedge. It's like a tiny axe.

This knife is a collaboration with designer Andrew Demko, but despite the usual connotations this sort of thing carries, it's about as collectible as dirt. Cold Steel tries to MSRP this at $65, but it's still in production and thick on the ground; you can buy them all day long at the time of writing for about $35 in various colors. Mine is the OD Green model.

The Finn Wolf is a mid-large sized knife, about 8" long when open and 4-1/2" closed. It's a reasonably svelte 98 grams (3.46 ounces) so not too tough to carry. The blade is a full 0.125" thick, 1/8" of an inch, and I do mean full. The Scandi grind to the edge has quite a lot of thickness of metal most of the way down, so the entire thing is rather stout for a folder. The "Finnish Pukko" inspired design leaves a prominent horn at the tail end when it's open, and a lot of the difference in open vs. closed length is all in the pivot, with the lockback mechanism. Which, as is tradition, Cold Steel has gone and named, and calls the "Tri-Ad Lock." It's just an ordinary lockback, guys. Chill.

The blade is made of AUS-8A and as usual Cold Steel makes a lot of noise about "cryogenic tempering" to go along with its "zero grind," and whatever the hell else. I haven't whacked the thing with a diamond punch or anything, but I suspect just from the feel of using it that the temper is rather soft and springy, favoring toughness over hardness. Which is probably a good thing for a knife that's bound to be bashed.

Opening is provided by a pair of ambidextrous thumb studs. One of them is slotted for removal. Getting the studs out is required for a full sharpening job, if you're game for such a thing, because the edge angle otherwise intersects with the tops of them. To assist in this I cut another slot in the other, originally un-slotted stud.

Where the Finn Wolf really excels is in being a knockaround outdoorsy-bushcrafty work knife, but unlike most examples in that field (or perhaps woods) it's actually a folder. So ordinary people can carry it in ordinary situations without looking like Joonatan The Lumberjack And His Fuck Off Massive Cleaver.

The clip is reversible but it's nothing fancy, and tip up is the only option.

Due to the low price and robust blade geometry, it's not only possible but downright appealing to use this knife for things that you might normally hesitate to inflict on an ordinary folding pocketknife. Like carving, or batoning firewood. The fat edge profile does present a bit of a downside for slicing and, say, food prep. But it still works in a broad sense, and if you had to be dropped in the middle of the woods with the stipulation that you'll only have one knife, you could do a lot worse than bringing this one.

And again, with the rough-and-ready design and trifling price tag, you can do immensely disrespectful things to this knife like "sharpen" it on a bench grinder mounted polishing wheel, and "hone" it with a scrap of cardboard drizzled with Flitz. You could also sharpen it in the traditional Scandi way, by laying the entire flat bevel on a whetstone and having at it. That requires some dedication, a commitment to forever marring the factory finish, and really does need you to remove the thumb studs. But fortunately, it's very rarely necessary because even when "dull" in a traditional sense the wedge profile of the blade can still be made to cut things efficaciously. Provided only you don't care how clean the two halves of whatever it was turn out.

The Finn Wolf, then, is kind of the folder that could be a fixed blade.

But wait! There's a bonus feature:

There is a fixed blade version, the Finn Hawk. The Hawk is very similar in aesthetics and design to the Wolf, but with a 4116 semistainless blade rather than AUS-8 which is even tougher. The Finn Hawk is my go-to recommendation for people who are about to buy a Morakniv and are looking for an alternative, because it's definitely riffing on the same groove.

With that comparison made it's easy to see where the Finn Wolf is coming from. It's basically one of those, but folding, and small enough to use as an EDC.

The Inevitable Conclusion

In this feature, our focus on novelty means I tend talk about a lot of knives that are weird, whacked, impractical, or otherwise just bad. The Finn Wolf is in none of those categories. It's definitely novel, but it's also a knife I really do recommend.

A couple of posts ago I mentioned this knife when blathering about the big and little SOG Flashes. I said I might show this off, and I never did. Well, here it is.

This is an OG Trident, not the current "Trident AT" that's being sold at the time of writing and is Yet Another Axis Clone. No, this knife is over two decades old.

This original SOG Trident is mechanically related, if not identical, to the Flash. But where the Trident differs is that it's tactical. Oh, it is so tactical. And it's such a perfect expression of that early 2000's time it existed in.

The SOG Trident wears shades and a trenchcoat over cargo shorts and jungle boots. The SOG Trident hunts vampires, and it does it listening to Trent Reznor and Billy Corgan. The SOG Trident hangs out in underground clubs inside abandoned warehouses and broods over its Jägermeister.

It's got the same not-Axis-lock plunger lock system as the Flashes, as well. It's the spitting image of the one on the Flash II. We can see it's got the same kind of chunky injection molded glass filled nylon handles, a very highly sprung spring assist opening, and ambidextrous thumb studs on either side. And the Trident is big: 8-1/2" long open from tip to tail, with a 3-1/2" blade that's got a big fuck-you tanto point on it, made out of AUS-8. It's 4-1/8" long closed and rides just under the hem of your Jnco pockets with an early generation deep carry clip that's reversible the same way as on the Flash, by undoing a screw and pulling it out of the end of the knife. It's 104.5 grams/3.69 ounces, and a solid 9/16" thick not including the clip.

In case you didn't get how hard core the Trident told you it was the first time, it's got its makers mark carved into the pocket clip. Its blade is black. Of course it's black. There's a seatbelt cutter notch in the back of the handles that exposes a little section of the blade. And it has a pseudorandom interrupted diamond embossed grip pattern down the sides of both handle slabs.

The Trident is so hard core it came with a safety on it to keep it from going off in your pocket. Of course, that was designed just like the one in the Flash, too, with all the same problems. So I removed it back in the day, and I'm sorry to say that I lost it. So it's missing in all these pictures.

The Trident is actually nearly exactly the same dimensions as its brother, the Flash II. But somehow its design elements make it feel and seem bigger. Maybe it's the sawback jimping on it, or the absurdity of the rake on its tanto point. It's still a damn sight bigger than my usual CQC-6K. You can have one of those little Crocodile Dundee moments when you pull it out, but edited for TV. "ғᴏʀɢᴇᴛ you, ᴍʀ ғᴀʟᴄᴏɴ. This is a ғʀɪᴄᴋɪɴ knife."

The Inevitable Conclusion

Once again, the utility of this screed is a little limited because you can't buy this version of this knife anymore. It's in the past now, obscure, unnoticed, not noteworthy. No one will be nostalgic for the Trident because it and others of its ilk were never trendsetters and in the end didn't shape the direction of future knife design like others did.

But it's still there, in the knife drawer. Waiting in the dark.

Ready.

Or as I guess you're supposed to render it, "MYERCO® BESH Wedge™ Bottle Rocket." But I think I won't. Not more than once, anyway.

You'd win no points for guessing that this is a "Besh Wedge" knife, and Besh Knives has this to say about that: "A revolutionary knife grind composed of diagonally opposing bevels converging to create a third cutting edge."

Okay, so it's a double edged knife with two chisel grinds of equal depth, which naturally culminate in a slotted, rather than pointed, tip.

Here's the Bottle Rocket lying flat, so you can see what that looks like. Besh calls this a "third edge," and it's really rather the same idea is ye olde Revolutionary War musket bayonet. You know the deal: Poke somebody with it and what they wind up with is supposed to be tough to stitch up.

OoooOOOooo... Depth of field shot.

And yes, the Bottle Rocket is a punch dagger, which is sure to be divisive.

It has almost no utilitarian purpose beyond flipping someone the bird with extreme impunity. This particular type of knife is one the law has a hard-on about just about everywhere, and this one has the trifecta:

It comes in this Kydex sheath designed for use as a neck knife, so it'll be counted as a concealed whatever-the-hell. As mentioned it's a punch or "push" knife, which is usually has a home somewhere on the Naughty List, and it's double edged so it'll be considered a dirk-or-dagger as well. Basically, you should assume that you can't carry this anywhere or use it for anything. In some places, probably just looking at it is illegal. But you can own it, and have it in your home. 'Murica.

The Bottle Rocket is a single slab of machined slab of 7cr steel, about 1/8 thick, and about 5" long in total. The machining on the edge is considerably nicer than the machining around the finger hole and the void in the heel, and the whole thing has a bead blasted finish including the edges. I imagine sharpening it and leaving it still looking nice would be a bit of a bugger, so I've never tried.

It says "Cheers! Besh" on the back. That's because you can use the cutout in the heel as a bottle opener. Hence the name, no points for guessing that. You can even do it while the knife is still in its sheath. That's why I said "almost" about its utilitarian purposes earlier. Also, "cheers" would be the perfect action movie protagonist one-liner after you shanked some mook in the back with this and flipped him over the railing of the catwalk in a dark factory.

The Inevitable Conclusion

This knife is best relegated to curio status only, since it basically amounts to violating the Geneva Convention. Just a the founding fathers intended. Tally-ho, ruffians, and all of that.

It's not quite the naughtiest knife I own, but it's probably the meanest thing I've got to open a bottle with.

It's New Knife Day, kids. This just showed up in the mail.

This here's the Kershaw Frontrunner, and despite having what I can only describe as some intense design, I don't think this one's quite weird enough to put in my usual weird knife roundup. Kershaw's marketing paragraph says this knife is "inspired by the ZT 0999." I guess they're trying to imply it's a good poor man's alternative to a premium collectable knife, and maybe it would be if it looked anything like it. Here's the Zero Tolerance model 0999. I'm not seeing the resemblance myself.

But the Frontrunner's got one big thing going for it, in that it's actually for sale. Two big things, then, when you consider the 0999 was $750 when it was still available, and the Frontrunner's more like $65. If you're going to have a knife that's a design student's senior thesis, I think I like the latter price point a lot more.

Kershaw goes on to say, "Several handle components join together, including stainless steel and machined G10 pieces. A custom G10 pivot collar stands out on the front handle, and a back handle overlay serves as an overtravel stop." And, "Negative space plays a crucial role in improving the look of the handle."

I'm not super sold on that. The Frontrunner is definitely funky looking, for sure, but all this has a whiff of wine snob bullshit about it to me. You know, in order to try'n make themselves sound erudite and sophisticated, some wanker swirling a glass around will tell you he senses notes of this and undertones of that, when in reality you know damn well the stuff is just fermented grapes and a lot of words are getting wasted attempting in vain to differentiate something that ain't got no differentiation. Same deal here if you ask me; I'm not seeing any "negative space" in the handle at all except for the little bite taken out behind the pivot and even that's only on one side.

That's not to say I don't like it. I just think there's a distinct lack of a straight and honest description out there about this knife, and the product blurb is very finely crafted to give you the impression that maybe there's more to this knife than there is.

What the Frontrunner is, is, an EDC sized frame locking folder with a D2 blade and ball bearing pivots. The knife is almost all metal except for the copper-ish handle inserts, the spacer, and one other weird exception, so it's pretty dense: 115.3 grams or 4.07 ounces. The impression you get from looking at the pictures is that it might be really bulky, but it isn't. It's about 4-1/8" long closed, 7-1/8" open. The blade is D2 steel and is basically exactly 3" long, and a pretty normal feeling 0.110" thick with a clip point profile. Across the thickness of the handle scales, so not including the pivot screw heads sticking out or clip or anything, the knife is 0.439" thick -- about 7/16". The clip is pretty low profile and just about what you could consider "deep carry," and brings the thickness out to 0.544 at the thickest point -- a little under 9/16".

So despite maybe looking like an H.R. Giger prop, the Frontrunner is actually pretty slim and sanely proportioned, which means you could actually carry it and not just lock it in your showcase.

Here's a comparison with several other not-too-chonky EDC knives, and for good measure one that is. From the top is a Kershaw/Emerson CQC-6K, the Frontrunner, a Kershaw Skyline, and a Ganzo G704. The Frontrunner is about on par with the first two for fatness, neither of which are very thick knives. It's noticeably slimmer in the hand than the Ganzo.

This is a flipper opener, so there is no thumb stud. It's not spring assist, either, but it flips open pretty neatly on a pair of thrust washers around the pivot as soon as you push past the traditional detent ball built into the frame lock.

And yes, underneath this is just a regular old frame lock knife. The Frontrunner looks like it ought to have some kind of trick mechanism, or maybe a funny lock. Something to do with that black toggle thing over the pivot? Nope. The mechanism is completely bog-standard.

Said black toggle thing doesn't move, and actually just holds the pin that serves as the end stop for the blade's travel when you open it.

So, boring the Frontrunner may be from a mechanical standpoint. But it sure looks the business, and it actually feels pretty decent in the hand. There's a very generous index finger notch formed by the flipper heel when the blade's open, and the spine of it has some definitely present but not-too-sharp jimping on it. That section of the spine is rounded over to it feels nice there, too. And you don't notice the runnels and groves and whatever else in the handle when you're using it, really.

People will probably have opinions about the clip, though. Like I said a minute ago, it's technically just a deep carry design and leaves the knife riding pretty much exactly below the hem of your pocket. It's not very wide, and it's very tightly sprung. It has one position and one position only: tip up, with the spine of the blade facing rear or towards the seam of your pocket, if clipped on the right hand side. It's not reversible and it's not very easily removable, either, since the two screws holding it on are on the inside of the knife. You can see them in the picture above. Taking the clip off (or replacing it) requires disassembling the knife entirely.

Speaking of which.

Here you can see that despite its board-of-many-planks aesthetics, the Frontrunner's construction is actually significantly simpler than it appears. Only the coppertone accents are separate pieces, and the rest of the handle scales are all one lump. The side with the frame lock is unitary, but the other side is actually a scale over a flat steel liner which would not be odd if not for the fact that I can't figure out why the two halves are built differently. I didn't bother to take the copper accent pieces off. They're just screwed on. The accents are implied to be G10 by the product description but whatever they are is definitely not metal, and their copper finish appears to be painted on. The natural texture and fibrosity of G10, if that's what it is, has been thoroughly covered. Only time will tell how easily this wears off and what it'll look like once it does.

The pivots are indeed thrust bearings which explains the ease and smoothness of the flipper opening action. The pivot screw looks a bit indistinct on the end there because it is -- It's made of plastic, or at least some manner of composite. Not steel. I don't think I've ever seen that before. Don't crossthread the screw when you reassemble it, then.

Here's the frame lock, and its rather large detent ball that gives the knife very positive retention when it's closed.

The lockup works like this. The black composite teardrops are just decorative. The actual load is borne by the steel liner underneath.

As usual for Kershaw, the machine work and all the parts fitment is pretty much impeccable. I have nothing to complain about there. The pivot, the lockup, the snap shut, it all feels very nice. Due to the thrust bearings there's no need to leave any clearance in the pivot, either, so there's very little wiggle in the blade when it's locked open.

Here's something we don't get to see much, which is the factory edge on a knife before I start fucking with it. The Frontrunner's edge grind is actually very fine and it's acceptably keen enough for use right out of the box.

The point geometry is within tolerable bounds of whackitude...

...And the edge is only marginally out of true down to its point. A full sharpening of this knife will probably involve knocking a degree or two off of the last quarter of an inch on one side.

The Inevitable Conclusion

The Frontrunner's weirdness is only a facade, which you could take one of two ways. You could call it a sham, with its coquettish looks leading to your eventual dismay in learning that it's got nothing interesting under its clothes. Or you could take it as a statement piece that's bold enough to look different but neatly avoids falling into the trap of being too damn weird to be functional, or too expensive to use.

Your choice.

Uh, sort of. You'll note that this one actually says "CHARDSHARP" along the top because it is, indeed, a counterfeit. So chosen because it only cost me $2.

The Iain Sinclair CardSharp (not "Ian") has been around in various guises and revisions for quite a while. So long, in fact, that I believe this was one of the original blog-spam sort of "You Won't Believe These 5 Must Have EDC Gadgets!" items that we've become so familiar with today. It was also part of the "everything the size of a credit card" fad, the wave of which has seemingly finally crested and broken. You know, phone-the-size-of-a-credit-card, tool-the-size-of-a-credit-card, usb-drive-the-size-of-a-credit-card, etc. You couldn't get away from the fucking things for a couple of years, there.

So anyway, this.

The CardSharp fits under the heading, possibly, of Origami Knives. Along with not many others, probably. It's a broadly rectangular slab of high density polypropylene that's about 3/16" thick, and has several crease points moulded in. Also heat-pressed into it at four points is a thin triangular blade made of "surgical stainless" the exact alloy of which is not specified.

You can fold the thing via three creases into a little knife, with the two handle flaps pressing together via a series of friction fit studs. There is also a little plastic rotating safety latch which on my example broke off just about instantly. Which is why it's missing in my photos.

The blurb goes on to say it's "slimmer and lighter than an ordinary knife," which I guess is so. Also "CardSharp makes quite the conversation piece," which it definitely does whenever it's brought up. But then goes on to claim it's also "a capable pocket utility knife," which is decidedly more dubious.

That's because the CardSharp is extremely thin, both the plastic it's made out of as well as its blade. There's no tang on the blade and certainly no lockup, and the entire ensemble is worryingly flexible when it's fully assembled. The steel blade is held onto the plastic by not very much at all. Also, after you've manhandled the thing into the deployed position, making it flat again afterwards is tougher than you'd think. The polypropylene flaps kind of take a set and don't want to return to their fully flat orientation unless you clamp it in your wallet or something for a while.

But is it actually the size of a card?

I guess that depends on your kind of card.

The Inevitable Conclusion

This is precisely that sort of thing that sounds like an excellent and super exciting concept right up until the moment it actually arrives in the mail. The CardSharp is novel, for sure, but not actually terribly utilitarian even for the lightest duty of tasks. And I strongly suspect that the majority of these in the world have already been confiscated by airport security.

Oh yeah.

I underwent a bit of a hiatus here because my photo taking space temporarily evaporated due to some ongoing home improvement shenanigans.

Anyway, just like the meme above these two knives are quite a flashback. I'm inspired to show these off now because we've been looking at Axis-lock-alike folders recently, not least of which because suddenly there are a whole shitload of them on the market since Benchmade's patent on the mechanism expired.

But these, the SOG Flash II and its smaller bother the Flash I, are 22 years old. This is how they did it back in the day. So let's hop in our time machine to set the stage: It's 2002. N'Sync, Cheryl Crow, and No Doubt are playing on the radio. You and your frosted tips, your Goodwill trench coat, your Matrix-styled little round mirror shades, and your Motorola Danger in your back pocket all combined were the baddest motherfuckers on the block. And if you're a knife manufacturer and you're sick of reading all the magazines fawning over Benchmade and their Axis Lock, which you can't use without paying them a shitload of royalties, what are you gonna do?

You're gonna invent your own thing that looks like an Axis Lock, and works kinda sorta like an Axis Lock, but isn't actually an Axis Lock so you don't get your Jnco's sued off. And you're going to do it with blackjack and hookers, goddammit, and you're going to make it tactical looking as all hell, and you're going to undercut Benchmade. By, like, a whole lot.

You're going to make the cutlery equivalent, in other words, of one of those supermarket checkout lane knockoff cartoon DVD's that has the same title and plot of the last big Disney movie in the hopes that somebody's grandma will come along and not know the difference.

And then you're going to throw a patent on whatever you came up with, just to rub it in, just so you can say, "See? We can do it, too."

At least that's my interpretation of things, which I just made up.

Big knife, little knife. Uh-huh.

So here we have the SOG Flash I and Flash II. And around that time their very closely mechanically related cousin the Trident (which I also have, and might show off later) which are all time capsules of their era.

First, the numbers. The Flash I is a compact knife, 3-1/4" long closed (including the clip), 5-3/4" long when open. The blade is 2-1/2" with about 2-3/8" of usable edge in a drop point profile. This puts it comfortably below the legal carry limit in many places. My example is a plain edge. The Flash II isn't a compact knife, at 4-5/8" long closed and a full 8-1/8" long open. Its blade, likewise a drop point albeit half serrated, is 3-1/2" long with a 3-3/8" usable edge... If you count the serrated portion as "usable." Both knives are spring assisted folders with SOG's "Piston Lock" mechanism. Both are deceptively light, with a rather low density for their size. The big one is 82.8 grams (2.92 oz) and the little one is 33.4 grams (1.18 oz).

These are not to be confused with the current SOG Flash AT and Trident AT, which have the new "AT-XR Lock" that like so many contemporaneous models appears to be based on the good old Axis mechanism.

No, these do their own thing. See, they didn't have a choice.

While it looks like a duck and ought to quack like one, too, it doesn't. You will notice that SOG's Piston Lock button toggles position when the knife is open vs. when it's closed, unlike the Axis lock which only has one rest position.

This was a bugger to photograph, but hopefully you can see that the lock is actually a two piece mechanism, with the toggle being separate from the bit that provides the lockup, the "piston." That's the shiny silver thing you can see in there. It has a rounded nose, which is just visible in the second photo. There is a bit of takeup slack in the toggle before it actually starts to engage the piston, and it can move independently. The piston slots into a cutout in the heel of the blade and locks it open, but it is fully restrained against its spring when the knife is closed. The patent might give you a bit of an idea about how it works although its parts are shaped a bit differently than the production item.

Since the lock mechanism is fully spring loaded and holds the knife open only, not closed, you cannot do the "Axis flick" with these knives to flip them open without touching the thumb studs. If you could, actually, these would function exactly like a side opening switchblade because the lock piston does technically hold the blade in the closed position as well -- it just doesn't lock it there. The blade is straining against its torsion spring all the time. That said, both knives snap open with considerable force even after two plus decades thanks to being quite heavily loaded by that spring.

Both sizes of the Flash come equipped with deep carry pocket clips. This definitely wasn't a common thing back in 2002, and reviewers at the time hated it. Oh, how far we've come since then. Despite appearances the clips are also reversible, by way of removing a single screw beneath. They slot in at the rear of the knife, and a screw hole is provided in either side. You can undo the screw, insert the clip the other way 'round, and put it back in. Or remove it entirely if you like, and the knife doesn't look too weird without it. There is a little lanyard hole hidden on the tail as well. Very modern.

A relic of that bygone era, however, are blades made of AUS-8 stainless. It's roughly equivalent to 440B or 440C and an alloy that seemingly no one makes a knife out of anymore, but was all the rage at the turn of the millennium. The thumb studs are ambidextrous but the locks are not: One unlocking toggle is provided only on the left hand side, opposite the clip, ready to be manipulated by a right handed user's thumb. Oh, and all the screws are Allen heads, not Torx as we now expect. Nobody used Torx screws on anything but super premium knives yet.

The Flash II's lock toggle, the part of it facing the user anyway, is round and stairstepped and very Axis-looking. The one on the little Flash I isn't, and is a rectangular slider with some jimping on it, presumably so it could be smaller. The toggle on the Flash I is free moving enough that it can rattle around when the blade is closed. That's only marginally irritating.

Both variants also sport a pair of safety locks -- as was the style at the time -- and you'll notice that I removed the one on my larger Flash II back in the day because it was, let's be honest, much more irritating than the toggle rattle. Switch it down away from the spine and the safety locks the entire mechanism sold by inserting a hook into the rear of the lock. That really rather defeats the purpose of a "fast deployment" spring assist folder, and it's entirely too easy to activate accidentally or while drawing the knife from your pocket. You can actually engage the safety just by having the knife rub against the inside of your pocket while you walk around, and the damn thing detents into the locked position but not the unlocked position. This means you can virtually guarantee that your knife will not be ready when you need to draw it.

So fuck all that noise. Yeet.

Wait. Nobody had invented yeet by 2002. Oh well. (And yes, I still have the lock lever for my Trident II, and no, I don't need told what it says about me that I was able to lay my hands on it at a moment's notice still.)

The usual Object for scale. Side profile notwithstanding, both sizes are less than svelte. The larger Flash II is 5/8" thick not including the clip -- easily 1-1/8" with it -- and has handle scales that are made entirely of slabs of injection molded glass-filled Nylon. In an attempt to make it sound fancy and high tech some manufacturers (particularly Schrade) called this "Zytel," which was its trademarked name. Remember, this was back before anyone had really heard of Micarta or G10. There are no steel liners inside, either. These are composite all the way through. That includes the spacer between the halves, which is molded in to the right hand scale. The added bulk is probably required to achieve adequate rigidity. So these are decidedly chunky knives, which SOG did and still markets (in their current incarnations) as "for professionals." Who I guess might need to fish out and operate the things with gloves on, or something.

Here it is smashed to pieces.

Normally there's not much to look at in a regular folding knife, but since we're talking about the lock on this one let's talk about the lock. Also, I brought you this picture despite my loathing of taking apart spring assisted folders, because they inevitably go "sproing." And then you have to put them back together.

As you can see, the entirety of the handle body is glass filled nylon, or composite, or Zytel, or whatever you want to call it. The two halves are aligned by a quartet of steel pins which are slip fit, and prone to dropping out and leaping under the furniture. The largest of these also serves as an end stop when the blade opens. The blade rides on two very thin and soft washers that I think might be PTFE. This knife hasn't been cracked open in two decades, either, so I had to use my little brush to remove an embarrassing amount of dirt and pocket lint from the inside before the photography. I didn't to a perfect job. Sorry about that.

The opener spring is visible there on the scale on the right. All the action happens on that side when the knife is put back together.

Here's the mechanism, with everything in place and delicately balanced against Going Off Boing. I put the safety lever back in place as well. The lock piston is the thing with that coil spring behind it. The toggle just swings on a pin and pushes another pin sticking out of the piston, retracting it so you can close the knife. The piston is held back by the radius on the heel of the blade when it's closed, and also serves to restrain it gently against the tension of the opening spring. Thus when the knife is closed there's nothing holding the toggle in place and you can fidget around with it freely.

Here's something weird. Since there are no metal parts in the handle scales, the screws have these wood screw style threads on them. They're just chunked right into the material. There are no inserts or anything.

The Inevitable Conclusion

As usual, my meandering ramble on this sort of thing is relegated to historical interest only, because you'll have a tough time buying one of these today even if you wanted to. In their era, these SOG knives were The Business -- this was the state of the art for mid-grade tactical folding knives. They were also everywhere. You could buy these at Lowes and Home Depot and the sporting goods stores, and they were probably one of the very few halfway decent knives you were going to find there.

So when anyone tries to tell you there hasn't been any actual change in the pocket knife space for the last X number of years, just show 'em these for a reminder.

And sometimes it's nice to be able to look back on from where we came from.

I'm trying to remember if this was my first button lock knife. If it wasn't the first it was darn close. Picked up a used Civivi Altus back in June. I carried it for most of June but then had set it aside for other things.

In December I picked it up again after using it to improve my sharpening skills and it's been in my pocket, for the most part, ever since.

I have to apologize in advance for the low quality of the photos here. After dropping my phone through the ice while ice fishing recently I had to settle for a lesser phone with much lower camera quality.

Maybe if I had not purchased so many knives in 2023 I could afford a better phone? Such talk is madness and we will never think like that again.

The Altus, right out of the box, was a good fit in my hand. Handle length and shape is good and, while it appears a little boxy, doesn't feel that way.

The one issue I had was the pocket clip sat in a weird spot in my palm. So, this seemed like a good excuse to try out one of the replacement titanium clips that Civivi offers and it has made a world of difference.

I can't even notice it's there anymore.

The trade-off with the titanium clip is that it is no longer deep carry. But it's close enough and the way the back of the handle is shaped, it doesn't show up in your pocket in a very noticeable way.

The blade is 2.9" (7.37 cm) Nitro-V steel which, near as I can tell, is very similar to 14C28N. It's been a great steel for the money and takes a nice edge (as far as I my so-so sharpening skills are concerned). I've not had to sharpen it since but have stropped it several times. The flat grind is good but I do wish it had a bit of a hollow grind as food prep is not nearly as fun as with my classic Elementum.

The button lock on this has been fantastic. No issues at all (though again it was used so probably already worked in a bit) with lock-stick or weird deployment. Detent is well tuned as well and the drop-shut and flip open with the button is flawless. It makes a satisfying-sounding click in both directions.

It is not a small knife but it is not a large knife either. Even with the G10 scales and internal milling it somehow feels a bit heavier than similarly sized knives but it sits nicely at 3.11 oz. (88.3 g).

No comparison photos against other knives today, sorry.

Overall: If you like the blade shape and want to experience a good button lock, I recommend it. I've used it for food prep, fire prep (feathersticking pieces of fatwood), opening 40lb bags of bird seed, on plenty of boxes and zip-ties with excellent results. The only real issue with food prep is the same for every flat-ground knife: not as efficient a slicer. The other thing I'd mention is that current prices are at ~$73 US which feels too high. Maybe catch a sale or buy one used if you can.

What is up knife community! It's been a while, what with the chaos of the holidays, and then the chaos of work after the holidays and etc., etc.

I picked up a few knives over the holidays, some for the kids, some for me. The first of which is this KNAFS Lander 2!

For those who do not know, KNAFS was started by Ben Peterson, a former BladeHQ marketing/YouTuber/designer/other things guy. He first collaborated with WE/Civivi on the Banter and Baby Banter series of knives. (See previous post on one Baby Banter variant here

Ben was famous for his long drawn-out catch phrase "What Is Up Guys?!" that he would start all the BHQ videos with.

Fast forward a few years and Ben left BHQ and started his own knife company with a couple of his own designs. The first was (not surprisingly) the Lander.

The Lander is an interesting platform because it was designed, from go, to be something you could easily swap scales on. The knife does not have to be completely dissembled in order to change its appearance. And, amazingly, Ben released the detailed specs of the Lander scales, free, to the internet. If you have a 3D printer (or access to one) you can download the complete STL or STP files and print your own.

The original Lander is a liner lock and either D2 or 14C28N steel and OEM'd by QSP.

As is the way of things in the knife world, one Lander is not enough. And so, the Lander 2 was released in November 2023.

Using Keizer as the OEM, the Lander 2 is a crossbar locking knife with an S35VN blade. (Keizer calls their lock the Clutch Lock) which has 5 different adjustable points for both sets of springs on the lock, meaning you can adjust the spring tension simply by moving where it connects to the liners.

So we have a knife that is provides user-friendly customization in looks and in action.

Here it is in comparison to a couple other knives, first the Kershaw Heist (another crossbar lock discussed recently)

Similar in length but the Heist has a much thinner blade and is slightly thinner in body and lighter.

Here it is compared to a classic: the Civivi Elementum. This has been my user for some time now and the D2 has a slight patina but is blemish free for the most part. (Tape residue not withstanding)

I was losing the evening light, so I only got one image of the Lander 2 closed.

Usage so far: Pretty limited use by me since I got it. Mostly because I've been using other knives that I also picked up. This Lander 2 was used but barely so. I had to clean up the scales a bit and stropped the blade but other than that it looks brand new.

I buy used knives almost exclusively these days as the discounts can be quite good.

The action on the Clutch Lock is really really good. Buttery smooth right out of the box. But then again, it was used so the previous owner may have flipped it a lot? I'm not going to complain because it's really nice.

The thumbstuds and crossbar studs are well made and do not bite into the hand. The shape of the handle is, for my hand size, nicely formed. What use I've put it through has been pleasant. I wish the Lander 2 had a hollow grind instead of a flat grind but the slicing has been fine even without.

I didn't have it handy for photos but it reminds me a lot of the first version of the Civivi Elementum button lock (the one where the button was only method of deployment).

Because the knife was just released, there are not many 3rd party options for scales. A few have started showing up on Etsy that I've seen, so hopefully more soon.

Overall verdict: The crossbar lock (adjustable) and open format of the scales (awesome) makes this a very compelling choice. I would not have paid full retail price for it though, as there are a lot of other S35VN knives out there for much less. But if 3D printing or just having a lot of choice for how your knife looks is your thing, it's hard to find an easier solution than the Lander series.

Since I have balisongs on my mind lately. But then, when don't I have balisongs on my mind?

"That's just an ugly one of them butterfly knives. What's so weird about that?"

Well...

It's a grand total of 3-1/2" long when fully deployed, for a start. The perfect rebuttal, perhaps, to people who say that balisongs are too big and scary for EDC use. This entire thing is smaller than some people's EDC knife blades.

So a short and sweet post today (ha, "short") with this, the 105XSSL. Don't bother looking for a maker's mark; you won't find one. This is straight from Shenzen to you, via whatever your favorite supplier of generic mainland cutlery is. One wonders about the though process behind the SKU as well. Extra small small large?

It'd be tough to fill a page about this knife. It's got a dinky little drop point blade, dinky little kicker pins, and a dinkly little fully functional latch. Mine actually came with a keychain attachment originally, too, but this was not only crap but also interfered with the swing of the latch. So I ditched it. But the handle castings are surprisingly not terrible for the price (which is about $4), and it has real Torx head fasteners and everything.

And despite being just roughly HO scale, this little knife is actually surprisingly usable. The pivots work okay and so does the latch, but there's nothing fancy going on in there -- just plain washers. It is roughly on par with various urban-carry micro knives in terms of size and utility. Or you could use it to make your doll house the most badass one in the entire neighborhood.

Here it is next to a Benchmade Model 42.

(Don't ever talk to me or my son again!)

You all haven't heard from me much lately because I've been tinkering. Again.

More details soon.

https://i.imgur.com/XsSVlvp.gif

That's right, I've been at it again.

(And if you want to fast forward through all the foreplay and get right to the action you can download the models package here. Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals.)

Here's a slightly more practical printable than the last one, which I'm calling the Sparrow.

This knife has the same design goals as before: Fully printable, with no external hardware except the Stanley utility knife blade, no supports, and mechanically as close to a real functional mechanism as is possible.

So it's a real working lockback folder. It locks up pretty good, too. Getting that working was one of those things that sounded really simple conceptually but actually turned out to be a pain in the ass to achieve. The mechanism owes a bit of credit to the Secret Of Show Business, via the wooden Spyderco kit we looked at a while back.

Oh, and making it in orange gives the the opportunity to do one of them there themed gear flat-lays that are so popular with the influencers nowadays.

The Sparrow is a pretty pocketable EDC size at about 3-5/8" long when closed. It's noticeably shorter than my CQC-6K, but it's longer than a Gerber EAB because I can't cheat and use smaller diameter steel screws. A noticeable portion of its length at the tail end is just to accommodate the printed screw, which I can't make much thinner if I'd like it to continue to, you know, work.

Of course, it has a reversible pocket clip available as well.

Sure, it's not as much fun to fiddle around with as a balisong knife. But I find the simple folding design a lot more practical for daily use. (I've been beating the shit out of my prototype, as is tradition, for a whole week at work before considering it "done.") Plus it's much less likely to draw the ire of the local constabulary if you happen to live in one of those countries with an unfortunate deficiency of bald eagles.

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Preemptive Burning Questions That Would Otherwise Inevitably Appear In The Comments

Q: Why are all the screws and pins separate parts? Don't you know you could simplify the design by making it all one solid lump?

Of course I know that. However, let's say you manage to break one of those titchy little 2mm pins. Would you rather re-print the entire monolithic handle liner assembly, or one 0.3 gram pin?

Q: But also making the handle scales separate was still totally pointless, right?

Sure, except this allows me to make a variety of scale styles available, including zooty skeletonized ones you can print in a complimentary color for two-tone aesthetics:

The possibilities practically suggest themselves.

Q: This is going to break instantly and you'll slice your fingers off. Printing something like this is so unsafe! I know this because I have done no math or testing whatsoever, but am an armchair expert!

Well, I clamped my prototype knife in my vise and yanked on it against its opening axis with a dial scale until it broke. You know, for science.

The major markings on that scale are 5 pound increments, by the way. It gave a noticeable warning creak at 37 pounds, and finally broke with the dial indicating 39 pounds. It was only made out of ordinary PLA. As you can see, I actually had to adjust my grip and I was bracing my foot against the bottom of my workbench to be able to put enough oomph into it to break it. If you torque your box cutter at nearly 40 pounds in day-to-day use I suggest you're probably using it wrong. Provided you don't try to use this knife as a crowbar or a piton I really don't think you'll have anything to worry about.

Q: What's with the dumb bird on everything?

He's a penguin. Don't be dissing my penguin, man.

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.STL Files Download: Here.

As before, the above is provided as-is and with no guarantees, and you are free to make your own or give printed knives away to friends or family or what have you, but prints of my models are not to be sold and not to be uploaded or reposted to any model repository or anywhere else outside of the Lemmy-sphere.

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Assembly Instructions and like a million pictures As Follows:

People with no interest in printing or assembling one of these can stop reading now. I promise I'll go back to my usual program of loquacious show-and-tell/point-and-laugh over various whackmobile novelty knives in my subsequent posts.

Anyway, you will need to print this small mountain of components.

The complete bill of materials is as follows:

• 1x Blade Holder
• 1x Top Liner, 1x Bottom Liner
• 1x Lock Bar
• 1x Spring Block
• 2x Female Screws
• 2x Male Screws
• 2x 2mm Pins
• 1x 4mm Pin
• 1x Top Scale, 1x Bottom Scale of your choice
• If you want to use the clip, you need 1x Pocket Clip, and replace 1x of the short female screws with the longer one included, labeled "for pocket clip."

Several components are quite close fits, and various pins and screws need to fit through their respective holes. If your printer produces parts with a lot of elephant's foot on the bottom you'll probably have to trim the inside edges of the holes with a utility knife blade, which is something I should hope you'll have to hand when embarking on this project...

Start with the bottom liner. You can identify it as the one with the chamfered holes for the pins, which you'll notice have flared heads.

Stick the 2mm pins and the 4mm pin through. They'll sit flush with the underside of the liner. If they don't, you have some trimming to do. Then sandwich your bottom handle scale underneath that. The scale will keep the pins from falling out.

Then identify your screws. There are two screw lengths, and if you're going to use the pocket clip you'll put the shorter one through the front where the blade goes on, and the longer one through the tail where the clip will go. If you're not going to use the clip, just employ two short screws instead, one on either end.

Either way, stick the female screws up through the entire sandwich.

Drop the blade holder on the front screw.

Then put the lock bar through the middle pin. Play with it a bit and make sure it drops cleanly into the notch on the blade holder. If anything is going to require tuning or sanding it'll be the interface between the lock bar and its notch there. It should also pivot freely on its pin. If it's a really tight draggy fit this will annoy you, and this'll make the lockup unreliable as well.

The spring block goes on next, and obviously the holes on it are for your last remaining pin plus the screw at the tail end of the knife. The prong on it goes below the end of the lock bar, i.e. on the inside. When you press the hump on the lock bar it should spring up and down satisfactorily.

Then the top liner goes on. All three pins should rest home in the holes in it.

Then the top scale and its (male) screw. You can drive the screws with a penny if you're too perverse to use a screwdriver.

If you're going to use the pocket clip, decide which side you want it on (of course it's reversible; I'm not an animal) and stick it through the slot on the tail end of the knife.

For strength, I recommend putting the female side of the tail screw through the clip, then through the rest of the assembly, and then put the male screw on the side that's not holding the clip. Depending on which side you chose to put the clip on you may have to take it out and stick it through from the other side.

FYI, if you don't use the pocket clip there is a hole in its mounting slot you can use to tie a lanyard through instead, if you're into that sort of thing.

The blade slides in from the front and rides in a track that holds it on both the sharp edge and the blunt spine. Press the blade locking pin flexture down to get the pins to clear.

The pins ought to click into the two notches on your blade quite nicely. If you noticed that this is the same blade holding mechanism is very similar to the one on my last knife, that's because you're right and it's exactly the same.

Fin.