Automated Transcript
10 Meanest Fixed Blades - The Knife Junkie Podcast (Episode 335)

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, ZT retreads another knife, this time a sinkovich.
I get out I get the steel city cutlery Fang custom in my hands which is pretty sweet and the meanest fixed blades on the block.
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.

00:44
Welcome back to the show.
You know I talk so much here all week, every week, but you have a comment section below to talk back and I do read those comments and I love each and everyone, almost each and every one of them.
But this is my favorite this week.
The eternal question.
Now this comes from top dog 8762. And this is on last week's MID League midweek supplemental.
And he says the eternal question to box or not to box.
I say always save your box, put them all in bigger boxes.

01:18
Eventually you'll have enough to make furniture out of them.
Stand alone and they can be end tables and coffee tables.
Gather enough together, tie them up and throw a pillow on them and bam, you've got a couch.
Always save the box.
I love it.
I love it.
These are some practical things you can do with the boxes of boxes that you have.

01:37
We have a couple of boxes of boxes around here.
But I gotta say at the core of it all, his savior box, because you never know if you're gonna actually sell that knife that you cannot do without it happens.
And then you sell it.
And then you don't miss it.
That does happen too.
I need to remind myself of that.
That lesson right there anyway, a top dog.

02:00
8762, thanks for the comment.
I loved it all right.
A pocket check?
What are we carrying this week?
Or on this day?
But you'll leave your pocket check below in the comments.
I always like to know what people are carrying because it helps me kind of see what else is out there.

02:18
Easy to get locked into your own echo chamber.
Alright, so here we go today in my front right pocket.
I had the awesome off Grid Knives Excel, Cayman.
Off grid knives makes our designs really fantastic flippers.
They're all flippers.
I realized folder folding knives and outdoor fixed blades.
This design this dramatic clip point design that actually does look a bit like a Cayman a smaller crocodilian type animal creature from Brazil and South America.

02:54
This does look like a Cayman snout, but a dramatic clip point blade.
I love clip point blades and off grid knives has all of their stuff manufactured by best tech and Best Tech Man.
They are just about my favorite OEM.
I have a lot of stuff made by them, some from their own label and some as OEM work as it is with off grid knives and everything I have by them is outstanding.
So I'm I'm really into best tech as an as a company as a manufacturer and.
I'm really into off grid natives as a designer, so put them together and you have something outstanding off.
Grid knives are really excellent at cutting cardboard.

03:39
I got to say so.
That means like a lot of utility tasks that require slicing thin, thin, sharp blades that slip through material.
Even though this looks big and beefy, which it is, it's very slender in the blade and very very sharp.
So this is a a capable EDC knife as well as a. It's kind of a menacing big knife.
This is the Excel and it's a four inch blade.
Originally the EDC.
The first one that came out the Cayman EDC came in at 3.125. You know 3 1/4 inches.

04:12
Great knife, I have that.
That's one of my favorite three and a quarter inch blade bladed knives.
And then when they came out with the Excel I lost it and man I love it.
That 4 inch blade is really my wheelhouse.
My original wheelhouse.
Back from the first cold steel folder days.
When everything well, the early tactical knife days, everything was four inch blades and that always kind of stuck with me like wearing boot cut jeans from the 90s, you know, because I was born in the 70s and they say every 20 year all right?

04:43
You get it all right.
So the Cayman off Grid Excel was in my front right pocket.
My front left pocket today.
Nothing new in terms of I've been carrying this thing nonstop, but it is a new knife.
It just dropped on the 15th of July.
This is the.
Sorry, the Jack Wolf knives midnight Jack.

05:03
It's a coffin handle Jack so appropriately named midnight.
You know, when the ghouls prowl the.
Prowl, the graveyards and and open the caskets well.
You got that graveyard or that coffin shaped handle which you see oftentimes on Bowie knives.
I love that it's a very neutral shape.
Very comfortable in hand.
These sort of cuts at the end.

05:30
These facets at the end really make for a comfortable, you know, nestling in the in the in the hand there, and of course these are designed by Ben Belkin, who is a you know man.
He's a connoisseur of custom slip joint knives and low low number production model, slip joint knives, and distilled all of his expertise and taste.
Into these designs and had them produced to the most incredible standards.
This has a full height hollow grind, as do all of them, and it is very very very sharp and very thin.
I use this.
There's still some gunk on it.
I need to remove.

06:14
I use this to slip.
Uh, I slipped that blade between a label, a shipping label and a cardboard box and just kind of cut through the adhesive.
It's so thin it did that it didn't mar the label, and it didn't mar the IT that's not true.
I kind of cut into the label a couple of times, but it did not mar the cardboard at all.
It just slipped between them.
It's so thin, so sharp.
Yeah, love these Jack Wolf knives but listen to this.

06:44
Amazing walk and talk.
If you're driving, you better pull over, you know.
Man that walk and talk is something.
All right, so midnight Jack in my front left pocket.
I'm still waiting for these.
I shouldn't say waiting, uh, but the.
Slips are stout leather and I love how leather looks once it patinas like my like my wallet and that kind of thing or or my old slip slip joint cases that get really shiny and molded to the knife.

07:18
I look forward to that happening with each one of my Jack Wolf knives, but I don't carry anyone in particular enough yet for that to happen.
I'm I'm kind of rotating through them quite a bit.
OK, last up today in my pocket was the QSP Penguin and this thing.
Man I I do love this knife and it was one of those ones I'm a late adopter, you know.
And and this is definitely one of those knives that I didn't go for for a long time and I was like, you know, I'm not.
I like Warren Cliffs, sheep, sheep, foots, sheep's foots are not as desirable to me because of the points.
This one does have a nice point though.

07:57
This was the first knife I ever knew of with denim micarta, so that was the original draw.
I always say that the denim on this reminds me of the overalls that an engineer of a train would wear.
Very nice grip on this very nice action to this QSP Penguin.
It's like a reminds me of a rat like a rat two in the way it deploys.
It's on washers but super smooth and you just it.
Just flicks out really nicely.
You've got a deep carry pocket clip, but with the domed screws.

08:32
You know that's at this point, that's that's a jailable offense.
So we're gonna have to get after QSP for that.
You know, I, I imagine after every knife is sold without every knife is sold with the with the domed screws in the deep carry pocket clips.
Everyone is just going to go to the inset clip with the Flathead screw so they can just stop hearing us.
Talk about it.
This one is in D2.
They make so many different versions of the QSP Penguin, and I saw recently there's a beautiful titanium framelock with jigging on the titanium sides show sides and lock sides and they are an exclusive from dot dot dot.

09:15
Google it, I can't remember, but there are so many different QSP Penguins out there you can.
You can have brass.
You can have all sorts of different colored G 10s and my cartas and different blade steels.
This is their winner.
I mean QSP, that's their.
That's their bug out or or what have you so.
These are the knives I was carried in my pocket today.

09:39
The off grid knives came in Excel.
Such an outstanding nice big smooth flipper.
The Jack Wolf knives.
Midnight Jack, a beautiful, classy incredible that I forgot to mention how well that blade cuts and how precisely you can get in there with that tip.
Awesome knife.
Great walk and talk again.
And the qasp Penguin.

10:03
Also in Micarta, this time denim.
All right, please leave below in a comment what you were carrying and.
Be honest, tell me everything you were carrying.
It's OK. We have some people like.
Well, I won't name names here, but like Blade Ogre who carries 8 knives a day and it works for him.
He you know he that's his system and he uses those knives.
I appreciate that and I appreciate that.

10:32
He admits he carries all those knives.
I I take a stash with me just in case, so let me know what you were carrying.
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Like interview extras.
Kind of off the record interview stuff that you can get, which is cool and knife giveaway.
You can be entered into and other exclusive content, and I think we're going to be doing a Marshall Blade thing coming up here soon, but I I still have to look.
I still have to examine that idea, but go to Patreon.

11:11
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I will repeat that complex URL.
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11:52
That's the knife junkie.com/knives.
You're listening to the Knife Junkie podcast.
And now.
Here's the knife junkie with the knife life news.
I saw all the cool knives in that really cool new liner tore knives.
Anyone tore knives.
Let me know what you think of Tor knives.

12:15
I don't have any yet and and and and I've been flirting with getting them but just let me know.
I like I like the story like the back story.
Speaking of back story is 0. Tolerance is reaching back into the archive for a new release.
They're going to the 0470. That's Sinkovich design is a 2018 release man.
Very beautiful knife it.
It came in marbled carbon fiber inlay and I think 20 CV steel and it had a titanium frame.
You know this the titanium color titanium frame.

12:50
Well now for a. Factory special series.
They are releasing this beautiful version of this.
I do love this knife, I've never owned it but I've owned its little brother from the my wife.
I gave my wife.
It's a little brother from the Kershaw lineup.
Can't remember what that one's called but it looks the same.
Sinkovich one of my favorite Dmitry Sinkevich.

13:13
One of my favorite designers.
I just love his work so this is a beautiful thing and it's nice to see it come back out.
Too bad it's the only thing that I'm seeing ZT come out with because they're so.
They've made such great knives in the past.
This is actually, you know, evidence of that, but I'd love to see some great new knives coming from them.
Any case?
That's a beating a dead horse.

13:34
What they're doing here is coding black coating the.
Titanium handles giving you a copper inlay and giving you S110V on that blade.
How cool is that?
You get DLC coated blade of S110V in that in that beautiful format that that knife I mean just look at this and actually this is cool.
Having the black all black knife on that all white background because that's what I'm talking about.
That beautiful silhouette, that beautiful profile I mean.
It looks angular in a way, but man it is so comfortable in hand and that blade that slightly clip point blade is it's gorgeous.

14:16
I might have to.
I'm I'm talking myself into finding this, though I'm sure the price will send me in the other direction and and the only reason I say that is because right now I'm I'm I'm.
I'm being careful with with my shekels and though I would love to have this thing, I know that there are factory special series.
Are you know?
For the dedicated collector and I am not a dedicated collector to ZT anymore.
I have my 5 ZT and that's pretty much how it's going to stay probably.
Unless they do the right thing and next year come out with a a line of like American made frame locks that are just awesome, we'll see.

14:57
All right, Next up, LA Conoco designs love Ray la Conoco stuff.
Simple, beautiful clean designs.
We we all know and love Ray Laconica well he's got the Andromeda coming out with artisan and we talked about the Andromeda a little while ago on the show but it's taking a while to come to market.
The Andromeda beautiful 3.4 inch drop point blade.
Long and slender.
I love the again.
This is another beautiful profile.

15:24
Look at that.
That handle is long and slender.
And it has.
It's it's very non committed or noncommittal except at the pommel.
You got that birds beak that beautiful.
I mean this almost looks like it's more set-up for reverse grip.
With that really nicely done.

15:41
Palmer with that facet at the end.
Again, like I was saying really nicely swedged drop point blade.
It's got a center line point.
If you look at where the point is it lines up with the pivot and the opening hole and as is apropos for the day you got a button lock.
So man.
I'm I'm in, I'm all in on this.
I would like to get it.

16:04
I would like to get more artists and cutlery knives.
I noticed recently that.
One artisan also designed by Ray La Conoco that I just.
Loved when I had it on loan.
Here is the.
Oh what's that one?
It's a it's a. It's a front flipper.

16:23
Helped me through my senior moment anyway.
They've they've just come out.
It's the I know you're all yelling at your speakers.
I will remember it and I will come back out with it, but but oh the Centauri the Centauri thank you.
Thank you.
God the Centauri has come back out and it's in all these different iterations, both in a mini and A and a full size 3.4 inch version.
And it's got a lot of different handle materials and is a beautiful knife.

16:50
So I want to get back behind the wheel of some artisans.
I don't have too many in my collection.
I have CJR B and I have that artisan sort of Bali song multi-tool thing, which is very cool.
Balisong switchblade multi-tool.
My brother-in-law got me for my birthday a few years ago.
Very cool thing.
Artisan does, impressive work and.

17:11
Well, I need more I guess.
Alright so still to come on the Knife Junkie podcast we're going to take a look at a couple of knives coming through my coming across my desk, and one that is all mine.
And then we take a look at 10 of the absolute meanest fixed blade knives.
And now that we're caught up with knife life news, let's hear more of the Knife Junkie podcast.
The cold steel koodoo I bought one on a lark about a year ago, pulled it out of its box and it broke immediately.
I opened it up.
And this was the kind that had the ratcheted ring lock, so it had a little tab on the end of the Tang of the blade that protruded through a hole on this back spring and it had a a split ring tab on it and you lifted it up to unlock the knife I pulled up.

18:10
I bought the thing I. I opened it once and I pulled it up to undo it and it just the the cheap steel on the back of the of the spring just broke, like immediately.
And it was a sealed box.
It was not like someone had it for a year and a half and then returned it to Amazon.
It was in a sealed box so I was like I made a review or not a review, but a video and talked about what a piece of junk it was and I almost never do that.
You know, like I have a. I have beef with the with the person in the knife world.
I don't talk about it publicly.
I got, you know I don't like a knife.

18:47
I'm not going to go out of my way to make a video about why I don't like it, but when it when it's a you know when it's an absolute waste of money.
I I feel like I'm obligated.
Well, they came out they being cold steel came out with a version of the kudu that does not have that lock situation.
It's more of a very stout slip joint.
I got it for free when I got my Manticore excel from or my Manticore X. From Smoky Mountain knife works.
This was a freebie that came because I spend a certain amount of money and I got to say they totally redeemed themselves in this knife.
I think this is about a $12.00 knife, so take that into account after you hear everything I say, but it's it's got if let's look at the handle here.

19:34
It's grivory, but it's integral grivory.
You can't see a seam which is kind of nice.
Oh wait, actually I can see it now that it's under under the camera, but integral or not, it doesn't matter.
It's melted together plastic 2 slabs pinned together.
You have an adjustable pivot there, but it's pinned together with the lock, so you're not taking this thing apart.
I guess you can remove the blade though this piece on the back is not only comfortable and not only re enforceable with the thumb, I mean that is the lock right there so it's nice to know that you have.
You're putting pressure like on a slip joint on that.

20:13
On that part there and you're exerting force upward on the edge, so it's pretty stout.
It's got great.
Stiffness it's got a half stop there and it's got great walk and talk and it really snaps open and it doesn't lock.
But it it.
Uh, that lot this spring really keeps it in place very, very nicely.
That polished blade is.
Glorious 5 CR 15. MOV and you know for a $12.00 knife that you that you buy and throw in your car.

20:50
This would make an ideal muffin knife back in the days when I was driving my girls to daycare, you know I'd get a muffin at the grocery store.
I'd cut it in half.
I always had a little slip joint right?
A rather large slip joint in there, the.
The sodbuster from case.
It was like this knife.
This would have done great.

21:08
You know this is one of those knives.
It can do a lot more than cut muffins, incidentally, but I mean this is a great cheap work knife.
You can use this thing.
It's sharp as hell.
It's going to dull quickly, but you can strap it back up quickly.
It's just a great little piece of kit you know and throw it.
Throw it in your backpack, throw it in your car, you know, or carry it.

21:29
I mean, as light as hell and it's a substantially sized knife at one.
3-4 and a half inches of glorious 5 CR.
15, I mean it.
Like I said, it carries light.
You forget it's in your pocket.
I have been carrying it recently because I just got it and I really.
I do like it.

21:48
This would be cool in a lock back in this profile.
I gotta say with nicer materials.
So that's it.
The cold steel koodoo you have redeemed yourself.
I'm I'm really happy to have this because I was bummed about the last.
That last thing that last situation all right.
Next up I got this from Mike Emler via Jared Nieve via the maker.

22:15
This is the river I keep saying River City like.
I don't know why this is the steel City Fang and I've been looking at this knife quite a bit.
On Instagram and you can probably tell.
From the package, it's a. It's a small knife, but you can probably tell here it is with the QSP Penguin that it's a P call style fixed blade self-defense knife.
Coming from a person who has.
Studied martial arts their whole life, or at least I think they said martial blade craft.
So different forms of.

22:55
Of martial arts with knives, and he says he's had a few scrapes with a knife and has gleaned from years of training and experience this design.
For everyday carry and self-defense for everyday carry, self-defense is what I mean.
But I mean no doubt you could open a box with it here.
My left hand is so ridiculous sometimes.
OK, so in the waistband or in the pocket we got the ulti clip here and I would wear this.
I would carry this in at the three o'clock position in the waistband.
That's where I keep most.

23:32
Actually this is small enough that I might put this.
Do this appendix.
Carry Appendix carry is very handy and I would carry all my knives.
That way all my fixed blade knives.
That way if I could, but they it's usually uncomfortable to me this is small enough that I believe, especially if I put a. I would probably put a a discrete carry clip and if you angle it, you know this might sit right in that fold very nicely anyway anyway, let's look at the knife.
Very good sheet by the way too, and that is such a big factor when we're talking about not only just fixed blade knives, but everyday carry fixed blade knives.
Sheath has to be good.

24:14
Uh, this is a EBL.
It's uh, double quenched and and double tempered.
I believe he said I have to.
I have to I'm going to do a full video on this and I will talk about everything he he sent in his text in his DM to me but the steel is nice a EBL I love that steel I have it on I've used it on a couple of knives I've made and I've had it on other knives on loan.
Nice steel, you can use this knife in a lot of different ways.
You can use it like a clinch.
Pick where you can mount it.

24:49
You're going to mount it like this.
You're going to use it like this and that is to draw it this way and do back cuts on someone.
Say that whole clinch.
Pick thing where you use a Picasso style blade, except you use it like this.
Forward Grip has to do with being in a car because it was developed by a former undercover guy being in a car and having someone.
Reach across and try and grab your gun so you pull this out of your belt and you can just.
You can just pull back up and you're cutting him so you can use that knife this way.

25:23
But of course this is optimized for that gross motor motion from.
That you would be likely to exhibit if you are under stress and using a knife, unless you're the coolest and most experienced of characters, you're probably going to be really, really amped up, and so all of the all of the little intricate collie moves that you know might go out the window and you
might be going to the caveman mode.
Well, this really, truly is like a cat's claw or a a Talon, unlike a karambit which is facing this way.
No animal attacks that way.
This is how animals attack.
This is how my cat gets me with regularity, and so that's what that takes advantage of the arching motion of your elbow and your shoulder.

26:14
And it's it's.
It's really beautiful.
I love the angle off of my knuckles that that curve comes because it takes advantage of here.
Let's go to the main camera for a second time and there we go, bang and stuff.
It takes advantage of this.
You can back fist with this like you would if you were just back ******* but but you can do it forward and the way that angle of the blade, the way the blade reaches out at that angle, you don't have to count your risk.
You can kind of just back fist.

26:44
And get that tip right on point.
It's really a nice I. I like this knife a lot and I gotta say the handle is small teardrop and nestles tightly into your hand into your hand.
It's there's no.
Punio or pommel there that could possibly be used to lever the knife out of your hand in a disarm.
It's really in there.
It reminds me of the old cold steel desperado a knife I desperately wanted for so long.
And now it's, you know, it's it's an eBay find if it is, but it had a handle shape like this and then it had a five and a half inch or a 5 inch vaquero blade coming out this way, but it was doing the same thing, taking advantage of that shape that you can really lock in your palm.

27:30
And then you use the flat of the blade and the flat nature of the handle to stabilize it from turning in your hand.
So I mean, it's a really great little handle.
I could see just gripping onto this thing for dear life and and having no concern, it's a fist.
It's a totally closed fist that I can make there.
I could I?
I haven't tried this, but I could.
I could probably punch somewhat full force with my knuckles closed around that, and I'm not going to try that.

27:57
But well, maybe I will.
Go out and hit the punching bag because like I don't have to worry about the the the tip or the edge cutting the bag, so maybe I will give that a try.
In any case, this is a really nice self-defense knife and it is all that you need.
I mean, we're going to be talking here in a minute about the 10 meanest fixed blades in my collection, and they are all like I've been called to a pit fight and I have to a knife fight for my life.
What knife am I going to bring?
Kind of thing, not a walking around town.
self-defense knife and that is the.

28:29
Real sort of mode.
You would need a you know you're walking around town and you need a knife.
And you need it for self-defense.
This is just the kind of thing because it is small, discreet, easy to carry, useful in other ways, but extremely useful if you if you needed a self-defense knife.
But look at this, you work in a warehouse too, or you just open boxes.
This is actually a very comfortable position for that utility cut.
Here's your box.

29:01
You don't have to do.
You have to do anything that the blade is doing it for you, and it fits really nicely in hand like this.
So it's not just a weapon.
This thing is a very useful all around tool, so very interested in this knife.
This is the Fang.
From Steel City cutlery and very interesting, I look.
I want to talk to this guy about this knife and his other creations.

29:25
All right, thank you guys for sending this along to me and thank you Steel City for loaning that to me.
Lastly knives from a gentleman who's going to be on the show.
Dan Eastland of Dogwood custom knives.
Dan Eastland of Dogwood Custom Knives makes he's he's also Co host of the knife perspective podcast.
He makes amazing kitchen knives.
He he makes outdoor knives.
I've not experienced them.

29:54
I like the way they look, but he has sent me.
He sent me three of his custom kitchen knives to check out and they're so cool and.
Not just cool, they are very, very they're amazing and they really point out the difference between a nice expensive production knife like the henkels we are the voice Staffs and the shuns that we have and custom kitchen knives.
These are so thin.
They're they're 16th of an inch thin and then.
Just, uh, you know, really, really, thinly ground, and then you have these beautiful handles.
Some of the grinds he does.

30:35
He makes these the blade stock so thin that he only to get the I can't remember what he said.
The angle was behind the edge, but to get the appropriate angle behind the edge he doesn't have to grind all the way up full flat, whereas when he goes up, if these two are 16th of an inch very very thin.
And then when he goes up in size, is this 330 seconds I think.
Oh, by the way, that's a nice crowned spine.
But then he goes full flat ground to get that same behind the edge.
Geometry as he does on the thinner blades.
So really, really nice.

31:11
He has an interesting I really like his idea about his kitchen knives.
I mean he he has found.
Found a niche that, uh, in the industry of kitchen knives.
OK, let me tell you what it is.
He's got a custom knives that you you you pay a lot of money for, but you say you're a chef.
This is your living and you want a really sweet knife and you're going to use it for years and you spend, you know 1000 bucks on a great custom knife from him.
Or he's got a line of mid tech knives which you're spending about 400 bucks where some of the parts are manufactured out of house.

31:47
He does the handle, he does the sharpening and all that stuff.
And uh, or he's working on starting a more production line, but instead of them being like you go to Macy's or you go to the kitchen aisle at at any department store and you see the kitchen knives there.
They're all black handled, or sometimes white.
If you if you you know if you're in for an exciting treat, his idea is look we got.
We got this spectrum of knives in the pocket knife world, you know where you can get for inexpensive.
You can get great.
Handles and different steels and this and that.

32:23
Well, he wants to bring that to the kitchen knife scene and for less money allow people who are who either want to class up the game in their own kitchen or they're professionals, but they don't have the cash to lay down for a custom.
You can buy something like this with an interesting knife handle and S 35 VN.
That's the blade steel he likes for kitchen knives and.
And you can get it for a. A low cost so or a low relatively low cost, so he's another one of these knife makers who has the the three tier like beyond DC or.
Well, there are a number of them, but they have the three tier system where they have the very high custom.
The the mid range mid tech and then the inexpensive.
But the whole idea of Dogwood is they are all on all levels.

33:14
Will all look unique so you you even if you buy one of the inexpensive production knives you'll have a cool handle.
Why settle for?
White or black handles when you can have something cool like this contoured G10.
He Dan Eastland worked with a company that is no longer extant, but he has all of the material that they had leftover once they left, and I don't want to give too much away so you can.
You can watch the the podcast, but they were making scales for chefs knives that were uniquely chef like and this.
Handle is made of wild rice, so that's wild rice compressed.
And you know, with heat and epoxy to make this so that that is wild rice, which I think is really cool and he he detailed the the issues with using rice that was an experimental thing and these are his personal blades but very very interesting show you got to check that one out and he's just a great

34:16
guy and man this is sort of opened.
My eyes to chefs knives in terms of.
You know I don't have to re outfit the entire kitchen, but it would be nice to get something like this.
As a matter of fact, I love this one.
Think this is called El Hefe.
It was designed for.
Or maybe it's not.

34:36
It's something it was designed for, a chef, and he wanted.
He wanted the traditional French contours, but with some additions, so he made it.
He got to check it out in the kitchen for a month, and then he gave feedback and they tweaked it.
And there you have that model.
So very interesting stuff.
It's a kitchen knives, but to me the approach sounds a lot like.
Kind of knives.

35:01
I'm into on a regular basis, so Dogwood custom Knives and Dan Eastland cool stuff.
Also, I am going on.
I'm going to be a guest on the knife Perspective podcast we do going on this week.
Or next week, and I'm not sure when they're going to release it, but I look forward to it.
Alright, so those are the kind of fixed blades we usually use, right?
The kitchen knives.
Those are the knives I use the most in my life.

35:29
Probably you do too, but.
In surveying my collection I I didn't notice that I have a a preponderance of more martial style blades like the ones behind me, and that's kind of my instinct for collecting, even when it comes to something like a QSP Penguin.
I I always think of it's Marshall application too, just for fun or whatever hobby.
You know I've been doing martial arts a long time.
Maybe that's it.
Maybe it's just my fascination with weaponry and that kind of thing.
But I'm always considering, but there are some knives.

36:02
You don't have to.
You don't have to push your imagination to figure out how you would use it as a weapon, and these ten are just the meanest, nastiest, I think I don't know.
I I have a lot and and the list could be larger, but I wanted to keep it to 10 and I wanted each one to represent something unique.
Uniquely nasty.
OK, first one up is we're going back in time here.
This is a Filipino garaba and.
I picked this one.

36:30
This is the first one that came to mind because this is a field implement.
But also a weapon and the thing about this weapon, and about a lot of Filipino.
Weapons is that they present that cutting angle that cutting edge at an angle to the blade.
That is sort of cookery like, even though it's not shaped like a cookery.
I mean, I guess one could argue it's sort of like a slender cookery, but what I'm getting at is the angle is always kind of downward on the blade downward to the handle, which accelerates the efficiency of a chop and of a cut and of a slash.
I mean it makes a slash into a chop basically and.
So this knife is is sharp, it's chisel ground flat on this side, probably from a truck spring or something and it's old Now this is not the original blade handle or knife handle.

37:28
This looks like it was a piece of furniture that was repurposed once.
The handle on this came off, it's it's difficult to control because it's circular.
It's it's kind of hard, hard to stop it from turning in the hand though.
This portion up here is unsharpened.
So you can reach up like that now.
I don't really use this, but I have tested it.
I don't use it at all, but I have tested it out as I have all of my swords behind me.

37:55
Very, very sharp, uh, the reason this is number 1. It's not number.
These are not rank ordered, but the reason I bring this one out of all of my other Filipino things which I know have seen action because they are old and they are real, but this one right here.
I had a friend who was a little woo woo, you know she was a little bit on the on the spiritual side or whatever and she was looking at my knives and checking them out and that's cool.
Oh that's nice including some of the historical things but when she got to this she freaked her out.
He's like this one.
I don't know about this one.
This one I don't know this.

38:35
This one's really nasty isn't about this one, so I don't know who knows what, what the history of this thing is.
But I do know from the design of it I'm looking at it right now from an angle where it's presented like this and you can just see how how.
Well, it's hard to see.
Let's go to this camera here.
You can see how that how that angle here the handle is coming straight at you, but that that blade is is so canted off to maximize damage.
And it's just a dirty thing I don't know.
I don't know something about this knife, so I'm putting that on there.

39:11
This this has the woo factor.
This has the Genesee qua.
It is just so bad and I'm not going to line them up today because these knives are all kind of big.
OK, Next up we go from from very old and somewhat primitive to very new and.
Just amazing pedigree on this knife.
This is this Spartan harsey dagger.
Spartan Spartan Blades is the maker of it Curtis I, Obito.

39:45
And and company, uh, made this and I'm showing it in the sheath because this is a Chattanooga leatherworks sheath and that's an RMJ company RMJ that the Tomahawk company owned that in American Tomahawk and Chattanooga Leatherworks and man, they are my favorite.
I've had a few of them.
They're just the greatest leather sheets.
So I had to show it off.
You got the Spartan logo, Spartan blades, logo embossed in there with the arrows.
The hoplite helmet, and the dagger.
Well, let's look at the dagger.

40:19
Designed by the great and powerful Bill Harsey, this thing is just.
Beautiful and if you're not looking, I mean, if you're not watching if you're driving or something like that, just imagine a perfectly symmetrical dagger with a with a dramatically coke bellied handle in all aspects.
Whether it you're looking down from the dorsal side with the jumping up towards the thumb and the forefinger, or whether you're looking at it in profile and and seeing those two deep grooves where your finger where your finger and thumb dig in, and then the big bulbous swell.
Behind it.
And the pommel.
Which allows you to not only bust noggins but cap with the thumb.
So that's something I really like that the Tang protrudes through the sandwiched G10.

41:10
You can see this contour G10 is fully sandwiched and fully jackets the Tang of this blade and.
So the blade comes up through here and then presents itself at the very tip in that triangle.
You can break glass.
With that.
You can also, you know, use that for pain compliance or strike the back of someone's hand with that.
Oh, that would be incredibly painful.
Yeah, this right here.

41:38
This jimping here where you where you grip just feels perfect in this Saber grip like this just feels absolutely perfect like it was made for my hand.
That blade is 6 inches double edged hollow ground.
35 VN Pve coded.
Just wicked and you've got the beautiful steel crossguard with the quillions flaring forward, which I love.
Just kind of gives you a little room for your hand there and something to push off of if you're.
If you're pushing this in.
This is just a very purpose driven, uh weapon tool thing, and I I show you this as probably my favorite version like period.

42:29
I love Bill Harsey's designs.
I love the historical things like the like the one right over my shoulder here.
The Fairburn Sykes love that I love the combat stiletto #2 from from Randall made knives but this one takes the cake.
It is just a thing of beauty.
It is the quintessential dagger and but made by a company who does incredible work.
I'm glad I'm glad I was irresponsible.
That late night that I bought this because you know, it's one of those purchases that I'm really glad I have it, but these are expensive knives and I do know I got this one second hand so whoever had this before me took beautiful care of it.

43:15
All right Spartan harsey dagger.
Hmm, OK. Next up is a custom and one of one that I had produced few years ago and carried for a while and I haven't carried this one in a while.
It it?
It's for a while.
I thought it was pretty easy to to to EDC and then I got knives that are much easier to EDC so I don't carry this that much.
Plus it's pretty damn menacing and it would be a hard one to say.
Well, well Officer, I use it for work.

43:47
Uh, this is the monkey thumper by Black Rock knives.
This is a custom one you can get if you like this design.
You can get a monkey thumper now made by Fox Knives.
It's awesome.
It won knife of the one of the knife of the year awards at Blade 2021, and they do such a beautiful job.
I'm holding it in the sheath again to show you one of the best sheets in the industry.
I know I'll keep saying that because people have really gotten great at making sheaths 10 vehicle ITE of Black Rock knives is not an exception.

44:18
He did a great job of sheathing this rather.
May be possibly difficult to sheath knife knife.
I was following Ken for a long time.
Black Rock knives for a long time and always kind of just always stopped on this knife and and widened the picture and examined and I always just dug this and then one day a couple of years back he showed a shot of his workbench with a bunch of these blanks and he said who wants in and I said I want
in and.
Told him I wanted the the 10 G 10 and and asked him to double edge it.
He said no problem and he double edged it.

44:59
And this is a really.
For the size that blade is, let's see one two 3 1/2 inches.
It is a pretty pretty powerful tool here.
OK, again, this is how I would use this.
It's it's set-up as a karambit.
You could definitely use it as such.
It's a little big for my hand as a karambit, and I'm not so dedicated to the methods of Karambit tism I might actually if I had it in reverse, I would I would hold it like this that ring.

45:32
And the shape around it is great for holding it, just like this for not using the ring.
He sets it up perfectly to use the ring or not, basically is what I'm getting at.
I mostly do not use it.
O in this forward grip it gives you that, again, that angle downward from the knuckles, and that really really accelerates the cut.
Look at the straight lines that my knuckles are.
Parallel to and then look at how the blade interrupts that so deeply by I mean you know here you can see it's like by an inch, that's not.
Let's go like this.

46:10
Yeah, it just it.
It cuts in deeply because it has that recurve effect in the downward angle and then on the back naturally because it is not as thin behind the edge here.
This edge is very sharp but it's more of a a splitting edge.
If you were to use this in a back cut like this or somehow use this.
If you were gonna karambit, use it and flip it and then and then stop it here and use it to hit.
You would split what you were hitting more than cut it.
It's more like an axe edge there.

46:44
Ooh, that's sharp.
I just touched the tip.
So just an awesome awesome knife.
Pretty versatile you can you.
Can you know?
Like with the hand holds and the different ways you could, you could use this in reverse grip.
It would be a nasty nasty thing.

47:00
Umm yeah, great knife, this monkey Thumper check out the Fox version and it might might be of interest to you.
They do not do all the cool texturing on the blades I I do like that rock texture.
It's cool to see he'll show his blades before he puts that texture on to.
I don't know if This is why, but it's sort of sort of proving that his grinds are on point and that he's not using those to hide a bad grind.
I think some people sometimes might texture the blade to sort of hide the fact that they're grinds are uneven, which that's fine too.
Alright, that's the Black Rock knives monkey thumper, a nasty combination of different features to make this little fixed blade knife pretty pretty mean.
Next up I I couldn't do this without a representative of from the Picol world, and this one, the Pinkerton cave bear is just.

48:02
This is a. This is a pretty devastating one.
This is a purchase from Blade Show 2021. I talked about this a lot at nauseam.
You know the story, but great sheath and I like the way he brings the kydex up unnecessarily high.
Because if you're wearing this in the waistband, which is what I do, it's nice to have that little bit of extra kydex against your flesh against your love handles as you're pulling this blade out, you know look at this.
This is Nitro V double edged hand ground.
He is an incredible he's Dirk Pinkerton is very well respected in the knife making world for his grinds.
And this is a perfect example of beautiful, perfect even grinds and that's four of them on a curve that he need needed to make.

48:53
I would imagine that's not easy.
I'm no Dirk Pinkerton, but I imagine that is not easy.
It is sharp, wickedly razor sharp on both edges.
And then of course comes to a tremendous point that is 1. Three almost 4 inches like 3.8 inches on that blade length, and I was talking before when I was looking at the steel city.
This kind of motion.
Imagine that with a knife this big and this sharp and this pointy.
But it has that nice Ronald McDonald.

49:25
Sort of colorful, cheerful handle in my Carta that I love.
I love that I love that color combination of the black on that just.
Terrifying blade, and then that sort of happy color combination on the micarta cognitive dissonance.
People, you know, psychological warfare in the fight.
Ohh, it can't hurt you.
Look at how pleasant that all right?
So that is the Pinkerton cave bear, one of his many really, really, really cool customs, and he just makes.

49:58
He does a lot of really cool, modern interpretations of ethnographic weapons.
He does a jambalaya, he he does a navaja just.
He's cool dude making cool stuff all right.
Speaking of cool dudes making cool stuff.
Douglas Esposito's attention to detail mercantile, or a 2D.
This is the first knife I got from him wearing a sheath that my brother made to my design and ill ill-fated design.
I thought I would wear this in the in the belt and have this kind of stop it from slipping out like you would on a big Bowie.

50:31
And then I realized that relies on a really big blade to make that work.
So anyway, a beautiful sheath made my made by my brother this came in Kydex though which I don't use.
But the blade, Oh my God, this knife is so awesome.
The medium fighter in a bayonet grind and I had him double edge it.
I picked this up from him when he had his workshop in Manassas, VA out here.
He's moved since to Mississippi.
And uh, yeah Mississippi and still just making incredible knives though he is now focused on these outstanding frame locks.

51:08
They're just so beautiful and come in so many different variations.
But he started with fixed blades and had a number of them and this fighter came in three different sizes and I thought this one was perfect.
134. It's about wait.
Did I lose count counting up to five?
Yeah, it's about 5 inches.
In length, wait a second.
Yeah 55 Bob Oh my God.

51:42
Alright sorry I don't know what it is when I look at this grid maybe I just need a different grid.
It confounds the eyes S 35 VN Hollow ground very thinly hollow ground on this primary edge here.
He doesn't have enough room to get very thin, but it's nice and thin and hollow ground.
So I mean this back edge is not a splitting edge.
This is a slicing edge.
This is definitely a slicing edge.
I love, uh, tortoise shell and I saw he had made a knife with tortoiseshell just prior so.

52:14
Had to get that tortoise shell on there.
Classy Assassin's knife.
You've got crowned spine all the way around and the spine sits proud of the of the tortoise shell handle.
You've got a copper or no, I'm I'm sorry.
A brass liner in there and pins.
Awesome jimping, this thing is just incredible.
I'm glad I got this when I could.

52:38
I'm not sure if he's doing this stuff anymore because all I all I ever see, I think his bread and butter are the folders, but man his fixed blades are awesome.
I came very close to buying a tanto of his and I just you know it was a blade show and I was just moseying around and came back and it was gone.
That's the kind of thing that happens when you don't strike when the iron's hot.
All right?
That is the a 2D medium fighter alright switching gears to something menacing from history.
This is a modern reproduction thanks to cold steel, but this is the rondel dagger.
This a gift from my brother.

53:17
He gives me such cool stuff.
I got 2 gifts from my brother in this lineup, actually three.
I have three thanks Vic.
All right.
So this Rondell dagger is a here.
First of all, it's in a really cool sheath.
It's almost like a chisel ground sheath, because on the back you have the seam.

53:35
It's triangular, but it, but it favors this one side.
Very nice shape and throat of metal steel.
But what this thing is?
It's a triple edged dagger that comes to a very sharp point, but that point is stout and steady because it's backed up by a pyramid of sharpened steel.
Now these edges are polished and again, if you hit someone on the forearm with this really hard and hit him with the edge, it would split.
It wouldn't cut slice slash it would split.
Which would just be horrible, but what this is really for is for thrusting between.

54:16
Oh my God, it's for thrusting between plate mail and between chainmail and plate armor.
So you're close infighting, you're a knight, and you've been disarmed.
You're sword.
Maybe it broke because it's a it's brittle and you're working with medieval technology and.
You know you're up.
You're in a clinch you're up close.
The guys trying to hit you with his Mace but you're up close you pull your rondel dagger you you you find a little spot in the armor and you push it in.

54:47
That's what this is for dispatching Knights.
And but it it makes for a great, you know, it's it's a timeless weapon.
I have thought of this thing often as a small like a collie stick, but just like a small percussive instrument with menacing edges that you could you could use in a thrust you look at the hand.
It's this dark wood.
I'm not sure what the wood is.
We'll call it lignum vitae.
I'm sure it isn't.

55:14
I'm positive it isn't, but for arguments sake and it has a steel round pommel.
That really keeps you in and then a steel round guard up here and then.
These little brass pins and the and all the carving and the wood.
It has an incredible grip and since it's triple edged and those edges are all symmetrical and you you're not cutting with it, the rounded, perfectly rounded handle makes absolutely no difference because you're using this sucker to thrust.
So a rounded handle on the rondel dagger is not an annoyance, it's it's.
It's in, maybe even a benefit because you don't have to worry about orientation.
You don't have to use that.

55:59
Lose that millisecond of thought in the battle to worry about orientation, you just pull it out and jam it in.
So great sheath.
Cool knife.
This is a one that I keep stashed in a strategic location in the House in case I ever.
Have to thwart a night.
Next up, another gift from my brother.
This one he gave me in 1993. I believe this was a. Graduation from college gift?

56:27
Yes, that's how old I am.
Not shy about it, but this was a knife that kaybar.
Reintroduced in the late, it's a reissue, not reintroduced.
It's a a reissue of the original World War Two USMC K bar beautiful leather sheath.
Very nice and stout leather sheath with the with the.
Eagle Globe and Anchor in Boston there.
And then you've got the beautiful what you expect from akabar.

56:59
The beautiful stacked leather handle that pommel with the interesting pin through the tank construction.
You've got the quillions that I always thought faced the wrong direction.
Personally, I always thought they should be bent towards the tip.
Uh, like you saw on the Spartan harsey, but hey, I didn't design the damn cave bar a beautiful blade.
This this one is 1095 and I think it's the Crovan and in keeping with the design of the day it comes to a very sharp swedge so that swedge from here to here sharp enough to.
Well, sharp enough to cut and I know in World War Two they taught a fighting method where you would slash with the with the with the swedge a lot.
I think they called it the Randall fighting method because Randall knives the swedge is always sharp and with this that this would if I had to fight someone with this knife.

57:57
Haven't forbid I might do it just like that because that hawkbill tip that you get from that sharpened swedge would be just nastier in a in a slash than that.
Beautiful bellied blade.
This is also a great utility knife.
Uh, maybe not in this particular.
Set-up, but would make a great utility knife, but why?
This makes the meanest fixed blades list, though I have other knives that might look more overtly mean this one is history tested as being a knife that has gone to hell and back and has sent a lot of people to hell that was so dramatic.
That was like the back of a pulp novel I I should start doing that, but so just an outstanding knife and I keep meaning to get a modern.

58:46
One just to have, but then I'm like really you have so many knives just to have.
Do you?
Do you need another gay bar?
You already got a gay bar Bob, but this one with the double edged tip and that sharpened swedge.
I'm so grateful for my brother for getting for me for getting me this at that time because I think you'd be hard pressed to find one like that.
Next up, this list would not be complete without a really big bad Bowie.
And this is the biggest bet.

59:15
This is in the running for the biggest, baddest Bowie I have.
I have a sword that might be technically bigger, but I don't know if it's better.
This is the bark river knives, shining mountain Bowie, just an incredible knife.
I have the the frog off of it right now.
Frog off the sheath but as per usual.
Beautiful leather sheath.
Here is the blade that big quarter inch sweeping beautiful Bowie shaped blade.

59:45
Oh my gosh, I love this knife and I talk about it all the time.
Whenever I draw this out and show it, I say this is the knife with the blade shape that Brad Pitt had in inglorious ********.
Same blade shape.
He had a a crowned stag piece of stag on there that was beautiful.
Very very movie ish knife.
Of course, the one thing that always kind of sticks in my craw about Bark River is that on their switches they never.
They never even come close to having it something that could be sharp.

01:00:20
And how cool would it be, you know, Bark river and knives does all of their edges Appleseed or convexed very very sharp and but also you know you can be slicy with these kind of edges but also stout and sturdy for chopping and toughness.
But imagine if you had that same kind of.
Appleseed edge here.
Even if it were more oblique and more for splitting than for cutting, it would make this.
It would take this to the next next level.
The next level of.
Bowie has weapon, but I love that big sweeping blade and that asymmetrical guard and the giant.

01:01:00
Area where you choil area where you can put your finger there.
This one you know comes as bark rivers do in a many different handles.
I got the antiqued stacked wood or stacked leather and then you get that really nice.
Aluminum **** cap.
O devastating large here, I'm going to go over here just so you get an idea devastating large Bowie knife for utility.
But of course this is more about.
Being mean so this is 1 big mean Bowie alright two more.

01:01:35
This next one is an iconic piece of history.
A knife I've always wanted an ultimate grail for me and also for my brother and this is what a great man he is.
He found one in the perfect configuration and he gave it to me.
That's the kind of man my brother is.
He's awesome.
OK, so this is the 1918 US 1918 trench knife in with the sharp with the pointy knuckles.
It comes in a couple of different configurations with the pointy knuckles and the double edged blade.

01:02:06
The sheath is slightly damaged there.
There was once a little bridge of metal here that you could slip your belt in.
But this thing is incredible.
The handle solid cast bronze actually fits my hand perfectly, which leads me to believe this was designed and made it a time before bovine growth hormone.
I think we've all gotten bigger because I have medium sized hands and you would imagine they would make the handle bigger if average hands were bigger.
If the average hand were, I feel like today the average hand is bigger.
I feel like people are just larger, but that's a different.

01:02:47
That's a different topic of conversation.
If you look at this thing, you can tell what it's for.
It's not for butter, and it's not for EDC.
It's not for cardboard.
You've got a double edged blade here.
This is pretty dull down at this point.
This back edge especially.

01:03:06
And then you have this heavy heavy handle.
It feels so good and it feels so secure you really feel like you could go take on the world with this gripped in your hand like this nice weight you've got this pointed nut here on the end of the Tang.
They echo this in the Chaos series by cold Steel, which has a a knuckle duster and then a a pointy nut like that.
So anyway, you you push this thing it it causes pain and destruction.
OK, let's come to the main camera here.
Because it's kind of awkward to hold, but in in in any orientation.
I mean you can get punched with it.

01:03:45
You can get hammer fisted with it.
Of course you can get stabbed from the front or the back.
With it you can get slashed, it's a just a purpose driven trench weapon and it didn't last for too long it its utility applications were greatly limited, and casting that handle what's a lot of metal and they had to.
Maintain their strategic metal reserves and such so they they they didn't make this one for too long and they replaced it with the leather stacked handled M3 trench knife which has a a semi double edged.
It's a bayonetted double edge and a a much lower profile and much lighter and easier to carry.
This of course is very handle heavy.
Might be a weird thing to carry.

01:04:32
Might feel weird because well because it's so handle heavy.
I don't know.
Haven't carried it.
It's usually on the wall.
On occasion I'll bring it down if I hear something, go bump in the night, but that is my US 1918 trench knife.
It's got a bit of history and I do have to research that history before I make the video.
I close up video of this all right last up.

01:04:57
I think you might know what it's going to be, but this is 1 mean blade that was made just for me and that is my hog tooth knives.
Loveless sub hilt fighter.
Wearing the absolutely gorgeous corset, I think it looks like a corset corseted sheath.
Made by Matt Chase of Hog Tooth knives.
He does his leather as well as he does his blades.
I got to say.
Here's the knife.

01:05:27
One of my favorite all time patterns.
The loveless sub hilt fighter is a long and slender 87 to 8 to 9 inch clip point blade with both edges fully sharpened all the way up to the ricasso.
In this case.
This that's 1095 and 15 and 20 forged together to make this really cool Damascus pattern, let's see how we can get close on it.
But there there you go.
You can see all the swirls.
Very very cool.

01:05:58
Steel and pattern.
These are hollow ground edges or bevels.
The edges are incredibly sharp.
Umm, and then you come to the handle and you've got a sub hilt.
Now the sub hilt is you've got this hilt here and it's asymmetrical which I like and but this is the sub hilt and the sub hilt is acts like a trigger.
You can use it like this for for snappy kind of cutting but really it's it's there for drawing out the knife.
Say this is definitely a fighting knife and say it's in.

01:06:35
You know stuck in something.
That sub hilt helps you pull it out.
So I mean it keeps it in your hand.
Yes it it's good for retention, yes, but it's also good for manipulating the knife and hand those quillions and that sub hilt are made from reclaimed steel from the Longfellow Bridge in Boston.
And then this right here is a beautiful beautiful piece of stag.
Just a this is the knife I've declared.
I would if I were ever called out on a dual.

01:07:08
This would be my dueling knife, so that's what I'm going to call it.
That's my dueling knife, and that's where I'm going to leave it.
Thanks for watching.
Thanks for listening.
Please check in with the show this weekend for a great interview.
Of course tomorrow night when Thursday night knives.
I almost called it Wednesday Thursday night knives.

01:07:29
Be sure to check in and join us and join the conversation as Sunday we have Dan Eastland Episode 336. What a great guy.
We have a great.
Conversation about his foray into knife making and his story.
He's got an interesting story.
And beautiful blades.
Alright, that's it for me and for Jim working his magic behind the Switcher, I'm Bob DeMarco.
Saying until next time don't take dull for an answer.

01:07:56
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an upcoming episode of the Knife Junkie podcast.