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.
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The Knife Junkie Podcast
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AI Automated Transcript

[0:00] 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 gonna take a look at the Ohio River Jack, the Riat XOK, and then are you new to fixed blades? Well, start here.

[0:21] 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 back to the show.
I had a couple of favorite comments this past week. The first one was from TheObserver6579, hopefully he was trolling me, because at this point it's well established I cannot pronounce B-O-W-I-E correctly.
Whether I say Bowie, which I said growing up as a Yank, or whether I say Bowie, which, Everyone is telling me I have to say it because that's the proper pronunciation.
So observer, TheObserver6579, thank you, thank you, thank you.
I'm not pronouncing it correctly, no matter which way I say it.
Appreciate the comment. Thanks for dropping that in there. The next one was from Craig Vincent 795 and he says, Hello Bob, I've been watching the channel for a while now, but somehow I keep missing the live show.
I should probably set up an alarm because I really enjoy your content.
I'm coming up on a year now as a knife enthusiast.
When I bought a RAT 1 last October 1st, thinking I might qualify as a knife junkie because upon checking out my inventory of my acquisitions of the past year, I came up with a count of 164 knives.
With 8 more on the way to be delivered, yes, you are a knife junkie, sir.

[1:47] Scary thing is, in addition to what I have in my possession, there were another 35 or so that I gave away to friends, family, etc.
Another sign that you're a knife junkie. You're giving away knives. Yeah.
Oh yeah, and there's also 40 more gas station blades that I unloaded at a pawn shop as my, tastes changed from watching channels like yours.
Nicely done. That means the actual number is over 200. That comes out to about a knife every two days.
Is that normal in the community? Should I be afraid? Cheers.
Craig, the only thing you should be afraid of is your knife-to-day ratio.
We need to up those numbers. Those are amateur numbers in this game, sir.
But 200, a knife every two days, I'm sorry, is a good start.
So we'll bring those numbers up, and you'll be a knife junkie supreme sooner than you think.
Which is dangerous. All right, before we get to the pocket check, I wanna just say that I went to the bookstore, took my girls to the bookstore.
It's their favorite place to go, or one of them, anyway. And of course, I went over to the old, over to the ol' magazine section to check on the knife situation. And yes indeed, there is a special edition of Blade Magazine. It's really awesome. I can't believe that this.

[3:08] Magazine still exists, or that magazines in general still exist, but this has a really nice cover, like this special kind of, well okay I'm not gonna sell the magazine to you, but go pick up Blade Magazine. I mean, first of all, this one is chock full of awesome articles about military knives and karambits and other cool stuff. But and also tests. But we want to keep this magazine in print. That's like kind of going to the 511 store and buying a pair of pants every once in a while. I have a 511 store near me and it is the most tactical thing for hundreds of miles.
Well.
For quite a radius, so I like to go there and try and keep it in business.
Let's do the same with Blade Magazine so we can keep getting Blade Show, and I don't know, I don't want these things to go away.
It's like the internet, people, on paper. So go check it out.
All that said, I think it's time now for a pocket check.

[4:09] Okay, today I almost dropped that Bowie. Today in my front right pocket I have this. My beautiful Chris Reeve Knives Sebenza 21.
I love this knife. This is the classic Sebenza as far as I'm concerned. I know they came out with the 31 with all the new fangled additions like the awesome ceramic ball bearing that's in there, the lock interface. Very nice. I have that on my umnamzon, not to brag or sound like a jerk, But I don't necessarily need it on I don't need another sebenza to get that this is probably the one and only sebenza, In my life Uh, and I absolutely love it. It is it is, a perfect knife I have to say I popped this in my pocket because we had a Gathering to go to that was going to be fancy, Fancier than I had clothes ready for so So I decided to pop a fancy knife in my pocket, but understated. I mean, that's the cool thing about this knife, It's not, it's not flashy in any way.
It is just solid and pretty much a perfect production knife.
So I had that in my front right pocket.
Was not called upon to use that at the party, but I was ready to pull it out and impress people with my understated masterpiece.
Next up in my front, it was in the right, because I've been carrying my phone in my left pocket a lot and I can't do too much, but I had the, Oh! I had the feel-good jacked.

[5:39] Right in front of the mic.

[5:41] The Jack Wolf Knives feel good jack, this is a beauty, I love this, it's a doctor's knife, you can see that with the parallel handles, the spine and the bottom part of the handle running parallel, that gives you a doctor's knife pattern with the flat pommel here, that was used to grind up pills, and then in doctor's knives, so doctors back in the day would make house calls, They'd go to your house when you were sick, and they would make a tincture out of medication for you.
And they'd take a little pill, and they'd grind it up with the bottom of their doctor's knife, they'd cut it up first with the blade, and then there was usually a second implement, a spatula type thing.
They'd stir it up in some alcohol or some water, and there was your medicine.
So that was the origin of the doctor's knife. This is three productions ago, three runs ago for Jack Wolf Knives, the beautiful feel-good jack.

[6:40] I was perusing the Jack Wolf Knives dealers and Ben has responded, Ben Belkin of Jack Wolf Knives has responded to demand over the past year and upped the production.
And so you can now find the knives at the dealers after they are released.
You know, sometimes, well, for the first bunch of months for Jack Wolf Knives, the knives would drop and they would sell out immediately. So you up the production a little bit.
And so now you can go and you can actually find jackwolf knives on dealer websites, albeit not tons of them, but they're more available than they were before.
So we thank Ben for that. All right, next up, of course, on the waistband, in the waistband, I had the Nova 1, and very excited to say that we have a little update on the Nova 1.
It's actually a pretty big update. They're all finished, and they are going off, or not going off to, but they are off at their engraver to get the Knife Junkie logo in there.
Of course, it will not be that big.

[7:45] But, so I had this in my pocket, not my pocket, in my waistband today. There they are. Look at them in all their glory.
25 Nova 1s in their sheaths, all polished up and ready to go.
Alright, so they will be heading back to him after the engraver and I think he'll be doing final touches, I'm not sure what that is.
I think they all have their edges or maybe that's last. And then he sends them to me and then I send them out to you lucky people who got them.
So very excited about that. I haven't carried the Nova 1 too much in the past three or four weeks because I've been been carrying, trying out new knives and I've gotten, you know, recently got this new Dirk Pinkerton knife. I had to carry that around. I just got a new knife which I'm going to be showing off in a minute. So, you know, things rotate but it was great to have the Nova 1 back in my waistband. And for fall that will be my EDC again. Okay, and then last up of course I had an ESK. That's an emotional support and I still trying to make fetch happen. The.

[8:55] CJRB large pirate. I just love this knife. I am really smitten with it. I keep finding myself putting it in my pocket. Today it was in a secondary role for emotional support and it did do that well. But this is just a great cutter. So this is an awesome, awesome knife. Like if you had 90 bucks, 80 bucks, 75 bucks for a folder and you wanted a large folder and and, this was gonna be your folder for a long time. I would highly recommend this night. Unless you do really, really hard stuff with it. It's kind of thin. You know, I don't know if you could do quote unquote, hard use with this, but I don't know, I kind of feel like you a you could and be hard use. I mean, move along to a different tool.

[9:47] If you're on a job site and the use is that hard, don't use the knife.
But for all cutting tasks and for pretty much everything, I think this knife is really awesome.
But especially, it does fit that emotional support knife role really well, really well.

[10:07] But this is what I had in my pocket today. This is the Chris Reeve Knives Sebenza 21, the beautiful, beautiful.
And then I had the feel good jack from jack old knives and the Nova one from me and hogtooth knives and then the CJRB large pyrite.
You got to let me know what is in competition in your mind for the CJRB pyrite because to me CJRB is making the best button locks right now.
What do I have to go on? Well, the large pyrite and the small pyrite.
That's pretty much it.
I have been so incredibly impressed with the quality of their button locks, especially the way they have a very finely milled pocket with very tight tolerances that the plunge lock actually fits into, as opposed to a cone that it's ever forced into with the spring.
I don't think that works quite as well.
To me, it sticks and it has, I don't know, it has potential to slip out.
So CJRB, Artisan, best button locks. What do you think? Hot topic. Drop it in the comment below.
Alright, I just wanted to mention that coming up we have another Gentleman Junkie Knife giveaway as we always do every month of the year. September 21st will be the Thursday this year and it's a seeing double Civivi package.

[11:27] So this comes with two really cool Civivis. This one is the.
TV KV or Chi five, I don't know what the hell what the name actually is. It's ki dash V. So that could be Chi five, or that could be chi V or could be key. You know, could be anything. But it's a very, very cool knife. This is the larger of them, I believe, but it's still a small, little front flipper. And you can always turn it around for a call if you're in a pinch. And And then here you go, this is a Justin Lundquist Civivi, this beautiful little thing is the, Lumi, with a very, I love the shape of this.
It reminds me of maybe something Scandinavian, but very deeply hollow ground and nice and pointy, really nice front flipper here.

[12:25] And yeah, so this is the package. It's actually two Civivis and the usual stickers and other stuff. This is what you get for being a gentleman junkie.
That's the highest tier of support on Patreon.
Do come join us and check out the benefits you get from it as well as the benefits I get from it.
I mean, Jim and I really do appreciate the support we get on Patreon. It really helps.
I just got a new camera here and that's what you're seeing and maybe that's why we're lagging a little bit.
I still have to figure all the technicals out, but it looks so much better, and I'm so thrilled, and some of that was Patreon money.
So it's so greatly appreciated we can increase the quality of the show, and well, there you go.
There's my Patreon pitch.
I thank one and all who go to Patreon and sign up, and sign up.
But I also thank one and all who just watched the show.

[13:19] There you go. Coming up on the Knife Junkie podcast, some interesting stories in knife life news. If you're a Knife Junkie, you're always in the market for a new knife and we've got you covered. For the latest weekly knife deals, be sure to visit theknifejunkie.com slash knives.
Through our special affiliate relationships, we bring you weekly knife specials on your favorite Knives. Help support the show and save money on a new knife. Shop at theknifejunkie.com slash knives. That's theknifejunkie.com slash knives. You're listening to the Knife Junkie podcast. And now here's the Knife Junkie with the Knife Life News. Every time with that with that liner it gets me. Yeah, the knives they sell over there at Knives Ship Free.

[14:07] Alright, let's get let's blast through these stories. We got a lot of knives on the other the other side of Knife Life News to talk about and show off.
So I just wanted to talk about a couple of new things that came out.
One is from Bradford. These guys, Bradford with the Guardian, the original Guardian, they just really kind of revolutionized the concept of EDC fixed blade carry and really kind of popularized it.
Well, their line has grown immensely with, you know, they're all kind of customizable.
They're production knives, they're small production knives, batches, and you can get all sorts of different sheaths and grips and stuff.
And for some reason, I have never gotten one. But maybe this knife will be the one that gets me to do it.
This is an in-between size. This is the Bradford Guardian 4.2.
It's a four and a quarter inch blade to go right neatly between the four and a half and the four inch blade.
So this is like the Andella of the Bradford Guardian line.
Coming in MagnaCut, and is available now. Looks beautiful.

[15:15] I'd like to get one, but I'd like to get every knife. So I'm just gonna wait and see.
One of these days I'm gonna get one. I mean, look at those contour handles, 50-50 choil.
That's a great thing about this knife.
It's a full-size knife, but it gives you, it just kinda shrinks down the whole package by making the handle smaller. So it looks really cool, and you get an awesome Scout carry leather sheath.

[15:40] All right, I'm gonna blast through this and not talk so much.
Another one coming up for wheat. They're in their season of unlimited knives. This one looks really cool. Very up my alley.
It's a a somewhat plain for we knife company titanium frame lock. Now this one has a beautiful clip point blade. It's called the nefarious. So is it nefarious? Is the nefarious an evil knife? It's a low slung Bowie putting that point just, below the center line, which is great. A lot of people like, that, because a lot of people aren't are used to using the tip of the knife for their EDC tasks. And if you have a real upswept clip point, it puts the blade puts the tip of the blade higher up, meaning you have to curve your wrist more to get the point to be where you want to be. So I'm loving the sort of rise of the low slung Bowie with that point a little bit lower, you still get the belly of a Bowie. But you get and the penetration, but the penetration point is lower. So I don't know, I just think it works well. It comes in six different flavors. Look at these, they are beautiful.
That nice big inlay down the center, we've got some carbon fibers here including that copper coil carbon fiber, and then you can see the one on the bottom, that's the Heimskringle damasteel pattern. I like it, Heimskringle.

[17:04] It couldn't sound any more Nordic. Beautiful, beautiful blade on an awesome handle. 3.4 inches 20CV and just another beauty coming from coming from we they are they will be available shortly and there are six of them made, six different flavors at 155 pieces each, so limited.
All right, next up, the redesign of the TDI by KBAR. Now the TDI from KBAR is a pistol grip shaped fixed blade.
So literally you hold it like this and the blade comes out this way.
I have one, I should have dug it out.
But it was originally created by John Benner.

[17:53] For a former police officer, I believe, for gun retention. So it goes on your belt on the opposite side of your gun.
Someone's grabbing your gun, you can secure their wrist against your hip, grab your TDI, which is very intuitive.

[18:09] Because it's shaped like a gun, that's the point of the pistol grip, and then you can slash their arm or cut them or whatever to release their grip from your pistol, so that's why they call it a weapon retention knife.
So this, they had a flipper, this is a totally reinvented version, redesigned version of it.
That's a 2.31-inch OSS 8 leaf shape blade with the flipper and the opening hole.
You've got the crossbar lock, so that means really you have three different ways of opening it.
And I would actually say four, depending on how strong that bar lock is.
So you can use the hole, the flipper, you can use the lock itself by pulling back and, whipping it out, or you could probably just hold the handle and whip it out, because you can do that with a lot of crossbar locks.
So many different ways to open this knife, uh, grivory handle.
My honest assessment of it, well ambidextrous totally, my honest assessment of this is it would be cool in better materials.
Not so hot on the grivory, not so hot on the Aus8, but then you're gonna say to me, Bob, this is not a collector knife, this is not a fancy, this is not pocket jewelry, this is a tool for gun retention. And I say, okay, fine. Then put a wave on it.

[19:23] It's a folder. All right, next up, last up, in Israel some researchers just found a little cache, of 1900 year old Roman swords, Spatha swords, and the Spathas are long double-edged swords, they were longer than the Gladius and kind of gained favor in the latter part of the, Roman Empire because the cavalry liked them because they had greater reach. But anyway, Anyway, they were in this cave in the Dead Sea area, and these Israeli researchers, now researcher is kind of a general term, I'm not sure if they're archeologists or what, but they found these stashed in a remote crack in the back of a cave system.
These spathas, and on the very right, that's one of those, what do they call, they're like earlobe, they're stabbing, of thrusting implements and they have sort of a pommel that splits into lobes and you put your thumb in the middle and then you can't miss. But anyway, these things were found all stashed together like they were hidden away and they think that rebels at the time.

[20:34] Were stealing these Roman swords and stashing them in this cave system in remote parts of caves during the Bar Kokhba revolt in 132 to 135 AD. Now this is the first time I'm ever reading of this so if you haven't heard of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 132 to 135 AD, don't feel bad. But how beautiful is this? How cool is this? I love this. I feel like we come across stories like this with some frequency because as the world gets smaller People have picked them through the dirt and are finding amazing stuff.
And I just think that those are really beautiful and cool to see, and we'll be able to see them in museums, I guess, if you travel to Israel.
So do check that out and keep your eyes peeled for It's kind of interesting stories about knives.

[21:27] About all right coming up on the Knife Junkie podcast Let's take a look at some really cool knives that were loaned to me by, Five door and Kettmuth Nesshart, and then I've gotten a couple in as gifts as well, and I bought a few, All right coming up on the Knife Junkie podcast The Get Upside app is your way to get cash back on your gas purchases. Get Upside is an app you put on your smartphone And whenever you need to get gas, search your area for savings, claim your discount, fill up your tank, and then take a picture of the receipt with your phone.
And that's it. You've just got cash back. Visit theknifejunkie.com forward slash save on gas to get the app and start saving.
Again, that's theknifejunkie.com slash save on gas.
And now that we're caught up with Knife Life News, let's hear more of the Knife Junkie podcast.
I have some of the best viewers around. I'm sure everyone thinks that.
Like their kids, my kids are the best kids. But my viewers are awesome and I have some people who just trust me enough to send me really, really cool knives.
When they hear me say, oh, I'd love to take that out, like the Ohio River Jack, which has been out forever, but I have still not got. And so, Kep McNeshart, good buddy of the show.

[22:43] And frequent contributor to Thursday Night Knives, sent me this and we have sent a few knives back and forth in the past and, well, I sent him my Shining Mountain Bowie, he sent me a bunch of other stuff, but he sent me the Ohio River Jack to check out by Sea Rise Cutlery and Traditional Pocket Knives and these things are awesome.
They're made by QSP and they are rugged, rugged work knives, like that's my impression of these.
I have not done work with them, but as far as a slip joint goes, these things are built like tanks, I gotta say.
So he sent me this one. This is the Ohio River Jack single blade sheep's foot.
They have three different models.
This assortment here represents the three different blades they offer.
The sheep's foot here, which is a chisel ground, or not chisel ground, I'm sorry, a saber ground blade.
So super robust there. And then on this knife, you can see both because they do double bladed and single bladed.
And so that's the wharncliffe and the spearpoint.
Beautiful, beautiful blades. I love these.
I'm especially fond of these two because they're fully flat ground and for for a slip joint, I guess that's just what I prefer.
Flat ground or full hollow ground.

[24:09] Beautiful micarta, just awesome quality of build. Here you have integral liner bolsters of titanium.
Integral meaning, in this case, that it's one piece, instead of the bolster being attached to the liner, it's one piece milled out of titanium.
On both sides, you've got a titanium liner.
Through the center, steel springs, amazing canvas my card and just great action beautiful blades too I I'm not a huge spear point lover but I do love this one and it's because it it does what I like best on spear point blades it widens out towards the belly starts, thinner at the ricasso and widens out towards the belly these things are really nice I am going to get one I'm gonna get one in canvas my card a I'd I'd like to support fellow Ohio boy.
I don't know if he is from Ohio, but Ohio River, I like that, I have to support that.
These are my justifications.
The other is, I have a lot of modern slip joints in the form of jackwolf knives.

[25:18] I have a lion's steel, I have a Medford, I have a couple of others, but I do not have something like this.
I do not have this one, so. Thank you, Ketmuk, for sending these to me.
I'm sold on them now. I really, really like them.
And the thing I like about them is how tough they seem. They just really seem tough.
So I'm excited about that. Also, I'm excited about this.
Very nice walk and talk on these.

[25:50] I like that they do the double blade, but beware, the double blade is going to be fat.
It is a fat, fat mama here. This is like 3 quarters of an inch fat, I gotta say.
But I like it. So this is probably not gonna be the knife I would carry on my person, or on my pocket.
This would go nicely in a slip on the belt, which you won't catch me doing these days.
I just can't in my current lifestyle.
Okay, next up, on loan from Five Door.
Good buddy Doug sent me these and they are so damn cool. Here, I'm going to impress you right here.

[26:26] Yes, there it is. I did it without cutting myself. This is the Riat XOK. K of course standing for parambit. Now there's no need to quickly put it back in, but it has a really cool, action here. So you, well it comes with a trainer. Why don't I use the trainer?
So the trainer is right here, beautiful, full-size trainer, albeit lighter, but you press this button.
So here's the karambit, and on this side, you have a button.
And you press it, kind of hold it like this, facing away from you, press the button and it releases that part, the main housing of the knife.
And then you flip it that way and it pulls the knife all the way out with centrifugal force and then you just nudge it back and it locks in place so yeah you can do it fast to close it but if you do this could happen there's no guarantee that the blade is folding in so it could it could really mess up your hand so I.

[27:27] Recommend that unless you're in a movie you don't close it slow I mean you don't close it fast, you close it slow. So here it is in the bladed version. N690 blade steel.
I think that's what keeps this knife actually somewhat reasonably priced because it comes with a trainer which you have to do with something this sort of novel. And it was only, I think it was under $300 for the package if I'm correct. But here, let me show you how this beauty works. So it's closed. There it is closed. Push the button, whip out your hand, the blade whips out, and then you whip your hand in the opposite direction, and it closes and now it's locked. And then it's in your hand, and then you have the, it's in your fist there, you have the blade oriented in the perfect position. I love that sort of frontward pointing point on a karambit as opposed to downward, because it really makes your punches...

[28:38] Your back fists and this kind of thing. It really gives them extra purchase because that tip is going to go in even if you're not exactly straight on.
So very happy to have this and check this out. Thank you so much 5Door. I really love this thing.
My one, the thing that's stopping me from buying this myself actually, it's very nice that you sent sent this to me I appreciate it because it's kind of been a temptation because I've seen them around lately with the recent release of them I have to say that and I do not have big fingers but the hole is a little for all of the for all of the motion that the design requires for all of the whipping it around with the ring around your finger I feel like I want it just a little larger just a little bit larger like I wonder how guys with big sausage fingers they're gonna deal with this, if they had one, if it would be an issue.
But that's a story for another time. All right, next up, my birthday knife came in, and man alive am I excited about this.
All right, let me put this under here. This is an Aaron Bieber Knives 302.

[29:51] Aaron Bieber was on the show, and actually I met him at Blade Show, and he had a table right next to John Gray, And I walked up to him, oh, I recognize your knives.
I follow you on Instagram, blah, blah, blah.
We start talking, I find out he's from the Philly area. I tell him I used to live in Philly.
And we find out we went to the same art school. And so it was really cool, we're about the same age.
And I don't think we were there at the same time, but I recognized a real.

[30:25] Artistic sense in the guy. That sounds silly, but in his knives on Instagram and on how he took the pictures and stuff, I knew that there was something uniquely artistic about the dude, I guess, and so I got this and got a chance to get my hands on them at Blade Show, and they just melt in your hand, nice and light.
It's, again, it's a clip point, a low-slung clip point with that point down low, great for utility, nice thin flat grind, you have a hollow ground swedge there that looks amazing, and an engraved AB logo, I love that.
And then I requested his sukamaki wrap. He does these in either G10, you can get it in jig bone I've seen, which is beautiful, that was a hard decision to make, but I ended up going for his sukamaki wrap here.
That's white ray skin under there, and then epoxy impregnated cloth.
He does a beautiful job, beautiful job.
This thing is wickedly sharp, and it's MagnaCut.

[31:32] So, very, very psyched about this one. I showed it to my good buddy, Dave, this old sword blade reviews. Check out the interview this week with him.
The conversation is more of a conversation. I've interviewed him before, I know who the man is, so we just had a great conversation.

[31:47] And I knew it after the conversation, he went out and got one.
He has, the man has great taste.
And he's also got a really amazing collection of these sort of fixed blades.
I'm happy to see that there will be one in his collection as well.
But this is the one in my, I just think it, I just think it looks really beautiful.
I think it's just a beautiful knife. Go check out Aaron Beaver on Instagram, abknives.
He has a really cool pakal that is sort of like a reverse, it's not a reverse tanto, it's like a recurve tanto pakal, and that is cool.
And I've seen that one with the jig bone. And if I end up getting that knife, that's how I will be getting it, in the good bone grass.
All right, next up, this one was really cool. This was a gift from my good buddy, Jimmy Slash and Cold Steel.
And it is Jimmy Slash's new competition chopper, a collaboration with Cold Steel.
I mean, who else would Jimmy Slash collaborate with? He is the ultimate Cold Steel fan, collector, user, and brand ambassador.
And he also does blade sports, he does competition knife chopping stuff and this is the blade that he designed and that Cold Steel produced and and it it.

[33:09] Fits all of the blade blade sport criteria it's 10 inches I believe I believe that's there is a small window of size that that the blade can be this This fits within that window at 10 inches.
This is serial number 11, which is pretty cool. You got the Jimmy Slash signature there.

[33:33] You got a kraton handle, so it's that sort of rubberized handle, checkered very nicely, beautiful birds beak pommel there, and two lanyard holes. I know a lot of blade sports guys like to, or competition knife guys, like to put the lanyard right in there in the front instead of on the back. I can't remember why that is, you know, you can drop that in a comment.
I think that's 5 sixteenths of an inch thick so a big chunk of steel. It's 3v, 3v steel a slight swedge. I guess that's to balance out the blade lighten out the blade a little bit, and a super duper sharp apple seed edge or a convex edge, This thing is incredible. I actually plan Today on the day. I'm recording this hopefully to go out and chop some stuff with it but I have not run that through anything yet, and I am so excited.
I have an old desk that I'm disassembling, and there is a part that I'm going to disassemble with this chopper.

[34:38] Thank you, Jimmy, for this beautiful chopper. He had two he could give away, and he chose to give one to me, and man, I so appreciate it.
And then this beautiful leather sheath it comes with. Man, I wish Cold Steel would go back to their leather.
They did some beautiful leather sheaths in their time, but I guess they're beyond that at this point.
So, the Jimmy Slash Chopper, go check that out from Cold Steel.
And then lastly, I've been carrying this one a lot too. This is the Sentinel Strike from Civivi.
What an awesome knife. Great, great button lock.
I was talking before about Artisan's button lock. This is a nice, this is a solid second.

[35:20] But I've been breaking this one in, The coating on the blade, I'm loving how this camera is auto-focusing, so, excuse me here.
The coating on the blade took about two days to wear a race into with the bearings and now it's nice and smooth.
I mean, it was smooth before, but it didn't quite fall like it does now.
Just an awesome knife. If you're on the fence about this, I have to say, do it.
I was on the fence and then I, in a moment of weakness, I bought it and I'm very, very glad I did. This is an awesome knife. So you've got the integral fax spacer here, integral, what is that, GRN, glass reinforced nylon, and then the rest of is aluminum.

[36:06] Then you have a beautiful blade here, that wharncliffe is just gorgeous.
It's N690 I believe, N690 blade steel, so that's one of the ways they can make this totally amazing, kind of Wii-worthy construction, but with lesser materials than a Wii knife.
But this thing is, it's great.
It's amazing. I mean, it's amazing how far knives have gone.
Something I really love about this is the fold over pocket clip can go either way, but you have no unsightly holes and you have no unsightly screws.
It just very discreetly fits on the top and then you have a very nice little tiny tungsten ball glass breaker that you don't even feel if you press your thumb on.
So man, this is a very well considered knife and really, really well made. So I'm loving it.
And it's also a great emotional support knife if you need to fidget and get that kind of nervous energy out of your system.
So VV Sentinel's great, awesome knife.

[37:13] All right, so I just want to take a little bit of time here to talk about fixed blade knives.
I know a lot of viewers of this channel, and then a lot of knife enthusiasts in general these days are more about the folders because they're easier to carry.
You can carry them every day, If you're going to spend your money on a knife, you want to know that you're going to get maximum use out of it.
And of course, pocket knives really fit that bill because they're discreet, you can carry them around without any issue.
And yeah, they are just.

[37:44] I'm sorry, I lost my train of thought because I just saw a knife I didn't show you, but I'll show it to you later.
They're discreet, you can carry them around, and the way they're built these days, like I just showed you that Sentinel strike, they're beautifully well made and sturdy and durable.
But they aren't as sturdy or as durable as fixed blade knives.
So I believe that everyone, even the folder enthusiast, dyed-in-the-wool folder enthusiast, should have at least one fixed blade.
So if you're new to fixed blades, I have 10 suggestions that are a great place to start.
And for a number of reasons, and I'll enumerate those as we go through.
All right, first, you won't be surprised, the first one is a Cold Steel, it's the SRK.
This, there are some more glamorous Cold Steels, by glamorous I mean fancier or deadlier looking, or just more audacious, but this knife has been around for a long time, and it has been in the hands of everyone.
Everyone from hardcore campers and outdoorsmen, outdoors people, to military.
This is one that has been used in the military a lot because it's a great all-arounder, a very grippy craton handle.
You've got a six-inch, in this example, carbon V steel, carbon five steel.

[39:09] Very, very robust knife and you have the clip point, the classic clip point, which is a style that's been used in military, combat, and camp knives forever.
So this features all of those but with that super durable cold steel build.
So this is a really, really...

[39:32] Great and high-quality knife for you to get for your one and only but that SRK it also comes with coating you can get this in 3V which is obviously a much more high-end steel than this carbon 5 or you can get it in this carbon 5 but.

[39:53] The 3V beware it's going to be much more expensive all right so there it is that's the SRK, a great knife. It also comes in the Great Kray-X Sheath, Secure-X. Sorry, Secure-X Sheath. All right, next up is Mora Knife. Now, any knife from Mora Knife counts on this list, but I am going to show you the one that I have. This is the number two, and it's been around forever. Now this little guy is a, let me bring it back, this is a wood handle, this is an old-school version of a Mora. They still make these. This is kind of the original type with that rounded wooden handle and the single quill in there. Four-inch blade. I've had this in my shop in here for years now and this thing has just been used and abused for, I've used this to cut kydex, I've used I've used this to carve kydex.
I've used this for, I don't know, every little nonsense job in here, and it hangs on the wall, and it just gets used, you know, for whatever.

[41:04] But what it's really great for is that camping application, the outdoors camping and.

[41:12] What do they call it, woodcraft kind of stuff, bushcraft, sorry, bushcraft kind of stuff.
Comfortable in the hand with that round. It kind of reminds me of the grip you get on an Opinel except a less round. It's more oval so it will not turn in your hand as easily. But just a great knife for powering through and carving.
Not full tang, not you know not something you're gonna use to baton, but just a great all-around fixed blade knife. Now this one if this is not your flavor, it's a little too old-fashioned, we'll check out the Companion, check out all the other really, really great modern Mora knives. This I got kind of just because of its traditional look, but I still need to get another Mora. I want to get the Companion in my life, just to have.
Okay next up...
Part of the issue with fixed blade knives is the carriage. A lot of people don't like to carry fixed blade knives in their everyday life. One way people have gotten around that is with the neck knife which I feel like I was around for the advent of.
I remember neck knives not being there and then I remember them just not being there.

[42:25] And one that really made it very famous was the CRKT Minimalist by Alan Foltz, minimalist by Alan Foltz, a nice beautiful little small knife that fits in any hand. It is so small that it didn't make this, list, but another CRKT did. This is a neck knife. This is the, or you could use it on the belt, drop it in the pocket or in the waistband with a static cord.
This is the Obaki designed by James Williams, the Japanese sword master and Japanese martial arts, Phenom, also a former guest of the show, and a great guy.
But his designs are, he has a lot of designs out there, some made by Winkler under his own shingle, some made by CRK, a lot of them made by CRKT, and they all follow this sort of recipe, Japanese fighting knives with a sleek, slender blade, sleek, slender blade like this.
Kind of the traditional tanto style blade.

[43:29] There are a lot of different names for them, but I'm just gonna say tanto.
Because quaken I know fits for some of them, tanto fits for some of them, and there are other names that I don't remember.
This has a synthetic ray skin under there, and then the cord here is impregnated with epoxy and you know I absolutely love the Japanese wrap for the alternating peaks and valleys that you get when you look at it from the top. It just gives incredible grip. I mean, what were the samurais? The samurai could have come up with any way to retain a sword or knife in their hand. They of course had the suba up there to stop their hands, the guard to stop their hands from sliding up, but for small knives they didn't. And what did they do? They relied on this lace and man it works beautifully. In the Obaki, this little knife is a great knife.
Nice and light, great sheath, and here's a little detail that I like. I'm going to show you here.
See if I can get this to show, but look at this little bead it comes with. I love this.

[44:34] You see that? It's a little skull! So cool.
The CRKT Obaki does make a great first fixed blade knife. It also might whet your appetite for more knives.
Of course, this trends, tends towards the tactical, and it might be a little bit too much with the black and the blood splatter pattern on it and all that.
So you might want to use a smaller everyday carry fixed blade that's a little less threatening.
Maybe this fits the bill, I don't know. I'm in my own echo chamber at this point, so I don't know if this is threatening or not.
I think it is not. It's got a colorful, cheerful handle, which comes in a couple of different varieties, and it is a great little knife.
This is the Waxahashi from Sencut. This was a gift from my awesome brother-in-law, James.

[45:23] One of these days I'm going to dye the scales. These are these natural scales, maroon.
But look at this blade. Just a beautiful example of a clip point blade.
It looks a lot like the Cogent and a couple of other clip points from the Wee Savivi Sen Cut family.
And it is a nice and thin 9CR, really thin.
So you're going to get a lot of utility out of this slicing blade.
Again, you have a low slung point.
Look at the point, it's right below center line.
So you've got some of the strength and thrusting capabilities of a clip point here, but you, have the low slung point of a sort of a wharncliffe type knife.
And so you get that point down low where you can really use it.
The Waxahashi, it's nice and light with the holes in the handle.
Feels great in hand. You've got very nice jimping running up the spine almost all the way to the clip.

[46:33] So a very nice feel. And then it carries well.
I like it. This is another one of the knives I'm liking carrying scout style up front.
What does that call that?
I'm not sure if that's called scout style up front, but that's what I'm calling it.
And these two retention straps do the job, though they're not as elegant as, and discreet I'd say, like a discrete carry concepts double clip like I use on my cells so I just get one of those to put on this.
But those only work when you have the grommets on top. In this case, it does work.

[47:07] The Waxahashi. A great, great budget option for a fixed blade knife.
Okay, next up, if you're an outdoors person, or you probably already have fixed blade knives.
Let's say you're fixing to go camping. You're trying to impress that girl.

[47:22] Or you're just getting into the outdoors and you want a great all-arounder, this is a good one.
And this is, Off-Grid Knives has a number of great all-around fixed blade knives, but for this, for our conversation right now, I'm recommending this one.
This is the Ridgeback version two. Now, I have the Ridgeback version one, which is also really good, but it's Scandi ground.
And so that means this big, broad, kept heart blade, let me show you, has a lot more steel on it on the first version because of that Scandi grind.
But here we have a full flat grind. So the grind starts at the very spine and tapers without interruption to the edge.

[48:07] Well, there's a secondary edge there, but. So that makes it way more slicey.
It makes the geometry much more thin all the way up the blade and makes it a much more versatile cutter.
The other one, I should have brought that one out, but that one is also great.
Maybe one that you would wanna use if you're doing harder tasks, like say you're gonna use it to baton through wood or, you know, I did a video with the old one where I was chopping down saplings with it.
It's a good knife for that, but this one to me, I think, is definitely an improvement on the design.
I do love the Kephart style of blade here.
I like the point center line. This would be a great one for, you know, drilling holes and everything because you have that center line, man.

[48:53] But also you have a long straight, so you could use the straight cutting edge.
You can use this for a lot of camp chores from food to carving, and it's reasonably priced.
This is a D2 blade steel with a nice coating on it and micarta handles, just an awesome knife.
If you get one of these, I recommend you go to theknifechunky.com slash off-grid.
We have an affiliate program with them, and it helps the channel out ever so slightly, and I really appreciate it, if you do. But that's not, you know, that's not required.
But this is a great knife for those kind of outdoor tasks. It was kind of a toss-up between this, the Grizzly, which is the kitchen camp knife, and the Backcountry.
The Grizzly, I thought, was too specialized because I wouldn't want to go too hard with that knife on the outdoor tasks.
And the Backcountry has a recurve, and that turns some people off.
And to me, that knife is a little, is quite tactical in a lovely way.
So this one is a much better all-arounder, I'd say. So that's the Ridgeback V2.
Also comes with a great sheet, which they improved on the version two.
They took it from a pancake to a taco.
So it's a much more discreet, what do you call it?

[50:11] Footprint. All right, next up. Now, let's assume that you want something small and light and tactical.
Well, I have a couple options here. One of them is more expensive than the other.
Let's start with the expensive one.
This is the Fred Perrin-designed Street Bowie from Spyderco.
Fred Perrin is a French badass. He was, I guess, a French commando, maybe with the Foreign Legion, I don't know. I can't remember, but I know he was a tier one guy over there in France before they were calling him tier one.
And he is, he's an interesting cat. I met him at Blade Show 2022, and he was showing me all of his wares and he has all these sneaky, nasty weapons.
But he makes knives, custom knives, and then he designs them also and has them produced in a couple different places.
Chief among them, Spyderco, and this is his famous street bowie.
He has one also called the street beat bowie, which is smaller than this and has my car to handle and therefore more expensive. I think it's got a polished blade.
VG-10, you've got a kraton handle here with a rubberized insert, Coke bottle contouring, jimping from all the way back here to up here. this thing is.
Well, I got to say, it is built for fighting. This is a fighting knife and a one for discreet carry.

[51:40] But it's also kind of like a small version of the Trailmaster Bowie in that it is a, the overall profile is very similar, and it's got a full flat grind. So it is a very useful knife, for things other than fighting, but some of the designs you'll see that are very Fred Perrin comes out of French fighting knife tradition, that is having a wider blade at the ricasso than handle at the ricasso. So the handle tapers to a thinner point and the blade itself becomes the guard, kind of like a chef's knife. If you look up older French fighting knives you'll see they actually look a lot like French chef's knives. This one has the, It has the finger choil that is not circular, it is asymmetrical, and that actually, I think that's for a reason.
I don't have any corroboration about that, but it sets the angle of the blade at a slightly more downward rake, a slightly more downward tilt.
So I think that accelerates the slashing capabilities, especially towards the front of the blade, kind of negates some of what you lose from that upswept point.

[52:57] So, I think that's why. Either that or it just looks cool. But you get the customary opening hole there, the round circular hole from Cold Steel, or from Spyderco, has to be on everything they do. Cool little touch.
The sheath, which I hated at first, I actually like pretty well.
It's loose enough that you can draw it really quickly, really easily, and bring the knife to bear.
All right, next up, this is your inexpensive tactical model that also has practical uses.
This is the Cold Steel Kobun, a classic.

[53:36] I love this knife. This has been around for a long time. They had the Kobun and the Oyuban, which means boss.
I think Kobun means bodyguard, and the boss was obviously a bigger version of this.
That one went away, but this one has stuck around and has maintained its $40 price tag for a long time.
It's Aus8 blade steel and you know cold steel, you're turning your nose up at the Aus8, but, cold steel does an incredible job heat treating all of their steels from the XHP and the S35s to the, and the 3Vs to the 14, 16, or 41, 16 crups and the Aus8s and whatever else they do.
So they just nail the heat treat and that's how they can keep the cost down.
Tanto blade with a super thin hollow grind on the main portion. Good belly. I like tanto with a belly.
And then you have a secondary point and that chisel tip, which is very, very sharp.

[54:36] This knife has a very thin profile, thin handle, but still coke bottle there.
And it is just a very comfortable knife to grip.
And I find it especially comfortable in the reverse grip, a grip you might consider using for this knife, seeing as it is a sort of a self-defense knife.
You could use this for anything, of course, and to great aplomb, no doubt.
And I'm always surprised that there aren't more outdoor tantos, but maybe that's because I'm not really an outdoorsman, but it surprises me. But I bet you could use this in camp as well as combat.
But one last thing I wanted to mention about this, what was it?
Oh, yeah, yeah. When my sister had an undesirable guy giving her attention, I bought her one of these.
And thank God she never had to use it, and thank God that guy went away.
But there you go. The Kobun was going to be her bodyguard. And then I made her a knife.
Hopefully, she never has to use them. All right, next up, this is a good one.
This is a little bit more expensive. It's a Topps knife. It's over 100 bucks.

[55:45] Most of these are under 100 bucks. This one is, I think you can get this one for 135 now, or something like that.
This is the Tex Creek, the Topps Tex Creek.
They do have an XL version of this with the same handle, This one is so awesome.
This has seen a lot of outdoor use. This was my outdoor, like, kind of lawn mowing and taking care of the yard knife for a while. I love that really nice drop sheath, High-grain leather, pouched sheet here is really nice, but I got this knife originally to practice kydex. I made a kydex sheet for this and I was intending on carrying this, concealed for a while, but that handle's just too long for that purpose. But for outdoor work and just camp, this thing is awesome. I love it. I love it a lot. It's very comfortable in hand.
It's also comfortable with gloves. That big jumping does not bother the thumbs naked, But if you have gloves on, they really dig in, into those big pockets there.
This one has been used quite a bit.

[56:56] And I have sharpened out chips, because I've hit chain link fence with this while clearing lines and stuff.
So I can highly recommend this one for all sorts of use. But I especially, I really do like this style of pouch.
I'm coming around to it more and more, especially for things you're actually using.
Now, the tactical knives, I don't really use because I don't have a tactical lifestyle, but this, I do.
And when you're taking your knife in and out of the sheath, it's nice to just drop it in and just pull it out without having to fuss with a strap or much retention.
So, there is that. All right, second to last and penultimate knife here, this is a true classic. These last two are true classics.
This one can be gotten at Walmart or pretty much anywhere for not too much.
It's the Buck 119 in the classic leather sheath.
This classic clip point hunter.
We've been seeing this knife for years. I remember seeing these at the hardware store in a case when I was a little kid and thinking ultimate pirate knife, my God.
Ultimate cowboy knife, I need one. And this was a gift to me from a husband of a cousin of my wife. He, a bunch, uh, during a birthday a number of years ago, I don't remember which birthday, have been 46.

[58:19] I opened it up and I was like how cool this guy knows I like knives and he got me this and I love it because I got to be honest this is not a knife I was going to get myself but I'm so glad I have it and I can recommend everyone get one.
It's got 420 blade steel but it's got the awesome heat treat that Buck does and so it's It's a pretty tough blade, thinly hollow ground with a very high cutting edge, so it's like super slicey.
This will zip through whatever you got.
Nice fuller on there to lighten up the blade and give some rigidity.
A nearly zero ground swedge, which I love.
This knife would, you know, this is, I'm sure, has been a redneck tactical for a long time.
Shouldn't say redneck, but I'm borrowing that term from, from.

[59:14] Rob Bixby. That's what he said about the buck 110. He's like, yeah, we have all these fancy, newfangled tactical knives. But, but you know, dudes in the country have been using the buck 110 and the 119 as tactical knives like for a long time. So that's what you got here. But it is also known for its outdoor and hunting knife prowess, you might get something smaller to skin an animal, but if you don't, that upswept bowie keeps the tip far enough away from the guts is what I've heard as you're doing this.
I don't know, if you are a hunter, you might be laughing at your screen.

[59:55] That's what I'm told. Love this knife, love the big grip, you will too.
Lastly, I'm sure you know what the last one on the list is. I recommend these all the time when people say, what fixed blades did I get? Yes, it's a Ka-Bar. Now, it won't be this Ka-Bar because this one was a limited edition in the early 90s or late 80s that my brother got me.
Who got me this for my graduation? I could be wrong.
But anyway, look at this thing. A beautiful, beautiful knife.
So that's what you get from a Ka-Bar.
This one is, like I said, a reissue of the 19, the World War II version, so it's got a real sharpened swedge and the whole nine yards.
The ones you get now have less of a curve on the swedge and the swedge is not sharpened, which makes it a much better utility tool.
When this was designed, it was being thought of as a weapon.

[1:00:52] Primarily, you know, a fighting knife and then a utility knife.
That recipe has sort of flipped now, it's more of a utility fighting knife because the reality is people tend not to knife fight in combat these days.
But there are circumstances I hear of, as a matter of fact, I've heard from very personal stories of people clearing rooms in Afghanistan or Iraq and getting tackled and then the thing that you rely on is a knife. But it probably will not be one this big in that situation, in a tussle like that. Who knows? I don't know. But I've heard of people using smaller knives in combat to great effect. This is, you can see a million videos of people using these as camp knives, as outdoors knives, as all-around camp knives and just fixed blades. You could really, really see how this knife by the bedside would give you a lot of confidence. I had a buddy, who, when I was a roommate with him, he had the marine version of this. It was all black and he taped it to the to the leg of his bed. And he was not a tactical guy. But we lived in Philly at the time. So there was reason.

[1:02:11] And this was the knife that gave him confidence. Also, his dad was a Marine back in the day, so he knew it came highly recommended.

[1:02:19] All right, ladies and gentlemen, that is it for my are you new to fixed blades, start here list.
Do check them out if you have a chance, and also, if you're new to fixed blades, you should consider the secondary market.
If you want to try something out, don't want to spend full price, take a look at blade forums and other places.
Reddit. Here's where the kids go. All right. Thanks for joining us. Be sure to join us on Sunday for another great interview Wednesday for another great midweek supplemental and then Thursday for Thursday Night Knives 10pm Eastern Standard Time right here on YouTube, Facebook and Twitch. 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 review the podcast.com for show For notes for today's episode, additional resources, and to listen to past episodes, visit our website, theknifejunkie.com.
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[1:03:44] Music.