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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.
©2024, Bob DeMarco
The Knife Junkie Podcast
https://theknifejunkie.com

Transcript

[0:00]Coming up, a very special Bowie knife is our next Gentleman Junkie Knife giveaway. I get a very special Bowie knife from my buddy Doug. It's the one that Jim used on the sandbar. And 15 blade shapes. 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.
[0:31]Welcome back to the show. One of my favorite comments, actually, all of my favorite comments this week were on the Pepperwool interview with Barron. And I got some really great comments. People went out and bought the knives after our interview. Here's one from OG Blade Reviews, our good friend Dave. He says, great designer and interview. Very educated and intelligent man. Yes, speaking with Baron McKay of Pepperwool was definitely felt like I was in the wrong league. You know, just tell me about physics. Tell me about design. It was really great talking with him. Very relatable dude, but also super smart and designing these awesome knives. By the way, this has been in my pocket, back right pocket, basically since he sent it to me. I love this knife. And I've been passing it around the office and are showing it off at the office. And people love it. They're like, oh, look, it's one handed. I'm like, the knife I gave you is one handed. But that's cool.
[1:31]All right. Next up is from our good buddies at Fisher Blades and Kaz and John brothers. We're big fans of Baron and Pepperwool. Cool knives, he says. Well, they work together back at SOG back in the old days that weren't that long ago. But we're a big part of the rebranding. So cool to see one knife company give another knife company a shout out. So I really appreciate that. And thank you, everyone, one and all, for watching the shows, the interviews, and leaving comments. It's greatly appreciated.
[2:06]All right. Well, all that out of the way. Let us now get to a pocket check. What's in his pocket? Let's find out.
[2:14]Here's the knife junkie with his pocket check of knives. Carrying an OG today, I got the Strider Knives SMF. I always wondered what the, I knew it, a standard military something something. I always forget that. But anyway, I had this on me today. I absolutely love this knife. I give it very little airtime these days.
[2:36]But it's a stalwart in my collection It's one of the big three to me The Strider, the Chris Reeve Knives, the Hinderer, the Old School Triumvirate I'm very glad to have this knife This one came from Zellrick 42 He put a beautiful edge on it Do you remember Zellrick? He's one of the Todd brothers who are now just designers He does not do his channel Hasn't done his channel in a coon's age Actually, last time I think he was on YouTube was on Thursday Night Knives He used to sort of co-host in the early days of Thursday Night Knives. Anyway, I bought this from him and I've always been a big fan of the CC model of the SNG and the SMF. The CC is concealed carry, and that just means it's a thinner handle with contours. You can see how contoured that handle is, as opposed to the big blocky Lego versions of the Striders or the gunner grip which has a deeply sort of golf ball pocketed texture on the handle so my favorite model of strider is the smf this size and then this cc model being my favorite version of this model and it's got a deep hollow grind a hollow ground blade which is excellent my first strider which i got rid of unfortunately was a lego smf kind of fit the hand like a brick and it had a pretty oblique.
[4:01]Flat ground edge But I guess to the Strider fans None of that matters But to me it did And ultimately that's why I sold it to get something else But really glad to have this in the collection And happy to have it in my pants today.
[4:19]Next up From my good buddy Byron, he's got a channel called Split and Slices He is a gentleman and a scholar And a very thoughtful individual And he got me this on his European jaunt last year. This is the Swiss Army 2. It is a single layer ALOX, but it's got two tools in it. The Swiss Army 1 just has the big blade. This is a 93 millimeter knife.
[4:50]And the number 2, the Swiss Army 2, has two blades. Check that out. It's got that beautiful hawk-billed pruning blade. Now, when he got this for me, he didn't just find this because he knew I wanted it and it's very hard to find. But he got my name engraved in it, Bob DeMarco, and he got the Knife Junkie engraved in it. So this knife means a whole lot more than just kind of a rare Swiss Army knife. This is a very personalized knife from someone who's got a great channel, split in slices he's a very gracious dude and he's been he's been on the knife junkie uh ride for a long long time and i always appreciate his comments uh which usually crack me up you know during thursday night knives uh but this really took the cake when i when i saw this not only did he send this in that care package a year ago but he sent something from my wife uh from from europe up also and it was just really really nice so here just to show off the fact that this is a swiss army too i will put that other blade out i love these single layer victorinox designs really really.
[6:01]Pocket friendly and very, very useful. Next up, I was carrying the Jed Hornbeak Necromance. Now you can tell that the seasons have changed and I'm wearing heavier clothes because this is very much on the outside of what I will EDC in terms of fixed blades. It's pretty big for an EDC fixed blade and heavy, but man alive, is it awesome. This thing is, so this has to ride in the three o'clock position in the waistband. But in doing so, I also have to have like a sweater or a shirt over it because it does show itself off. But I got to say, when I carry this knife, I really feel like I'm ready for anything. I'm ready for way more than I need to be. But man, I love this knife. So double edged, it's got that top swedge is a zero ground Scandi edge, And then a hollow grind here with a very, very sharp regular edge. It's sort of like a sub-hilt fighter. It's like a modernized version of the Loveless sub-hilt fighter. And I also think that the blade almost looks Tonto-ish, American Tonto-ish, with that straight edge here and then the turn it takes towards the tip. Just beautiful, beautiful workmanship. I'm not sure if it reads here, but if you have ever held a Jed Hornbeak knife, you would know. His work is just exquisite.
[7:30]I don't know how else to describe it. It's just perfect perfection. And even some of the designs he makes that I'm not fond of looking at, to hold them in your hand, it's a revelation. And I'm thinking of the Kukri right now, which to me looks slightly awkward, but man alive, is that a cool knife. I've held one, and then I've watched Gab go to town with his. So Jed Hornbeak, really incredible custom knives. I would check him out. By the way, great sheet, too. Show that. Yeah, great, great sheet. Locks in there. Snap.
[8:06]Okay. it uh nextly and lastly i've been carrying this thing way more than i expected this was sent to me by uh savivi suncut and this is the suncut practice i've been practicing with it and uh yellow i saw it i was like oh that's a bright yellow and i've always had this theory um you know i used to work in the fashion industry just in the production side uh making videos and stuff Covering the fashion industry I didn't work in I worked in the video industry Covering the fashion industry But anyway I came to the conclusion at that time That no one looks good in yellow Unless they're African American Or maybe Middle Eastern And have like a darker skin tone But all of my white friends Who would put on yellow, I don't know It just makes you look sallow and pale.
[8:55]So I've always had sort of a A thing against yellow I don't know It sounds kind of mean Yellow is such a bright and happy color I love these yellow scales. You can tell they're starting to get dirty. And I've used this for some real grunt work, because when this came out, we talked about it during Knife News, and SenCut is billing this as a hard-use knife. And I'll tell you, it's cut some pretty stout stuff around here, at least as far as that goes. We have a little bit of stuff we have to get rid of, and I was cutting it all down with this. What am I talking about? I'm talking about some old school projects that are like five-ply cardboard that I was burning. I was burning a whole bunch of stuff last week, and this thing, though I had a big fixed blade on my hip, I had the boon on my hip.
[9:47]This one kept getting pulled out, and it is great. It's a great knife, and it's inexpensive, and I thought it would be just a run-of-the-mill knife that wouldn't impress me, but I've been very happy with it and popping it in my back pocket quite a bit. So this is the practice. It was giving me emotional support today. Really, they all were. This is what I had on me. What did you have on you? Let me know. Drop it in the comments below. And as I fold these up and put them away I want to tell you about buying me a coffee And a wonderful guy named Tom Butler Tom, thank you so much For buying me five coffees Here's to you I love coffee, And every little bit helps Now, I know a Tom Butler, But I'm not sure if this is that Tom Butler I have a feeling that Tom Butler Doesn't watch the Knife Junkie podcast He's a little bit smarter than that No, I'm just kidding That's not what I mean That's not what I mean I'm not calling you not smart What I'm saying is, His interests lie elsewhere Like in fine, fine theater And this is not fine, fine theater It is fine, fine knife commentary So Tom Butler, thank you so much for the coffees I really appreciate it I'm going to consider this one of them, Delicious Thank you, Tom All right, and next up.
[11:08]I just wanted to say Well, I want to say thank you to Stephen Levinson I didn't put this in the notes, but we mentioned him on Thursday Night Knives He's a new tactical junkie, so Stephen, thank you so much for signing up at Patreon We greatly appreciate your commitment to this show, It's, well, it's humbling, so thank you very much, sir.
[11:31]Also, before I get to the very special Knife Junkie Knife giveaway I just want to say, I was watching Forged in Fire with my wife We've been catching up on the latest season, which we've been recording So I'm not exactly sure when this came out, but, There is a master smith. This is a series called Beat the Unbeaten or something like that, where they bring on knife makers to beat returning champions from Forged in Fire. And there was this master bladesmith, ABS master bladesmith, who had an absolute hissy fit when he lost. He didn't make the knife right. He didn't follow specs. He made it too long, and he didn't put an essential swedge at the tip of his 1918 cutlass. That's this thing right here.
[12:13]Which has a very distinct clip point he didn't put it on there the guy he was competing against one of the unbeaten champions his blade broke upon testing into three pieces which was a bummer of course uh but they didn't even test the abs mastersmith's sword because he didn't put the uh swedge in it and he didn't uh you know he it was he was an eighth of an inch over because he was measuring cutting edge and not tip to guard. And they showed the receipts. They showed the production assistant in the back saying, this is how you're going to measure it. Do you have any questions? This is what you have to do. Any questions? No questions. And yet when he lost to the broken sword, he had an absolute hissy fit, stormed off the stage. You could hear him in the back yelling at a production manager. And by the way, that's a shit job. Excuse me. that's a terrible job i've had that before you are a gopher and you're the first one there last one out and that's how you earn your bones on a production uh crew and uh you know guy offered him water i don't want water i just want to win i was like i'm never gonna say anything good about forged in fire again i was like you're supposed to be a master bladesmith man have some have a little bit of.
[13:27]Anyway, it was shocking to me because the whole time I was like, I like watching this guy work. He's a master and it's amazing. But he didn't have a master's attitude. He had a different kind of attitude. And I used a different kind of word to describe him, which my wife took deference to and gave me a little dressing down for using that word. So anyway, it's interesting. Watch the new Forged in Fire season. You might enjoy it. Lastly here, I want to tell you about this month's, that's December 2024, our Gentleman Junkie Knife Giveaway Knife is Primo. This is probably the best one we've ever given away, and that's because I co-designed it. It's the Knife Junkie Hog, I'll put it the other way around, Hogtooth Knives featuring the Knife Junkie's blade design, Nova One. We're giving away one of these Nova Ones. Matt Chase made a fresh Nova One Bowie, but with a bone colored handles. This one that's on screen is ivory. We're not giving that one away. We're giving away a bone version. So it's very similar. Oh, this is the one right here. Nicely done, Jim. He's like, oh, yeah, bone. Got it for you.
[14:43]This is so beautiful. And it's on its way here. I'm going to paw it for a little while and ogle it until I send it out to you. So I'm very excited to be featuring this. If you want to win this very exclusive and custom handmade knife by Matt Chase up in Massachusetts and Hogtooth Knives.
[15:04]Become a patron. All you got to do is go to the knife junkie.com slash Patreon and sign up as a gentleman junkie and it will get you in the running this December 19th. Again, that is the knife junkie.com slash Patreon. The shockwave tactical torch is your ultimate self-defense companion featuring a powerful LED bulb that lasts 100,000 hours, a super sharp crenulated bezel, and a built-in stun gun delivering 4.5 million volts. Don't settle for ordinary. Choose the Shockwave Tactical Torch. TheKnifeJunkie.com slash Shockwave. You're listening to the Knife Junkie podcast, and now here's the Knife Junkie with the Knife Life News. Giant Mouse has another one out we were talking about, Giant Mouse, last week. This one is the nimbus v3 but actually uh it's the v3.2 if you ask me uh because they've already put out the nimbus 3 this is just with a different grind but it makes sense from two guys from denmark named jen zanzo and jesper vaksnez you would expect them to make a knife with a scandy grind and man alive is this a beauty uh this is the nimbus 3 uh which has gone through a number it It was first released in 2018.
[16:22]The version 2 of this was in 2020. It was with MagnaCut and washers. They added washers instead of bearings. And then the V3 came out in 2023 with MagnaCut and tweaked washers. And now this is the other V3 coming out in 2024. So I think it should be the V4. But anyway, I'm not good at math. This has a Scandinavian grind. that's a zero ground edge where the edge bevel is the edge uh outstanding at uh wood woodwork you know outdoor chores and that kind of thing you can see it's on a piece of wood there uh so it's very much favored by bushcrafters a grind very much favored by bushcrafters and outdoorsmen this one though is in s90v and it's available now go check it out uh this edc stalwart is now, Kind of an outdoorsy knife Very, very beautiful, I think, too, I always like the look of the giant mouses But they're a little bit smaller than I like to collect So that's my excuse for not buying them Alright, next up, from Best Tech This is a big one This is from Justin Lundquist.
[17:29]And Best Tech Knives This one is called The Vestige And It, I looked it up vestige. It's like a, it's like the last little bits of something that are going away. I know how to use the term in a sentence, but it was good to look it up. You might want to look it up because my definition there just kind of sucked. So seven years ago, Justin Lundquist came out with a Kaiser Feist, very super clean design. And he's been raging ever since coming out with really, really great designs. But this one, I love the best so far. It's big at three and a half inches of magna cut now i've seen where it's uh also 4.2 inches but i went straight to their website and and it's actually three and a half inches but it's got a big handle big blade and a big beautiful clip point with a nice fuller and a flipper this thing comes with a variety of different handles contoured titanium handles with carbon fiber inlays or micarta inlays and i think to have five different flavors. Only 3.6 ounces for a biggish knife. That's a really, really good weight and it's available now. Next up from Boker Knives, this is Boker Magnum. Boker Magnum, we don't talk about too much. We talk about Boker Plus mostly.
[18:54]That's their middle tier and the most prolific tier and kind of the highest quality to value ratio. But this is the Magnum line, and that's their budget line. And a lot of the times, you know, people don't pay much attention to those. But this one is beautiful. And it's, I think it's signaling a sort of turn for Boker Magnum Plus. This is called the Empree. I'm sorry, Boker Magnum line, not Plus. This is the Empree. And it is an elegant in-house design with that really nice checkered and a fragged white G10 handle. Nice and slim and arced. But the blade is what really draws my eye. A beautiful long swedged harpoon drop point with a flipper and a front flipper.
[19:45]And I looked it up, it's MSRP of this sucker is $40, so you know you're going to be able to get it for a lot less than that at your various purveyors of knives. Nice and slim, kind of gentlemanly knife, but also tipping the hat to the tactical designs. Reversible deep carry pocket clip. This thing is under three ounces. So the reason I'm showing this, it's not necessarily something that I'm going to go for, but it would make a great gift. This would make a great gift for someone just kind of getting into knives or someone you want to get into knives.
[20:26]And I like the black and white colorway. Reverse tuxedo, some people call it. Some people call it stormtrooper. I just call it black and white. I think it looks cool. Available now. And as I said, who knows? Maybe a good Christmas gift. Stocking stuffer type thing all right last up this one i mean this one just is so beautiful to me uh that i would i'd really like to have it i'd like and you'll you'll know which version uh this is a the we knives a cuminal a cuminal um and it's just gorgeous 3.98 inches of vanax we don't hear that uh steel too much on uh on folding knives but this is a super corrosive resistant steel also not bad not a slouch in the edge retention department now this one is the is the version i like with that really subdued brushed gray handle and acid wash blade it is stunning to me now this looks either like a whale to me or an italian race boat it falls in either one of those categories for me ben schwartz of knife news thinks it looks aerodynamic i wouldn't i wouldn't disagree with him on that but uh so long full-bladed swedge on this elegant drop point.
[21:42]Those are uh chamfered slabs of titanium comes either in this dark gray or you can get it in this super colorful and flamed uh kind of swirly blue version uh handle with um what are we calling this fafnir pattern damasteel uh and from this picture i can't see any damasteel on it so maybe there's a third model and maybe i got my uh maybe i got my signals crossed but uh it is a little it's a pricey bird 440 bucks msrp i'm sure you'll be able to get it for slightly less but i mean you know probably not that much i don't know if they do the map pricing or not but incredibly desirable knife as far as I'm concerned. I love this knife. It is beautiful, and I will make it mine. Maybe.
[22:33]All right. Coming up, we're going to check out the state of the collection. We're going to look at a couple of new things that came in from my good buddy, Doug. But before we do, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, hit the notification bell, check out Patreon. And also, you can download the show to your favorite podcast app. So you can listen to these golden tones as you drive, as you wash the dishes, as you rake the leaves. Have you raked your leaves? You better. It'll kill your grass if you don't. I got to go through version two this weekend, which bums me out. Really, like I cleaned it up so beautifully. And then someone else's tree next door took a dump all over my yard. So there you go. All right. Coming up, the state of the collection.
[23:15]Adventure delivered. Your monthly subscription for handpicked outdoor, survival, EDC, and other cool gear from our expert team of outdoor professionals. The Knife Junkie dot com slash battle box. And now that we're caught up with Knife Life news, let's hear more of the Knife Junkie podcast. I want to show off two really cool things that my buddy Doug Bull sent me. I say my buddy I haven't met him in person But he's left a huge impression on me Not only is he a gentleman junkie And frequent commenter But he's also a generous man And he's sent me Three knives so far that are just So cool and this is the latest, This is a forest Bowie I'm not sure Who made this I'm not sure if he knows who made this But it's a stout and sturdy Forest Bowie now what's a forest Bowie you say 12 inches long And the guard is the actual blade. So different than the kind of Bowie we generally think of. But this is, as the story goes, this is the Bowie shape and style that was used in his famous sandbar duel. Jim Bowie had a famous duel on a sandbar outside Natchez, I believe. No, no, Nacogdoches, I think.
[24:33]And uh in doing so he disemboweled someone he got shot someone produced a sword cane it was a it was a grim and grisly affair but he uh he walked away from it with this knife and then as the story goes he gave it to um a friend of his Edwin Forrest uh who was a famous stage actor at the time for the stage play uh depicting that event uh the knife the Forrest Bowie was found in the 1980s at the family at the Forrest family estate in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. And so we've known about this knife since then. And I know that Bark River makes a version of it. I've seen a lot of custom versions of this knife and.
[25:17]It is so cool. I'm going to bring this over to the main camera for a second just so you can see scale-wise next to my noggin. This is 12 inches long, and it's almost got a recurve if you look at it. It's got a deep belly up front and ever so slight upward. I mean, if I go like this, I can see it kind of dips down a little bit, but it's got a spine-side point is what I'm trying to say. So different from the Bowie's we know where it's clipped, meaning cut from here to down here, where that puts the point a little bit lower and gives you a swedge on the back to do back cuts and stuff with. Not that you couldn't do that with this. I have. And it is vicious.
[26:05]Big. It looks like a big 12-inch butcher knife, frankly. And I'm a big fan. Doug accidentally sent this without the sheath. He's going to send me that sheath, and I appreciate that because I've been walking around the house with this a lot and being very, very careful. This has been a TV viewing knife, you know, i.e. this is the knife I'll use if someone storms into the house while I'm watching TV. I'll have this in my left hand and something else in my right, if you know what I mean.
[26:33]And I'll reenact that whole sandbar duel. No, I won't, thankfully. But beautiful micarta handles with the cross-hatching on this. I absolutely love this. I think he got this from Chicago Knife Works, if I'm correct. So thank you so much, Doug. I love this knife. And actually, I'm thinking I might use this this coming weekend outside, see what it's all about. I won't be batoning with it, but just kind of seeing how it works on organic material. Outback. Beautiful, beautiful Bowie knife. And I got to say a great addition to my Bowie collection, because I have a whole bunch of them, a whole bunch of different styles. And this one is a totally new style for me.
[27:22]Carefully place this over here. I want to show you something else that Doug got me real quick. This is the Blade Warrior book, Underground Knife Combat Secrets, from the gentleman who is responsible for Berserker Blades, a company I follow on Instagram. But, man, this thing is so cool. And it tells it like it is. It does not mince words. And it also does not mince pictures. It has these beautiful hand-drawn pictures that really get into how knives are made, as you can see here, different types of knives, but also different ways to carry, different ways to deploy, different ways to wield, different places to cut, and different tactics for fighting.
[28:14]And i really really like it it goes into mindset and it talks about things that most people are afraid to talk about when it comes to knives and knife combatives and defense now it also has different ways to train um that's pretty gory so i'm not going to show some of that stuff but really really highly recommend this book i i can't wait to read it to like sit down and read it soup to nuts because I think it's going to maybe bust a few myths for me and also give me some ideas and maybe reinforce some things that I've thought all along because, this is the kind of thing I think of all the time and it's very rare that you see it in print that you can kind of pour over like that. So very, very excited about that.
[29:08]That book so thank you so much doug i really appreciate that i do indeed all right still to come we're going to talk about 15 blade shapes we're going to use folders to illustrate them this is something i did like the fifth episode i believe of the knife junkie podcast when i was just a wee babe in the woods babe in arms and so i'm going to do a little update here but first go to the knife junkie.com slash shop. Check out some of the cool t-shirts Jim has been making. This is one of my favorites these days, uh, because as my girls say, even though it's not Thanksgiving yet, it's still Christmas season. I disagree just because you play Mariah Carey on the radio doesn't mean it's Christmas, but a knives out cookies ready. And if you're just listening, it's a, it's a picture of a very cheerful looking gingerbread man with a big knife.
[30:00]Staring at a plate of cookies and i love it i love gingerbread i love cookies i love knives i love jim i love his t-shirts so please go to the knife junkie.com slash shop check that out and there's also a lot of other really cool stuff up there uh jim has really cultivated a uh an amazing merch uh it's not even a page merch section of the website with so much cool stuff Want a hat? Want a mug? Want a mouse pad? Probably not, but we got those there too. So go check those out. All right. Let us check out some knife shapes, some blade shapes and on folders. But these, the reason I'm using folders is because I don't have all these blade shapes in fixed blades. Would that I did, I'd be a happy, happy, happy, happier man. But I'm already pretty happy. Here we go. First one, since we were talking Bowie, let's talk bowie uh this one of my favorite uh bowie shapes period this is a long swedge double peak bowie um my my expression but when we were talking about the forest bowie and looking at how it is a swedgeless affair uh this bowie here the hinderer is is what the original bowies evolved into so you still have a long usable straight section of cutting edge and then a deep belly.
[31:26]Terminating at a point but in this case You've got a nice long Swedge that Comes from mid blade and this one It's a little closer to the handle than Than the tip which to me makes It more of a Spanish clip point but, We won't get into that right now, but that swedge does a couple of things. That swedge right here, I'm sorry, this clip, this cutaway here does a couple of things. It drops the point to the center line or to a lower point than the spine, making it easier to index from different angles. And it also slenders out, makes the tip slender. And in many cases, if the swedge continues all the way to the tip, creates a diamond-like point. More like a dagger than a kitchen knife, say, or a flat-spined drop point.
[32:18]So just looking at it, if you've got eyes in your head, you can see how gorgeous this thing is. I'm a particular fan of the Bowie shape from Hinderer. I really dig it. And it also sort of takes some cues from the Mac v. Sog, classic double-peaked Bowie from the 60s, originally from the 60s and which we see not only in the in the SOG knives and the MACV SOG. SOG is a company but MACV SOG was a group in a special observations group at basically commandos in during Vietnam and when you hear MACV SOG it's referring to a blade shape so a bunch of different companies make the mac v sog bowie style knife and sog the company kind of made that famous in the 90s and early 2000s so this is the bowie knife and this is the hinderer xm24 a four inch blade which really allows this gorgeous design to express itself fully.
[33:30]Excuse me next up we're going to look at a tanto now this sort of uh straddles the line if you ask me between american tanto and japanese tanto a little bit more american than japanese but uh this this is what we've got here uh this is the riat k2 and uh to this day my favorite riat knife uh riat branded knife that is they make a lot of cool knives for other makers we'll see one here in this list coming up but this features a long straight cutting edge with a deep hollow grind and then it it transitions into a flat grind for stoutness up at the tip and in this case it's got a curved section up front oftentimes it'll be totally bone uh totally straight and when it's straight it's more it looks more like a chisel this is the reason i showed this is because it has attributes of both the Japanese and the American-style tanto. American-style tanto has the secondary point right here.
[34:34]And the Japanese one has a curved tip without that point. So this one kind of has both because it's got that curved portion up front and the long straight. And then, of course, the two different grinds. It's a compound grind. You can always tell when looking at pictures of a Tonto, if it's hollow and flat, if the two grinds meet in a curved angle there, or a curved line there like that. If it's straight, like you see on a lot of, say, cold steels these days, that means that both grinds are flat. And that's neither here nor there, neither good nor bad. This I like. Personally, I like the hollow grind and the flat grind. And I must admit, I discovered I liked the hollow grind for cutting second.
[35:19]I really like the way it looks. It always reminded me of a straight razor, but a much more aggressive one. This, of course, has the contoured titanium handles, beautifully bronzed, and I love the sort of dragon texture. It's got a dimpled gravel road swedge here, or not swedge, bolster here, faux bolster. But then these things back here remind me of dragon scales, so I love it. I think it's really cool, really beautiful, and a great knife. The first knife I think I had where I was just goo-goo-gaga about the action. Sorry about that. I don't know. It's been a couple days without sleep, so I'm talking out of school here. But a great, great knife. And I know that Knife Joker did a whole bunch of different versions.
[36:07]Proprietary versions of this knife. So they had Riat dust off the design and do this knife in a bunch of different sort of colorways and handle textures. Yeah.
[36:18]Next blade shape is the sheep's foot. And I don't have too many sheep's feet, which is a surprise to me because it's a very aggressive blade shape that I like. But in this case, I chose to show it on the P-SARC, the Emerson Police Survival and Rescue Knife. Police Survival and Rescue Knife. And there is a version of this just called the Sark without the P at the front that has a rounded tip and a like seat belt cutter notch in the back. So a very, very purpose driven knife, just not just not my bread and butter. This is I love this knife. It's like a pocket gununting. That's the curved downward curved sickle shaped sort of Filipino sword. That's why I got this in the first place. Very very aggressive looking knife i remember buying this i don't know why just randomly we were at a barbecue at my wife's uncle's house my wife's uncles are all incredible cooks so are her aunts but they do uh they do these bolivian meats and i remember what i was eating when i ordered this because i was doing it all surreptitiously didn't want my wife to see that i was ordering a knife while we were sitting at the dinner table but i was eating beef heart They call it chicharro. No, no, that's pork. I can't remember what they call it right offhand. But I was eating that, which is delicious, this beef heart done on the grill.
[37:44]And I ordered this because where I got it from, it was on sale. And I didn't even know it existed. I was like, oh, my gosh, it's an Emerson. This is 2013.
[37:56]So this is 11 years old, this sucker. Man, I'm getting old. But so are you.
[38:02]Opens up with the wave 154 cm this is chisel ground one of these days i got to do a grind video talk about the different grinds but chisel ground blade as opposed to and a chisel ground edge so the chisel ground blade means the bevel is only on one side the other side is totally flat, and this side is a chisel ground edge which means the edge also has one side to it, I used to before I really understood how great chisel ground blades and edges are I used to not like it because I thought oh they're being lazy they just didn't put the grind on the other side well that's not really the case.
[38:42]When you look at a V-ground knife in cross-section, V-ground blade in cross-section, and then you remove it by half, you have half the thickness, and it's like a super thin chisel. So these things get incredibly sharp, slip through materials incredibly easily. However, if you're not used to them, they track differently through the material because you have an angle on only one side of the blade. It takes about two seconds to figure that out and to make accommodations. One might look at this and think it's a wharncliffe, but because of that continuous curve from thumb to tip across the spine, but we have a curve here on the cutting edge. So that makes this a hawkbill. You could probably put a karambit here. You could put several styles of picol here.
[39:36]But those are different things to me. And I will show you. Uh, not so much the, not so much the, um, karambit, but the picol. And I'll show you picol right now. Uh, some of you may say picol is not an actual blade shape and I might tend to agree with you, but there are certain aspects of picol knives that have begun to emerge as it, as it has popularized and become, uh, more, um, um, more common. And that has to do with the angle of the blade to the handle itself and the tip placement. This here is the Kubi Knives DC Blades site. Now, DC Blades is a partnership, a collaborative knife design partnership company between Tier 1, that's Justin of Tier 1, and Old Squirrel Knives. And they've designed some really cool knives together.
[40:39]And Justin is a stand-up guy. You might know his channel, Tier 1 Gear Reviews. He's a really great guy. He's been on the show before and also just an outstanding and prolific designer. And he's been very generous with me in terms of, well, he gave me this knife, but also opening my eyes to other designers and helping me with thinking about knife design. But in this case, I wanted to show it off because of where that tip is. The tip rides above center line, and most Pical knives do that. They'll have that hawkbill-shaped blade, but it will be angled in such a way that the tip is higher than the center line. And why is that? I'll show you on the main camera. Pical knife is intended to be held like this with the tip down and the edge in. You can carry it however you want You can use it like this to open up packages But the intended purpose Is as a fighting tactical knife And when you hold it like this It puts the tip.
[41:43]Right where it needs to be in a back fist. If you're holding it like this, bang, and you thrust it out like this, it puts that tip in a place where it's going to enter into your target without having to change the angle of your wrist. So I am giving this its own category, and it's the Picall category. It is admittedly Hawk Bill adjacent, but a lot of different blade shapes are other blade shape adjacent.
[42:14]So we're going to see that right here, because here we have a Kukri blade shape in the Knight Elements. So designed by Jason Knight, this one was released by Elements and produced by Fox Knives. Now you can just get them from Fox Knives. I think Elements is no longer a part of this, but it is a Kukri all day long. We can see that from the handle, sure, but we can really see it in the blade. A downward arcing recurve with the tip way low, much like the Nepalese fighting knife that the Kukri soldiers carry or the Gurkha soldiers carry.
[42:54]So in this, we have a deep slasher, an excellent chopper. Now, this is a folding knife, so it's not going to do too much chopping, but it's got that recurve. And I'll show you how it differs from the next one, which I'm about to show you. And I'll show you right now because they are very adjacent. And this is just a recurve. This is the amphibian from Microtech. If you viewed last week's show, last week as we're recording this, I talk all about recurves. And I show these two knives, but they are different. They take advantage of that recurve shape which draws material into the cutting belly right here because of that that initial curve but in this case it puts the tip in this case being the microtech amphibian just the standard recurve it doesn't put the tip way down low yeah it's it's low but we're looking at an arced overall handle so really it's a center line point with a deep descent and a recurve. So I just defined it using its own term. That's not, you can't do that. So, but it does have that portion here that draws material into the belly. It's just the tip placement and the overall arcing of the knife are different. So we have a kukri here and we have a recurve here.
[44:20]And I posit that having.
[44:24]Serrations on the recurve portion of the knife makes it extra wicked yes that's a technical term extra extra wicked love this knife too the microtech amphibian was originally a super super rare bird first came out in 2006 and saw very very very limited custom release like you have an original amphibian that's pretty amazing but now they're available widely they have been for about a year uh with their ram lock bar lock and man alive it is so good it's so good and on the on the let me put it this way it's it's less expensive than that super cool we i was talking about uh during um knife life news all right next up now this is also kukri and recurve adjacent and and i'm i'm i'm i'm coining this term i'm calling this a reverse recurve that's right baby Reverse recurve Now some people call it an S-curve Blade this is the Black Talon 2 we've also seen This blade shape in a less robust Version In the.
[45:36]Patriarch the Spyderco Patriarch And the Matriarch, Um, and, uh, it, it really, it, it was a knife design originally arrived at by Spyderco. It was commissioned by the South African government in the early nineties when a lot of rapes were happening and they wanted a knife that they could, uh, uh, sell for self-defense that required absolutely zero training. And so you can see intuitively why this very funky looking blade would require no training. All you have to do is be able to grip it and swing your arms and someone's getting hurt.
[46:14]It's got a very, very downward pointing tip, which makes it virtually impossible to thrust with. You can peck with it percussively like a drumstick, but it's not a thruster. So if you're someone who practices with knives and you do a lot of thrusting, as I happen to do, you have to change your mindset when holding this knife. But i would argue that the knife itself and the blade shape itself just uh intuitively gets you to make that change why do you call it a reverse recurve bob well because the belly happens first and the recurve happens second right at the point uh when you look at i'll use the the kukri because it's the most extreme recurve i have here uh it's opposite you start with the recurve and with the, continue with the belly and then have a relatively upward pointing tip or at least a tip you can use in the thrust on the reverse recurve that we see in the patriarch the matriarch and the black talent too uh the tip is pointing down because the recurve is coming second and the belly first hey uh potato potato tomato tomato they're both devastating um what would i rather go up against um.
[47:31]Stupid question, so I'm not going to answer it, but they're both just nasty, just looking at them. And the serrations on the Black Talon 2, you can get the Black Talon 2 with or without serrations. But if you're already getting a knife this nasty and gnarly, why not just go all the way? Go full Monty and get the serrations on your recurve if possible. I have a couple of Vaqueros by Cold Steel, the beautiful recurve Yadagon, and I have that with serrations.
[48:03]And it's just like, you know, I don't know. What are you going to do against that? Absolutely nothing. All right, let's shift gears to a very, very different style blade. We're talking daggers. And to me, to really be a dagger, it's got to have two edges. But really, Dagger is talking about the symmetry. And this is a symmetrical Dagger design. Well, all Dagger designs are symmetrical, but this is fully symmetrical in that it's double edged. You know, can it really actually be symmetrical if it doesn't have a top edge? No, I say. But this is the Arcane Designs antimatter. This is the other one in this list made by Riat Knives. But but as an oem for arcane this is such a good knife now this one i think is really catch as catch can i'm not sure if they've released one of these in a minute but um this is one of my favorite knives because you don't see too many double-edged daggers you've got the arch nemesis from sharp by design good luck a finding one and be affording one uh you have the hinderer uh.
[49:18]Barton what was that called uh also good luck finding one and then if you find one good luck affording it uh but that was a double-edged dagger that i slept on and i was like i'll wait till it comes out with with bearings what an idiot what an idiot now you can't find them and if you do it's always the bayonet grind which is not double-edged but you can find a lot of daggers in your out the fronts but this is not what we're talking about uh because that's low-hanging fruit this is not um but anyway the the dagger the dagger shape what is it great for it's great for in this case you've got a belly uh and in many cases you'll have hollow ground edges so you can do pretty much everything with it you can slash in both directions cuts both ways like a bowie and uh but at the tip you have those quad uh grinds those those four bevels coming together in a diamond shape so it's stout for for thrusting and stabbing and it gets in there real easily because it's it's like one big swedge all all all four sides sharpened and beautiful um pretend i didn't say that last part this knife is a difficult one to close not difficult one but one you have to remember uh you've got two edges so you don't want to put your finger on the spine because it's very, very sharp.
[50:43]But as soon as you get the hang of that, this hand does not work so well these days, that thumb.
[50:48]But you can just kind of close it like that because it's on bearings and it will just drop.
[50:53]Lots of daggers come in different shapes. Oftentimes you'll see them with straighter edges and those straighter edges make it better for thrusting, but not so great for slashing. I like the kind that have both, like think of this knife or think of the Randall number two or the Taipan from Cold Steel. You've got nice, nice bellies And you have hollow ground edges So whatever you lack in long bevel for a slashing and slicing You kind of make up for it with the hollow grind and the bellies So I really like daggers I really like daggers Next up is a Persian The Persian knife I have only a couple of Persian knives Now this is by far the most exquisite, um this is from herman knives this is the herman knives ishtar herman knives is a polish custom knife company and they just make exquisite stuff they're they're custom kind of like um.
[51:55]Well they don't uh i don't i don't know if they're actually custom i don't know if you can call them and order what you want but but they're custom quality they they they're all one-offs and they're beautiful this one has a gravel road texture is what i like to call it on that high voltage green anodized titanium handle it is a um a liner lock and you have this really cool feature here on the beautiful uh clip where there's a trench dugout underneath it um to make it nestle in the pocket even better and hassle your pants less really nice uh really nice backspacer here but really the star of the show is that Persian blade. So a Persian blade has a continuous belly from stem to stern and a curved spine, putting the tip above the thumb or above the spine of the handle.
[52:46]Great on horseback for slashing. As you ride by your adversary with a big curved sword, you get a lot of slashing action with that curve. A lot of, not slashing action, but depth of cut with the curve. Well, the same thing happens here in a smaller format.
[53:08]Some people don't like Persian blades because of where it puts the point. It puts the point in a spot where it's maybe not as convenient for some utility tasks like, say, drag cuts. I'm going to go over here. Like if you're cutting open a box, it might not put the tip where you want it. But let's face it, if you can't open up a box with a Persian-style blade, you're doing something wrong. And there are very easy fixes. But I get it. If you're cutting them open all day long, you're going to want a wharncliffe, which will be featured here shortly. So this is the Persian. And there are a couple of great Persian knives out on the market besides this Ishtar. And I'm thinking of the Cold Steel, the Cold Steels. And also there's a Spyderco and some really, really great and robust knives with that shape. But that sweeping, that upswept belly with the high tip, just great for slashing. Also great for outside thrusts. In the style I learned, it's what is it? The seven and the eight. So you're coming from that side or coming from this side. It really does put the point in a place where it follows the arc of your arm. So a lot of people don't think of Kukris or Persians as thrusters, but they really are. They can be incredible thrusters. It just depends on your angle.
[54:34]Next up, the simple and humble drop point. In this case, I'm showing it off on the Ritter Hogue RSK Mark I. RSK stands for Ritter Survival Knife and the Mark I.
[54:50]Originally, these were OEM'd by, you know, designed by Doug Ritter and OEM'd by Benchmade back in the day. Those were called the Ritter Grips, the Ritter Griptilians. Those went away many years, a number of years ago at this point, almost 10, and was picked up by Hogue as the OEM, and they really took it and ran. I think they made it a better knife. They elongated the handle slightly. This is an auto version. This is way beyond the Ritter grip at this point. They've done so many different things to it, but automatic in this case, a nicely contoured handle with the radiating sunburst pattern. But the drop point blade is a universal, like most of your knives are drop points. And so they can have a lot of different shapes. But what it's referring to is the spine has a dip to the tip, a drop point.
[55:41]It can be like this, where the point is center line or maybe even slightly lower. And that drop is precipitous. or it could be like barely perceptible, like in the SE models, all the SE hungless models and SE 3, 4, 5, etc. Those are all drop points, and they almost don't look like it because the drop is ever so slight, but universally useful. No swedge oftentimes on a drop point, not always, But think of the Wii we were just looking at in Knife Life News. But for outdoor knives, I really like a drop point without a swedge. If you like to baton wood and make kindling that way, you're not going to chew up your baton. Yeah.
[56:30]But you still get that straight, the considerable straight edge with the belly and then the lower than spine tip drop point.
[56:43]Can take many, many shapes. This to me is the most emblematic right here. The Ritterhogue. All right. Next up, this is a sheep's foot. And a sheep's foot is not a wharncliffe, is not a kiridashi. This is the sheep's foot by, this is American Blade Works. And, oh, I skipped over one. We'll come back to that in a sec. This is marked by a straight spine and then a precipitous drop to the tip, but after hitting an angle. So right here, you'll see this a lot. You see this more in slip joints. And what it is, it's great for utility. You have a perfectly straight edge that maybe unintuitively or anti-intuition, you're really maximizing the cutting and slicing capability with a straight edge because it engages the material to the very tip. A recurve will accelerate a cut and like that, but having that straight edge and then the tip, as your arm is arcing through a cut, you're constantly presenting the material until you get to the tip. With a recurve, you have diminishing returns after you hit that belly. Here, you do not.
[58:10]Talk about excellent for utility. The sheep's foot is that. It is a little less stabby than a couple of the adjacent designs we're about to show, but for utility and for pull cuts and for slicing, it is an outstanding blade shape. This knife, the American Blade Works Model 2, is an outstanding knife. You've got this really nicely milled handle here with sort of racing stripes. The thing overall to me looks like an Art Deco masterpiece. It's a beautiful knife closed. Let me show it this way. Beautiful knife closed and a high performer made by a singular person. These things are super duper awesome.
[59:00]Uh and also very well researched are the american blade work knives all right next i'm going to the wharncliffe which i may have shown i should have shown first because a lot of things get called a wharncliffe but this is an actual wharncliffe this here is the prototype i cannot wait till this comes out wide i think everyone should pre-order one this is one of my favorite folders period uh the pinkerton standoff dirk pinkerton a huge fan of his designs and the man himself great guy but a wharncliffe is a continuous drop it's got a fully straight edge and it has a continuous curved drop from the handle to the tip an uninterrupted curve so that is a true wharncliffe we see them mostly in slip joint knives you'll see a lot of fixed.
[59:50]Blade knives and folders like this called wharncliffs but they're not really wharncliffs or they're modified, quote-unquote. But it's really great to have a true Warncliffe on an outstanding titanium frame lock folder. You have a 3.7-inch blade, so a nicely-sized blade. It's a flipper. It's got a fuller. On the production model, it'll have a sharper-shouldered fuller so you can easily middle-finger flick it. This one I can do with momentum and surface tension, uh but but not really uh the um prototype fuller was not quite milled out for that purpose um but a beauty this thing is you know it it really walks the line between tactical knife and utility blade and that's Dirk Pinkerton's design philosophy if I can if I can say that He's never come right out and said that, but to me, every one of his knives are equally excellent and equally suited to utility and to fighting and self-defense. Again, you get the benefit of the straight edge always presenting to the audience.
[1:01:05]With the arc of your arm it's always presenting the edge to the material and then with that tip down there just a nasty slasher and gouger all right next up is also a wharncliffe adjacent and that's the kira dashi a japanese utility blade this is also a pinkerton design but this is made by asymmetrical this is the asymmetrical contact and it it had a lot to do with my inspiration for making my own tactical kira dashi uh edc kira dashi with uh matt of hogtooth this this has a uh straight spine a straight drop at uh to the tip but it has an upward facing uh upward raked edge so that that edge is straight and you get all the benefits of that but also it puts the point in center line as opposed to, I'll show it off of this as opposed to down low. So you can see how both of them have their spines flat. But the wharncliffe keeps the edge flat all the way to the tip. Whereas the kyridashi style ascends to a center line point.
[1:02:23]So, yeah, maybe splitting hairs here, but I thought it was necessary to break out the kyridashi versus the wharncliffe versus the sheep's foot. So sheep's foot, a little more of a rounded and blunted point.
[1:02:38]The wharncliffe, a continuous curved descent from ricasso to tip on the spine with a flat edge, and then the kyridashi with the ascending flat edge to that point. That's in the center line this is a great knife by the way i can't wait to see um beyond edc and asymmetrical uh come back online their stuff is really awesome all right second to last and penultimate here is the cleaver style blade this is one of like this is just about the only one i have uh this was given to me by an awesome guy who frequents thursday night knives thank you very much sir and he also gave one to his son at the same time who also loves it but that's a cleaver i don't need to say much about it it's a chopper it is a uh but it has the benefit of a slight belly and a very low slung edge um so you can use this against surfaces like cutting boards or you know a log or whatever you use i've seen someone using this in a bushcraft video now i I don't remember who it was, but it was obviously it was obvious to me something given to that guy by the company because not something you would imagine as a bushcraft knife. But, yeah, he used it to a to to great effect.
[1:03:59]So Cleaver has that Cleaver edge, the totally blunt tip, a flat, straight, almost 90 degree down flat tip that you're not going to be stabbing with. You could peck with this. You could do something with that tip. But this is all about the cutting, the slicing and the chopping.
[1:04:16]And that is a cleaver blade. Love this. This is the Sentry L1 from O-Knife, another company that makes some pretty, pretty awesome folders that came basically out of nowhere. I know they came out of the, they came out of the flashlight company. All right last one here is the chris and last week when i was talking recurves i called the chris a re-re-re-curve because for obvious reasons i wasn't trying to be cutesy either it really is a re-re-re-curve you get the benefit of three recurves and then a hawk bill at the tip if the chris is done properly it has a downward descending tip so you can take advantage of that in a slash like a hawkbill knife or a karambit. This is a very difficult knife shape to produce. Some people forge them out. Grinding them out is no easier. That's why I was so impressed when Cold Steel came out with all their consumer...
[1:05:16]Criss models i say consumer because um you know you could presumably come out with a sword version of this and charge a whole lot of money for it because uh it's a difficult blade to make but they really dialed in mass production of the chris in this blade the six inch version of this tie light and then also the voyager version of the chris great knife it's not just to look cool uh the flamberge the european broadsword that had uh this many many many tight curves uh they act like bread knives they're they're like they're like uh those undulating bread knives that just zip through loaves um this will zip through whatever else you're you're going after of course it's a tactical style it's based on combat and so it's a nasty nasty slashing knife nasty cutter and uh When in a thrust, those waves open up the wound channel, something nasty.
[1:06:18]All right. Thank you so much for joining me on this walk down 15 blade shapes street. I love each one of them. They all have their different purpose. Of course, they all cut, they all thrust, but some of them excel at one. Some of them excel at others. And all of them are great to have in a collection. Be sure to check out your favorite blade shapes, figure out what you like them for, and see if you want to diversify your portfolio. All right, that does it for me. Be sure to join us on Thursday for Thursday Night Knives. Not this week, of course, if you're watching this as it drops, as it's Thanksgiving, and I plan to be sleeping on the couch. 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. For show notes for today's episode, additional resources, and to listen to past episodes, visit our website, thenifejunkie.com. You can also watch our latest videos on YouTube at thenifejunkie.com slash YouTube. Check out some great knife photos on thenifejunkie.com slash Instagram and join our Facebook group at thenifejunkie.com slash Facebook. And if you have a question or comment, email them to bob at thenifejunkie.com or call our 24-7 listener line at 724-466-4487. And you may hear your comment or question answered on an upcoming episode of the Knife Junkie Podcast.
[1:07:46] Music