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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
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Transcript

[0:00]Coming up, the new one from David Kam and Orion Knives. I get a Malaysian Golok, Malaysian perhaps, from my brother Vic, who's so awesome. And then my favorite folders, Autumn 2024. 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.
[0:32]Welcome back to the show one of my favorite comments this past week this is actually two comments combined because the commenter went back and added some more uh and this we were talking about super steels here he says i've noticed the opposite with super steels maybe cutting one material exclusively is where people see a boost in edge retention but in construction i cut a variety of different materials and notice no benefit to super steels and actually they're a hindrance because i can't touch up the edge quickly like i can with something like a well-done d2 even just looking at my knives my k390 knife is unrecognizable because i've sharpened it so much whereas a sog in cryo treated d2 is like new because a simple strop brings it right back to shaving sharp i'm kind of thinking the whole super steel thing is a scam really says just me 8060 and uh that's one of my favorite comments because i don't have the the day-to-day use case that just.
[1:36]Me uh 8060 has but i've always kind of thought maybe there maybe there are diminishing returns to having super high edge retention in in knives for some reason but he brings up a really interesting point maybe it's in maybe it's with people who cut the same material over and over and over and over that they notice the edge retention in something like m390 but otherwise you have to sharpen it and like he says you can't just have a strop in your bag and strop it back to back to normal real quick like you can with d2 so kind of an interesting conundrum super steel versus non-super steel and.
[2:15]You know, we know that super steels do have some superior qualities, but maybe going back to basics could be the way to go with a basic chore, like cutting. And that's what knives are for, cutting. My second comment was from HarryWithCigar217, and this was purely self-interest, but he says, Bro is the coolest dad ever. He's talking about me, and it's in that video where I'm talking about the swedge, how you can use even a dull swedge to affect a pretty nasty back cut. And I don't know how my being a father came up from that comment, but I decided I would just take it and not question. So bro is the coolest dad ever is one of the coolest comments ever. Thank you, Perry with Cigar 217. All right, that said, let's now get to a pocket check. What's in his pocket? Let's find out.
[3:12]Here's the knife junkie with his pocket check of knives. In my front right pocket today, I had the absolutely beautiful Warncliffe. This is a prototype from Dirk Pinkerton. This will be coming out under his own shingle. This is the standoff.
[3:29]Just an absolutely incredible knife. He sent me this as a prototype to check out and give him feedback on. I gave him the feedback, and I kept dragging my feet on sending this back. And I'm not saying this was a tactic, but he came back and said, just hold on to it.
[3:47]And so I am, and I love it. It's a true wharncliffe, meaning it's got a perfectly straight edge, a point down by the knuckles, and then a continuously descending spine. So it's a continual curve. It looks kind of like a wharncliffe, like a traditional wharncliffe on a traditional slip joint knife. This thing is awesome. This morning is the only time I really use this. I cut a bunch of zip ties. As I was leaving for work this morning, I noticed that we still have all of our Halloween stuff up. And I hate decorations up after the occasion. So I went around and cut all the zip ties. My wife is a great decorator, and she makes sure that everything is battented down. So I did that with this, and it zipped through. With that S90V blade, it zipped right through. Full flat ground, I'm sorry, saber ground with a fuller and a flipper. And that fuller, I know that when he goes to make the final, when he turns this into a production knife and not just a prototype, that's one of the very few things about this that will change. That fuller will have sharper edges to engage the finger easier for opening. Really cool. I love how the lock bar cut is curvy to follow the chamfering of the contours of the handle.
[5:12]Just a great knife. I've been carrying this one a lot. And I carried it today. I loved it. There we go. Yeah, and it really cuts. It's awesome. I love that straight edge. And for cutting big, thick zip ties, because we had some big, thick, like overkill zip ties on some things. And you just kind of slide it in, and you just turn it. You don't have to cut or, like, saw or pull or anything. to stick it in there and just turn it on its axis under the zip tie and it pops immediately. So that thing was doing great work. This is another great working knife, even though it's so fancy and let's face it, expensive.
[5:55]This Jack Wolf Knives Bionic Jack is really a killer knife. It's based on the Cyborg Jack contours in terms of handle, and that is an original Ben Belkin design. That's an original Ben Belkin pattern. So Ben Belkin, who owns Jack Wolf Knives, designs all the knives and has a very, very deep knowledge of traditional slip joints. He has a very, very incredible collection of both production and custom slip joint knives. And out of all that knowledge and passion, he designed this really cool, well, a pattern with the angular sort of trapper handle that fits the hand so well. Even though it's got relatively sharp angles and straight edges, it feels awesome in hand. And then that really interesting, long-swedge, upswept California or Turkish. I don't know what you're going to call that clip point.
[7:01]You don't spell it, son. You eat it. So a full hollow grind there and a hand-rubbed satin. Just a great knife. I've been carrying this one in my back right pocket, as all great secondary locking blades deserve that.
[7:20]S90V? Did I mention that? No. I don't think I did. S90V blade steel. So that's two of them right there. S90V. Thirdly, on me today, I had the Agent 001 from T-Kell Knives, and I'm spoiled. I have two double-edged versions and one single-edged version. I never carry the single-edged version, but the double-edge I change according to how I want to carry. Today I wanted in the waistband over here at the 3 o'clock, so I chose this one with the woodland burl G10 handle. The one with the purple burl G10 handle is set up for a horizontal carry on the front of the belt. And today, I was too exposed for such carry, so I went with this.
[8:07]You know, I don't know. I don't have much to say about it. I love this knife. I think it's one of the coolest knives I've ever seen. But I am, you know, I co-designed it and this was my idea. So this knife is very close to my heart. I carry it all the time. I love it, and I love T-Kell knives and how Tim interpreted this and how he tweaked the handle to make it perfect and how he worked to make that distal ridge between the upper edge and the bottom edge follow my drawing. So I highly, highly recommend that knife or all T-Kell knives. They are just super awesome. He's a great dude, and he really, really makes some freaking awesome knives.
[8:56]All right, and lastly on me today was my emotional support knife. This one I haven't carried for a while, but I had it on a road trip with me recently to Ohio, so it's been kind of banging around my pocket. This one was just around today. It didn't really have a special place. It was floating around my front left, front right, and then it ended up on my desk. Got a lot of play uh this this knife i keep that um blue uh what do you call a snaggletooth mf on there that's like a wave pocket opener an aftermarket wave pocket opener from snaggletooth and i keep that on there because in the winter time this goes on the inside in the inside pocket of my winter jacket and if i ever have to pull it out like sure you can have my wallet and i reach into my inside pocket to give them the wallet. I do have the option to grab that, automatically open it with the snaggle tooth tactical and then stab the guy in the throat. But chances are I wouldn't do that because I'm just not that guy. But I have that knife in that position all winter long for that reason, honestly. And I do keep the snaggle tooth on there so it can just open up without having to fuss with it.
[10:12]So that's what I had on me. What did you have on you? Let me know. Drop it in the comments below. I had the standoff prototype from Dirk Pinkerton. And when that comes out for pre-order, I will be talking all about it like I have been up until now. I had the bionic jack from Jack Wolf Knives. I had the T-Kill Knives Agent 001 double-edged last-ditch fighting knife.
[10:40]And then, of course, I had the awesome, I would say the awesomest bench made, in my opinion, right here, the bug out with my Alan Putnam scales. All right, coming up, let us get to Knife Life news. But first, a message. Check this out. Adventure Delivered. Your monthly subscription for hand-picked outdoor, survival, EDC, and other cool gear from our expert team of outdoor professionals.
[11:14]You're listening to the Knife Junkie Podcast, and now here's the Knife Junkie with the Knife Life News. First up in Life Life News is a new one from We Knife called the Archeozoic. Oh my gosh, we could start this from the very top. Joining me for Knife Life News, we're going to talk about We Knife, the Archeozoic. Archeozoic. And this sucker is beautiful. And something I really like about it is it's hearkening back to the very beginnings of We Knife when all their knives had the four-inch blades. That first 600 series, they were all bigger knives. And then over time, they kind of got the drift and brought their size down a little bit, probably to resonate with the American market. But this one, which is from an in-house, their in-house design team, is a full 4-inch blade here. So this beautiful thing is a 4-inch drop point.
[12:14]It's M390 blade steel with a really cool and kind of signature thumb swale on the spine. Obviously, your thumb is supposed to go in that little notch. For indexing and for any sort of power cut, you're going to be using your thumb on the spine. I got to say, personally, I like the way it looks. I don't like to be hemmed in like that, but I appreciate the design flourish. This is flipper only. It's got a nice low-profile flipper, and it is a titanium frame with a nested bolster lock. And I had never heard of that term until I read this Knife News article. A nested bolster lock is kind of like a bolster lock slash liner lock. So you got the bolster, full bolster on both sides, but on the inside...
[13:08]They've taken part of the metal and split it off as the lock. So you don't really see it from the outside. So I'm not exactly sure to be 100% honest with you how that differs from a liner lock with titanium bolsters. But I think it's because the bolster and the liner, which is the lock, are of the same piece of metal. And that's just pure speculation. So maybe we'll find out more from we as we go on, but from what was written in this article, that's what I've gleaned. By the way, I love the shape of that handle. It reminds me of the SOCOM series from Microtech, or it reminds me of the Scorpion from Off-Grid Knives. Just like contoured but neutral at the same time. It offers various swales for the fingers to nest in, and it's got that sort of semi-coffin coffin-shaped pommel.
[14:08]So ergonomic but pretty neutral pretty nice looking knife here I find that we knives this is personal taste myself we knives are a little too fancy for my taste but when things drip down to Civivi or Sencut they're kind of right in my wheelhouse and I think it goes the opposite direction sometimes to test stuff out with the less expensive knives and then elevate them to more expensive Wii models in the future. All right, next up is from CRKT. I'm not sure how to pronounce this knife. There are a couple of knives in this article, but there's only one I want to talk about. It's the Xolotl, fixed, X-O-L-O-T-L.
[14:56]Xalakal i don't know uh but it it was a knife that came out as a folder uh a long i'd say two two years ago in the a forged for war series from crkt and if you don't know what that is forged for war series is a series of knives designed by combat vets combat veterans uh who, have designed knives, and they go through the process. So this is a fixed blade version, and looking at it, at first I thought it was a folding version, but this is a fixed bladed version of the Zolitol.
[15:33]Which was a pretty big dagger-ish flipper that they came out with a couple of years ago. This is the fixed blade version, 4.53 inches of SK-5. SK-5 is a steel, a high carbon steel, I believe, that we don't hear much about, though cold steel has used it a lot in their days. I have an SK-5 Trailmaster, I believe. But SK-5, great steel for fixed blades. I think it's a very tough steel. But this one, of course, is a dagger, and they fulfilled the promise of a dagger-shaped blade in this one and gave it two edges. Not impressive for a fixed blade knife but like i said when i first saw this i was like oh the handle is much wider than the blade and it looks like a folder right it does uh the way the scales come up past the integral uh quillians and everything this looks like a folding knife that's why i thought initially another folding double-edged dagger but now i'm.
[16:38]That's not what this is. But it's pretty cool nonetheless, because I do like that profile. And I love that it comes with three Veth serrations, those big, long, scooped serrations angled back towards the user that are just, it's like having three little recurves right there on your blade. This is full tang, G10 slabs, Kydex sheath, the full godilla. We're not sure when this is going to be coming out, though. I think they put it out as coming soon, in quotes.
[17:11]Next up, from Civivi, or as we Italians say, Civivi. We don't really. The Pyrus. This is a cool one. This is from Ostap Health, who is a very prolific Polish designer. We see a lot of his stuff in real steel. But this one from Civivi is really cool. It's a karambit-inspired mini slip joint. So a very small hawk-billed slip joint with a ring. And yes, if you were wondering, your finger fits just barely into that ring. So that tells you how small this whole affair is. You can see that it's got a spring clip circumnavigating that finger hole. It's got a, check this out, 0.65 inch, so just a hair over half an inch, that blade is, of 14C28 in Hawkbill. And it's got a double detent with a little flipper, which if Jim scrolls down, we can see the little flipper thing.
[18:16]Reversible wire clip. And then this one is, quote unquote, coming soon. Oh, okay. Thank you, Jim, because that also reminds me, this comes in both a g10 which we saw up on top and a carbon fiber model which we see here in the one that um, reveals the flipper tab. Though they have different handle materials, they maintain the same 14C28 and blade steel across the two models. This again is coming soon, but they showed this off at Blade Show West, so I think that's a pretty good promise that it is coming soon. Lastly, this one really got my attention when I saw someone's video on it, but it got my attention for two reasons. First of all, it's definitely a dedicated outdoor camp knife. I've been more interested in those kind of knives recently just because I've been trying to teach myself to get better with fire making and all those kind of outdoor activities. And this one looks like it would be great for that. This is called the Wood Nymph.
[19:24]Saucy name. Anything with nymph, I guess I'm down. This is a collaboration with Bushcraft Kelso, a famous online bushcrafter who I don't know from a hill of beans. However, maybe I'd like to get to know him because I like this knife and I'm getting more interested in bushcraft type stuff. What's bushcraft, Bob? Bushcraft is survival plus. That's how I see it. It's not just surviving, but it's surviving with a little bit of panache i'm going to take this squirrel and i'm going to create a waterwheel rotisserie and uh and i'm going to rotisserie this squirrel right next to the river you know that's like bushcraft on 11 but basically it's being able to survive and craft things for yourself in your survival situation whether that's traps or utensils or bowls or survival whatever this This little thing looks like, to me, this is, well, it's Pucco-inspired for sure, but it's also scalpel-inspired. This looks like the street scalpel from Topps, but with a bit more practicality added.
[20:36]It's sort of a woods scalpel, if you will. But I think it's pretty cool. The Woodnip, 2.5-inch drop point, 1095, as we come to expect. Though a lot of the smaller EVC knives that Topps makes are in 154 cm. If they think it's going to be right up next to your body, they make it in stainless. A very thin .09-inch stock for Topps. That's quite thin. Their knives average at about a quarter inch.
[21:07]And thin neutral handles. So if the blade reminds you of a Pucco, the handle probably reminds you of a Quaken or something like that. But overall together, they look beautiful.
[21:22]So that, like I said, the blade stock is thin and the handle is narrow. So they beefed up the micarta with multi-colored level scales, and they are contoured when you look at the dorsal down. And so that'll help it stay in your hands. I talk about this all the time with small knives. Like it's got to be small. It's got to be large on one dimension. Like really small folders, if they're fat, they fit in the hand even if it's only a three-finger grip. So this knife seems to do that. Leather sheath, nice small little leather pouch sheath, 3.2 inches available now. So go check that out. All right, still to come, we're going to check out two new knives that came across my desk that I received this past week. And then after that, of course, we're going to take a look at my favorite folders for autumn 2024. 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. And now that we're caught up with Knife Life news, let's hear more of the Knife Junkie podcast.
[22:47]I wanted to show you this. This is super cool. This is the new knife from David Cam and his Orion knives. And thank you, David, for sending this to me. And, oh, man, I felt bad because I think he thinks I was dropping him a hint because on Thursday Night Knives, he was there and he was commenting. And I said, oh, David, your new knife, I've seen it on a couple of people's channel. I love it. I love the sloped spine to the midpoint conto thing. I love the lock is right there on the pivot.
[23:25]And, you know, I was just he sent me one. So thank you so much, David. I wasn't fishing, but I'm not sending it back. So don't ask. This thing is awesome. I'm a big fan of Tantos. I kind of always have been. But recently, I think I've honed in or home honed in on what I really like about or which kind of Tantos I really like. In terms of looks, I like the Tantos with the high point, almost an upswept. But in terms of usage and actual reality, this is what I like. If you look at this Aries, of course, god of war.
[24:06]If you ask the Greeks, if you ask the Romans, it's Mars. But same dude, it's Aries here. And if you look at this, the point is right on the center line from the clip to the pivot to the point. It's right in the center line. So it's kind of got the point orientation of a dagger. So that means like no matter, you could be in the dark and accidentally have your edge up and not know it, but thrust and still have that tip where you want it to be. Now, if this is the case, you're probably drunk or something and you should probably put your knife away anyway. But if you don't know that your knife is upside down, that's something that I love about a center line point is that it's kind of always going to be in the same place, no matter how you have the knife.
[25:01]And since he's calling this the Aries, I have to believe that some of that comes into effect. This is a tactical knife. You don't call a knife Aries without it being tactical. You also don't put this kind of beautiful hollow ground, very thinly hollow ground 14c28 and edge next to a very thin but very flat and stout front portion without it being a little bit about self-defense, a little bit about tactical stuff. And also, like I said, you don't call it Ares. And then here it's got a sculpted clip material. I'm not sure. Sure, I'm betting it's titanium, what people usually sculpt clips out of. And it has a very nice G10 handle with great texturing. It's got this very interesting lock here. This is my first pivot lock knife. And I have to say, David Cam is a pretty freaking smart dude. He was making button lock flippers.
[26:03]I don't want to say before anyone because he wasn't, but his button lock flipper was up to par before almost anyone else's button lock flipper was up to par. David Cam, he doesn't get enough credit for that, I don't think. David Cam and Orion Nodds. With his second release, and now the name is escaping me, I'll think of it in a second, but a little clip point with the jimping right up on the clip. It was a nice wide, so a small knife with a wide handle made it easy to hold on to.
[26:38]And the button lock and the flipper, like I said, he got it down pretty much before anyone. Even before Civivi was knocking these things out by the tens of thousands, he had already nailed it. Anyway, David Cam, Orion Knives. You got to go check him out and check out Orion Knives. And this thing this is awesome and i believe like most of his knives this is sub 100 i believe and if it isn't well sue me or or ask for your your admission ticket back but i'm pretty sure this is about 85 bucks and the ergonomics are stellar it's very neutral but very comfortable and and And, you know, I was talking before, if your knife is upside down, if you have feeling in your hands, and I say that because I don't have feeling in my thumb, but if you have feeling in your hands, you'll be able to tell. Oh, okay, this is upside down. So worry not. This thing is really awesome. Don't know how I went down the upside down rabbit hole. But my favorite way to open it also is that reverse flip. All right, second up, this is one. I was just home for a funeral. And uh or for a celebration of life if you will my best friend his dad passed away and.
[28:00]It was a very nice occasion and it was cool to honor my friend's dad who was a i won't go into it but a super stud like they don't make guys like this anymore a very cool guy and i knew him growing up um but anyway while i was home uh after my brother and i got back from said celebration of life he gave me this and it is a i think malaysian indonesian something malaysian i'm not sure where this is from but it's a golok and it is so beautiful i got to do some research on it just pretty much got home from that trip that i think is a bone handle it's definitely not wood you can see how it's cracked here.
[28:46]And the shape of it is just beautiful and it's semi it's like translucent you can see light through it um and it fits in the hand perfectly like this now i don't know if it was intended to be held like this with a little bit of of the forefinger up on the blade or if it was kind of more like this with some of the pinky down on this rounded part or if this was just carried and used by someone with smaller hands than myself. But I have pretty medium-sized hands. It's not like I have big Goliath meat mitts here. So not sure. Not sure exactly. But they do.
[29:27]Malaysian knife and sword handles are usually pretty darn small. Very ergonomic and whatever. This thing is just super cool. Thank you, Vic. It's super sharp. It's really sharp and you can tell it has not been touched up by modern hands some of the swords on the wall behind me have been owned by people, after the original owner but before me and they've tried to sharpen them and they've jacked up the edges and you can see that from a mile away this does not have that and yet it's still super sharp, no point so it's funny because I've had this I'm going to go to the main camera for this I've had this and I've been doing a lot of like it feels good to just do carenza with it you know like the shadow boxing with the blade but a big part of that for me is thrusting and so with this I've had to like remember to just slash because it's a go lock it doesn't have a tip most go locks don't have tips they're squared off in this case it's rounded off.
[30:31]So a tool and a weapon, And really happy about this. And the sheath, by the way, is in better shape than most of the Filipinos slash Indonesians slash South Pacific swords and knives that I have. This sheath really stood the test of time. And I think it looks beautiful when the knife itself is sheathed. Really awesome. Thank you, Vito. I love my brother. He's the best. Not only does he give me cool stuff, but, you know, when I saw him this weekend, And I was like, man, Vic, I don't know what's up with me. And we had a great talk. And my brother's like, he's only four years older than me. He's seen a lot. And he's accomplished a lot. And it was great to see him. So if you have a brother, you have a sister, have any family, get in touch.
[31:24]Say hi. We'll be glad you did. All right. That said, on that sentimental note, let me just say, we do have a Patreon here. And it's a Patreon account of great acclaim and renown. Everyone knows about it. It's the best. It's the greatest. Everyone agrees. So become a Patreon, a patron right here. You can scan the QR code and check out the different kind of things you can get at the different tiers. Of course, the Gentleman Junkie gets entered into a monthly knife drawing. So check that out as well. The quickest way to do that is to scan the QR code on your screen or just go to theknifejunkie.com. I will repeat that complicated address again. It's theknifejunkie.com.
[32:13]And now, let us get to my favorite folders of Autumn 2024. Alright, favorite folders of Autumn 2024 are these. And I stipulated this in the title. It is autumn 2024. And these are the favorites now because these are the ones I've been carrying recently. Now, if I had to go through my entire collection and cull them down to, say, 12 or something like that, or even four, one for each season, since we're talking about autumn 2024, I would maybe have different things here. But these are some of the newer ones that I've had a hard time not adding into my carry and putting down. And I'll start with the most audacious because I got this end of summer and I got it in person, which meant a lot to me. I got this one at Willie Blades in Delaware. They've been on the show just recently. And I had been watching.
[33:14]Well, I'm always watching. What's his name? Tomas. What's his name? I know his name, Tomas Alas of Tactical Tavern. I love that dude. He's so charismatic, and his videos are so fun, and he's got the same taste in knives. He loves cool knives. And I saw him in one video going to town on a ballistics dummy with the traditional.
[33:34]Six inch tie light from 25 years ago and i've never had one and after that video i was like tomas great salesman sir i'm gonna go buy one of these and i did and it was at the willie knife shop that was nice to uh nice to buy it in person from two really stand-up people and i love this knife i don't know what took me so long it's kind of like it's kind of like uh it's kind of like i I was so punk rock, I wouldn't allow myself to get into Nirvana until Kurt Cobain died. And I'm like, okay, now I'll listen. You know, it was one of those things. It's like, I've been around Cold Steels for so long, I don't need to get a Tile 8-6. But man, I did. This one is an old school Aus 8 with the Griffery. And you have a super, almost two, if you ask me, almost two contoured handle. Like, I wouldn't mind it if these scales were flat, honestly. Because in aggregate, it almost equals a round handle. Of course, there are flat spots that will stop you. There are lightning holes and speed holes, etc., that will stop it from turning. But on the whole, I kind of wouldn't mind flatter because it would also make it thinner and easier to carry. But as it stands, this is a pretty damn easy giant knife to carry.
[34:53]At 6 inches, it's the easiest 6-inch cold steel I have to carry. Five and a half inches goes to the frenzy that thing is super flat that's what I'm talking about if this were had a similar handle to the frenzy I'd be even more excited but, this one has is one of the few cold steel liner locks and I gotta say I'm surprised no one else has ever picked up on this because they've been making this model forever and instead of just having a flat piece of steel come up to a come up to the tang of the blade. They take a flat piece of steel up to the tang of the blade and fold it over so you have double the surface area of lock against that blade. You have the vertical and the horizontal. And they come together at a 90 degree angle here. And I don't know, I could be wrong, but I think that that is superior strength in a liner lock. You might not get the same release and, you know, I don't know.
[36:02]Excitable you know drop shuddiness of some of the other knives but the fact that it comes to the tang at a right angle I would feel fine about jamming that into a ballistic dummy and not worrying about it fold on me, can't say that about all liner locks though, alright next one on the list this one I got in June and I carry the SHIT out of this man and I still am. Sorry, I just spelled it. That was... Immature of me. This here is the Eck Integral Folder by Les George and Alan Elischewitz. These dudes are two superlative knife designers slash makers and both former Marines.
[36:49]Let's see. Les George was an EOD guy, so he disposed of bombs and such, defused bombs. And Alan Elisiewicz was in Force Recon Which is Special Forces So two total badasses Who are now just making incredible knives Came together They both have a love of daggers They came together to make this very iconic Well, a folding version of a very iconic knife And I don't use the term iconic like the press I don't throw it around.
[37:23]Just because it sold 100,000 records You're not an icon But the Eck Commando Knife is. And so you can see some of the very similarities here in the handle and in the blade shape. The design cues are many and complete. And I absolutely love this thing. This is also my first integral holder. It has that integral backstrap there. On bearings, super great. Sorry, I forgot the first parentheses. It makes me look like a joker. But there should be one there I love the what do you call it, the fuller down the center and it widens out in the center of course making more rigid, super thin swedge up top makes this an extreme puncturer, great action and I love this integral build so I might have to get more in the future though right now I'm not so much in a folder acquisition phase, I'm very happy with the folders I have right now. Isn't that weird to say? Not so on the fixed blade. There are always more fixed blades to get, but right now.
[38:36]I'm feeling all right. Okay, so next up is Civivi. This is the Sentinel Strike 2. I've been carrying this thing all. I love this knife. So the Sentinel Strike 1, or the Sentinel Strike, we'll just call it, had the Warncliffe blade, the modified Warncliffe blade with the large opening hole. This one has a beautiful compound ground spanto-style blade. Of course, Spanto or Sponto is Rick Hinderer's proprietary naming of this type of blade. But what it is, is a drop point with a compound grind. So from here to here, you have a very thin hollow grind. And then it's kind of subtle, but right here you'll see that curve. That's where this deep hollow grind meets that thin flat grind to make the tip.
[39:32]And then, of course, you have that giant swedge on top. This is a very, I would venture to say that I like this better than the Sentinel Strike One and that overall, it's a better knife. The Sentinel Strike One is super awesome. Don't get me wrong. And I love it. But this one takes the cake. Aluminum construction with an integral fiberglass reinforced nylon back strap. So this is one piece. This green piece is one. It's part of the handle here. It's the full backspacer there, part of the handle there. And, uh...
[40:07]It's a cool little touch, and I'm wondering what kind of rigidity it adds to this, because this knife feels super solid, super stout. A great clip here, a reversible clip, attaches on the top with a very subtle tungsten ball there for breaking glass. You don't even feel it in reverse grip. That's the Savivi Sentinel Strike 2.
[40:33]Next up, I'll just mention this briefly because I waxed poetic earlier, but this one is definitely on the list. I think I got some much on there. That'll clean off. But this standoff is a prototype, but it won't be forever. Dirk Pinkerton has sort of, what do we want to say? He's starting to settle in on all of the changes that he has to make. All of the changes. That's one. I know that he's making one change. I had two, but I think the second one is a prototype issue and not a production issue. But yeah, this is great. My change, of course, was make this, the fuller, more sharp. So the fat of the thumb can grab on it to launch that blade open. And before I even mentioned it, Dirk said, oh, besides the fuller sharpness, what else does this knife need? And then I had one other suggestion, and that is it. And it was a very minor one. So Dirk Pinkerton's standoff, I've been carrying it a lot. You can't have it quite yet, but it'll be on pre-order soon. And I don't know who's OEMing this, but it's awesome.
[41:51]If I had to guess, if I had to guess, I'd say Riyadh or Bestak. But I don't have to guess, and I shouldn't speculate. All right, next up, this one was sent to me by the company, like, without any prompting. And I was kind of like, are you sure he sent this to the right knife junkie? That is so sweet. This is the Ishtar from Herman Knives. Uh absolute butter of a polish custom knife it's so nice okay so you've got that really cool m390 upswept persian blade uh this ishtar or yeah the ishtar comes with well no i i should okay the ishtar is with this blade there's another knife uh from herman that has this handle with a more Warren Cliffey blade, and then they have other models too, but the Ishtar. Okay, so anodized titanium in that high-voltage green. I know that that is a difficult color to achieve. You can see M390 on the blade, and this is number...
[43:04]506. So this has a serial number, 506. Proprietary clip, but I love this gravel road texture. That's my term for it, by the way. So if Herman wants to use it, they have to pay me. A gravel road texture. It feels great in hand. Looks cool as hell. And then you have this little trench dug out under the clips so some of your fatter or thicker gauged, material pants and jeans and such can fit under there still without having the clip come out there you can see, proudly made in Poland, we've got weight relief on both sides, this thing is outstanding I mentioned Ostap Hel before, he's from Poland. A number of great Polish knife makers and designers. And I personally used to love Polish movies. Krzysztof Kieslowski. I loved him and all of his 90s movies. And for a while I was in love with Juliette Vinoche speaking Polish because it sounds like French. I know she's French. Sounds like French a little bit. Also sounds like Russian.
[44:19]Very, very cool. Okay, next up is the tim kennedy folder the tfk1 from cold uh from emerson knives this was a knife that i traded for i traded my holdout my large six inch serrated holdout for this knife and this was my buddy ian who has uh who i used to train martial arts with and who more currently is teaching me stuff because he went way beyond me and got all sorts of certifications and is a 100% badass.
[44:54]I love that dude. He made this trade with me and I was like, this is a bad trade. As a knife guy, let me tell you, this holdout is Aussie and you could get a new one and we could still do the trade and I'd still owe you money. He's like, I don't care. I just want the Emerson out of my life and I want the cold steel in my life. I was like, and i don't like to argue with friends so give it over here uh this thing is awesome i love it four inch blade g10 handle as usual the full recipe 154 cm i say recipe that's the emerson uh production recipe they do different things of course for more special or more special knives but.
[45:38]This is from the first run of the production TFK1's Tim Kennedy Folders. If you don't know who Tim Kennedy is, he's a Green Beret, like a current Green Beret, as far as I know, who still goes on all these podcasts and was helping in North Carolina and did UFC fighting. He's just a general badass, luminary type. And I don't mean in the biblical sense I mean Luminary like he is a very smart guy he's like one of those people you go to when you need the expert opinion of a Green Beret or a UFC fighter or a pretty smart political thinker anyway none of that matters because this is the knife that bears his name, he said to Ernest Emerson I want to do a knife with you Ernest Emerson says it'll be you know combat ready where it's not going to be all fancy so if you want a fancy knife go somewhere else he said no I want this so and Tim Kennedy also said I want a slim, bowie knife style slim clip point and so that's what he got look at that thing reminds me of like a well a fighting bowie like the naches or the hell's bells just a long.
[46:59]Slender stabby bowie and really bowies are yeah they're great for slashing chopping and back cutting but really they're intended to be thrusting weapons, because you're not there to dance if you're in the knife fight on the sandbar you're not there to dance or to show off your moves you're there to survive and to kill your enemy and the quickest way to do that is with a thrust slashing is death by a thousand cuts that's what the Roman army learned when they adopted or fired all their pikemen who went around and stabbed the guys who were still dying on the battlefield, and they created the gladius so the Roman soldiers could just stab instead of slash and not have to pay all these dudes to kill all the guys that were left over on the battlefield. It's all a matter of economics. All right, next is probably, well, it's my favorite locking, flipping jackwolf, and it's the Benny. So this big dude is the folding locking equivalent of the Benny's clip, a knife designed by Ben Belkin as a tribute to Tony Bose and his Lanny's clip, which had this sort of stout wide trapper handle with bolsters and then a long swedge clip point blade.
[48:28]This one, of course, like all flipping locking jackwolves has a bolster lock of this thing. And then it's got the machine ground swedge. I'm sorry, machine ground nail neck. So you can just flick it open. You're like, aren't they all? Isn't the whole thing machine ground? It's a term. It's an expression. And now that I'm saying it, I'm not sure if I'm using it correctly. But nail necks, you know, have that half moon shape. And then when it's just straight, they usually call that a machine cut nail neck or whatever. So I'm not sure what you call that. But I do know it's an opening hole. And I do know it sort of emulates the nail neck concept.
[49:16]S90V, super thin hollow grind. And so sharp and beautiful. You got that machine grinder satin. And then you have lava flow carbon fiber. With a clip. If you don't like the clip, you want to throw this in the slip. Yeah, he's going to send you a filler tab with the whole knife. He's not going to send you a slip, though. All of the slip joints come with the leather slip. These knives are too big. So if you want a leather slip, you're going to have to do that yourself. Though I'm pretty sure you can do it on jackwolfknives.com.
[49:51]Been loving this thing. All right, next up, this one right here. You've been seeing a bit of this these days. This is the Mamba V3 from Off-Grid Knives. So you've got that modified wharncliffe or reverse tanto, whatever we're going to call it. And you've got a titanium handle. Now, this looks just like in terms of size and profile. It looks very, very, very similar to the Enforcer XL. Of course, that has a big giant pillar here topped with a, Glass-breaking cone, which extends the length of the knife by about a half inch. But overall, it's the same profile. Nice and thin as it goes for titanium here. You've got that golf ball patterning. Deep carry loop over pocket clip that's reversible with a filler tab, which I love. And the star of the show that gray cerakoted.
[50:59]Magna Cut Blade I was kidding Magna Cut Blade so I think that's the only Magna Cut on the table right now I've got a good number of knives with Magna Cut but this one lately, I think it's the combination of I've always loved the shape of the Mamba or the Enforcer But it was always waiting for a premium model I mean the Enforcer XL is so cool But it's a liner lock It's a little thicker It's G10.
[51:29]This is just I would feel comfortable Wearing this to a board meeting I'm not on any boards I cover a board I'd feel fine Carrying this in a nice suit Might be a little heavy It's pretty light, Being titanium But it's quite large So if it is, it does also ride very nicely, as I have learned in the waistband. The Mamba V3, check out the black Mamba V2. It's just like this with titanium and the golf ball texturing, but it's all black, and it's got a 3.25-inch blade. And I got to say, just that dip in blade length puts it in a totally different strata. It looks like a much smaller knife.
[52:15]This thing's a beauty. Definitely go check it out. All right, penultimate on the list is this one. It's gotten so much carry. I got pork grease on it, on the micarta there. This is the Dirk Pinkerton-designed artisan cutlery Kami. Kami is a K-A-M-I. Kami is a maker of kukris in Nepal, and that's an indication as to his influence. And if that's not enough, looking at the blade is a good indicator because you've got that downward swept spine. You've got that super recurve with the belly. It's pretty much a kukri holding kukri. A very nice handle brackets the hand with that great thumb placement and reverse grip. Very thin, full flat ground blade. This thing is a knife I've been carrying a lot, okay? But when I go to cut stuff with it, I'm always astounded at how freaking sharp it is, how easily it goes through any cutting task.
[53:27]Like tough pork chops, as you can see right here. Now, this one is the titanium and micarta and S35 version. You can get this in M390 and full titanium as well. But I, excuse me, I speculate or I, not speculate, I hold that this micarta version is better. It's just better. I like it better. And you see cool micro milling here on the champers, too. I thought I should tell you about. And on the clip. A great knife. The Kami is available. It went available not that long ago. I believe it was like last week. But I've been talking about it for a long time. I thought it was already out. We did a story on it here and now it is fully out. Alright, the last one in my list. This one actually resuscitated my love of folders. I've been very into fixed blades lately and this one, when I got it, when I saw it, I was like, okay, I'm willing to spend the money on this folder. This is the Microtech Amphibian.
[54:34]What can I say? The Microtech Amphibian. What a great knife. The blade reminded me a bit of the Commander by Emerson. So immediately endearing. I love a recurve. I love a belly. I love a big swedge. I love everything about this knife. So this one comes in this contoured and milled G10, but it also comes in an aluminum version. So exact same profile, exact same dimensions, but hewn in aluminum. This one, I opted for the G10. I have the all aluminum stitch kind of in the same series, and I wanted to try this with the G10. I gotta say I'm happy I got the G10 on this I really like the aluminum On my stitch I'm, But, you know, aluminum, like all metals, does take on the ambient temperature. So in the winter, it's freaking cold. And so, I don't know, sometimes it's nice to have a warmer material like this G10 or Micarta. This one has KM390. No, I'm sorry.
[55:49]M390 MK, which is proprietary M390 from Microtech. I'm not sure what they do to make it proprietary. But, I mean, I ask you, just look at that blade. And I opted for the serrations in this case. In the past, serrations have been a necessary evil. If I'm trying to get a model and all I can find is the serrated version, now I seek them out, depending. But definitely with Microtech, I love their serrations. How they're proud of the original edge is cool because that means they already decide before grinding and cutting out the blanks. They've already decided how many serrated models they're going to make, and they're serrated from before they even have an edge. At least that's what I speculate from how the teeth of the blade stand proud of the edge. Unlike your bench maids and other more pedestrian knives where you can see how there's the edge, And oh, way up there, that's the run of serrations.
[56:54]So Microtech Amphibian, I got to say, really did the job of reawakening my passion for folders. So these are my 10 favorite folders from autumn 2024. What are yours? Let me know. Drop them down below. Now, this doesn't mean that these came out in autumn. These mean during this month, this is what I happen to be grabbing. I could have, well, I do have some pretty old knives in this list. But most of them are new because I get new knives. I want to carry them.
[57:25]Tell me about your calculus. All right. Drop it in the comment below. 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.
[58:22]Music.