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The Knife Junkie Podcast is the place for knife newbies and knife junkies to learn about knives and knife collecting. Twice per week Bob DeMarco talks knives. Call the Listener Line at 724-466-4487; Visit https://theknifejunkie.com.
©2023, Bob DeMarco
The Knife Junkie Podcast
https://theknifejunkie.com

Transcript

[0:00] Something horrible happened to my street buoy. I finally get the two station nine knives I've been lusting after and 1095 the hail and hardy high carbon.
I'm Bob DeMarco. This is the knife junkie podcast 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.

[0:28] Go welcome back to the show uh some of my favorite comments from this past week were one was from james e bross who says talk talk talk and no say anything and um well that speaks for itself uh thank you james for your contribution and then we have one from darth vapor who leaves some pretty awesome comments 67 45 he says bollocks if the bowie knife was was pronounced Bowie, it would have been written that way. So take your pick.
Well, thank you. Thank you. Bowie is in the DNA, the cultural DNA.
But I'm still going to attempt to go for Bowie. I want to be as versatile a knife junkie as possible.
We don't want to get too stuck in our way.
Okay. Thank you for commenting. Thank you for watching over this past week.
I've been putting up more shorts than usual because I don't know, sometimes I need that quick expression. Love those those shorts.
So if you're a channeled starting out, take advantage of the shorts.
All that said, right now it's time for a pocket check. What's in his pocket? Let's find out.

[1:37] Here's the knife junkie with his pocket check of knives. In my front right pocket, I had the Boker rendition of my Grail folder.
The Charles Marlowe Squale, and in this case, made by Boker.
Beautifully rendered in VG-10 blade steel. That's a full 4-inch blade, deeply hollow ground, very thin behind the edge.
These, I believe, are now discontinued.
I know that the smaller version, the Pup, I think it was Pup or the Bullpup, a little knife made by Boker, also, it was a 3-inch Charles Marlowe Bowie.
I know that that one's discontinued. This one, I don't know, you might have some luck finding this.
They have sold it in two different ways. this way with the g10 and the pocket clip up or down but the original version was a tip down only but with green micarta so uh you know dangling the beautiful combination of green micarta and those blasted titanium bolsters but tip down only and then i think much later after i quote unquote settled for the g10 model i think they came out with a green.

[2:51] Canvas micarta version with the tip down anyway or tip up so you know first world issues i love this knife so much it is it is, The most beautiful knife to me, folder-wise, I think. It's between that and the Arch-Nemesis by Brian Nogel.

[3:10] All right, next up, in my left pocket, right pocket, it fluctuates depending on where my phone is, in the Doody's Dagger Slip, beautiful little slip.
I commissioned Kevin Doody to make for this because I know he has this knife and loves it, the QSP Hedgehog.

[3:29] This is the exclusive from traditional pocket knives with the thin jigged titanium scales.
I really, really love this knife. I used this yesterday. I'm creating a new background for the desk here.
And I wanted to have it ready for today. It wasn't ready for today.
It has a little bit more work to do on it.
But I used this to do some cutting, some real fine cutting for it.
And it worked great even with the jacked up tip yes i dropped this awesome thing on its tip you can see right there and i did a pretty good job at least it's it doesn't look straight but the edge is now straight so when i cut with it i know where the tip is and everything real bummer i i might get a cheaper one and see if i can swap the blades in but that wouldn't make sense because This is M390, and it would be 1.34 CM, but whatever.
That's neither here nor there. This is a great knife and a really good user.
Again, a super thin hollow ground blade, but instead of VG10 like you have in the Squale, this time it's M390, the venerable M390.
Lots of venerable steels in this show today.

[4:43] In my waistband, coming up this way, you know what I mean? What's the word? Appendix.
Carry is the Tamashi by Civivi. Now, this is a large, larger and straighter than usual for what I like to carry in the waistband, but it actually goes really well.
This I have it set up so that this clip can move and this is a ranger band here, basically a heavy duty rubber band.
And so when I sit down, I don't want this poking, you know, so this allows it to move.
And it can can ride it flat across my waist and then when i stand up uh it can position itself a little bit more like this in line with my body and everything and it carries great so now i'm starting this is making me consider carrying larger fixed blade knives um in appendix but i have to set up the clip properly um i don't know the jury's still out but it works for this, I've been carrying this a lot because you will see on Sunday, this coming Sunday, I interviewed Bob Terzawola.
Great interview. What an awesome guy. Now, I've had him on the show once before, but it was before we even had video.
That was a great show then, too. Good conversation, but I wasn't as good at conversating, as people like to say, and couldn't see him and all that.
This turned out to be a great show.

[6:09] Man, what a mensch. Great guy. And designer of some spectacular, you know, I was talking about this as a grail.
Well, his ATCF is another grail. If I have maybe five top grails, that would be one of them.
So having the Tamashii is good to have his design within reach.
Now, he has a Fox ATCF coming out.
Fox is celebrating their 40th anniversary, and they're doing it in part by doing this collaboration with Bob Terzuola and putting out a three-and-a-half-inch flipper ATCF.
It looks gorgeous.
The originals were four inches long.
I know that Custom Knife Factory has done a four-inch Terzuola, but it wasn't the ATCF.
Anyway, I'm very excited for that box, and I will definitely be getting one.
They're going to start with titanium slabs, and then they're also going to do one with G10 bolsters.
For emotional support, my ESK today was the Vero Engineering...

[7:16] Synapse one i haven't carried in a little while but since i dyed the micarta scales this beautiful maroon uh it's it's been way more appealing to me this had one of those micarta handles that don't absorb oil so you don't get the true color out of them and they just end up being kind of gray which is fine sometimes but this was more of a yellow gray so it almost looked like rot had set in it was just an unattractive piece of micarta on this particular knife um but it's a special knife to me because uh joseph vero well he gave me a good deal on it at blade show 2021 and it's also an awesome knife and i've thought about swapping it out for the four inch model but um but this one is special and i'm just gonna keep it so i dyed it maroon and i've given it a second life i really love this knife so this is what i had in pocket today let me know what you had on you.
It was the Boker Squale by Charles Marlow.
It was the Hedgehog by QSP and traditionalpocketknives.com.
It was the Bob Terzuola and Savivi Tomashii and the Vero Engineering Synapse.
One of the smoothest knives, by the way, in my collection.
What did you have on you? Let me know. Drop it in the comments.

[8:31] What are you doing right? Tell me what What I need to know, tell me what knives I should get.
By the way, this has very satisfying washer action.
I love the washer action. I'm coming back to it.
Not that I ever left it, but I have so many bearing knives now, and everything is made with bearings, that I really now appreciate a fine washer knife when I get one in hand.
Okay, next up, I want to talk about the giveaway. I've been talking about it a lot.
Tomorrow night's Thursday Night Knives giveaway.
Thursday Night Knives, tomorrow night we're giving away, and actually Dirk Pinkerton will be here to do so, but Dirk Pinkerton has very generously donated this to the channel.
This is his most recent knife.
This is number 166, as you can see here, so it's serial numbered.

[9:23] And this is an even cooler version than the one I have, in my opinion, because it's the black ring, black blade version of his ringed inversion with that gorgeous tumbled black blade.
That's S35VN. You have a nice orange peel textured titanium handle that is just done in here.
And you've got the pocket catch like wave feature, but that doesn't float your boat.

[9:54] Down here, underneath the foam, you have a deep carry pocket clip.
Instead of this beautiful sculpted titanium pocket clip, you want a little lower profile.
And then you also get a thumb stud for more discreet opening, I guess.
But the way it sits in there, you can still kind of wave it out if you do it carefully.
Carefully so this is a what is this this is like a 300 value um i was in on this uh i guess the the pre-order started over a year ago and uh there was like a deposit and then and then there was a pay up time and yeah this is like a 300 knife and beautifully made um so i would jump on it i would jump on it there are no um the kaiser inversion is out of print now and if you like this brand of beautiful folding Pakal.
Come to Thursday Night Knives tomorrow night, 10pm Eastern Standard Time.
If you're listening to this or watching this in the future, sorry you missed it.
But it is going to be a giveaway open to everyone. This is not a Patreon affair.
This is anyone who's there.
So you'll just have to put hashtag knife in the comment section and we'll throw it in a big bundle and do the The random number generator.

[11:19] Very much looking forward to getting this out of here. Because man.
I love it. I have my own. But it's got the silver.

[11:27] It's got the silver. What do you call it? Ring and blade. And it's very cool.
But I don't know. But the black.
The black is menacing. And it matches the menacing design.
I guess. And it comes in this cool little pelican-esque. It looks like a mini sniper rifle case to me. Very cool.
All right, next up, I just want to show you, this is a little cautionary thing, one of my favorite production fixed blades of all time, the Street Bowie.
I was carrying it around the house this weekend doing chores.
I like to have, I don't know, I'm getting paranoid. Even in my house, I like to have more than just a folder on me.

[12:09] Anyway, it comes in handy, especially when you're working around the house.
Well, anyway, taking out garbage and working in the back, And there's that door that I have propped up against the back fence where I throw knives.
And I just pulled this out, and I threw it at it. And this has been very good historically at throwing, but this time that happened.

[12:32] I heard it too. I just heard a snap. And you know what? It was my fault.
I was at an angle and I was like doing an action throw.
Like, oh, I'm just casually walking. Now I'm pulling this out and throwing it.
And it, you know, I was being stupid and you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.
And in this case, the stupid prize is a gorgeous Fred Perrin design spider co-produced street buoy without a tip so this weekend or next weekend or whenever i have the chance i'm going to put a tip on that and make it more of a broke back sax i guess and make a new sheath because it'll bother me that the sheath is too long for the blade and and i'll kind of mope along on my way but now this means i really want a legit street buoy but i how can i how can i go back and buy another one. What an idiot.
So, BG-10, I'm guessing, in general, isn't so tough.
Like, say, 1095, the steel we're going to feature later.
So, be careful when you're just chucking your, you know, expensive Spydercos at doors.

[13:42] Alright. I'll let you know. I'll keep you up to date. I can't really do without this in the collection, so, I mean, I'm definitely going to put an angled tip on there.
It'll look cool. It'll be cool, Bob. It will, I swear.
And I'm just convincing myself. And then we'll move along.
Because if you don't move along in life, you're stuck. All right, here we go.
Let's get into Life Knife news. But before we do, I just want to remind you that if you do want to be a part of a monthly knife giveaway, regardless of whether generous guys like Dirk Pinkerton are donating knives or not, you can do so here by going to Patreon and becoming a patron at the Gentleman Junkie level.
You just go to theknifejunkie.com Slash Patreon Check out what we have to offer there You get exclusive interview extras Entered into this Into a monthly contest To win And uh.

[14:35] You can do so by scanning the QR code or going to theknifejunkie.com slash H-A-R.
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You're listening to the Knife Junkie Podcast. And now, here's the Knife Junkie with the Knife Life News.
Jim is not only a very talented producer and director, but he's an excellent draftsman, as you just saw in that last liner. Very cool liner.
Okay, so I want to talk about some new knives here.
You know shot show season and blade show season. That's where we hear about all the new knives.
So I'm going to talk today about the most recent design by, and I love saying his name, Fabrizio Silvestrelli.
Of Italy of course he designed the new Viper Moon and this is a really nice looking knife to me if it were larger I might be compelled to get it but this blade is under 3 inches but beautiful 3 inch very useful looking drop point blade with that tip tip down in the middle.

[15:55] MagnaCut of course and all the new premium hot knives coming out are in MagnaCut because it's an excellent steel. Thank you, Aaron Thomas.
Ribbed G10 and contoured micarta G10.
Fat carbon, you can get this in fat carbon. And it's the first button lock from Viper. That's the history part of it.
Okay, I'm going to give you a little editorial here. Just looking at it, I love the blade shape and the handle is interesting.
But having a blade that short, that means the handle is short.
It It also means that it's going to be stout and round.
It looks like it's just a little too stout and round for me.
That's why I said if you stretched out both the handle and the blade with that shape, I'd be compelled to get it.
So thanks for keeping it small and short, Viper. I appreciate it.
This has a real Viper look to me too.
Crown spine, jimping right in front of the thumb ramp, right where I love it.
But I like the way the front part of a thumb ramp feels. You add jimping, and you're in business.
All right, next up, Benchmade has announced, well, their whole new 2024 lineup.
But here are three items of interest to me that I saw in this recent article.
And the first one is the Adira. This one is exciting to me for two reasons.

[17:21] 3.88 inch blade very handsome looking looking knife and it's in magna cut i like this because it's it reminds me of a shane sibert design it actually looks like it should be a shane sibert design um so kind of a brother or cousin to the adamus it kind of has that vibe to me and then with the size you'll get that definitely and now this is part of their new water line uh their water line much like spider co's um spider co's uh salt lineup is meant to be used in and around water for sportsmen and people who live in uh you know humid environments uh these knives were all will all feature that depth blue uh handle material so that that i I think it's a GRN.

[18:11] It doesn't say in this article right here, actually. But that will be that color.
That will signify that it's a part of this line.
And they'll be using MagnaCut, which was not a steel that was necessarily made to function in this way, but does so beautifully with its very, very high corrosion resistance.
The mini version of this will be 3.2 inches. And this looks like a cool one to me.
Deep carry pocket clip and all all right we're going to scroll down past some of these uh water line uh knives here to the to the red bally song it's just a stunning uh new bally song and they're calling it right here the necron look at that swashbuckling clip point blade i love that uh it's a really nice looking knife 4.6 inch blade now this is uh you know that's the original size of the Bally song.
Like, Bally songs were traditionally, that's what I mean, not original.
That's the traditional size of 4.5 inch blade and I guess that's going to make the handle close to 5.5 inches maybe.
So, cool thing about this knife and I'm not sure what the steel is yet.
They have not announced that.

[19:23] I'm guessing maybe MagnaCut but, but, It's going to come with a blue trainer, which is very cool, and two different colors.
And this red G10 with that tumbled black finish on the blade is really handsome to me.
Okay, the removable tungsten weights and handle extensions are also a USP for this Necron knife.
Handle extensions and addable tungsten weights for the true connoisseur of the ballet song, for the guy who really knows how he wants to flip that knife, and he needs just a little bit of extra weight on the end.
You can put on that tungsten weight. So an interesting new ballet song from Benchmade, and they've kind of always carried the torch.
That was kind of how they started making ballet songs, and they've always kind of made some of the most coveted ones out there. So this is a cool one to see.
And the last one I want to feature is the Claymore, and this is a new daggering take on the drop point Claymore out the front.

[20:27] This one is 3.8 inches, so again, a nice big blade.
All three of the blades we've talked about have been either over 4 inches or just under.
The reason this one really caught my eye, I like the wasp-waisted handle, first of all.
It looks like it's going to be very comfortable in hand, and it's going to lock into hand without having any sort of finger guards because of that thinner portion towards the pommel.
So that attracted my eye immediately but of course the big 800 pound gorilla in the room are those really nasty looking serrations um on both sides of the blade close to the close to the um handle i love those now those are only going to come on the large version there's also a three inch version of that knife um but they will not have those serrations so very cool out the front i'm sure it's going to be uh expensive uh just saying and uh it's got jimping on the pommel which i love because this is the kind of knife you are very likely to be using in a tactical scenario um and or or that you know is made for that scenario and so having that jimping right up there on the on the thumb is great so that your thumb doesn't slip in the moment anyway lots uh i don't i don't want to say lots of cool things coming out from benchmade you You know how I feel about them.

[21:51] Respect them, but their designs never excite me that much, except when they have guest spots by Shane Sibbert or others.
This Adira, I do think, hits on that kind of note.
All right, next up, from the James brand. You know I like to friendly.
I'd love to talk to someone from the James brand. Let me start off.
I would love to, and I would love to talk to them, and then I can stop being so snarky about them. I think it's just fun because they're kind of hip.
And maybe it's a defensive measure because I've grown beyond hip.
You know, I'm a suburban dad and hip does no longer fit.
So maybe I like to rib them a little bit. They are cool. They have great style, and they have some really beautiful-looking knives. Chief among them, the Barnes.
That's their 3.6-inch integral frame lock flagship. It's awesome.
I don't have one. I've never held one.
I don't think I've ever held one.
But I do think if I were to get a James Brand knife, it would be that.
They are a tad bit expensive at $650.

[23:01] However, they look good. So this one, the new James Brand Barnes, now this is a limited edition, but it features upcycled material.
So that kind of cool looking handle material is made from old kitchen appliances from a place called Smile Plastics in the UK.
They make unique plastic compositions and compositions from recycled plastic.
And I say irony in the lower third there because, well, because it's expensive.

[23:39] It's still $650, and it's using garbage, you know.
And you're like, Bob, don't be such an old fart. It's recycled.
It's upcycled material.
Look, it's value-added. And I say, yeah, sure, it is, but it should be less expensive because it's made out of garbage.
And you say well smile plastics in the uk doesn't say that they make uh they make beautiful new plastic composites um and and turned old things new and and make them beautiful again and i don't know just something about it made me chuckle i think it's great i'm all for the upcycling thing i'm all for recycling it actually is not a myth at least not in my jurisdiction uh but i don't know it just it just made me laugh is there something funny about it I mean look at it it's beautiful it looks like an old um it reminds me actually of an old slip joint knife with uh some sort of mother of pearl handle I mean it it is very fetching so I'll leave it at that I've reached out to the James brand before I should do it again I'd love to actually have someone on here and make me feel bad okay next and last uh this one from boker oh god you know how I feel about boker plus uh I don't have too many of them I have a a smallish collection, but what I do have, they are excellent.
I'd say about 10 years ago, they suffered reputational damage from some QC issues.

[25:04] I never experienced them personally.
All the Boker Plus knives I have are stout-hearted and very well done.
So last one here, this is the Boker Plus collection model for 2024.
They, on an annual basis, team up with a famous maker or designer designer and create a collection model for that year.

[25:26] 2024s is by the great and powerful Les George.
And look at that. That's so beautiful. That is Les George all day long.
Just a beautiful and simple design, yet rendered in a more complex manner.
That's a 3.66-inch MagnaCut blade.
Beautiful drop point blade. It looks like a Les George blade.
You say, it's so simple. How can you say that? But something about the lines and maybe how they correspond with the handle says Les George all day long.
Just like the handle now the handle is interesting here because it's it's a it's a titanium frame lock so the other side is a frame lock and it's got a unique looking sort of clip that i'm not crazy about uh but the show side has a uh two different kinds of carbon fibers two different kind of fat carbon fiber the bolster is called black dunes carbon fiber and you can see that sort of uh it looks like sand dune swirl kind of or sand dune wave pattern running through it and And then the main handle of material is called Space Coral, fat carbon fiber.
So this thing just is really pretty looking. I love the blue hardware, and I'm sure it'll be pretty expensive.
Boker does make some pretty expensive knives. Their collection knives are pretty expensive, and their knives that they make using old tanks and battleship metal and stuff like that, those are expensive.

[26:55] As well, but you're getting what you pay for.
You're getting a German-made knife with exquisite workmanship and materials.

[27:06] That is it for New Knives coming out and Knife Life News.
I want to get to the state of the collection, but before we do, I just want to thank everyone who watches and listens.

[27:18] Whether you watch here or you just watch the shorts, if you just watch the shorts, then you don't hear me thanking you. But thanks anyway.
Maybe I'll do a short thanking you there.
Also, I like that you can download the show and just listen on the go.
You can do that on those podcast apps right here on the screen.
So, thank you one and all.
Without you, I would just be barking at the sky. Old man, barking to the sky about knives.
Thanks for keeping me out of the nuthouse.
Alright, coming up, State of the Collection. Among this week's specials at Knives Ship Free, the Spartan Harsey Fighter.
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Truly functional art that just happens to be a knife. Get these deals and other great specials from our friends at Knives Ship Free.
Just use our affiliate link, thenifejunkie.com slash knives ship free.
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Support the show and get a great new knife at the same time, thenifejunkie.com slash knives ship free. And now that we're caught up with Knife Life news, let's hear more of the Knife Junkie podcast.

[28:46] You know Station 9. They make these really cool knucks I've shown you. These aren't knucks.
These are knuckle dusters based on Hungarian World War I Army trench knuckles. Pretty nasty.
And also the lapel dagger I've shown off a million times that the resistance guys would, or spies would sew into the lapels of their jackets or into the pockets of their pants so they have a last-ditch way to get out of a sticky situation.
Station 9 is two French guys, two French gays, no, two gentlemen over there in France, and also I think Tony Lopez is a part of that operation, and they design and make really cool knives based on historical World War II and World War I kind of like spy knives and resistance knives and theater knives.
Theater knives generally are knives that were made or tweaked, re-handled or whatever in the theater of battle.

[29:48] So the first knife, I've been looking at this for so long and I finally got it because I saw we all juggle knives, had one of them, and so...
He loved it, and I had to get it. So this is The Partisan by Station 9.
And here's the patch that they sent.
Station 9, become harder to kill. I think that's a great idea for everyone, whether you buy a Station 9 knife or not.
Always, always be striving to be harder to kill.

[30:17] But this is based on the World War I, a common sort of World War I French trench knife. And you say, it looks just like a French chef's knife.
And the trench knife is the chef's knife because they didn't have a unified body supplying them with trench knives.
When they went out into battle, French soldiers would oftentimes have to take knives they already had, like the butcher knife, and tweak it for combat.
Bat in this case it would be that that swedge making it a a great stabber no doubt it'd be a great stabber without that swedge but the swedge makes it better uh so this is a 1095 blade steel uh if you if you go to youtube and station nine or instagram you can see the guys over there abusing them or putting them in the vice and in a pipe over the handle and bending them to 90 degrees or close to and then it pops back to true uh these knives are really great i'm not sure who makes them they come in uh anonymous white boxes with that very loud crinkly plastic um so that leads me to believe they're china made um but i don't know who makes them but they're pretty awesome i gotta say.

[31:36] So I like this micarta handle. It's squared off just like a chef's knife, something we're very used to holding on a daily basis.
You know, who doesn't do this once a day? Pinch, grip, or something close to it.
So this knife feels very comfortable in hand. It's very natural.
And I got to say, with that sweeping belly and that nasty tip, it's become one of my favorite knives to do Corenza with.
Corenza is Filipino shadowboxing with a knife or a stick.
This one's great for that. Nice and light. It's well balanced.
By the balance, I'm talking right at the forefinger. Balance is right there, so it feels great in hand.
This is the Station 9 Partisan. You can go to station9.com. I guess that's where I bought this.
I'm pretty sure that's they might be at some of the retailers but go to station9.com and you can see all of their all their products uh they number them uh i can't remember what number this one is.

[32:40] This is the number three i think and this is the number four and now the number eight is the next one i'm going to show off and that's their seer model so this is the number eight and i put it It does not come with a clip.
I put the Civivi Tek-Lok clip on there.
And this sheet is really tight, and you can see it's rubbing some of that.

[33:07] Some of the plastic onto the blade. But no matter.
This is a Tony Lopez design knife. I've been following him on Instagram for a long time. He designs some really cool stuff.
And they do a lot of outdoor jungle kind of stuff. So this is more of a survival style knife.
Survive, evade.

[33:31] Resist, and escape. Right? Survive, evade, resist, escape.
Sear uh i'm sure someone will correct me in the comments or at least tell me i'm an idiot uh so this is a is a meant to be an all-arounder survival knife uh this is also 1095 you've got contoured micarta uh i mean contoured g10 handle slabs that come all the way up on the full tang quillions which i really appreciate so it's very very comfortable and also super secure in hand you've got in in very french fashion here even if you did not have this guard you would have a blade wider than the pinch point at the at the forefinger meaning the blade itself is the guard here you have an extended guard to fortify that but i love that feature in french knives you see I see it in all the time in Fred Perrin's designs.
And actually Station 9 has done a collaboration with Fred Perrin, which is the perfect combination.
So I love that about this knife. But I also just really dig that design.

[34:43] Clip point blade it is really stabby um in a very non-scientific anecdotal uh story a bit of bit of experimentation i thrust this at a at a loose flap on a box and it uh it went through like it wasn't even there so this survival evade resist escape knife this sear knife is uh i think this with with that tough 1095 steel, is going to be a real, real great sort of just all-around survival knife.
Something to have on you all the time, in your bag.
They even sell a sheath that has a survival kit kind of wrapped around it.
I need to look into that. So that's the Station 9 No.
8 Sear and Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape Sear. Got it.
Thank you Jim Jim just shored me up on that Station 9, Become harder to peel I'm going to try and get these guys on the show Alright next up I got another Victorinox I'm not totally done with the Victorinox Maybe now I am But this one is special and cool You know that I'm a nerd about.

[36:02] Bigfoot, Sasquatch Sabe Here he is on this This Smoky Mountain Knife Works exclusive Tinker.
It says Bigfoot hide-and-seek world champion. Got a nice little graphic there, kind of a good representation.
More man-like than gorilla.

[36:24] Pretty cool. And you can see his giant feet down there right by the scale.
And that is the tweezers. The Tinker over here, hide-and-seek world champion in the foot.
That looks more like a human foot in my estimation than a Bigfoot, So it's got the large blade, does the tinker, and then it also has a pen knife, pen blade, which I like.
These pen blades stay super sharp if you don't use them and you can keep this one for for the usual use and then if it dulls you always have an extra one in reserve here's the opening layer, so you've got the bottle opener pry bar screwdriver wire stripper wire bender notch and a half stop on that one and then no half stop on this and then here you have the screwdriver driver the phillips head screwdriver instead of the um the wine opener and then or the corkscrew and then you have the uh all with the sewing eye this is the model that jim carries all the time not with the big foot on it because he's not a dork like i am but uh this is the model he's always carried which is cool the tinker is i think with that screwdriver on there and with the with the two screwdrivers to me it's like the most useful if you can have one swiss army knife That's the one I would get, though I love scissors.
And then I love their saw, so it's starting to get fatter and fatter.
But if you want to keep a two-layer Swiss Army knife, get a Tinker.

[37:52] All right, next up, this one, this is a new release, recent release by Rough Rider that people were just, I just kept seeing videos about how awesome this knife was, so I had to jump in, or how awesome this line was.
And I like this model the best, so I got it. But this is the Rough Rider Black Appaloosa Bone 40th Anniversary Coke Bottle Jacket. It's got a real long, with that spade shield.
And everyone, you know, my trusted slip joint voices were saying just how incredibly built and finished this is.

[38:29] And, you know, it really is. is and i have to say you know rough rider 40 years they've really done some really excellent excellent work i mean this is you know definitely at least as good as many of my cases um you might argue that 440a steel is is uh too weak for your needs but i had this this weekend when i was walking around with the with the broken street buoy i had this in my pocket and was was uh cutting and cardboard with this and this awesome coping blade and i think it's still sharp i mean it doesn't seem to have dulled much very nice walk and talk very i would give this an eight and a half pull on the coping blade maybe a nine pull very stout pull on the coping blade which is great just a great shape for doing all sorts of utility and then this i would say the main blade that's It's about an eight also.

[39:27] So I really like a stout and sturdy pull, and this knife is pleasing to me.
And one of the things I might, I'm not extremely psyched or in love with the look of that white and black Appaloosa bone, and I kind of knew that going into it, but I also kind of knew that I'm into dyeing bone and dyeing my cardan now.
So I think I might give this the old dye job and make it a maroon or a purple or a blue or something.
But this is a very, very, very, very good jackknife for $16.
I highly recommend it. I was going to say please. I shouldn't say please, but I highly recommend it.
And the funny thing is that I have two copies of the 86 in this configuration from GEC, and obviously that is a superior knife in pretty much all ways.
But if you like that knife and you don't want to bang around on it, This is a great alternative to that because you've got the coping blade and you've got the large clip.
All right, last up in the state of the collection here is this is something you need.
I went over to my friend's house this weekend, and we were having some drinks.
And he told his wife, oh, she's like, did you bring it? And he said no, and he went back to his house and got it. Let's check this out.

[40:53] This is now mine this thing here this three bladed knuckle duster it says on here, designed by Tom Anderson made by Master Cutlery so this is I have to clean it up and such these blades are sharp and this has an interesting story it's real heavy and there's some stuff on it, I need to clean it but anyway the story behind this is a friend of my friend.

[41:23] Got this as a groomsman gift for a wedding.
And I thought, wow, man, what a wedding. Holy mackerel.
And actually, he did not, the groom did not give these to everyone.
He just gave this to my one friend's friend because they knew he was into Wolverine.
So it kind of looks like Wolverine. But I just thought it was hilarious.
I had no idea. He's like, oh, I have something to give you. And I assumed, you know, we've been sort of swapping knives recently and i assumed it was going to be a regular knife but instead it was this and it hangs on this stately mounting thing so it's you're going to see this on the wall maybe not behind me uh but i think over on my other wall my secondary wall of fame uh you will see this up there i have learned in just doing some correnza with this that this is is not a very natural action uh what's more natural is is this kind of action not this kind of action because when you're using the blades on this your hand is like you're hitting people like this i'm not used to that this i'm used to you know so anyway interesting learning curve will i use it maybe uh you know self-defense you never know you never know i don't think work would look too fondly on that one i don't know what my carry sheep would be and it definitely, wouldn't be in the waste bag okay so today we're going to talk a little bit about 1095.

[42:52] And i call it well it's a hail and hardy high carbon steel um you know it's stout-hearted as the day is long it's a it's been around a long time and it's still being used to to great effect and in great volume by many companies.
First of which I'm going to show, first of which that comes to mind is K-Bar.
Here's my K-Bar. It's a reproduction of the early World War II version with the sharpened swedge, and this was a re-release in the early 90s my brother got.
1095 blade steel is high carbon, so it's going to rust on you, And this one here has a sort of patina on it.
So we all know that we can patina 1095 and high carbon steel.
And it turns into that dark mottled gray color that I find very appealing.
A lot of people like to put patinas on their blades, not only to protect them, but for the looks.

[43:53] On this Ka-Bar, which I've had for over 30 years, there has been a sort of red rust patina on it.
No matter how much I sort of, maybe not as much on this side, but no matter how much I will clean it and oil it and stuff, this sort of, and it's not like a corrosive, I guess maybe it is, but it doesn't seem to be rusting or breaking down the blade.
It's sort of a red rust patina, though. So right here, you can see it in here and a little bit in here and down there.

[44:26] And I've just given into it. For a while, it used to bother me, but I think that might be what is protecting this.
Just like a non-red rust or just a regular patina oxidization protects the blade.
I think that's what's happening here.
Anyway, beautifully done with the stacked leather handles and the oval cross-section.
I believe the case, which I'd love to get, the case model is a historical version with the sharpened swedge also, but I believe their handle is fully round, and round handles are, you know, they're harder to control.
So this has that nice oval handle, got the trench, the grooves in there, and those grooves really aid not only in the grip, because your fat of your fingers sink in there, but also they help wick away stuff, moisture and wetness.
Though though this material here is absorbent so if if the top coating is breached you're gonna you're gonna have some some trouble but usmc k-bar a classic 1095 they call it crovan so chromium vanadium is just a classic knife and what you get out of it is toughness i'm going to put put this one away and pull the next one out because it's a great example.

[45:46] Toughness and edge retention, decent edge retention, excellent toughness, and then the ability to resharpen quickly.
Now, I'm not just speaking out of school. I'm not just showing you my full 1095 knives and just saying what I've heard.
This is one of my 1095 knives that I have truly put through the paces, more so than any other than you're going to see except for the very last one.
Which has had even more action than this on it. But this is my Topps Knives Tex Creek, and you can see that it has seen some action out in the backyard.

[46:23] That's mostly where it's seen action, but I've cleared a lot of the back.
I've done a lot over the years with this knife. This was probably three or four years, my every Sunday and Saturday backyard knife.
And actually, the profile of it has changed because I did chip this out right here at the belly.
I was doing some, so you can tell from the little smile down here, but I was doing some chopping here, We have this one very tenacious poison ivy that's integrated in with a chain link fence at the back part of our property.
And I was chopping away at it.
I was all gloved up and such. But I missed, I overshot, and I hit the chain link fence just in the wrong way, and it chipped it.
Usually, you'd expect a roll. But in this case, a little notch was taken out.
So I ended up re-sharpening, re-profiling the whole edge.
It did not take me long. I did not even use my grinder machine.

[47:31] First, I used sandpaper as if I were stropping it, but on sandpaper going from a more coarse to a more fine and then took it to the stones.
And yeah, it's just been doing awesome for years now.
And I was just talking about the toughness and then I talked about how it chipped, but that chip, you know, it has a, I don't know, maybe it's not a chip because it's got a little piece that's up here that you have to knock off, so that's more like a dent or a divot.
Anyway, 1095 has proven to be pretty resilient in my eyes, but also easy to take care of when you have to put a new edge on it.
Like if this were m390 and i had to totally reprofile the edge i'd be forlorn i'd have to send it away so all right next hale and hardy 1095 i won't show you for too long because i was just waxing poetic about this but the station nine partisan another bit of evidence that 1095 is a very very very durable and tough steel can be found in their Instagram videos where they abuse this knife.
Not only abuse it, but put it through very hard, you know, use it to cut up paint cans and in survival situations.

[48:55] You'll see them out in the woods using this. You'll see it in urban environment, you know, going through different things that you might have to stab through.
So you can really see how tough this blade steel can be by watching them abuse this knife. I will not abuse this knife.
I like seeing other people do it and then knowing that it can handle it. Um, yeah.

[49:17] This, I'm glad that they did in 1095 and not in some larger, not in some more super steel, something more brittle that might be prone to breakage.

[49:30] Next one, this is a gift from my brother-in-law. Actually, just the sheath because the bay, well, the whole thing is a gift from my brother-in-law.
The sheath was what he carried in Iraq.
His bayonet was stolen in Iraq.
So he gave me the sheath, but he bought a new knife for it, and it's the M7 bayonet, and it's a double-edged, you know, a bayonet ground.
Very sharp, man. This thing, I kind of forget about this knife.
I have it hanging up in my other display, and it's very sentimental because my brother-in-law, who's one of my favorite people in the world, gave it to me, and he served our country.
And I remember when he was over there fighting in Iraq, I remember thinking, wow, what am I doing here?
I was too old at that point, but I was like, man, I'm just like living the freelance producer life over here in New York.
And this guy's over there like living in a hole he dug in the sand.
So thank you, one and all, who have served and who are serving.
And thank you, James. And thank you for giving me this. this.
This is 1095, as are a lot of the service knives.

[50:50] 1095 or 1075, this one is 1095. 1075 is also a great steel.
I have a bunch of knives that I thought were going to be in this list, but I don't know. It's 1075.
Also great, also tough, also durable.
Here we're seeing a little bit of that oxidization, which probably takes that up.
But this is a Parkerized blade, as I I believe my original K-Bar was Parkerized.
And you can see it gets scratched off, and maybe that's where some of that red rust might come in.
Very sharp, wicked bayonet. Funny story he had about this was coming in and out of Humvees with this on his belt was just a buzzkill for some reason.
And one day he decided to take it off. I won't need this today. He actually needed it.
He did a lot of kind of stuff in the community, if you will.
And they were told that they had a crowd closing in on him, an angry crowd.
And they were told to fix bayonets. And he was like, okay.

[51:54] And a very, very, very, very, very tense moment. So I'm not making light of it.
But to reach down and not have the bayonet was a bummer for him, as he describes it.
You get the lug back here for attaching to the rifle. And then this goes over the barrel. Very cool blade.
And, man, what an amazing sheath this metal is. He was in the tag, I guess. That's what Civilian Affairs Group.

[52:23] Very cool. All right, next up is the only folder in this list.
And this is representative of the brand.
And it's Great Eastern Cutlery. I could have brought out any Great Eastern Cutlery, but I decided since we're talking about 1095 and its toughness and all that, I decided I'd bring out the most work knife of my GECs, which is the large sod buster that they make. This is the bull buster.
You can still see that etch ever so slightly on the blade. Oh, there we go.

[52:57] This had a pretty nice patina on it at one time, but I went scorched earth on the patinas on all my Great Eastern cutleries except for my 66 and one of my 15s and just took the patinas off all of them.
And in doing so, I removed the etch. I don't care. I don't really like the etches.
If I were to collect these only not to carry them, I would keep the etch.
But 10.95 on these um on the great eastern cutlery folders they do it so nicely i mean the the uh blades take a great edge i mean you can get these things razor sharp and they hold that edge pretty well and i gotta say you don't really have to patina all you gotta do is wipe the damn knife when you're done wipe the blade when you're done using it and uh you'll be fine you'll be fine Unless you live in a super humid environment, then you might want to hasten some sort of patina using fruit or meat.
I like a meat and fruit patina, but that's just me.
This model here has a very nice linen micarta handle.
I carried this quite a bit when I got it. You can see some of the oil from my hand.

[54:10] And then also, if you oil the pivot, which I do sometimes, I did this once.
I had to flush out some crap in there. You can also see that oil will seep out through the pivot and get into the micarta. It looks nice.
Great Eastern cutlery. I just had to force myself not to jump on the recent 15 Tom's Choice Barlow. I was there.
I was ready. I could have hit the button. I could have hit go.
I had it open on my desktop at work. I was doing my emails.
I would just glance over at the time. There was a countdown. down and then in the 11th hour i said you've got other stuff to spend your money on don't do it i'm so responsible all right next very expensive knife to show off here that i never use is the hog tooth knives sub hilt fighter i have no idea how much this cost because it was a gift but i know it was not cheap this beauty has two different steels okay.

[55:11] One steel in this collection here, in this lineup, that has two steels.
You see this? This is 1095 and 15 and 20.
So 1095 is a great steel for mixing in Damascus.

[55:29] And what I was just holding up there is a square that was used to make this very unique and beautiful Damascus pattern.
So the the 1095 is the is the lighter steel and the 15 and 20 is the darker steel i'm i'm uh i'm sure i have that right because i just talked to matt chase about this and the the process of of making this steel with these tiles, 1095 and 15N20 are pretty much the standard, I don't want to say the standard, maybe the most common combination.
They go together well.
When you etch them, they're high contrast.
And then the 15N20 and the 1095 are both very tough high carbon steels.
So together they will perform similarly.
And then when you grind an edge and you look at the very edge, they will have a pretty uniform edge.
Because if you have two different skills in there, even though they're heat treated the same way, at the very, very edge, things could be different.
But 15N20 mixes or goes together with 1095 so well that that's what is a very, very common combination. nation.

[56:57] Spoken like a guy who doesn't forge knives, but spoken like a guy who can't wait to forge knives when he retires.

[57:03] This, I've talked about a million times, beautiful stag handle, really beautiful sub-hilt and hilt of wrought iron, and a gorgeous chute.
All right, next up is a famous one. This is the RTAC-2 by Ontario.
And the RTAC-2 sort of morphed into the SE Hungless, so I'm going to kind of put these in the same camp.
My brother has an SE Hungless, and by comparing them, They're very, very, very similar.

[57:35] And in one way they're similar is that 1095 blade steel.
And that comes in super handy in a large outdoor fixed blade like this because you're going to be chopping.
You're going to be swinging this knife. You could be batoning this knife through wood.
You need that toughness. And when I say toughness, what we're talking about is resilience, ability to take impact without breaking.
Breaking this uh this uh vg10 blade steel did did not do a very good job of that now i was at an angle when i threw this should it have snapped i kind of feel like if it were 1095 it would have been uh but so in this this uh blade this is exactly what you want because it's uh fully flat ground it's slicey and tough you want to get in this knife you want to get a blade geometry that that can slice and can do a lot of finer woodworking, but also you want to be able to baton this and chop it through wood.
So a very resilient and tough blade steel is what you want.

[58:40] Oh, nice micarta handles on that aftermarket sheath, an old stalwart. Again, 1095.

[58:47] Here's the sear. I just showed this off, so I'm not going to go too much into it, except to say that I was accentuating its fighter-ness before when I was talking about it with the guard and everything.

[59:01] This is a great fighter at 5 1⁄2 inches, just an awesome knife for that.
That but at with 1095 blade steel and a high saber grind like it gets it's very thin it's a nice it's got a nice geometry here this is going to make for a great camp night and outdoors night it's uh sturdy enough with its full tang full tang extending even into the guards and the comfortable handle um so i think that the 1095 blade steel i was hoping that this wasn't d2 or something else um and uh when i looked it up and saw 1095 that actually did it for me because with fixed blade knives especially the over four inches i'm just wanting more and more something that's more that's less stainless more resilient okay second to last knife here a very very famous one this is the western w49 buoy uh this thing is just a beaut my brother got this one for me in a a pawn shop this has some crazy well he bought it for himself and i i begged for it and finally gave it to me uh this has some sort of bone on it i'm not sure what it is but it always freaks me out a little bit uh because i think what if it was the the leg bone of the of the biker's victim this obviously was a biker's knife at least in my fantasy pounded down quillian here took a lot lot of effort.
These brass guards are super stout. This thing's an awesome, awesome fighter.

[1:00:31] They later started making these in stainless. So...

[1:00:38] I got one of the ones in 1095, luckily. And, yeah, you're going to...
Got not much to say about this one because I got to say, I'm not going to take this outside and pound this through anything.
To me, this is a tough guy, you know, tough guy knife. This is a fighter.
This Western 49. Okay, last up as the most mileage of any of these knives by far.
I got this when I was a kid, kid, kid, like 12 or something.
I'll show you first. This is the sheath my brother made for it a couple years back.
But here it is. This is the Ontario Knife Company US machete, 18-inch blade, US service machete.
It's old. It's got a bakelite handle.
I got this in the early 80s at Public Safety Supply in Mayfield, Ohio, which was awesome.
It was the place you could buy Uzis and spaz shotguns and stuff like that around where I live.
You could also buy machetes. And I bought this machete and a sheath that came with it that I decorated in black woad as if I were Conan the Barbarian.
And then I went on all sorts of adventures in the woods with this.

[1:01:51] I've used this here in my Virginia home, but this got a lot of use in the woods in Ohio.
And I've told this story. I'll tell it again. Again, the crowning achievement of that knife was cutting in twice, cutting through a red oak about this big. It was huge.
I had two different axes and this machete, and I put the axes aside and ended up using that machete. You can span a lot with a thin, flexible 1095 sharp machete blade.
You can span a lot more than an axe. And if I had to cut through a tree again, I'd probably choose a machete.

[1:02:28] All right, guys. Thank you so much for checking out this hale and hearty high-carbon journey into 1095 blade steel. Please forgive the expression.
I love 1095. I would love to see it on more folders. I could handle it.
I could handle it in a folder. Just take care of it, right?
I can do it in all my slip joints, so why wouldn't I be able to do it in a locking modern folder?
Might be an issue near the pivot.

[1:02:54] Anyway, be sure to join us tomorrow night, night thursday night knives 10 p.m eastern standard time so you get your chance to win the ringed inversion by dirk pinkerton and then of course check out on sunday our conversation with bob terzuola the godfather of the modern tactical folder for jim working his magic behind the switcher i'm bob demarco saying until next time don't take dull for an answer thanks for listening to the knife junkie podcast if you enjoyed the show please rate and review at reviewthepodcast.com.
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[1:04:01] Music.