12 Ethnographic Folder Designs - The Knife Junkie Podcast (Episode 388)

©2023, Bob Demarco
The Knife Junkie Podcast
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Transcript
[0:00] Welcome to the Knife Junkie Podcast, your weekly dose of knife news and information about knives and knife collecting.
Here's your host, Bob the Knife Junkie DeMarco. Welcome to the Knife Junkie Podcast, the place for blade lovers to learn about knives and hear from the makers, manufacturers and reviewers that make the knife world go round.
I'm Bob DeMarco and coming up, we're going to take a look at a million year old axe factory, a new custom knife by Dirk Pinkerton and 12 ethnographic folder designs.
But before we get to any of that, I would like to get to the comment of the week.
I had a very interesting comment this week, kind of made me chuckle. And it might be a little esoteric, but it was on my traditional Filipino weapons made gladius, the gladius being the Roman legionnaire's sword.
And I was getting all flashy with it, showing off my kali. And kali, another term for kali is arnis, down in the Philippines.
It's a different more, you know, it's a little different from kali, but it's still stick and knife fighting basically.

[1:12] So I was doing my Filipino motions with this Roman sword, made in the Philippines and Keelan Miles says arnis is not the Roman way.
And I don't know, layers, layers of funny to me, because I've often wondered when I'm swinging, say, that Roman Gladius, or something that's not a Filipino blade, but I'm doing Filipino techniques,
I often wonder how different can it be?
You know, the arm is an arm, and it's attached to a shoulder on the same human body.
So how different can all of these worlds sword and knife fighting systems be?
And the answer is not much at all. Though the Romans had their techniques in their thrusting, but they had the way they fought with their.

[1:58] With their sword, but I prefer to take their traditional Roman sword, part of my personal genetics, and have it made in the Philippines and use my Filipino techniques. Anyway, all I'm,
saying is thank you, Keelan Miles, for the witty and interesting comment, and thank you, one and all, for all of your comments. It's always a pleasure to peruse them and cruise through them.
Alright, now I think it's time for a pocket check.

[2:28] Today in my front right pocket, I featured a knife that I haven't carried in a while. And you know what, frankly, I haven't carried it enough.
And that's my it was my first customer. No, it wasn't one of two custom folders I own at all.
And this was the second one I got. This is the attention to detail mercantile.
Mark 1 and this was I think Douglas Esposito's maybe second or third folder ever.
And this is not a dis in any way. It really shows. You can tell it is just not as refined. I mean his knives now are just super luxe and refined. Beautiful, beautiful things.
This is a beautiful thing. That's why I bought it. I was totally taken in with that natural micarta inlay. an inlay and that was all hand done, well that was done with a panograph. So kind of
hand done or at least done with a very very old machine and it got that inlay so beautifully precise. Now if you don't know what a panograph is I'm going to try
and explain it right now but imagine having a surface with a scribe that you can draw with and it translates it to a larger mechanical, it has a mechanical connection to a larger arm.

[3:49] Cuts things out. I mean, that's my vague notion of how it works. He showed me how it worked. And so you can scale things up, scale things down, and make things kind of exact. And that's a very
old school tool and a very old way of getting a beautiful inlay like this. So the inlay is really what sold it. It's a little rough around the edges. Literally, there's like, there's, you know, it's It's a little rough around the edges,
but such a beautiful knife and showed the promise that is now attention to detail mercantile folders.
Man, they're just beautiful, beautiful things.
And I hope to be able to afford one again, one of these days, but in the meantime, this one will do. What an amazing thin slicer this is.
That's a hollow ground blade. That's S35VN and a comfortable and interesting look that it's very ergonomic, feels great in hand, It reminds me a little bit of a Strider, though it doesn't look anything like a Strider.
It has the vibe and, I don't know, sort of the spirit of a Strider.
It also to me looks like an Italian yacht.
So that's another thing that really drew me to it. Because, you know, if I can't collect Italian yachts, I can collect knives that remind me of them.

[5:05] Okay, next up in my pocket was the little changes scenery. I went for the jack wolf knives of vampire Jack.
I love this one and I feel like I didn't give it enough attention or maybe what I should say is the two very bulbous bladed knives that came out the low drag jack and the canine
jack spear points really I was kind of in their thrall for a long time so when this one came out I didn't appreciate that more dagger like slender blade so I busted it out and I've been enjoying this one. And it also has this beautiful carbon fiber. There are hints of,
purple in there and, you know, this jack wolf knife goodness. This coffin-shaped handle, this was the October offering, the vampire jack, is very comfortable. I have to say that these
single-bladed jack wolf knives, as these traditional designs made in single-bladed versions,
designed by Ben Belkin have really got me to appreciate the ergonomics of these traditional designs because most of the knives I have, most of the traditionals I have, have more than one
blade in the handle, usually two or three, and the spines of those blades popping up outside of the the handle obscure the pure ergonomics of the design of the handle so if you have a.

[6:27] A rifle stock knife, what is that called? A gun stock knife, and you have a secondary blade folded in there, you're not going to feel the ergonomics of the handle. So hats off to Ben Belkin and all
of his work over this past year with these knives. They're incredible. And so that's what I had on me today in the front left pocket. In my waistband, I've had this nonstop. This is the Nova 1. This,
This is my collaboration knife with hog tooth knives.
The pre-order for this is imminent.

[7:04] Jim and I are working out the details on this. He's helping me out. And we're gonna release this information shortly. A beautiful sheath.
They will be numbered.
They will be maroon handled. Linen micarta with the liners.
And we're gonna move the jimping up forward so that you can use it when your thumb is up here on the spine of the blade like this.

[7:30] And we're going to take that Knife Junkie logo and reduce it in size. It's pretty large right here. But this is good. This is my prototype and I like the logo all big like that, but that's because it's mine.
A beautiful recurve on that. Slight recurve. Definitely a life extender.
This is not a radical recurve that will be difficult to sharpen, but it's a recurve that over the years as you sharpen this 154CM and use this knife, that very very very useful
hollow ground blade, when you sharpen and sharpen and sharpen over time, that belly will reduce but you'll still maintain a good useful belly because you started with a little bit extra, like many of us do.
Nice handle with that sort of anzo pattern in the center, really works well. I love it on my larger ruffian.

[8:24] And now on this smaller knife, I don't have those grooves on the tanto, though he frequently puts those in. I like them because they're comfortable. They give you a place for your fingers to sink into.
But also when you're changing orientation of the knife, changing the grip, they're great for that little pinch in the middle of the handle as you kind of twirl it around. So, just a great knife. I'm really excited to be offering this.
And it's my blade design and his platform.
It's the most comfortable, carryable fixed blade I've ever had. His Tanto that he made. So, if you don't know the story, I asked him, can we do one in a blade of my design and offer them to the audience of the show or whoever wants to buy them.
Very happily said, yes. It's called the Nova 1. And then if we have success with this, we'll do another blade shape.
That'll be the Nova 2 and so on and so forth. Okay in my pocket for emotional support today, which is an important role was the.

[9:28] Baby Rhino the off-grid knives baby Rhino. I just love this little baby You know how you know how parents you hear it?
Well mothers more often but once the babies are grown they start miss having babies around because they forget What it's actually like having babies around it is lovely babies are awesome,
but it is nice when they grow older and a little more independent, let's face it.
But this baby rhino, we got three of them in the house and they don't grow up, which is nice, and they also don't require education or food, which is also nice. This is the Coyote with gray wash. My wife has the full gray G10 and gray,
handle and then we also have the all black blackout. Such a great little useful knife. My wife uses hers all the time. Seems like Foxes come to the house all the time
and they rarely say Robert DeMarco on them, unfortunately. So she'll get after him with her little baby Rhino. That's been her thing. It's kind of... It's finally taken the jolt,
the old Kershaw jolt, out of its position of prime knife for her. Hey, and if you're going you're gonna have a prime knife and RJ Martin design prime knife is a good one.

[10:42] But let's face it the baby Rhino is a charmer and fun to play with and great to use. Alright that's what I had in my pocket today the A2D Mark 1, the JWK
Vampire Jack, the TKJ and the H Hogtooth Nova 1 and the off-grid knives baby Rhino. What do you have in your pocket? Let me know drop it in the comments below.
I always love to find out what you all are carrying and.

[11:08] And let's take it from there, take the conversation from there. Up next on the Knife Junkie Podcast, we're going to talk about a couple of very interesting stories in the the Life Knife News.
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[11:46] You're listening to the Knife Junkie podcast and now here's the Knife Junkie with the knife life news. Perusing the internet as I'm one to do. I came across an interesting article in Knife Magazine,
where some archaeologists discovered at this dig called Melka Kunturi.
Now I'm sorry if I'm butchering that, which I'm sure I am, but in Ethiopia they found an obsidian axe factory, a 1.2 million year old axe factory where,
they're making obsidian. Now factory meaning they found 578 individual unique obsidian tools and this is a quote staggeringly early example of obsidian,
shaping you know which I think is really cool I mean when you think about numbers when you think about time you know our government throws around the term
trillions like it's nothing trillion is incomprehensibly large but even 1.2 million when you think of the human race and how long we've been around.
That's another creature that was making that, something that we were derived from, perhaps, I don't know, depending on your belief, but 1.2 million years ago. That's a long time ago.

[13:04] So it seems that there was an industry for this in Ethiopia. So I think this is incredibly interesting. And by the way, Ethiopia was where the Greek gods would go to vacation. So maybe Maybe there's some connection there.
All right, not to totally, totally destroy the intellectual nature of that story. I will move on.
New Alabama made folder. This is interesting to me. Bare Edge, you know, Baron Sons?
They're in Alabama and they make all their knives in Alabama, as far as I know, including their switchblades, which I think is very cool.
No one really talks much about them, Baron Sons. I'm gonna try and get them on the show and talk about it.
They're making a bunch of knives in the United States. And this one just came out and I think it's very interesting. It's a steel frame lock with lots of beautiful milling and knurling on the handle.
It's got a very useful and let's say fashionable sheep's foot blade, looks kind of like a single blade.
Inexpensive, deep carry pocket clip, hollow ground. That's, what is it, 440 HC modified sheep's foot.
I think this is cool. It's made in Jacksonville, Alabama.

[14:16] We talk a lot about how there's no manufacturing here. There's very little manufacturing here, but this is a legit manufacturer. They're not a small batch house.
So I need to find out more about this.
Wanted to bring this to your attention?
See if it's of interest to you. The bare edge folder made in Alabama.

[14:33] Next up, this one's interesting from Fox Knives, a new multi-tool, but this time a knife-based multi-tool. We've seen Boker do this, we've seen, well, recently Medford has done it with their ASK,
American Service Knife. I love this. This is more my speed because I'm not much of a pliers user.
It's great to have Leatherman and those kind of plier-based multi-tools.
It's good to have one around, but that's not the kind of thing I carry on my person or need on the daily. And I realize a lot of people do, but I'm more of a knife-based multi-tool user.
So this looks exactly like the kind of thing I need, especially in the configuration right here. This is just announced. This has not been released yet, but they're going to be calling it the Vulpis.

[15:24] They're going to have two classes, N690 steel or M390 steel.
The N690 will have an aluminum body and the M390 you'll have your choice of titanium or carbon fiber.
You can get the wood saw, scissors, bottle openers, screwdrivers. But to me, it's like if it's going to knock the Victorinox out of its spot, it's got to have tweezers. It's got to have a toothpick and those scissors have to be on point.
So I'm sure they will. point. So I'm sure they will. We'll see Fox knives knows what they're doing. Can't wait to check that one out.
All right, Condor knives has dropped some of their knives, released some of their knives at Shot Show. I shouldn't say released. I should say announced. Some cool stuff. Interesting. You know, we know
Condor for their large fixed blade and machete like knives, but recently they've been dabbling with folders. So this first one, the Baby Cadejo. An FRN handled backlock with 420HC steel, little GRN.

[16:26] 2.13 inch blade, you know, not exactly my thing. Looks kind of like their version of a Delica or something like that. But the interesting thing is that they're flexing and they're reaching and
they're trying something else. Going beyond the high carbon steel and wood handles and going for for this FRN lockback sort of setup.
Interesting.
And let's see the Terracchi. This next one, this is a Joe Flowers design and it's his follow-up to the pterosaur.

[16:57] The Tarachi like machete. Tarachi. I don't know it's hard for me to pronounce but it's it's got the same sort of plastic handle and it's got a large beautiful leaf shape blade. It's 14.6
inches and compound ground so it's a little bit thinner. You can see like you can see a little bit of a different edge towards the handle. Well that's a little bit thinner so you can get up there and do some carving. Saw a cool video. I can't remember if it was KnifeCenter or BladeHQ but,
in their coverage of Shot Show, they talk with Joe Flowers.
And he talks about this one quite a bit. Cool, cool knife.

[17:32] Scrolling down, this one looks good to me. This is a 5.9 inch, 420 HC knife called the Patagon by a survivalist named Walter A. Matthews. I just think it's handsome.
I would love to see that swedge being fully sharpened. I don't know. Looks cool. Also looks a bit like a steak knife, especially with that handle. And then the last one I want to touch on
from Condor Knife and Tool is the Norse Dragon Cleaver. I have the Norse Dragon Sax, but this thing, so this has the same handle. I think it's goofy as all get out.
I don't know, look at it, tell me what you think. I think it's an ugly design for a cleaver, I think it's unnecessary.

[18:16] And you're like, Bob, why would you say that? And I would say because it's ugly. If it were cool looking, I'd say, OK, I can get with a Norse cleaver.
But it looks to me too much like it's reaching to be a regular cleaver. They should have pushed the sort of sax shape, but still made it a big, fat, bladed cleaver.
And I would tell them to follow me for more suggestions on their designs. So that's what we got coming from Condor, some interesting stuff.

[18:45] And then I mentioned this, but it bears mentioning on this show real quickly, Spartan Blades and Les George have a new Fairbairn Sykes dagger tribute.
The Fairbairn Sykes is that dagger right over my shoulder here.
So he's making, Les George designed a budget version. Okay. So if you know Spartan Blades, you know they're expensive and he's got a knife with them already, a dagger. I think it's the V14. That is like a $400 dagger.
This one is $150. That's part of why I'm so excited. But look at this thing. It is a beautiful dagger. It's got the perfect proportions, very much in line with the Fairbairn Sykes. 7-inch blade, that's
SK5 steel, part of why it's inexpensive. And those are injection molded handles. So I am beyond excited for this $150 dagger from Spartan Blades and West George. Last up, Tempest, our good friend
KC over at Knives Fast has his his knife company Tempest Blades, Tempest Knives. I have his.

[19:49] His first release. It's over there. I meant to have it here so I could flip it out for you.

[19:53] But he's coming out with a new one called the Micro Burst and he's continuing with his blade theme of this drop sheep blade. So it's kind of a drop point kind of a sheep's foot because you got,
that curved blade but still predominantly a sheep's foot. This one comes in at a square three inches 14C28N you got the wire pocket clip micarta i'm sure like the um.

[20:18] Like his previous release, which for some reason is totally escaping me, the name, Pinion, it will probably have different handle scales, no doubt.
And liner lock looks like a really handy little knife. I like the little choil up front. I'm not usually too much of a choil guy, but it looks like it'll be very useful for this one, for getting a full forefinger grip.
Pre-order is up on this one, so go to Tempus Knives and check it out.

[20:48] Alright, that about does it for the Knife Life news. Coming up, we're going to take a look at a new custom knife from Dirk Pinkerton and then 12 ethnographic folder designs. Don't take dull for an answer.
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You know I talk about Dirk Pinkerton quite a bit and his ability with a grinder. We all know that he designs great knives for collaborations with companies like Kaiser, Concept, Beyond EDC, etc.
But his hand skill with his grinder is outstanding. This is my cave bear that I got from him at Blade Show 2021. Love this thing.
Well, look at what he just sent me. And well, I showed this off before and I told you I'd be buying it after the new year, but now the deal is done and here it is. I love this thing.

[22:11] This is, I'm gonna show it in the sheath first because the sheath is awesome. This is the razorback.
I added this. He does not add clips, which is fine by me because it allows you to just get what you want.
I chose this instead of a discrete carry so it could be a little bit further from my body. Really excellent retention, but let's get to the knife.
Look at this honey. All right, so I showed this off on the channel when he sent it to me as a loaner to check out. This is smart. This is something that people have done with me because they get it.
They send it, they put it in my hands and I'm like, okay, what do you want for it? And this one, he sent it to me right before Christmas. I couldn't afford it at the time. I was just, you know, busy buying gifts for other people.
So I said, can you hold it? He said, yes.
He put an edge on the back and here it is. This is LMAX.
Steel as is designated right here. I like when people write I like when knife makers put things on the spine you've got a Antique micarta, it's so beautiful. I just oiled it and kind of darkened it a little,
we'll see what happens if it if it lightens up again, but just a beautiful beautiful micarta feels so good in hand and.

[23:27] A short ish handle and that is something that I really liked about this it it is is just enough handle because it allows this to be carried easily.
Even though that's a long blade, I haven't measured the blade. One, two, three, four, five. That's a six inch blade.
This is longer than, so I carried this around with me yesterday. Now I did not drive and I didn't do much sitting with it, but it was very comfortable just in my waistband, moving around the house.
I do think it will be a little bit much for, you know, all day at work or something like that. Not only that, but I don't need to be carrying a cinch double-edged blade at work.

[24:08] So this Elmax is so thinly ground, hollow ground, that I don't know, I think he's just showing off at this point, he's just being a show off.

[24:19] It's really, really thin. So what I'm gonna do, I never do this, well, I usually never do this, but when I do the review of this, I'm gonna do my very best with the calipers.
It feels as thin as a jack-wolf knife, maybe even thinner. I don't know.
You can look at the cutting edge and barely see that it has one because it comes to such a fine, fine edge back there.

[24:46] Just a beautiful fighting knife, that's what this is. Now he sent this to me when I was going, when I was in the thick of my Bowie phase, which has, you know, it's receded a bit, but he was like, yeah, you like Bowies?
You like clip points? Check this out. Man, that is one long clip.

[25:04] To me, it reminds me a bit of a Jambaya or some sort of, or of a Middle Eastern blade, you know, the curved double-edged blades.
Absolutely love that. There's no reason why your curved blade can't be double-edged. And in the Middle East, they really nailed that.
Again, that handle is great and great for reverse grip. faceted with chamfers.

[25:32] Just great, so refined. And I have to say, if you like Dirk Pinkerton's fixed blade designs, go, go and get one. They are incredible. He does a beautiful, beautiful job. And one of the things
I really like about his designs is fixed blade designs is that they always have one foot in some traditional ethnographic design. And that's what we're going to be talking about here in a minute.
So do check out Dirk Pinkerton and man, look at this thing.
You know who else has one of these Dave of this old sword blade reviews? You may have seen him.

[26:07] His video of this, he had Dirk extend the flat here and the jimping so that he could go with a Filipino grip on this. And if I were to get another one, I would do that too.
But, you know, I think one razor back at a time will do me just fine. All right.
So now, speaking of ethnographic weapon designs, I want to get to these folders. I realize all of my favorite folders have their legacy in some sort of design from another
nation or this nation, but from a culture, a specific culture to which that knife was important.
So we're going to start with the United States and American culture, and we're going to start with one of my favorite knives of all time, the Hinderer XM24 Bowie.
Now that Bowie shape is, this is just a perfect and beautiful Bowie shape with that long clip.
The double peak is something I really like that I first discovered it on the SOG Bowie, the MAC VSOG style Bowie, that peak, peak.
But here, Rick Hinderer has taken that to an extreme and really push that clip way far back.
I just love it. I think it looks beautiful. This is one that I have always flirted with the idea of having hollow ground by someone.

[27:35] But then I think this is the big one. You know, like maybe if I had this still in the XM18, I'd have that done. But this is the big one.
This is the big, big, robust one. So maybe I should leave it that way. A and B, it's expensive and hard to find, or at least it was hard to find. This is a Gen 2 XM24, so it doesn't have the the triway or anything.
And I just don't want it.

[27:59] The chance of sending it out and having it jacked up. Now, the people I would send it to wouldn't jack it up. But still, you know, you get cautious.
So there it is. This is the Bowie knife from America.
And Jim Bowie created it originally. And of course, we've seen clip points further back in history, but the Americans really owned it with the Bowie knife and the XM24. All right. Next up.
This one's near and dear to my heart because it's the My Ethnic Heritage Italian. This is the Patata folder from Spyderco.
And this is a knife that is sort of a symbol of Sardinia, an Italian island. And this is their kind of do-all knife.
It's a folder that can be used for all things. It is their EDC folder.
It can also be used as a weapon, naturally.

[28:53] But this is not built as such traditionally. But look at that blade. I mean it is a very very acute long... I see a thrusting style blade here.
But what else could you see? You know Italians are known for their craftsmanship and I see a great craftsman's knife. It also reminds me a little bit of the Kiridashi which will be coming up,
on a little bit later from Japan with that very very acute tip for precise precision work.

[29:26] I was in looking at this, I was looking at some traditional patatas online and I think It would behoove me to get one, you know, for cultural enrichment.

[29:39] But they're just beautiful. I've seen some with various kind of locking styles. This one, of course, is a liner lock N690CO contoured scales. And this one, I believe,
is made by Lion Steel. It's made in Maniago, Italy, as it should be. I think it's cool that.

[29:59] Spyderco has some of their knives manufactured in the United States, in Golden, Colorado. They manufacture them, some of them in Taiwan, some of them, those are considered oftentimes the highest end.
They have knives manufactured, some in Italy, some of the special ones in China. I think it's cool. They go to different places for different qualities of knife.
Okay, next up, also a traditional folding knife from a Latin country that I have to get is the Navaja. And in this case, it's the Night Horse, Dirk Pinkerton designed.
Dirk Pinkerton, who we're just speaking with, or speaking about, designed this. He really, here it is, another ethnographic inspired design by Dirk Pinkerton. Now you will look
immediately at the tip, and you will say that does not look like the tip that it started with your right. I dropped it and broke it, broke off the tip, but I've been working to sort of sharpen it and kind of get it back to where it needs to be.

[31:11] But it's kind of a depressing affair. We'll see if I can actually make it work here. But this Beyond EDC version is amazing. This knife is really incredible and it
comes in this, yes, $30 version in three different colors of G10. Or you can get the $180 version,
with it as a titanium frame lock. Now I've decided after dropping this on its tip,
I'm going to buy a couple more of these in the G10 and have a couple of pristine models. I just think this is beautiful. And this is right up there with the design of the Miguel Barbudo We
knife, Blacow, and it's up there with the design of the Cold Steel Espada series.
Three knives here that were inspired by the Navaja, the Spanish folding knife, oftentimes very large, mostly with a ratcheting lock on the back released by a ring that was developed by Spaniards once they were not allowed to carry swords to settle their gripes. So they carry these big massive folders,
that looked a lot like this and stick them in their cummerbunds or their their waistbands or wherever they kept them.

[32:26] And then they pull them out to defend their honor. This is just a, ah, just a perfect modern representation of that knife. One, two, three, four and a half inches on that blade. Very light,
super, super action. Beyond EDC is an awesome company, man. They're making some really sweet knives. And like this one, which is on their lowest tier of production, very inexpensive,
super high quality. And then like I said, you can go up and get their asymmetrical line version of it in titanium. All right, next up is the Japanese Tonto. Now, I don't have any folding Japanese
style Tontos like the Okunashi No Ken or the James Williams designs, which have a more sweeping and not faceted blade design.
So here I have this as Japan America, because this is an Americanized tanto blade as interpreted through the Chinese in Riyadh knives. So just, this is the K2.
And when I think of tantos, even though the traditional tanto has a sweep to the blade and does not have that forward facet, I still think of the Americanized tanto.

[33:42] Made popular, if not originally designed by Lynn Thompson of Cold Steel, where you have a hollow ground, long flat hollow ground blade that's straight in edge or slightly curved.
This one is straight in edge. And then it comes to a secondary point, the Yakote and this flat ground front chisel portion.

[34:04] Very frequently, this front chisel portion is straight, which really adds to utility, I think.
In this case, it's curved, which adds to tacticality.
I think it makes it a nice slasher. Also, it's a nice, if you need to rock cut, I've used,
all right, this is gonna get a little specific, but you ever use those brother label makers, you know, and they've, and then you clip it off?
Well, sometimes you'll make a couple of labels and then you have to clip those.
Well, that forward tip is perfect for rocking a cut against the cutting board, through one of those things. So high utility, high weapon ability.
And of course this being a Riat, it's just perfectly built. This is titanium, bronzed titanium, this sort of dragon scale pattern, just beautiful.

[34:56] I would, as I was writing this and I thought, well, this is an Americanized Tonto.
So it was definitely inspired by the Japanese, but it just made me feel like for equal representation, which is important, I need to get a true Japanese style tanto in the collection.
So I need like a James Williams style.
Style, wouldn't you say?

[35:20] From Indonesia. We're going to move to a knife from Indonesia. What do you know? This is the Indonesian karambit inspired FoxKnives 599. This is to me and my eye just
a beautiful karambit. And I used this one for a number of years in my Kali training. Not this one because it comes, it doesn't come with, you can buy an orange handled trainer of this and it's just,
just like this except a different blade obviously but it's weighted the same it feels the same.

[35:57] And this is a great karambit because it's small and it fits my medium-sized hands perfectly.
The original of this Fox 479, the first one they made looked just like this but it had a longer aluminum handle and that long handle was due to an error in translation.
You know, something was lost in translation when the design was sent from America to Italy and they made an extra long handle,
and then they eventually created this which was the original design with a handle a little bit more in keeping with human-sized hands. Just a beautiful, beautiful design, beautiful knife and,
karambit and good for doing all that karambit-y stuff which I'm out of practice with and I shouldn't do all on camera with a live blade so I'm not going to I'm going to stop doing that right now.

[36:50] But liner lock not much of a flipper at all look you got this flipper watch I want to see the flipping action all right so that's how it flips so that's more so there is a problem with this
design but I'll get to that in a second awesome wave and that's what you want for a karambit folding karambit you want it to be you want the clip on this side you want the
blade to be facing forward and you want a a hooking some sort of hooking wave type thing otherwise you're dead if you're gonna use this for self-defense
otherwise you're dead because it would take I've seen some karambits that are oriented this way with the clip here which is just absurd but you had it would have to pull it out, open it up, and then reorient it and put your finger in there and you're in heaven at that point, hopefully, and that's the alternative.
So yeah, you definitely want, if you're going to carry a karambit for self-defense, it has to be tip up, it has to be blade forward, it has to have a wave so that,
you can pull it out and bring it to bear immediately. Otherwise you're fussing, fooling around, trying to flip it in your hand and get it to the right position.
Now, as I mentioned, there's a serious flaw with this design, and that's right here. The flipper, as I mentioned, does not act as a flipper.

[38:12] I mean, I guess you could really get it started and then whip it out. And then when it's forward, it doesn't really act as a blade guard because,
before flippers were known for their lovely action and fidget ability, that flipper was there to assist in the wrist whip of opening it,
or the centrifugal opening of it, and then it was there as a finger guard, so your finger didn't slide up onto the handle. Well, here it's unnecessary,
and it does not mesh with the handle design. You see that little extra thing there. Now that's great if you're trying to kill someone and cause pain,
because that gouges like you wouldn't believe. But when you have the training version of this,
and you're doing drills with people, it's still the same. And I've hurt a lot of people with that.

[38:59] Just by accident because it gouges in there and it just is not a good design. So that's the one thing. If I cared enough and if I were carrying this, I don't really...
I'm not such a karambit guy. I would get rid of that. I would grind that off altogether. But if you do that, if you have one of these and I've put the idea in your mind, just be careful because
this flipper tab is integral in nestling into the stop pin. So you've got to be really careful with how you contour it if you're to grind it away. So that's from Indonesia and the Philippines,
the karambit. All right, next up, also from Indonesia and the Philippines, is the Chris.

[39:39] And cold steel no one is doing it better in a production knife right now than cold steel I am just so impressed with how they managed to make these blades
and I know there it's an automated process and such but to get the edge so sharp so perfect with the contour of the blade that's something I think that is something.

[40:00] This I have in this 4-inch version. I have the large 6-inch version. This is the Tie Light from Cold Steel. And I also have their Voyager 5.5-inch Chris, which is also awesome.
The thing that you will see about the... or that you will find out about the Chris is that it is two-fold in Indonesia and in Philippines as something symbolic and as a status symbol, but also as a really effective combat knife, combat blade style.
Those waves on a thrust just widen like a bread knife. I mean, they just saw into the person and widen the wound channel.

[40:42] And then also on a slash, there's a lot of slashing and cutting in Filipino martial arts. Those waves kind of do the same thing.
It's like pulling a bread knife over someone. And then at the tip they always terminate with a hawkbill. So tip slashes and all that kind of stuff.

[41:01] It's like having a hawkbill or karambit blade down at the very end. So it is not just for impressive looks and to look different and crazy. The crisp blade is really a very very very useful combat
blade. We saw in the Flembeige, the big giant six foot tall two-handed swords from and the great swords, great swords from Germany that had the waves in them. Same thing. I mean, same concept.
You see it. It's cool how you see things pop up all over the place, different cultures, different times. Like I said, the Americans didn't invent the clip point. Jim Boy didn't invent the clip,
point, optimized it, popularized it, and that kind of thing. But, you know, in general, there's not,
much new under the sun. But some people just do it better than others. And the Indonesians in the the Philippines, Filipinos really maximize this wavy blade shape. And Cold Steel, a modern company is really maximizing it for the modern market.

[42:05] Alright, next up, this is an interesting one. I don't know much about the... This is from Crystal Knives. I'm sorry, jeez, it's right in front of me. I could just read it.
Crystal Knives is the Crystal Aurora from Ivan Braganets, a Russian designer, and this is based on the traditional Siberian Yakut knife. A hunting and utility... It's like...
It's kind of like the Siberian version of the Hudson Bay knife, just kind of an all arounder.
But it's known for having this giant fuller in the blade.
And this came to me from Levan of the Knife Nuts podcast and from Russia with Levan. And he imports these cool knives, many of them designed by Ivan Braganets,
and made by Crystal Knives. I always want to say crystal like it's champagne. Crystal. Crystal knives. But this one is really cool. This one's hard to come by at this point. I'm not sure if
he's still... if they're still making and bringing these in. If they are, or if you can find it on the secondary, this is one of my favorite light weather... or just light pants knives. This is.

[43:22] For a titanium frame lock. It is super thin, super light, just luxe action. I love the action on this knife it behaves kind of half like a really dialed in bearings knife and then
half especially on the clothes like a really well-tuned phosphor bronze washer knife so this is the Yakut from I'm not sure if I pronounced that right I just
said Yakut like I know but Y-A-K-U-T Yakut from Siberia and Russia the Crystal Aurora. Check it out. Isn't that a handsome knife,
jimped all over the place? But subtly so these are all like,
rows of jumping.

[44:08] Beautiful. All right, next up one that I mentioned briefly before but the Kiridashi from Japan now this folder is.

[44:18] Part of partly inspired by the yogy by the Kiridashi, I mean largely inspired by the Kiridashi This is the Michael Janich design.

[44:28] Yojimbo to Michael Janich was on the show a couple of times here. Awesome, dude very interesting and knows what he's doing in terms of self-defense. He's got a very interesting history. You got to check out these shows. He was on episode 58 and 248 of the Knife Junkie podcast.
Actually, to listen to that, just go to theknifejunkie.com slash 58 or slash 24 and listen to him talking about the design of this knife. But the Kiridashi is a straight bladed kind of a sax-like, kind of chisel-like utility blade,
traditional utility blade from Japan.
Now he took that pointy front, that triangular front and straight edge and oriented it downward a little bit more like a sax to create this amazing self-defense knife.

[45:24] Yojimbo I think means, I used to know what it means, like bodyguard? Or is that Koban? But anyway, this is definitely designed and bred by Michael Janich as a self-defense knife.
And I have added that little five by five solutions pocket opener on top, but it really, really excels as a utility knife. Now, the one thing you have to be careful about is that this, in this case, this is CPM 20 CV.

[45:51] And you know it's done right because it's Spyderco and they just, there he treats it the best apparently. But also it is very thinly hollow ground, though only half of it.
So you do have to be careful with the tip. This one has been reprofiled and retipped by Jared Neve because I dropped this in the sink at work shortly after I bought it and dinged off the tip.
I was so pissed. But this is such a great utility knife, great self-defense knife, small, and a really good fidgeter too, just because it's got that compression lock.

[46:26] So awesome knife. I have added the Deep Carry MSG Gear Clip. And this one was a DLT exclusive with carbon fiber and 20 CV.
Next up and very related, similarly...

[46:41] No, just like pyramids popped up all over the world at the same time. Same thing. This is the Sax, a similar style blade. This one is, so the Sax is a northern European blade used in all the,
Nordic countries, Germany and England and Scotland and all across northern Europe. And this is Emerson knives version of that. Again you see a pretty much a straight edged blade with a with an edge,
oh I mean sorry, with a spine that drops at an angle towards the tip creating sort of a triangle.
Now with traditional European sax knives you can see that sometimes that edge gets more and more curved to the point where it almost looks like a clip point, like a bowie. They approach bowie at a
certain point as you start to curve that cutting edge. So very interesting to look at all the different sort of sax style knives there are traditionally in the various northern European
cultures. But this Emerson version, pocket version, is just such a dream. And I got to say one of my favorite, for a long time it was my favorite Emerson. I'm not sure if I can call it that.

[47:57] In earnest, but I love it. The one thing that holds this knife back, in my opinion, is the double finger partition. But for a double finger partition knife, it is extremely comfortable, you know,
Emerson and the ergonomics. The other thing about Emerson's that stick in the craw a little bit is that the wave precludes you from putting your hand up on, or your thumb up on the blade, most of the
time. But there it is, the Emerson Sax, a modern folding representation of the Northern European,
Sax knife.

[48:32] Next also European the cruciform dagger in this case created by arcane designs and.

[48:42] Israel Bacchus I used to check out we did two podcasts with him 196 and 236 So just go to knifejunkie.com slash 196 or 236 to hear me talking with Israel Bacchus
He's such a cool dude and and man he designs cool-nized. This one was a collaboration design with Felix of Something Obscene Company and it is it is stunning. It's one of the few,
perfectly symmetrical and perfectly double-edged ground dagger blades in,
the folding realm out there. I can think of the Arch Nemesis. Very very very very out-of-reach and exclusive Arch Nemesis by Sharp by Design and the very hard to come by Maximus by Hinderer knives. When are you going to do another run of those?

[49:29] And then there's this. And I'm sure there are some other customs out there, but I was drawn to this immediately for its design. It's beautiful sort of cruciform. Looks European. Looks like it came off a spaceship, too. Double edged.
Just one of my, you know, just one of those things I'll never give up because it's so rare.
This one has the bronze titanium with the fluting. It's actually very comfortable. Doesn't look like it would be.
I think I might do a wardrobe change today and carry this the rest of the day.
It's got that beautiful satin, machine satin that we know from Riyadh and just wicked, wicked sharp.

[50:17] I was going back and forth between this and the black bladed version, but I decided I wanted to see those grind lines that I love so much from Riyadh.
So here you go. If you want a traditional sort of, well, a very sci-fi modernized traditional cruciform European dagger with double edges, well, you got this option.
Also, I think he does these, I think when he releases these, he will do a few in a single edge just for those faint of heart, those rabbit-hearted fools who don't want double-edged. I'm just kidding.
For those who actually follow their local laws, he offers that.
All right, second to last in this illustrious list of modern day folders that take their design cues from traditional knives is one that, I don't have a tradition, I don't have one of these, I need to get one for this wall here.
And that is the Turkish Yatagan. I love that knife. A Turkish Yatagan, and this is the cold steel Vakiro.

[51:19] Now, you're saying Vakiro, Vakiro, that is not a Turkish word. And you would be right. The original, yes, I do have it in pocket. the original Vaquero designed by Cold Steel.

[51:33] Appeared on the El Hombre in the late 90s. Here's an El Hombre there and also on the Vaquero Grande.
At this time, they were more inspired by Mexican knives here, but Navajas via Mexico.

[51:52] Then as this design evolved or changed, evolved always implies improvement.
Now I'm not sure if that, I'm not gonna make that judgment, but when they changed from this design to this design for the Vacchero, Lynn Thompson started looking more at the Yatagan instead of the Navaja.
The Yatagan has the deep recurve like this.
Now you should look it up, it's a very cool knife.
It's, as I mentioned, and as it says there from Turkey, but it has the deep recurve that we've all come to know and love as an efficient cutter.
But it also comes back up and places the tip in the center line. So that no matter the orientation, you know, if you're attacking from, if I'm attacking from this end, I still have the point in the center.
If I'm attacking from this side, number eight, I still have, I still have the tip in the center. If it's a forward thrust or an overhead, I still have the tip. I know where the tip is all the time.
You don't get that in some, in many recurve knives, like the next one we'll talk about. about. You have to make certain wrist alterations to get the point to work. Not,
with the Yatagons. So the difference between the El Hombre here and the the next generation Voyager is the point. Where the point is. If you look at here, Look at the pivot.

[53:19] The point is down below the pivot. If you look at the pivot here, the point is aligned with the pivot. Point aligned with the pivot on the new one, point below the pivot on the old one.

[53:30] You can't see what I'm talking about. All right, so that is the Cold Steel Voyager, their Vaccaro blade design, and the Yacht.

[53:41] So very cool knife. I love the voyages. Alright, last up. I love this thing. This was a gift from my wife and partially
because I told her I wanted it but she spent the amount of money on it for a knife. She doesn't like to spend a lot of money on knives. She spent that money
because she likes the designer. This is the Jason Knight design MK Ultra. This one was produced by Fox and distributed by Elements. Now it is just distributed by thoughts, but just an awesome Kukri. He, Jason Knight, makes the best modern Kukris, if you ask me.

[54:19] Best designed modern Kukris, especially when it comes to this folder. He really, really nailed it. Now, I have the Raja too. I love the Raja too. By Cold Steel, their big oversized Kukri design,
but to me, this captures the traditional essence of the Kukri even more so. The handle is very comfortable and also evocative of the Kukri shape as is the Raja. Not taking anything away from from the Raja but the overall curve, the Raja is a more straight knife. This,
overall curve is really what does it.
When you have it in hand, it really gives you this downward reaching recurve. But the way Jason Knight designed it, he is keeping the the tip higher up.
So it is a little bit easier to thrust, though you do might have to change your...

[55:12] If you're coming on an outside angle like this, outside thrust like this, you're going to have to turn your wrist in a little more.
You know, that is all theoretical. That is all theoretical. Because if you're fighting with this knife, God help you, you know, who knows what's gonna happen or what you're gonna do.
You might have years of training with this knife in particular and still forget to turn the blade in. Cause you're like, wow, I'm actually in a knife fight. And this is the most horrible worst nightmare of all time.

[55:43] So who knows? When I speak like this, it's all theoretical because I'm not a warrior and I'm not a knife fighter.
But I have had a lot of theoretical training in the martial arts studios. So that's kind of where I come from when I talk about this.
On this knife in particular, I love the harpoon. I'm not generally a harpoon guy, but it gives your thumb that perfect place to rest.
Love that giant fuller because you can open it. That's actually my preferred way of opening it is using the fuller.
And it's just got luscious, luscious action on that titanium frame line.

[56:20] So this has been my 12 ethnographic folder design survey. I have more, I think.
I mean, I started looking through it and a lot of knives that I have, you can see where there's a jumping off point.
Maybe it's not as direct as this, Nepalese Kukri to this MK Ultra, but you start looking at your folder collection and you'll start noticing the traditional jump off points.
It's pretty interesting. I like the translation.

[56:51] All right, well, thank you for joining me on this Knife Junkie podcast. It's been great talking at you about this stuff.
And you actually, you spared my wife and daughters from this lecture. So consider yourself humanitarians.
Join us tomorrow night, Thursday night, for Thursday Night Knives, 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, right here on YouTube, Facebook, or Twitch.
And if you'd like to become a patron, do so by scanning the QR code on your screen or going to theknifejunkie.com.
For Jim Working His Magic Behind the Switcher, I'm Bob DeMarco saying, until next time, don't take dull for an answer.
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[57:55] And if you have a question or comment, email them to Bob at theknifejunkie.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.

[58:09] Music.