10 Great Hard Work Folders - The Knife Junkie Podcast (Episode 390)

©2023, Bob Demarco
The Knife Junkie Podcast
https://theknifejunkie.com

Transcript

[0:00] Welcome to the Knife Junkie Podcast, the place for blade lovers to learn about knives and hear from the makers, manufacturers and reviewers that make the knife world go round.
I'm Bob DeMarco and coming up from Tempus Knives, the new Microburst prototype, the new Jack Wolf Knives, Havalina Jack, and we take a look at 10 great hard work folders.
Welcome to the Knife Junkie Podcast, your weekly dose of knife news and information about knives and knife collecting.
Here's your host, Bob the Knife Junkie DeMarco. Welcome back to the show.
My favorite comment from last week was from Peter Northrup, and he was commenting on my Taipan video.
My Taipan close-up video, I talk about how I've wanted that knife for over 20 years and, I did not get it until that moment.
I was very excited about it and he says, I waited 40 years for the real Rambo knife by V Neely of Lyle Knives.
$2,100, a work of art. He finished it for me in November.
I love yours. Sometimes things are worth the wait. And I just like hearing that because that's something I heard a lot growing up.
Certain things are worth the wait.
They're worth saving up money. You're not just always putting things on credit, but you're saving up, saving your shekels for something special.

[1:28] And if you're going to wait for it or if you're going to save for it, you know it's worth it.
And with the Amazon knife buying and all these online knife purveyors that are awesome and they supply us this amazing service. Well, it's so easy to just buy knives because they look cool.
And I know I have a chest full of them.
So I liked this comment because it reminded me, you know, it's good to to wait for things.
It's good to save for things. I waited.

[1:55] For the right woman and I got her. So things are worth the wait. I wanted to mention also a runner up comment of the week from my ultra polarizing short, How I Carry My EDC Fetch Blade. And man, it's so funny. I've gotten, well, more views is the most viewed video I've ever done. And I've gotten more funny comments. And this one was from SV Sayonara. And SV Sayonara simply says, Oh for heaven's sake, get over yourself. I'm gonna leave it right there. Okay, I think it's time now, for a pocket check.

[2:36] All right, you know I'm not capable of that. This is what I'm carrying in my front right pocket.
This is the Monterey Bay Knives Turbo designed by Peter Carey, one of the classic knife designers of the tactical nearing art knife sort of flipper. I mean you can get one of his custom made knives, if you have the... if you've saved up and if you wait. It is possible but you have to go to the right shows and because Peter Carey kind of... he's like Pauly in Goodfellas. He doesn't have to move for anybody and and he makes these knives uh man he he has a whole bunch of different designs they all have a similar uh feel to them and they all veer uh from the tactical into the um sort of fancy now this one uh the Monterey bay knives uh version of the turbo is a liner lock he does not do frame locks custom or any of his licensed designs and this was one of the knives that got me to really like the idea of titanium liner locks instead of frame locks which we see all the time.

[3:53] Ease of play really really really my voice is back there it really eases the action to not be fighting that lock bar and the uninterrupted surface here on the clip side really makes for a comfortable carry and a clean look. So I'm really digging the titanium liner locks these days. This beauty here as you can see is not off the shelf. This one was modded by our friends Lindy Lu and Richie B over at Knife Modders. I asked for a sort of Statue of Liberty high voltage green and a dark acid watch they did a beautiful job on that They asked about the clip in the backspacer. I said do your finest and they gave me this cool sort of celestial.

[4:41] Map, I don't know. I don't know what you call it But it's uh, if you look real close and if you windex it actually this one's pretty uh, the clip is pretty.

[4:50] Tarnished at this point, but um, you can see these these uh, Clouds that look like celestial clouds. It's pretty cool. They do some cool stuff with anodizing, This is a great work knife, too They also put a wicked edge on it and I think they used a wicked edge and.

[5:05] Recently been using this more than just looking at it and playing with it, which is what it was for a while, But I discovered it's a actually a great knife for cutting things What do you know especially cardboard? All right next up. I.

[5:20] Love this one for cutting just about anything. This is the Jack Wolf knives little bro, This is the Boy's Knife from the Jack Wolf Knives lineup and it is the smallest of the knives and.

[5:36] Mimics the size and dimensions in spirit of the Great Eastern Cutlery number 15 Boy's Knife and just the classic Boy's Knife But he of course puts his own spin on it Ben Belkin owner and designer of Jack Wolf Knives knives.

[5:53] Knives, puts his own spin on it and of course this has the beautiful bolsters integrated with the liners of titanium.
This one has M390 blade steel and a beautiful lock, locking action, I mean not locking action, slip joint action, lock and talk, great micarta handle.
The micarta handles are going away I think pretty much on the next run of jack-wulf knives, because the carbon fiber models are just, man, they are stunning.
That carbon fiber that he has been putting on these knives, absolutely stunning. And that's what people are really gravitating toward. There might be some micarta fatigue out there. We may have hit peak micarta, but never in my heart. And so I'm really psyched that I have this beauty and a bunch of other jackwalled knives in my car. This cut a bagel today. That's all this did. You know that's, that's pretty much what I do with my slip joints. They are my ad hoc food knives when I'm not in the kitchen. Next up on my belt in my waistband I had the.

[7:02] Nova 1 my collaboration knife with Hog Tooth Knives and Matt Chase. Look at that awesome sheath. That sheath is so awesome.
He does great sheaths. That is the main barrier to entry to me as far as fixed blade knives are concerned. If you're making awesome fixed blade knives, you better be making awesome sheath.

[7:27] Luckily, most of the people I collect and have knives from do. This being no exception.
But the knife here is the star. This is his platform. That is Matt Chase's platform.
That's the size of the knife and the handle. And that is my blade design.
Beautifully, beautifully executed on the grinder in 154 CM. That's hollow ground, by Matt Chase there. This of course is the prototype. There will be a few changes.
You have that maroon linen micarta. That will be the color for this run of knives.
Maroon, linen, micarta. However, I'm going to change the liners from that red to a, cool color like forest green, I think is what it's going to be. And that one inch run of jimping is not going to be there, it is going to move forward towards the.

[8:17] Towards the sweat, because that's where I find I put my thumb more. And then finally the prototype will not, it will not say prototype, it will have a serial number down here and the logo, the Knife Junkie logo will be much smaller and will fit on the flat and be sort of harmonious with his makers mark over here on this side.

[8:41] I gotta say and this sounds like I'm tooting my own horn but I am not.
This is just my version but I mean is the Bowie knife not just the most graceful beautiful design?
I love the recurve here.
Is not too much to sharpen. It is not too difficult to sharpen. It is not a deep recurve, but it is, giving you a little extra material on that belly where you do most of your work and where you will dull most frequently and where you will end up sharpening through more often. So that little, bit extra on the belly, which results in a recurve, is really good for maintaining the overall, all profile of the knife over time because you will have it forever and you will use it and pass it down and you want it to still look good for your progeny. Do look for the, pre-order. I think we've worked through the kinks in all of the online commerce, end of it and we do know, we're pretty sure about a number that we can sell of these. So do look for the pre-order. I'm very excited about this sucker. It's going to be. Abute all handmade in Massachusetts.

[9:49] Using American materials. Okay last up for emotional support today And this is this is not a reflection of my emotional state, But for emotional support I had on me the black talent to you by cold steel, this is Just a well, you know, look at it. It's menacing and yet beautiful. It is, Weaponny and yet so incredibly utilitarian and that's because that.

[10:16] Unlike the civilian, the blade that this was, let's face it, this was inspired by the Spyderco civilian, that knife has a very small forward portion. It has that radical curve down but there's not much backing it up. So it's always recommended not to use it for anything but cutting people's flesh. You don't want to use that as a work knife. This makes an outstanding work knife. If you, have the serrations, you have the thickness of the blade up here, you have CPM, this here is XHP and now it's S35 but I hear they're going back to XHP and then you have the serrations, you can also get it without the serrations. But for trapping materials, packing the straps, any sort of nylon, any sort of rope or anything, pulling it towards you, I mean this thing, is amazing. Opening boxes, all of that would be my justification if I had to justify this.
Oh, it's a great work knife. It's like a tool. It's like a saw. It's a curved saw, you know.

[11:23] Is how I would put it. But I just had it on me because it rides in the inside pocket of my winter jacket. And I just had it on me and had it out and was appreciated today.
I didn't use it for anything, thank god, because I didn't have to do hard work in any sort of way.
But still appreciated that look at the size of that thing.

[11:45] A cold steel man. They're undeniably cool. Alright, still to come on the Knife Junkie podcast, we're going to take a look at some knife life news and then state of the collection. Got some really cool stuff to show off. All right here on the Knife Junkie podcast. If you're a knife junkie, you're always in the market for a new knife and we've got you covered. For the latest weekly knife deals, be sure to visit theknifejunkie.com slash knives. Through our special affiliate relationships we bring you weekly knife specials on your favorite knives help.

[12:17] Support the show and save money on a new knife shop at the knifejunkie.com slash knives that's the knifejunkie.com slash knives you're listening to the knife junkie podcast and now here's the knife junkie with the knife life news if, you've tuned in at all to Thursday night knives you've heard me sadly waxing poetic recently about how I haven't felt too inspired by many folding knives recently. Not that it's the fault of the folding knives, but there hasn't been much to draw my eye, draw my attention away from big fixed blade knives recently.
And this recent release, man, that has changed things. Very exciting.
Kaiser's new collaboration with Adrian de Souza and Damned Designs. Adrian de This user came on the show, he was episode 268, you can go to knifejunkie.com slash 268, to listen to him talk about damn designs and the birth and growth of damn designs.

[13:20] I saw this on Kaiser's Instagram feed and the blade was unopened and I knew, oh my god, I could tell just from the shape of the handle that it was damn designs.
And you know me, I don't always know what's coming out until it comes out.

[13:36] And so I was really excited to see this because it's a button lock.
It's a Kaiser and I know there have been some recent button lock snafus out there.
This one has me very excited because it's Adrian Vesuzza and it's this beautiful Tonto blade.
Look at that. It's a 3.31 inch 154 cm compound blade.
That straight is hollow ground. That forward part of the Yakote is flat ground.
It's a button lock. And green or black, my card. Very exciting. 4.08 ounces.
And it's got that signature profile. Look at that handle. Man, that's a thing of beauty.
I had a bunch of his designs here for a while on loan and it was hard to give them back.
So I'm going to get this one. This one you will see on the channel. So I'm very excited about this one.
Okay, next up is from Boker. We are excited to see... We... I am excited to see another cool clip point coming out of Boker. They have a lot of cool designs. Sometimes the QC is not.

[14:49] All it should be, but I feel like that's a thing of the past with a few recent exceptions. But I love Boker and I have a small and awesome sub-collection. Well, take a look at this thing. This is a hard work slip joint from them. Beautiful clip point. This is designed by a French knife maker Raphael Durant. This is a 3.43 inches of D2 blade steel, so kind of in their more.

[15:19] High value lineup. It's got beautiful contoured G10 handles. I mean just looking at it looks very comfortable to heft and it's got a special slip joint mechanism that puts constant pressure, on the blade for a solid feel. You know, it almost feels like a locking blade is what they say.
So interesting, it's a style of slip joint mechanism designed by this gentleman Raphael Durant and another French knife maker Samuel Lurquin.
I don't know how you pronounce that in French. But very interesting. This looks like a cool one.
And we had a really cool...

[15:58] Other French slip joint that we had on the channel with the with a big skull on it. I can't remember the name of it now, but that was another really cool one. So they have a lot of great stuff all the time coming out. So keep your eyes peeled for Boker and Boker Plus. Also, I interviewed Chaz Fisher. He's the head of USA Boker. He was episode 354. Very interesting, dude. I met him in the restaurant having breakfast at the Blade Show hotel. So a very cool guy and a great interview. Next up from Artisan. I do like Artisan. They just come up with some really cool stuff and they have their own proprietary blade steel with dial T. Also think this is pretty cool.

[16:43] But they got together with Mike Snowdy. Remember Mike Snowdy? He's a big name in the early part of the tactical knife craze and he had a knife made with Spyderco, really cool Warncliffe, and he had, oh no, that was with Benchmade. He's had some knives with Benchmade and some other American manufacturers along the way. This is his first knife with Artisan and man, it is beautiful. I think this thing is, really cool looking. This, I don't think it has a name, at least it's not named in the article, but that is a 3.86 inch blade. You know that I like big blades and that is, something that I cannot deny. And right here, that is a harpoon that I cannot deny. You know, I say I don't like harpoons on blade, harpoon swadges, but this one on this drop point just.

[17:33] Looks phenomenal. You got a comet shaped opening hole for ambidextrous opening. However, you do not have ambidextrous clip options. That is a sculpted clip on contoured micarta and sort of that pistol grip shape. We've seen that that looks kind of cold steely almost with the finger with the forefinger groove and the pinky groove and then the double finger well in the middle. Very cool.
No release date on this but I do look forward to checking this one out. Next up Ontario, uh, people who love the rat one and that is pretty much all of us but there are some people uh who.

[18:13] Love it a lot. Well, they came out with a they're coming out with an S35VN rat and not only are rat one, not only are they radically upgrading the steel to S35VN, but they are also upgrading the handle material to G10.
So gone is the FRN on this particular model. And here it is at in Reggie 10. This I gotta say, it's very appealing to me.
I have a very old RAT1 from the early AUS, 8 days and FRN and that's been living in my car in my get-home bag for years.
So I have one but I haven't had one in rotation forever. So who knows, maybe this $135 MSRP RAT1 is in my future.
Probably not. It will have a street value of $100 though.
And I say probably not because though it is a great knife, it does not get my heart beating fast.
And I only really have the dough for that these days. But beautiful.
I'm excited to see this. This knife has long deserved an upgrade.

[19:19] And then lastly, I just want to call your attention to a really cool article I saw on Blade magazine about classic American legendary American knife designs.
And it was interesting because I was like, Bowie knife, yes, and Arkansas toothpick, like what else?
And they reminded me of all these innovations and different knife designs to have sprouted out.
And really they talk about the Bowie and how American knife design really came out of the, I love that illustration of the Alamo there, that's pretty cool.

[19:54] But came out of a different famous story about Jim Bowie, I said it about Jim Bowie.
When he got in a duel and the notches, notches. Oh, my God, I'm not pronouncing anything right.
The notches, a sandbar, the famous fight where he got shot and stabbed, but ended up disemboweling and nearly decapitating his foe.
I think that's how it goes. And a lot of knife design past dated after that.
There you see the the 110 go by the buck, 110 folder, the lock back folder, and then you just saw the Spyderco just go by.
That was the Spyderco worker. And then they mentioned the... So the things we get out of that is the Buck 110. We get the lock back. You know, that was a big innovation. And then with the Spyderco worker, we're getting the one-handed opening and the pocket clip huge innovations there and then Bill Moran They mentioned the contributions of Bill Moran and his Damascus making and his styling ergonomics and handle styles.
And then you get the multi tools, you know, you get your Leatherman and then we see the Folder Flipper, another thing that came out of American Knife Design, the Liner Lock.

[21:16] The Frame Lock and the Rambo Knife.
I gotta stop on the Rambo knife here because, A, I think it's beautiful. I love this one.
This is, you can see on the Rambo knife how it's utilitarian. It's got that round hollow handle.
It's got the, on the inside of the butt cap, it's got the compass and you can fill that handle with survival stuff. But it also has on the Quillians, it has a Phillips screwdriver on the top and a slotted screwdriver on the bottom. The reason I want to talk about the Rambo knife is because I've recently heard in relation to some pretty grisly news stories, I've heard this loose talk of it was done with a Rambo knife and and I think that that's just disgraceful, irresponsible reporting to call something a Rambo knife to go back 40 years in history and choose a movie instead of saying a large fixed blade knife. They call it a Rambo knife. No, they don't. Only you call it a Rambo knife. So let's, drop that moniker and just say large fixed large fixed blade knife. When when something happens, and we start talking about knives in the news. How about that? All right. For some cool Rambo knives, go check out D Bad's web page. I just have him on the podcast, Donnie B All Day.

[22:41] This week. And he designs knives that get made to order over there at the Kukri house in Nepal.
And he has a bunch of his takes on the Rambo knives. I'm trying to figure out which one I'm going to get a D Bad knife, trying to figure out which one I want to get because each one is more.

[22:58] Badass than the one before it. So I'm going to have to choose wisely.
Alright, coming up on the Knife Junkie Podcast, we're going to take a look at two new knives, one in prototype and one just fresh to the market, and then 10 great hard work folders.
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And now that we're caught up with Knife Life news, let's hear more of the Knife Junkie podcast.
This week I have the great honor of checking out a prototype from my good buddy KC over at the Knives Fast channel but.

[24:01] At this point, to me, more importantly, Tempest knives. Tempest knives is his company and this is his second knife that's going to go into production.
This is the prototype made by Kubi and he loaned this to me to check out, make cool some videos of, and then I will send it along. And I have actually used it. I left the crap on the blade just to show off. No, but to let you know that I'm going to fully wholeheartedly endorse this knife, and that comes from cleaning up this cluttered man cave. What you see behind you is a very, very neat version of the rest of this room, and boxes accumulate, boxes that people send me knives in, and I'm like, I'm going to save that because I'm going to send knives out in that box, and I I never do. So I had to cut a whole bunch up and this is what I used. And man, it is an awesome blade.

[24:58] Something I really like about it is that it's got a very, it's got a nice tall.

[25:03] Flat grind and it gets really thin and slicey and I like that. It's in contrast to.

[25:13] His Tempest Pinyon. And this is, this is a runner-up for my great hard work knives folder, list coming up. I love this knife. I got on the pre-order for this and I almost, never ever get on pre-orders for anything. But again, he sent me the prototype for this and I loved it so much. This is a great blade and I love using this. And then when I got this I was like, whoa, this is an extra special. This is a really nice slicer. Let me just put it that way. Very nice, ergonomics on this. You got this forward choil that your hand fits into. It's not really a choil. I don't know what you call it. It's like a space to put your finger.
Yeah, that's a choil. Okay, and and you can come all the way up here onto that swedge, with your thumb. You do have some jimping there. If you're going to be back here, I found myself, back here because this is not a to me. You only really with a knife like this have your thumb back there. I don't know making kindling or something. But but for this I was powering through cardboard. So it was either like that or with my thumb there on that, jimping. A very nice contoured canvas micarta handle. You've got the really cool proprietary pivot. I love that and his nice little Tempest logo there. Not too much in the way of identification. Classy, simple, refined, great action.

[26:37] Obviously, I shouldn't say obviously, but on bearings, very nicely executed and really nice action.
Fun to play with if that's your thing and.

[26:50] Really nice. Okay, so let me tell you the specs of this. It's going to be an $80 to $99 price range, but that's to be determined. These prototypes are in D2 steel, but he's leaning towards 14C28N, as the final steel. The pre-order will be open in mid to late January. With delivery hoped to be in early April. He's hoping for March, but you know, the overall length is seven inches with a a four inch handle on the three inch blade and a 2.5 inch cutting edge. Weight is about, 3.25 ounces. I'm reading from an email he sent me. Also now the hardware will be titanium as before and the backspacer is titanium which is pretty cool. I like the look of that backspacer.
The backspacer on the pinion is the same micarta used on the handle which is actually quite Alright, now there are going to be some changes to this prototype and he lists them here.
He's going to add a left side clip option with the two slits and the flat screw.
So nicely that screw is flat so you don't get that doming up into the path of your pocket there and he's going to add those slits to this side.
Uh... you know, fine.

[28:04] Fine if you have to know so lefties can have their left clip option, which is very nice, He's gonna add a chamfer across the lock bar here right here where your thumb engages a, Nice a nice luxury but totally not necessary as far as I'm concerned, but that'll be a nice little touch, He's gonna add a slight amount of lock bar access. So a little bit more here also unnecessary in my book, but, will be will be nice I guess actually as far as I'm concerned you don't really need that extra lock access if you add that chamfer anyway some folks have found the thumb stud a bit sharp so we are working to smooth the edges out oh poor, little snowflakes and their thumbs I'm just kidding I love you all I love all nice people but yeah I get it actually I felt it too on the thumb stud actually my thumb stud thought was that it was a little too close here.
But maybe that is just sharpness that I'm feeling.
Really cool that Casey sends this out, as a lot of makers do, designers do.

[29:14] But I love that he has sent them out to me also for my opinion.
And that is great for us. It's great for him. We get the knife we want.
He gets to make the knife that we want and sell the knife that we want.
And all based on his own cool designs. Now I look at this and I think I would never design that knife but I'm glad that he did. I love it. So I will definitely be getting on this pre-order too, and I guess I will have a little budding collection of Tempest knives. Thank you Casey for the honor of checking out this prototype. Okay next up the new jack-wulf knife. Thank you Ben Belkin for sending this to me and in such fine, fine micarta, this natural micarta is, you know, in looking at, they're all, they're all great.
In looking at all the micarta that I have on the jack wolf knives, this one is the most, refined and beautiful.
So I'm going to take a moment to look at it. And when I turn it this way, there we go.
Ohio, the gray sky and the tan fields in winter when I come home to visit.

[30:30] Anyway, I love this thing. This is the javelina jack. This is a bare end, and um, sow belly, single bladed trapper.

[30:41] So there you got a beautiful upswept clip point blade. We've seen this style clip point from Ben, in the Cyborg Jack and in the Benny's clip. We've seen that sort of upward, what did I say, trailing point. A beautiful clip point. You have a long straight there and then a nice belly and an, upward trajectory towards that tip. This again is S90V like the one that came before it.
And then you've got the full height hollow grind. The one that came before it, the low drag jack.

[31:18] Was that bullet shaped spear point. That was also an S90V. Again, super thin grind, all the way up to the spine. Deeply, deeply hollow grind. It's like every time it's getting I mean not so thin that you can't do you know plow through double walled cardboard with it but just so thin you wouldn't plow through it you'd slip through it with this knife.
I'm very much looking forward to using this as my new food and steak knife. I really like the ergonomics of this handle.
This handle especially it seems like it lends itself to this kind of cutting uh to like draw, cuts pull cuts uh cutting stake kind of holding it and uh but also in hand like this man it is really comfortable and i gotta say my only other sow belly is this beautifully done um rough rider, Talk about extremes here. This is like a $15 knife and this is about a $300 knife or $289 I think.

[32:24] But this is for a cheap knife or for an inexpensive knife. This is really, really well done.
But what you don't get out of this is the benefit of the ergonomics. I've been talking about this a lot and really Ben Belkin and his designs have opened my eyes to this. These knives, these these traditional patterns all have their shapes for reasons.
And oftentimes those reasons are ergonomic, but you add an extra blade.

[32:51] To the package and then you lose the contour of the ergonomics. So yeah, you can feel the overall curve and you can nestle it in the palm of your hand and that's nice, but this part you're never going to get that same feel, that same adherence to your hand as you would in a single bladed.

[33:10] Knife, single bladed slip joint. You really get the ergonomics. That is one thing I have learned through this jack wolf knives. What do I want to say the jack wolf knives designs Ben Belkin's take on these traditional knives is how ergonomically thoughtful all these designs throughout history have been and just kind of adding the extra utility with the extra blades eliminates some of that. I love this Havalina deck at I am such a yank. I'm such a that I was like Havalina. I've of that. What is that? Yeah, it's they're all over the place, I guess, in the in the south and southwest, of the United States. And, well, Jack Wolf Knives is based in Arizona and the javelinas are these big, agro, you know, wild boar, wild pigs out there. And so he named the sow belly after the javelina, a tough, tough American breed, you know, that's what we like. Tough American breed, just like that, bowie style blade man. Man I'm sorry I keep saying man man I don't know I don't know what's up with me but maybe I'm just excited about this beautiful, beautiful knife. Again you get a downward angle on that straight which will add to the cutting power of this.

[34:27] Alright, thanks again, Ben for sending this beautiful, beautiful knife. Of course, it comes in the usual usual package with the with the unique artwork, the cleaning cloth, the pod, the sticker and the beautiful leather case. So you are getting a lot for your money and the build of the knife is outstanding. I wish all of my folders had that same build.

[34:50] Okay, speaking of which, let's talk about some well-built knives here. These are great working folders, hard work folders. And I'm saying hard use, hard work instead of hard use. And that's because I have done hard work with all of these, meaning cutting carpet, doing other things, things that are unpleasant on knives, I've used these for. So I want to talk about these knives for a, minute but first I want to mention a couple of runners up one that I mentioned earlier is the Tempest Pinion I love this knife and I do reach for this when I have when I've got stuff to cut in here usually it happens to be cardboard boxes, I do have some other kind of crap styrofoam that I've had to cut up and, stuff this thing I pull out a bit this is another one I pull out a bit this is the the cold steel kuridashi it's a great little cheap 4034 stainless steel corrupt little utility knife uh great great knives and um but but don't don't quite rise to to the ones i'm about to talk, to only because i haven't used them quite as much as the ones that i'm about to bring up okay first up.
Great hard work folders the penguin from QSP now I have a couple of different versions of this.

[36:13] QSP sent me graciously.

[36:17] The new larger version it's it's called the penguin plus and that's a titanium 20 CV, Affair a little bit larger than this and then they also sent me the small micro one, which is also very cool But this one is to me the most useful because well the 20 CV one is is useful but it's a little bit bigger and on the bigger knives I like a more stabby point I'll just put it that way. Here you get the great utility of that of that sheep's foot blade that everyone loves from the QSP but it's just it's it's it's just the right size. This one is very inexpensive this is a $30 knife.

[36:58] Comes in this really nice denim micarta. I think they were one of the first to do the denim micarta, but you can also get it in a billion other versions. No, I'm sorry, it's only a million. A million other versions and I think they do a couple of different blade finishes. I'm not sure about that though. Great, great, work knife, great edge, and a great blade geometry. It's pretty, it's somewhat stout but slicey as hell and you get a great point down on the bottom. A downward.

[37:32] Oriented point for pull cuts and then it's on... this one is on washers feels, like it's on bearings. Next up, quite down the other side of things, a more expensive production knife. This is the TR2 from Pro-Tech and this honestly is the one automatic that I've ever really done work with. This one I bought on, Bladeforums from a Texas farmer who had used this for a couple years during harvest time and when I got it it was gritty as hell. You could tell there was all sorts of fine dust in here and it really it really was used pretty well, but I'm the one who ended up putting the kind of the work onto it that you can see. Because it came from a farmer who had used it hard in the field, I felt like I could use it hard and I didn't have to baby it, which is kind of what I do when I spend a lot of money on a knife.
And this was, you know, 200 bucks or whatever I spent on it. It's still a lot of money on a knife, even though we have more expensive things. And so I felt licensed to use it. This, you can see the the paint on it. This was a painting knife for a while. This is the, uh, was the color, or was one of the colors in my daughter's room before we...

[38:52] Repainted it a year later or whatever it was. 154 cm, great action on this. This is probably my most.

[39:01] Kicking automatic. Pro-tech is known for their hard hitting out the side knives. This one I gotta say though, it really takes the cake. Some knives slap open. I found my my Benchmade automatic slapped open. He's snap open. So really, really great knife. And I also love that aluminum shows history very well. It shows the snail trails, shows the dings, and the, history of the knife. So great little knife at three and a quarter inches, a little bit smaller than I usually love. But man, I love that knife. Next up, this one's gotten a lot of action because, this one you know I got the Spyderco paramilitary 2 because I was, taken in by the hype a long time ago when it when they first started getting a lot of hype from a lot of people and the hype obviously is well deserved I'm not saying it's not but I didn't get it because I was like man that's a beautiful knife and I need it because it's great utility I got it because I, I wanted to have it because everyone else did.
I hate to put it that way, but let's be honest.

[40:19] And in doing so, I got it and I kind of like, oh, you're really great and you feel really great, but I think you're kind of ugly.
So I'm just gonna use you, and maybe someday I'll get rid of you.

[40:34] In having that attitude, I've really gone for broke with this knife and done a lot with it.
And it really is all of that. It is a great work knife.
I have never been able to get the play out of my blade and maintain the kind of fidgety action I want.
Definitely does not fall shut easily. So.

[40:55] A PM2 whisperer, I'm sure could take care of this, but that's not what this knife is about.
This knife has really become about just loyal service. It started off as like, you know, I'm going to treat you like a work dog or a working animal and it's really turned into a pet. I love this thing. Would I get another PM2? I just don't think so, but I am on the pre-order for the military 2. That is way more my speed and it will have the things on this knife that I love like the compression lock and the tip up capability and it also oddly enough in the new version, of the military 2 will still have S30V. That's so weird! That's so weird to me! They took forever, to update the knife and they're not going to update the steel.

[41:52] That's so baffling to me. Why not S45 for whatever reason? I don't know. Or just something else.

[41:59] M4. Wouldn't that be cool? And just still charge like a regular military two price? I don't know.
I don't know. Call me crazy. Call me what you will.

[42:09] Next up, a great hard work knife that for a long time was my in the waistband carry when I was out of fixed blades for a while and that is the Main Street designed by Dirk Pinkerton and produced, by Concept. Just a great work knife. It has a very nice worn cliff blade with the thumb ramp and and Dirk Pinkerton's sort of signature non-jimping jimping. Those little cups sort of carved out of the side of the spine. They're more for indexing, figuring out where you are on the handle. They, They don't really give you much grip.
But that tip is at the right angle to give you puncturing capability, getting through nasty clam shell or hard plastic.
That is really a great tip.
Great cutting edge. This is 154CM, one of my favorite blades.
A lot of these are in 154CM, it turns out.
It's a great steel to cut with. It maintains well. It's easy to get sharp.
It keeps a good edge. It resists corrosion pretty well.

[43:19] This one has a very nice neutral ergonomic handle. Sometimes I appreciate knives better by looking at them upside down.
Sometimes you can see the design better because we're less used to seeing them that way.
Sculpted titanium clip.
I do love this broad, course, coarsely woven.

[43:40] What do you call this stuff? I know you're all yelling it at your screens or at your speakers.
Sack cloth we'll call it for a moment. I love this because it's straight sometimes you see, Micarta like this and you can see the fibers are are bending or are not straight, but these, it's like the material which I cannot remember the name of.

[44:07] Burlap is pulled taut and then compressed with the epoxy and I appreciate that man I don't want to see all the wavy wavy lines going through there I like it like this. So this is a very well done handle. The thing that bums me out about this is I had such a nice patina on this burlap micarta for a while because I used it a lot and it also, was kind of near my body a lot. And then I threw it in my swimsuit one day at the pool. My swimsuit was wet, you know, but I threw it in the pocket because I was out of the pool. And the pool water totally bleached out the awesome... It also had a really nice feel to it. Now all of that is gone, and or most of it is gone. It feels different and it looks different but it's still the same, awesome knife. Now they make this in a small version too. The main street, the mini main street and.

[45:05] It comes in a great variety of handles and a couple of different blade options or blade finish options. Next up, this one, this is the carpet cutter. This one I used to cut up yards and yards of carpet when we were redoing my wife's office a couple of years back. And this is no longer in production, I don't think, but you can still find it on the secondary. This is the Zero Tolerance Zero 630. This is an Emerson design. We hear a lot. People love the 640 and I love that knife too but the 620 and the 630 that came before them are awesome collaboration knives with Ernest Emerson and Zero Tolerance. Just built like...

[45:50] Built like brick houses here. They are titanium frame locks.

[45:56] I have actually, I've put real Emerson clips on them, but they come with Emerson style clips, they're just glossy and they say ZT on them.

[46:04] Just a beautiful S35VN clip point blade, very much in the style of the CQC8, just a little bit broader.
Or it also looks a bit like the Tiger Blade, the Emerson Tiger Blade.
But this one, man, I gotta say, oh god, you'll have to excuse me from saying that.
I hate to bring attention to it, but it's bothering me.
Anyway, this knife, the heat treat on the S35VN is outstanding.
And I only know that because, like I said, I cut a lot of carpet with this and it was still sharp.
It required only stropping afterward.
And that was on a whole new stuff with no, with just aluminum polish.
That's how I was dropping things a few years back. I replaced the very pedestrian G10 black handles scales with this linen micarta handle scale.
These were hard to find. I did the same thing on my 0620.
I put on some dark green, those were canvas micarta. They were very hard to find at the time.
So I don't know if you have one of these, if you'll ever be able to find my card of scales, but if you can, I recommend it because such a great knife were these Emerson knives, but they gave them just really generic G10 handles.

[47:28] So wah wah, but really, really great. And a testament to zero tolerance is manufacturing.

[47:35] Next up, this was a gift to me by BJ Hill of Hilltop EDC gears.
Oh man, he gear, he does some really cool knife modding.
He sent this to me and it was such a nice gift. It was kind of out of the blue.
And I've used it quite a bit. You can see on the blade, this thing has an incredible blade.
It is, what is it? It's about an inch and yeah, it's an inch and a half broad, with a full inch and a quarter flat grind.
So it's wickedly, wickedly thin and sharp, but big and broad and pointy.
It reminds me of a Barong, one of the swords that hangs behind me.
This handle, I've been back and forth about.
It is very ergonomic, especially when you choke up on the choil here.

[48:25] And that's how I've used this the most, mostly like this cutting cardboard.
But back here, this little thing annoys me. And I know your finger is supposed to divide your ring finger and your pinky.

[48:40] And I don't like being forced into that box, man. Don't put me in a box. but.

[48:46] I can live with it. Really, I use it up here the most. So, a very... This is designed by Matt Degnan and you've got a cool little cucaracha right there on the clip. I say cool little cucaracha but I gotta say there's nothing worse than cockroaches. They're the creature that cured me of my arachnophobia as soon as I started urban living. I was like, spiders, I'll take them all day long cockroaches. Alright, next up is the off-grid knives enforcer XL and I'm going to include just, the enforcer EDC which is probably up more people's alley because it's the same exact knife, really.

[49:30] Same exact knife, but with a three and a quarter inch blade. But for me, this is the one I've used.
This is the big 4 inch XL version. Now this one was my car knife for, I don't know, two years or so.
So it got a lot of just random use. Everything from opening up packages to, I know I opened up, oil can with that. Not can, but you know, just carved out the foil and you know, did that kind, of crappy work but is capable of a lot more. It's got almost too aggressive of a text.
The texture here is almost too aggressive on the G10. If you look at it, it's like a field of, pyramids poking up out of the G10 and it gives you outstanding grip. If you're doing a lot of hard work, you might want gloves or you might just want to knock it down with a little sandpaper, especially under the clip. Now I've not done that because actually I haven't really carried this one.
It's been mostly in the car. This one I did knock down because I knew I was going to want to carry it.

[50:43] No, this one came less aggressive. I'm thinking of... I have a special version of this one that I knocked down.
But anyway. You got the 154CM blade steel. This one on this one, on the small, the larger one, this is D2.
And you can get a special edition of this with a Red Dawn G10. Red Streak Black G10.
And a 154CM blade.

[51:07] Anyway, very good hard work knife. I guess I could say that about the entire off-grid catalog, but I have done probably the most with this here.
Incidental stuff. All right, next up I'm going to do a similar thing.
This one for me is emblematic. This is the AD10.
I mean, I'm sorry. right. This is the AD20 from Andrew Demko and this is a machine ground 8020 meaning it came from the Demko shop and it was hand done by the Demko's but, that the blade was ground by a machine and not hand ground. So great great work knife. The 8020.5 though is the one that I've done more work with frankly and, and honestly. Now I've carried the 8020 more, but there have been many times where I've just grabbed this to do work with. Now I think I may have gotten the shark's foot blade because I think it's ugly. Well, I already had this one. I already had a Demko clip point.

[52:18] But this one I was like, I should have it just to round out the collection.
But now that I think about it, I think I got it because I do find it ugly.
And that's okay.
It is a great working shape.
That is a great blade shape. It's just, I don't know.
I always flirt with the idea of cutting it somehow and not cutting it, but you know.

[52:42] Altering the shape to make it more worn cliffy.
But ultimately, I'm never going to do that. This, I'm not going to do that.
But two great, great work knives.
I can definitely speak to the, the Aus 10A is really great on this.
It works really well. This is a Taiwan manufactured 80 20.5.
This was from the very first run.
You can get these now in a, in a wide variety of handles, whether it's GRN or titanium and, different blades, whether we're talking blade steel or blade finish. So the Andrew Demco knives 8020 or 20.5. This by the way is 20 cv. All right, next up is the 4 Max Scout by Cold Steel. This thing, you know, is just a monstrous tank and yet only a four inch blade and and I say only four inches because when I hold this in hand it always seems like it's bigger. But look one, two, three, that's four inches.

[53:50] It just seems bigger because of the size of it. I love that curved handle there to accommodate, the length of a drop point with the point higher north than south you got to start curving the handle and it feels, Really great. You can come back on this knife. You can come all the way back here, to the to where your pinky is engaging with the bird's beak at the pommel and, and make this a chopper. I mean it's got the weight, it's got the thickness in the blade.
Beautifully swedged drop point blade. You don't hear me say that often.
But it comes to a nice, nice sharp edge. It is pretty robust behind the edge but, it does not, with the thickness being taken into account, it is not some, it's not an obfuse edge at all.

[54:39] Gives you a nice forward choil here if you want to get closer to the blade while you're, working with something that requires more dexterity. Or you could just be back here in this saber grip.
I have also added a fob. I added the fob because this was a gift from Jimmy Slash, the great and powerful Josh Ballet.
Love that guy. And he sent me this knife as a gift, which was so kind, because he was like, you don't have a Foremax?
And he's got 50 million of them in all different, he even has custom.
So he sent me this and I, in honor of him, put one of these fobs on because that's what he does.

[55:21] Yeah, so this knife has done some hard duty and that AUS-10A really, really stands up to it.
Cold Steel is great with their heat treats, even with what a lot of people consider, substandard blade steel, not substandard, but sub-awesome blade steel.
Okay, last up, this one has gotten a lot of use and has taken a lot of... has acquired a lot of mileage, literally.
This is my Microtech Socom Elite. This is my road trip knife and has done it all.
No, it hasn't. But it has done a lot of stuff because this is what I always take.
This is what is always in my pocket when I am traveling and road tripping, I should say.
It all started because it was my first knife with a with the glass breaker on it.
But also it's another it's a couple of firsts here. This was my first knife with ball bearings and I wasn't even aware that there were ball bearings in the pivot when I got it.
I just was like this is intensely smooth. What the heck man? This is intensely weirdly smooth.

[56:29] The action of this is oddly crazily smooth and I just didn't even think to open it up or well I I couldn't because of proprietary hardware, but I didn't think to like do any investigation.
But I got to say this in 2013 was a pretty early ball bearing knife.
My first S 35 VN bladed steel knife and lots of firsts on this.
I think this was my first knife with carbon fiber on it.
I bought this from a guy in California who was his story was he was building a house and needed to unload some knives and he forgot to send the pouch that this comes with.

[57:05] But this thing is just, this is awesome. This has done a lot of things. This has cut wire.
And so this has gone through metal as well as the rubber around it.
It's cut everything from wire to waffles.
I remember this on our road trip to Williamsburg, Virginia.

[57:30] I remember using this and thinking, Because I had a food knife in mind that I was going to bring and that was what we were going to use every time I had to cut food for anyone.
My girls were younger then and forgot it and all I had was this.
I'm like, how am I going to cut waffles with this? This did great.
It's like this tip was perfect for engaging with the cake. But this thing has given me confidence and has banked up a lot of stories and is capable of a lot of hard work.
And if you don't believe it, you can see on some YouTube channels associated with Microtek, one of the guys that works for them, has done some videos on his own channel of doing insanely brutal things with these knives.
And they just hold up. Pounding them with a mallet into a 2x4, you know, hammering them across nails and all sorts of crazy stuff.
These things are awesome. I have no doubt the Bravo that I have made by Reich Knives is great, but nothing, nothing will be the aluminum handled American-made Microtech Socoms.

[58:38] Alrighty, ladies and gentlemen, thanks for checking out these 10 great hard work holders.
Thanks for letting me talk to you about knives for an hour. You know, you really saved my family from the trauma.
And I think this will hold me for at least a few days. So I will talk to you tomorrow on Thursday Night Knives.
And we will also be talking soon about about our preorder.
As well as, please do check out the next interview with auxiliary manufacturing.
Some really, really cool blades there. Also if you want to become a patron, be sure to go to theknifejunkie.com slash patreon.
For Jim, working his magic behind the switcher, I'm Bob DeMarco saying thank you so much for listening and until next time, don't take dull for an answer.
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[1:00:03] Answered on an upcoming episode of the Knife Junkie Podcast.

[1:00:08] Music.