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The Knife Junkie Podcast is the place for knife newbies and knife junkies to learn about knives and knife collecting. Twice per week Bob DeMarco talks knives. Call the Listener Line at 724-466-4487; Visit https://theknifejunkie.com.
©2024, Bob DeMarco
The Knife Junkie Podcast
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Transcript

[0:00]Coming up, the June Gentleman Junkie Giveaway Knife, I finally get the T-Cal Knives Agent 001 in hand, and I'll show it to you here, and then 10 of my favorite multi-edge custom EDC fixes. I'm Bob DeMarco, this is the Knife Junkie Podcast. Welcome to the Knife Junkie Podcast, your weekly dose of knife news and information about knives and knife collecting. Here's your host, Bob the Knife Junkie DeMarco.
[0:32]Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment from this past week was from Extra Crispy357. He says, excellent review of the Ronin-2. I'm quite late to the Yojimbo, Yojumbo, and Ronin-2 family, but I'm planning to get one of each over time. I wasn't sure if I wanted the fixed Ronin-2, but after watching your video, I definitely do. Thanks for taking the time to make this video and for all the great education. And I love that. Thank you so much. Extra crispy Education kind of elevates everything I do now I really appreciate it And you will love each and every one of those And I have to say You should add the micro Jimbo To that list The little tiny Chicago legal Version of the Yojimbo It's awesome Next favorite comment was from, AlwaysSun999 On my embarrassing paper cut Test where I throw up the paper And try and cut it with the with the giant Puzan Predator Hunter. He says, oh my God, I've been collecting knives for 30 years. I shit you not, yesterday I had this exact same idea for the first time in my life, and I tried it. My phone is reading my thoughts, I think. Insane. Never did I get through a whole sheet in the air. Ha, love this channel. Well, first of all, thanks for the kind words. Love that you're here and loving the channel.
[1:50]But it's funny that you mention this because a work colleague and I, he does graphics where I work, We were sitting down, we were working, and then we actually started talking about baseball bats because he used to play baseball, and I got a new Louisville Slugger. And in talking about baseball, which is something I never do, I just never do it, suddenly my Instagram feed had all of this baseball stuff in it, and we were both like, so we tried to get it to go to gardening, so we started talking about gardening, something else we never talk about, and it didn't bite. But yeah, your phone is reading your mind, no doubt about that, And keep trying that whole paper cut. It's not as embarrassing after you do it a couple hundred times. All right, that said, let us now get to a pocket check. What's in his pocket? Let's find out.
[2:43]Here's the knife junkie with his pocket check of knives. Right front pocket today was the awesome American Blade Works Model 2. Love this thing. This was his, well, this is Michael Martin's second knife. The first one, the Model 1, went through a long and exciting journey, design journey, if you will. And I guess you can kind of say that wholeheartedly because he made a couple of knives each iteration. He had six versions, and that's where he landed. And he sent them around all over the place. It was the brotherhood of the traveling knife. He got a lot of different feedback on it and landed on that Model 1 design. Well, the Model 2 just came out right out of the gate, sort of perfect. A great action. This he makes. He's a one-man shop and makes these all by his lonesome, and they're amazing. This one is a titanium, milled titanium, what do you call it? Not frame lock. Liner lock. Nice, beefy liner lock. Great action. This blade, this was my first MagnaCut blade.
[3:54]And I attributed how amazingly ground and sharp this is to the steel. I was like, wow, MagnaCut. That's like a laser. But really, the reality, yes, MagnaCut's a great steel. But the reality is American Blade Works blades are beautifully ground. Comes to a very nice thin behind the edge measurement. Not sure what it is, but it cuts like a dream. I do love this thing. It'd be cool if he put his wharncliffe blade also on this. This is a sheep's foot. His wharncliffe, of course, is a wharncliffe, so it has more of a gradual slant and a bit of a pointier point. I think it'd look beautiful in that handle as well. By the way, let's just look at the handle. Gorgeous. And this knife looks amazing closed, too. And you know I talk about looks a lot on knives. It's my initial attraction to knives is through the looks.
[4:48]Does need to be mentioned. All right, I had to turn that light up there. Okay, second, this has not been leaving my pocket. I've been loving this, and it is for the size. This is the Mini Cyborg Jack from Jack Wolf Knives. This is the May 2024 release in five different covers, and this one is the blasted titanium with the purple anodized hardware. So beautiful. that hand rubbed satin clip point blade unique shape uh very good for utility because it has that long straight and then sort of a straight portion up front a little bit like a tanto but separating them instead of a point is a belly and so this is a very very handy blade shape great action on this knife, S90V. And for me, I got to say, the size is just perfect. Perfect size. It'd be cool to see him miniaturize some of his other designs. But he's got something way more exciting or different, I should say, in the offing. And I know it's in the mail to me now, actually. So when you're listening to this, I'll have it in my hands. And you probably know what it is. But it's a Fitzgerald. One from Jack Wolf. Very exciting. All right. I hope I didn't spill the beans. But but I don't think I did.
[6:06]Next up, my fixed blade today started in my front left pocket, but migrated very quickly to back right and stayed there all day and comfortably, too. I didn't feel self-conscious. I was at work. I didn't feel self-conscious about it or anything, and no one said anything. It was just riding in my back pocket. The Little Ruffian from Hogtooth Knives. Now, he sent me this to check out. This is the very first Little Ruffian he ever made. Of course, based on the full-size roughing that you've seen here many, many times that I love so much. He sent this to me to check out. I fell in love with it, and he's gifted this to me. And I'm really excited. I'm going to send it back to him. He's going to inscribe something. I think he has some sort of a Smart Alec comment to inscribe or something on here.
[6:56]Maybe not Smart Alec, but he was laughing. He's like, send it to me. I have something I want to engrave in it. So, a very nice gift from Hogtooth Knives, Matt Chase, a gentleman and a scholar, and a former Marine Scout sniper, you know, cool dude altogether. So, look at this. Look at how it's almost the size of this Jack Wolf knife. And it's definitely smaller than the American Blade Works Model 2 opened up. This is a great pocket carry knife. I've been pocket carrying a lot recently the, well, I don't have it here with me, but the Beckwith Covert from Fisher Blades that has been sent to me, and I've been carrying that, loving that. And then that has also gotten me to carry the Northman again from Amtak Blades, which is a sweet knife my dad got me, but all pocket carry. So now three main pocket carry fixed blades and well, this hogtooth knife is a classy version of that style of knife. I would like to put a little leather fob or lanyard on there as it's sort of a three-finger knife. Um, wouldn't, wouldn't hurt to have, it's not three fingers, it's four fingers, but it's, uh, just barely four fingers. It wouldn't hurt to have a lanyard there for the drawing, especially. All right. Last up on me for emotional support and general fidget, fidget ability. Uh, I had the iridium. I love this knife. This is one of my favorite knives of 2023.
[8:25]Kershaw iridium, uh, great. Just sort of, I don't want to say beater knife because I don't feel like it's a beater knife. Just a great, uh, D2. I mean, you say, yeah, it looks like a beater knife from all the action on the blade, but I got to say, that was only like several boxes worth. This has not gotten as much work as it looks like it has. So something in the coating gave up the ghost somewhat quickly, but we're not looking at raw metal there. We're just looking at a scuffed blade, which to me, you know, I like. It's like battle wear on tank armor or something. Aluminum handle. This has the best action, like some of the best action ever. And if I'm being 100% honest, it has the best bar lock I've come across so far, bar none. Seriously.
[9:16]It's better than the Hoags I have. Maybe it's just this particular Kershaw that I have in my hands right now, but this bar lock is, to me, better than Benchmade, better than Hoag, and better than kaiser which does a really great one and and any others that i've ever experienced that one's the best one so anyway that's what i had on me today what did you have on you it's a funny looking assortment when it when the fixed blade is the smallest or nearly uh the smallest knife there uh let me know what you had drop it in the comments below and uh help inspire me um to i don't know open my horizons a little bit and check out other knives, Speaking of inspiration, I want to thank a brand new Gentleman Junkie. And it is a bit of inspiration when you know that there's someone out there who would part with their money to help the Knife Junkie podcast. So I wanted to say thank you, Larry Elizondo, for becoming a Gentleman Junkie. It's greatly appreciated. And now, that means now, this month, the month of June, June 2024, you stand to win a really cool knife from Eutectic, and that is Liang Ma's company. It's his sort of budget-friendly company or high-value company, if you will.
[10:33]He does a lot of really high-end designs that get made by Riat. But this Eutectic line, you can see the only branding is right there on the pivot, super classy and simple, are the Eutectics. These are the ones that you can kind of get you want to get your hands on leong mod design like i did but you know you you're not maybe ready to fork over for his um for his premium stuff you go to you technically and it's this one the trinity and then there's the uh he also has this field duty um what is this field grade field duty i think it's called something like that So this is the Trinity. This is the giveaway knife I love. Look at that beautiful clip point profile there. Long opening hole, flipper, generous choil. It's 3.6 inches in blade length, and you get incredible action. It's very thinly ground. That's 14C28N blade steel and great G10 handles. I got to say, I don't have many orange knives, but it's been really cool having these on my desk.
[11:50]And I don't know. Well, maybe there's an orange knife in my future, or maybe I just forget to give this one away, and it lives here. Who knows? But this eutectic trinity could be yours, Larry Elizondo, or any of you other fantastic gentleman junkies. And I believe you are all gentlemen. I don't think we have any lady gentleman junkies here these days, but... Your patronage is greatly appreciated. Keep your eyes peeled for this June 2024 giveaway knife for the Gentleman Junkies. All right, still to come on the Knife Junkie podcast, we're going to look at some new knives coming out in Knife Life News, and then I want to show you a very, very special collaboration between myself and the great and powerful Tim Kell of T. Kell Knives. But first, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, hit the notification bell, and download the show to your favorite podcast app. And a great way to help the show if money is not the way you want to do it or can do it, share the show with someone send someone this link and they'll be like what is this? This is fascinating somehow deep down in my DNA I have an interest in knives and it's because I'm a human we can get every human involved in this show if you just share the show so get humans all over the world involved in this show.
[13:11]Knives are the thing alright, we'll see you in a moment Among this week's specials at Knives Ship Free, the Microtech SOCOM Elite is the pinnacle of tactical utility cutlery. The original SOCOM folding knife was introduced in 1996 and has been improved numerous times to become more versatile. The handle shape is unique and designed to fit your hand perfectly. Its rugged reliability makes it the preferred choice of the special operations community.
[13:36]Christian Lishen makes knives one at a time in his own workshop, shop, and his craftsmanship has earned a growing following. The Bunka is a full-tang kitchen knife with a 6.4-inch blade of AEBL stainless steel. Lon Humphrey's handmade blades have gained a strong following over the years, and for good reason. He forges beautiful functional art at his shop in Ohio, using tool steel and premium wood handle scales. The Nesmuk Blacktail is loaded with stunning handle selections. Get these deals and other great specials from our friends at Knives ship free just use our affiliate link the knife junkie.com slash knives ship free support the show and get a great new knife at the same time the knife junkie.com slash knives ship free you're listening to the knife junkie podcast and now here's the knife junkie with the knife life news if you're gonna skip through the commercial breaks on this show i totally understand i totally get it uh but don't skip the first one because it's always the knives ship free commercial and it's It's basically all the knives of the week featured by them, new stuff, and it's always total eye candy. So you should probably check that out, that Knives Ship Free ad. All right, next up, Life Knife News.
[14:48]C-R-K-T, Columbia River Knife and Tool, is teaming up with or has teamed up with engineering forward knife maker and designer Princeton Wong, a name that I frankly had never heard of. But he won an award at Blade Show Texas for best custom locking folder, I believe it was. And, yeah, he's a real talent. And this knife here is something that's evidence of that. This is the Nucleus, an angular aerodynamic, and I will add audacious design.
[15:22]To me, it's both classic and super, super futuristic. But anyway, it's inspired by something called Gundam anime. I don't know what the hell Gundam is, but I guess it's something that started in 1979. And so that's back in my day. So it's something I could easily know. It just sort of eluded me. but it's a long-standing anime show or character or something. I have to do the research on that. But this is inspired by the aesthetics of that show, which to me makes it seem like a futuristic and pretty cool show. Two versions of this will be coming out.
[16:00]That modified wharncliffe is 3.19 inches, and you can either get it in 12C27N. That's obviously the budget model with a steel frame, interesting frame. If you're watching, you can see kind of space through it. So it'll be G10, a red and black G10, and a steel frame, or you can get it in MagnaCut, obviously the more expensive version in titanium and carbon fiber. That's what you see on your screen right now. Now, there's a second knife from this collaboration here, And this is my favorite. You know, I'm Italian, and we like wine in my culture. But also, my wife, she loves wine. This would be a cool one, actually, to gift her. So maybe I'll keep it down a little. It's called the Fial. I think that's how it's pronounced. That's a 3.62-inch either, again, two different versions, either M390 or 12C27.
[16:54]Beautiful sort of straight spine blade. blade uh but hidden in the spine of the handle is a wine key oh so cool uh it's not just a corkscrew that pops out but it's also that um that lever that pops out of a wine key so you can leverage out the the cork on the bottle itself very very cool design this is one of those things you see and you think um you know i'm not a i'm not an engineer uh but man i wish i designed that i wish wish I had that idea. I mean, I've had an idea for a tactical widening feed for a long time, but it wasn't as cool as this.
[17:31]So this will be coming out at Blade Show. Both of these knives will be debuting on June 7th, the first day of Blade Show, meaning you can get it there at Blade Show or it'll be available on the CRKT website on the same day. Two very cool design collaborations with Princeton Wong, a guy to keep your eye on, obviously. Alright, second up, I want to talk about just one of the knives from the new Kershaw release. This is the second release of 2024. And there are some pretty standard-looking things in there. One of them, actually, is a mini version of the Iridium.
[18:09]Which is just exactly this, but a little bit smaller. I'm all for it. If this 3.4-inch blade is a little too big for some, I could see wanting a mini. But the one I wanted to talk about is the Launch 20. Yeah, there's the mini iridium. Handsome-looking knife. I really, really like it. But the one I want to talk about is the 20th in the Launch series. This is the USA-made Kershaw Automatic line of knives. I believe they have one out the front, live wire, and everything else is an out-the-side push button. This one is particularly beautiful in my eye, a 3-inch MagnaCut blade. I wouldn't mind if it were bigger, but keeping it small means I don't have to buy it. But that's about the profile of the Iridium Wharncliffe, by the by. But 3-inch MagnaCut aluminum and carbon fiber, very nice-looking carbon fiber inlay. That handle actually looks like it's almost borrowing from the design language of the big brother ZT, Zero Power. Coming in at 2.3 ounces of nice and light.
[19:19]And, yeah, there you have it. That's the Launch 20. I think it's pretty cool, and I think they put a little extra oomph in this one, seeing as it's their 20th. All right, next up, this is just a quirky little knife, little story here. Chuck Godritis, we've had him on the show here. Great guy. and makes very, very interesting stuff. He's a New England knife maker, and he comes out of sort of a New England school. A lot of the guys he was inspired by come from up there. And so he does these amazing automatic knives, and he's done a lot of sculptural stuff. I don't know if you remember the Marlin. It's a beautiful little sculpted Marlin that you push a button, and the bill comes out, and it's a blade. He does this beautiful sculptural stuff.
[20:06]He's been doing the switch army knives, you know, those. They're multi-tools that look like Swiss Army knives, but you move the scale and they're automatic, and you see beautiful Damascus blades and that kind of thing. So he's known for that, but he made this cool little tiny custom switchblade. It is only slightly larger than that dime it's sitting next to, but super, super premium. You've got all sorts of exotic materials here, like the uh like the bolster that uh is a gorgeous um damascus and then the blade is a different kind of damascus and uh so this thing is uh 0.5 inches when open it's a one inch blade and that's a turkish twist damascus on that blade uh it's already sold and he's expecting oh that little bar in the bolster is how you actuate it you push that and it rockets out so imagine like all the all the mini engineering in there that's pretty amazing uh similar he's going to be making more and they'll sell for starting at 850 850 for this tiny little uh piece but you know a lot it's probably a lot harder to make than a than a bigger one and talk about bragging rights showing that thing off uh so he's going to enter that into the best miniature award at blade show this year and his table there will be five definitely stopped by chuck godritis's table uh past couple of years.
[21:36]I'll show up and by the time I'm at his table everything is sold but you can still, like marvel at it and pick it up and check it out because it's some pretty awesome stuff uh okay uh lastly on the list here zen cut has been uh putting out here this one's pretty cool uh they've been putting out a lot of new knives a lot of cool knives this is the boar zam i've shown this off recently well they have one called the x callus rolls right off my tongue, the X-Talus. And it's an all-around competent carry. That's what we're calling it, all-around competent carry. And I'm actually borrowing that term from the great and powerful Ben Schwartz of Knife News, without whom I wouldn't know anything about this industry. He's great.
[22:22]I wish he would come on the show. I got to re-invite him again. I know he's a very busy guy keeping up this website but anyway uh this is a new 2.9 inch 9cr um sen cut and it it it has a i gotta say it's sort of a little throwback with the speed holes i know that that's in the sen cut civivi we design language but for some reason on this knife the speed holes and and everything this looks like kind of a throwback to a design you might see in like 2013 except it would have like a rubberized handle and a um uh assisted blade or something and and that is not in any way a disc something about this is charming it's a little chubby uh you know a chode knife as as uh a frankie and bird would call it thumb stud and flipper uh and a really interesting blade um.
[23:19]I think. It's got a bit of, it's got a great point, got a nice belly, got a little bit of straight, and it just kind of looks cool. Got a little bit of panache. Stretch it out, and I think it's a looker. Kind of heavy, 3.93 ounces for this three-inch blade, but you'll know it's in your hand anyway. It's substantial.
[23:40]G10, Micarta, and that Girobuatia wood. Help me. Help me. Someone in the comments put a if you don't mind, put a phonetic spelling of that Girobuatia wood that they use on Sencut knives. I've said it two different ways there, and I'm not sure if either one are correct. Coming up in the state of the collection, I'll show you one of the most exciting things I've received since I got the Nova 1, or the Nova 2.
[24:09]So you'll see that in just a second. But before we go there, I just want to say thank you all for watching and listening. And don't forget that Jim creates t-shirts and we have a lot of t-shirts on our website. You got to check it out. Like Got Knives? Just go to theknifejunkie.com slash shop and check it out. He's kind of always, and it's not just with t-shirts. I think this has become a great way to monetize his tinkering because Jim is an endless creative tinkerer, and it's awesome. He's always coming up with new ideas and cool new projects. He came up with a really cool piece of artwork the other day. So anyway, knifejunkie.com slash shop. The Shockwave Tactical Torch is your ultimate self-defense companion, featuring a powerful LED bulb that lasts 100,000 hours, a super-sharp, crenulated bezel, and a built-in stun gun delivering 4.5 million volts. Don't settle for ordinary. Choose the Shockwave Tactical Torch. TheKnifeJunkie.com slash Shockwave. And now that we're caught up with knife life news, let's hear more of the Knife Junkie podcast.
[25:21]I finally got them. And the funny thing is, is I got them on the same day that Tomas Alas and Jared Neve got theirs. So I can't wait to hear what they have to say about these things. But these are the latest T-Kell knives. Knives is the Agent 001. And you know, if you've been here at all, this is the knife that I designed and collaborated on with Tim. This is a true collaboration because like everyone I talked to on this show, on the interview show, especially people who have projects OEM who are building things by themselves, they draw out a design and send it to someone who's going to make it. And then the someone who's going to make it has engineering requirements and knowledge. And so that was a really cool experience.
[26:12]Working with Tim on the handle. Tim did some reworking of this hook portion, well, the whole handle, and really perfected the concept I sent him. Not only did he perfect it, but also made it more ours, if you will. What I sent him looked a little bit more like, you know, had a hook on the end that looked more like you compared it to someone's compliance edge. And I saw that. I was like, oh, yeah, I agree. And so he said, I have an idea of how we can make it our own and make it even more ergonomic for the draw. And so he came up with this curved portion here and this whole, I mean, this whole handle. He worked.
[26:57]And, man, it's been a real honor because he knows what the hell he's doing, and he took me seriously. And this is what we've come up with. And he keeps saying it's his best blade ever, and I'm not going to interrupt. Him when he's saying that. I certainly happen to agree, but everything I have by him is amazing. So let me tell you a little about the design of this. It was meant to fit exactly in the profile of his most popular knife, the T-Cal Knife's most popular knife, the Night Stalker. And I got to say, this is a knife I carry all the time. That's why I wanted to make something that carried and fit in the same profile as the Night Stalker. This knight has the same blade length and the same handle length, it's just that on the Agent series, because this is a series, he's designed a whole bunch of other blades for this, so this is gonna be awesome. But anyway.
[27:54]For this whole series, instead of the ring, it's the sort of bird's beak pommel that allows you to draw it quickly. Is that where I was going with this? Yeah, anyway, same size blade, same size handle, fits in the same profile with this amazing sheath. And the sheath is a little bit different than some of the older or some of the T-Cal knives sheaths that have come before, which are optimized for thinness. So have only had the slots for lashing on one side this one he has since the blade is already thin he was able to maintain the thinness of the blade while still allowing for lashing slots on either side so you might not be wearing this knife on your belt like i do or in your waistband like i sometimes do uh or will be doing but you might have this on your you know lbe or your or tactical vest or whatever it is, and you might need different sorts of lashing points. So here, this is accommodated here. Then you have large-sized grommets for mounting, and then these micro-grommets keep everything discreet and allow these slots to be larger. Just a great sheath. The sheath is half the knife with decal knives. I mean, they really do a lot of engineering around the sheath. So very excited about that and really excited that we were able to keep it in the same size envelope as the Night Stalker and the MR-1.
[29:23]So Tim sent me three versions here. Well, they're not versions. These are both double-edged. That's the original design. And then for those of you who cannot carry a double-edged knife or don't feel like you want it or you want to use this for other stuff, I showed this to a guy at the pool, a neighborhood friend, and he's like, I'd use this for skinning. It's a nice size I'd use it for skinning an animal and I said oh, It's totally, I wasn't thinking that at all, but if you had one without an edge on the back, you could do that. Or, you know, you just don't want to get thrown in the clink for having two edges in your part of town. You have this option. These are going to be debuting at Blade Show, and I don't remember the number he's bringing. I think, I don't remember how many he's bringing, but I have a feeling that they're going to go quickly. Exactly. And that makes me excited. It'll be cool to see people checking it out and kind of trying to be a fly on the wall and hear what they have to say about it. Now, I used to do that when I was exhibiting paintings way long ago, and I'd just kind of lurk around and listen to what people had to say. And I was making provocative paintings, so I liked to hear how it was provoking people. But this will be a better, more positive way to lurk and listen.
[30:46]Just a couple more things. This is AEDL and nickel boron coated. So you know that nickel boron coating that T-Cal knives use is used on machine gun parts and super high friction machine parts. So it makes the stainless steel here, or it makes the steel here very slick. And also adds to its rockwell hardness so a very very cool addition this one is the purple burl here's the blue burl here's like a wood burl all g10s and they have like 27 options including micarta's and uh um yeah just i think micarta i don't think they do carbon fiber and so he's He's going to bring a whole variety of these to Blade Show. And if you're there, you'll get to buy one. And if not, I know he's going to make more, and you can buy them on the website. So I'm really excited about this. It's a great honor to see something that I drew out masterfully made by one of my favorite knife makers. I'm going to put this one away. The purple one is mine.
[31:59]It's all set up the way I like it. And I'm very excited. I mean, what can I say? All right, let me put these over here, and let's get to the main topic here. It has everything to do with what we were just talking about, custom double-edged fixed blades.
[32:17]And the reason I'm going custom here is because, actually, I don't think I have any production. I don't think I have any production knives that fit this category, but also with the Nova II, which will also be available after Blade Show, and the, um.
[32:34]And the T-Cal knives, Agent 001, which is a custom knife because you're buying the handle how you want it, and it's small batch made. Everything is hand-sharpened and everything like that. So it's just got me hot on that topic because people aspire to custom knives, at least I did. Not because, oh, I want to be able to brag I have custom knives, But to know that there is something special attention went into the knife itself by the person who made it means a lot to me. And then, of course, doing the show, I've developed relationships with the people who make them. So that makes it even better. But you don't have to have a show. All you have to do is reach out to a custom maker and start working with them. And it's a really amazing experience. And when we're talking fixed blade knives, it's an affordable experience. And I know you got to save up for it, but it's worth saving up for it.
[33:29]Instead of getting 10 Civivis this month, maybe you'll save up this month and next month and deny yourself a little bit and then have something totally unique that's just yours that you will be proud to hand down. Not that I'm not proud to hand down something like this to my daughters, but much more proud to hand down something like this Kramer Custom Knives Voodoo. This is Eric Kramer, not Bob Kramer. Bob Kramer is a famous chef's knife maker who I need to talk to. But this is Eric Kramer, and you know this knife. This is the Voodoo. This was one of my very first EDC carry knives.
[34:09]And it is so nice and thin. That's part of what makes the experience so enjoyable carrying this knife. It's nice and thin. It's got a relatively neutral handle here that you could easily use in a reverse grip Picol style if you wanted to, or however you needed to change your grip on this, it accommodates. It has this nice curved back part of the handle, which is, to me, essential in a fixed blade knife that's going in the waistband. Because, you know, my weight, like your weight, fluctuates. And sometimes I have a little bit more back here, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I have a little more up front, sometimes I don't. And those are the places I carry, either three o'clock or appendix. And if you have a little extra meat there, you want the surfaces of your knife handle to be rounded and kind and soft, so you're not constantly feeling poked. So ergonomically speaking, not only in hand, but in belt, this thing is incredible. An upswept Persian with a, I hadn't sharpened the swedge, So that's a nice sort of Bowie style. He likes to call it a Persian. I like to call it more of a clip point, but it doesn't matter. It's just an awesome, awesome knife. Kramer Customs, Kramer Custom Knives. He's been doing these incredible carry sogs that are so cool.
[35:37]MACV SOG style blades that are so cool. And everything else he does is awesome too. So check out Eric Kramer Custom Knives. And this is the great sheath, by the way. So this was the first sheath I ever had a Discrete Carry Concepts clip on, and it was immediately sold. And by the way, this sheath is nicely rounded in all those areas, too, because this will be pressed up against your body in the waistband if that's how you carry it. And it's nice to have all of those surfaces rounded off on the sheath. All right, next up, this one is from Ron Steele.
[36:12]Ron Steele is someone that I discovered on Instagram. I discovered it. Someone that I became familiar with through his postings on Instagram and sort of saw him from the start of his making maybe five years ago and really fell in love with his knives, especially after, who was it? Someone sent me a Ron Steele Prime. Oh, it was Justin of Tier 1 sent me a Ron Steele Prime Bowie and a Ron Steele Prime. This is the Prime. The other one is the Prime Bowie. Two great knives. But I decided to order a Prime from him because it's a very unique profile. It's a drop point like I had never seen before. So I thought, wouldn't that be cool if he could double edge it? And he figured out a way to double-edge it. Or I should say, he had never made one and he said, I'll figure out how to do it. And he did a beautiful job.
[37:10]I can't remember what the steel is. I have to find the birth card of this. You can see his maker's mark right there, an ace of spades right there. And the steel has an interesting treatment on it. It's got this, I don't know, sort of rough bevel. And it's a result of the acid stone wash he did on this, on a certain kind of steel. It sort of did an interesting thing with the surface. The handle here is black and gray G10 with maroon micarta. This was one of my first maroon micarta knives, and I absolutely love it. This has not gotten a lot of carry recently, I've got to say. I carried it a lot when I first got it, but you know how it is. You get new stuff, and you have to rotate stuff in. I've got to get back to some of my old girls here and give them a little attention.
[38:08]All right, so this is the Ron Steel Prime. Now, this one I've been carrying quite a bit recently. This is one that I was seeking out at Blade Show last year. This is the SD-1 from Stroop Knives, and it's their push dagger. I was at Blade last year looking for a push dagger, and found a couple of cool ones. Almost got the Jed Hornbeak one, but I wanted a double edge. Edge and I also was definitely looking for an asymmetrical handle where the blade is coming between coming out between the swear word finger and the forefinger and I feel like you have more control when it's up top like that than when it's coming between coming out between the center fingers I just don't like that as much plus with this one I feel like when it comes through those fingers, you can have a slightly wider throat here on the blade, which this is. And it separates my fingers a little bit, but not in any way painful. However, if I change grips to the center, which you wouldn't do anyway, because you don't have enough handle under that forefinger. But if I'm to squeeze like that, that is too wide for between these fingers. So I think a lot of thought and R&D went into the design of this.
[39:25]And the angles here are super obtuse. so it's not going to be much of a slasher i mean you will require some power they are sharp but pretty obtuse edges here so it'll require some power this is definitely a thrusting knife how do i carry it i carry it in the waistband obviously uh you can tell from that clip and uh.
[39:50]My pants go like this, and the handle kind of hangs over like that, over on the appendix, or up right up front, appendix style. Next up, T-Pail knives. Now, this one I don't carry often. I did when I first got it, but I got the Night Stalker and the MR1 and some of the other knives that are even more in my wheelhouse, my carry profile. This is the Guardian. to you this thing is a wicked wicked triple edged sheep's foot and it is a chunk it's a chunk, a beautiful slab of steel with nickel boron coating this is 80 crv when i say a chunk i don't mean it's overwhelmingly large what i do mean though is look at how shallow the bevels are and this is a different kind of knife.
[40:43]Because this is not for cutting cheese. This is not for even cutting rope. This is for splitting and cutting skin and thrusting. This is a self-defense knife through and through and that super oblique edge is incredibly effective against soft targets. Um so that was the that was the drive behind this speaking of drive when you drive this into soft matter it creates a very large hole an ever widening hole and uh because it's you've got a wedge there a wedge shape so a super unique knife uh you don't see too many triple edge uh knives but you're gonna see two in this list that's right uh again purple i didn't realize i I must have a thing for purple.
[41:35]This is the handle material on this. This knife also comes with a guardian grip. It doesn't come with it. You have to order it special, but you can get one for this knife. And it's a replaceable scale that has a karambit ring milled into the end. For me, it's a little too far down to use as a karambit, but it's a great way to draw the knife. Especially if you're carrying it horizontally on Scout. So a very interesting knife from TKL Knives. One of the first ones in one of his first offerings, and I remember when OG Blades, Dave, had this. I was like, oh my gosh, this is a revelation. And I finally got one. Yeah, it is indeed a revelation.
[42:23]Next up, I think this is like my second ever custom fixed blade, and I carried this for a while. I can't believe I did now because it's kind of large. There are a couple of here that are on the larger side, but this just takes up a good bit of space. But how I used to carry it was scout style on my back, and I could easily hide it under sweaters and stuff because I would have the handle pointing upward. it. And then I totally quit carrying anything in the small on my back after landing on it and just messing around and realizing, oh, that sucks. That is so painful. So painful. And then also if it's scout style, but on the front, then you can reach it. If you land on your stomach, you can kind of reach it with both hands or whatever. All right. But this one is the Black Rock Knives Monkey Thumb. And it is a beautiful, beautiful knife. And I got to say, would be one hell of a knife to have on you if you needed to fight with a knife.
[43:22]It's got that karambit ring, but you don't need to use it at all in the forward grip. The handle is set up great to hold just without putting your pinky through. That's actually kind of weird and uncomfortable. But like this, it feels great. And then you have a pointed pommel here you can use for pain compliance or whatever, attitude adjustment. And then if you have it in reverse grip, You don't need it either, the ring. You can put your thumb up on top, and you can also use this forward punyo. But the ring is also not bad at all in this reverse grip. It doesn't work forward grip for me. But what it's really there for is drawing the knife and clearing the knife from the sheath.
[44:08]This is another case where he hadn't done a double edge of this yet, and I asked him to, and he was like, sure. And he put it on there, and it's awesome. By the way, he doesn't sound like that. He's more like a big dude. He said, sure, Bob, I'll double edge that tough guy. And I said, okay, thanks. Sharpening notch right here, really excellent if you're going to take it that far, and then also you would have that on the swedge. I love the texturing on the side. that rock pattern texturing is so beautiful, so attractive. And this knife altogether is built like a tank and just impeccably done. Oh, having this out, I should start carrying this again. I did put on a Discrete Carry Concepts clip and had it in the waistband for a little while, but I did not find that comfortable due to that pointy thing and my spare tire, as I was mentioning before. for him. Next up, this one is this has become a quick favorite over the past two years. This is the Pocket Rocket double-edged three-inch dagger by Auxiliary Manufacturing. Great blade. Wickedly sharp. Beautifully ground quad.
[45:27]Bevels here. All done by hand when he did this. I'm not sure if he's still doing it that way. Beautifully, beautifully done. But then the handle. God, I love the handle on this. It is in cross-section octagonal. When you look at it just from the profile view, you'll see it's faceted and scooped in such a way that your fingers are burying in there. It has no guard, but whether you have it in this sideways sort of shovel grip or you have it in a standard saber grip or reverse grip, however you have it, your fingers are landing in one of these swales because as you turn the knife handle, you'll see it's a swale on all surfaces.
[46:15]So great grip. It looks good. It feels good. It's another example of one of those knives with angular handles that feels really good in our hand.
[46:24]You know, we always think that round is ergonomic and round is ergonomic.
[46:29]But so is this kind of angular uh surface it's round basically if you squint your eyes uh but you can feel those angles and those angles are what stop the knife from twisting in hand those angles are what uh give you positive grip the roundness is for comfort the angles are for positive grip a great sheath on this one a million little grommets to uh fasten your your your um discreet carry style clip that's what this ship with it's a nice uh i have a little bicycle tire thing here just to keep it from slipping around and to keep this uh in position in uh in my in my waistline because this one in particular with that very straight handle has to ride at a at an angle like this in my waistband it's not going up and down like that it's not all right next up uh the.
[47:25]Second triple edge in this in this uh list also i have that uh tire inner tube there to keep this from swiveling because i only have one lash point there but this is the fire ant from dirk pinkerton is a custom dirk pinkerton uh with the all three edges sharpened it's a if you're going to call anything a reverse tanto i guess i would say this is a reverse tanto and uh because Because it's a sheep's foot, but it's got a point there.
[48:00]So it really, instead of a little hump, it's got a point. So yeah, I guess you could call that a reverse handle. Edge all the way up to that awesome jimping. This one is really easy to carry. It's a nice size. And though it doesn't have a rounded handle, rounded pommel, it angles off perfectly for when it's in the waistband. also it's perfectly angled for reverse grip like this.
[48:26]Hook the thumb right over that peak but you have this area here to shore it up this thing is really cool d2 blade steel i got this at blade show last year uh.
[48:40]It's becoming a trend that i get a knife from him at blade show and that's a good trend i should keep that rolling uh this is the fire ant now this one they turned into a um a folder with kaiser for a time i'm not sure if that's still in print all right now this is the the largest in the group and i edc'd it for about two weeks after i got it because i was so excited about it and i still am but i don't find myself at least not in the summer weight clothing i'm wearing right now carrying this uh but this is the necromance from jed hornbeak knives a truly uh wicked double-edged fighting knife i'm so in love with this design still and and the way it melts in hand is just positively glorious it feels so good in hand uh but that comfort i was i was saying round is for comfort yeah well this this round also just locks you in due to that profile lots of jimping here too just incredibly machine uh knives uh our jed hornbeak knives I've experienced them, a few of them, and then I had to buy one. I had to get this one. He only made three of these, and I was so excited to land this one. I'm trying to think of who else got one of my buddies here got one of the other ones. Oh, who got it?
[50:06]Can't remember who got one of the other ones. But anyway, three of these were made, and I got one of them. So, so happy. I would love it if he made a Necromancer with a 6-inch blade or 6.5-inch blade or even a 7-inch blade. It would be so cool. So this with a longer blade, basically. But in this configuration with that 5-inch blade, it can run 3 o'clock. If you've got a sweater or something to cover it up, it is pretty conspicuous. And though legal, it would ruffle some feathers.
[50:42]All right, second to last is the JB Knife and Tool Ditch Pick. This is a great one. I have this set up for appendix carry. Just an awesome 16-inch thin, 16th of an inch thin, 1095, with a very springy temper to it and double edges. So this is one of the first Pakal-style knives that really got my attention when the style and the format was just sort of really hit in stride. That handle drew me in, and the blade obviously drew me in. But I had never seen a double-edged version of this until this drop. And so I opted for that. You could get a single edge, which is only sharpened on the Pakal side. You could have gotten a bayonet ground one, where it's all the way sharp on the Pakal side and halfway up the spine side, or this double edge. And I really vacillated between the bayonet ground and the double edge. Okay. I thought the bayonet looked cooler, but I thought, why would I half-step it on the edge? Especially if it's the leading edge, I might really just want that or need that in my next duel. Very cool logo. They're out of Texas, so you got the Lone Star there. Look at that knife. That thing is so attractive.
[52:10]It's very, very, very thin. But in talking with Brian of JB Knife and Tool, they do extensive testing and torquing and stabbing of 2x4s and bending and vices and stuff to make sure that their ditch models, the ditch models are the 16th of an inch thin versions of their other models, that they're not weak or going to bend and they have it nailed. All right, last up in this list is, well, it's a little bit of self-promotion, and it's the new T-Cal Knives Agent 001. I'm going to show you this version of it and tell you about a couple of features that I didn't mention. We went out of our way to put jimping here, right back here on the pommel, not only for gription when you're tapping the pommel with your thumb in a reverse grip. That works great there. But here for when you're drawing it because I was adamant. I shouldn't say I was adamant, but I was really looking for this to be a scout-style knife that I draw reverse grip. So I really wanted to have that jimping on the thumb.
[53:28]And then Tim was like, oh, oh, oh. And then he added this super cool pyramidal point here for glass breaking or attitude adjustment right there on the pommel. The cool thing about that is I was like, I don't know about that. I don't know if that's going to get in the way. It doesn't. You don't feel it at all when you're capping the thumb. And it's because it's at that angle. It's not pointing straight out. It's pointing out in that direction and your thumb just rides right over it.
[54:00]Uh, the, the swales here, I had really sharp partitions and, um, you know, separating the fingers and, um, it wasn't working for Tim's hands. He's got bigger hands than I do. And, uh, he's like, let me, let me try this. So he rounded these out and, and all the while doing these kind of 3d prints like this one to sort of feel, see how they feel. And he rounded out the handle there and rounded out this area and made it less abrupt and boom, the handle was born. And this thing is great, feels so great and I can't wait to check out, he's got a wharncliffe, that's the Agent 002, there's gonna be other blade designs and yeah, it's just very exciting.
[54:48]There's my maker's mark there, the knife junkie on that side and really, I have it in this list of favorite, top 10 multi-edge EDC fixed blades because that's what I designed it for. I designed it for everyday carry and I wanted a double edge. So this, for me personally, is the ultimate for now in double-edged EDC fixed blades. Who knows? Who knows where we'll go later? I know that Tim and I are going to work on more projects because we enjoyed working on this one together. So I look forward to that. All right.
[55:26]Uh if you're going to blade show and you see me please come up and say hi um i don't know what you look like but you know what i look like and i want to meet you so come say hi and uh let's talk knives in person all right uh that's been it for this show thanks for watching for jim working his magic behind the switcher i'm bob demarco saying until next time don't take dull for an answer thanks for listening to the knife junkie podcast if you enjoyed the show please rate and review at reviewthepodcast.com. For show notes for today's episode, additional resources, and to listen to past episodes, visit our website, thenifejunkie.com. You can also watch our latest videos on YouTube at thenifejunkie.com slash YouTube. Check out some great knife photos on thenifejunkie.com slash Instagram, and join our Facebook group at thenifejunkie.com slash Facebook. And if you have a question or comment, email them to bob at thenifejunkie.com or call our 24-7 listener line at 724-466-4487. And you may hear your comment or question answered on an upcoming episode of the Knife Junkie Podcast.
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