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

Transcript

[0:00]A cool new wax canvas tool roll, I get the new Jack Wolf Knives Bionic Jack, and it's time for our 2024 Dagger Update. 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. Welcome back to the show My first favorite comment from this past week Was from Jorge Fernandez 6407 Talking about my video on this knife The Guardian By T. Kel Knives He says, got mine today Your great video doesn't do it justice, Bob This is a seriously robust Extremely well made Blade To say that I'm impressed is an extreme understatement. Very impressed. Very satisfied. And I am so glad I saw your video on this knife, and now I have one of my own. By the way, it shaves my arm hair. And the reason he puts that in quotes, I think, is because I mentioned that this has very oblique, what do you call it.
[1:14]Geometry, cutting geometry here, that's meant for, you know, splitting and stabbing and gouging. It's a terrible blade to do terrible damage, but it's not slicey. I said, you're not going to be cutting cheese or shaving hair with this, and so he actually has. It is very sharp at the edge. It just does not have that slicey cutting geometry that we want for certain tasks. But an amazing blade, an amazing knife, and Jorge, I'm so happy that I introduced you to it. So use it in good health, my good sir. My next favorite comment was from Chateau Beaufort on the How I Carry My EDC Fix Blade, which is my most popular video ever. It's a short. It's gotten a million comments. He says, well, more than a million views and many, many, many comments. Cavalry style. That's what that draw is called.
[2:07]Nice knife, too. I do similar hiking here. Lots of cougars. Best knives. Sport short four-inch grips and a longer foil. I like the way he called it a foil. Chateau Beaufort sounds like he's a fencer or, you know, at least a swordsman from France, perhaps. And I like that he called the blade a foil. But yeah, that cavalry style is awesome. I think that's what the term I should be using instead of three o'clock in the waistband. That says a lot. This is very particular. But cavalry style is that kind of draw where you can pull it out reverse grip.
[2:44]But it comes from the cavalry pistol where guys would be riding and have their pistol handles going forward, and they would turn their hand like this to grip it and draw it, which is easier than pulling out a very long pistol that's oriented kind of ordinarily. You have to reach up and pull it out, whereas this way you can just draw it forward and bring it to bear. So anyway, cavalry style. Thank you, Chateau Beaufort, and thank you, Jorge, And thank you to all and one and all who watched and commented on the videos and podcasts. It's greatly appreciated. That said, let us now get to a pocket check. What's in his pocket? Let's find out.
[3:29]Here's the knife junkie with his pocket check of knives. In my front right pocket in the starring role today was the Microtech Stitch Ramlock. This one in aluminum and M390M blade steel. That's their Microtech's proprietary M390. They put an extra M in the steel, and it makes it better. It makes it Microtech M390. And this has that really nicely milled aluminum handle. It feels great in hand. One of my favorite knives from the last five years, and one of my favorite knives in my collection. And the funny thing is, is on paper, I shouldn't like it because of its grotesquely underwhelming handle-to-blade ratio. But it's such a great knife. It is so nasty and good. Any more edge on this would be dangerous. So I just am very, very happy with this knife as it is. And it's a good one to slow roll out when you're around the sheeple because it is kind of terrifying looking, actually.
[4:28]I thought that handle-to-blade ratio, you know, living in my own echo chamber, would make it look less scary. But I asked my wife, and she's like, no, that's a pretty scary-looking knife. I said, okay. Handle-to-blade, she's like, doesn't matter. It looks pretty bad. Great for thrusting. Look at that triangular point there with all of those four angles coming together like a dagger. That swedge, of course, is unsharpened, but it really aids in the thrust. Such a beautiful knife. I first experienced this when my buddy Jock from Across the Shock drop shipped one to me before I sent it along to him, and that pretty much did it. All right, next up, I had two, I had five knives on me today. So this next one, I just brought along because I knew my glasses needed to be tightened at some point in the day, but I couldn't do it in the morning. This is my Victorinox Compact. With a little dangler thing i can't just i don't have a dedicated pocket slip for these and i don't like them banging around at the bottom of my pocket riding sideways so i got this little dangler they come in two packs for seven bucks on amazon some generic you know sort of chinese thing but this knife is awesome because it has this right here this glasses.
[5:47]This little tiny screwdriver for glasses hinges so i knew i would need that i grabbed that on the go I used it for that, but nothing else, but love having that on me. That's probably my favorite full size with a 91 millimeter Victorinox, not because of the tool set. Like I like more glamorous tool sets. I love the scissors and the saws and the files and stuff, but this is compact. It's two layers, but they jam a lot of tools in there. So it's very, very useful. Next up in my pocket, I also had one I hadn't carried in a long time. This is in its Duties Daggers slip. Here he makes beautiful slips. But this is the Hedgehog by QSP. This is the Hedgehog in titanium with the jigging in the titanium. Makes for a very comfortable handle, and it's nice and thin. I've been tempted many times for it to buy all the other beautiful exclusive hedgehogs that you can get on traditionalpocketknives.com I love that website.
[6:55]But this one, I'm kind of like, this is the mac daddy of them all if you ask me personally Seeing as it's in titanium and it's nice and slender and has great texture To me that beats cool carbon fiber all day long So kind of why bother? And then of course I dropped it on the tip and that really tested my resolve but I kind of got the tip back. It's pretty good. I know how I jacked it up, and I can see the little tiny wave at the front, but it's pretty hard to perceive and nothing to get a new knife over. So I haven't gotten a new hedgehog, but this one is just beautiful.
[7:33]All right, next, in my waistband, riding very, very comfortably in appendix grip, is one I haven't carried in a long time. That's the Copas Designs L-VIA. And this one has a Tsukamaki cord wrap here done by Josh Mason of Brightful War Knives. This has an Ulti Clips. It's the only one I think I have in my collection right now. I'm not crazy about the Ulti Clips. It works great on this knife, I've got to say, on this sheath. This is 154 cm, very slender and nearly a Scandi grind. There's a little relief edge there, but when you have a blade that thin, you don't need big, sweeping, flat geometry to make it slicey. It's already thin. Just make it sharp. This, of course, is optimized for Picall-style grip. It's that fruit knife style of fighting knife popularized by Ed Calderon, which he got from his mother. He used to carry a fruit knife around, and he saw the power of it when he saw her thwart some muggers on the street with the fruit knife. So pretty darn cool.
[8:51]Love this one. I'm going to set that down here. And then my emotional support knife was one I grabbed on the way out, and I really dig this. This was sent to me by Kubi a few months back. You saw me show it off a bunch of times, but this is the Hound, the Kubi Hound. It's got a great crossbar lock, a really nice blade design. I love the profile of that blade. It reminds me a little bit of a Winkler, a little bit of like a, I don't know, scalping knife. It's got that nice long swedge, so it's a good thruster. It's got an ergonomic handle that bends a little more than I prefer these days, but fits great in hand. It's got jimping on the pommel, which makes it excellent for reverse grip. I would say that this is a great EDC knife, but also a very good in a pinch self-defense knife. It really stays in hand nicely. You've got a great traction plan, as Nut and Fancy would say. You've got great jimping up here on the thumb ramp and a finger guard here to stop you from riding up. And also, that kind of arched handle, the way it nestles in the palm, also stops you from riding up on the blade in the thrust.
[10:00]So this is what I had on me today. I had the Microtech Stitch Ramlock. I had the Victorinox Compact, the QSP Hedgehog in Titanium, the Elvia from Copas Designs, and the Kubi Hound. Let me know what you had on you. Drop it in the comments below. You know I always like to find out what you all carry. Thursday Night Knives on Thursday at 10 p.m. Eastern Standard Time right here on YouTube is also a great place to come. Let me know what you're carrying. We talk live for two hours. Just you, me, the comments. Sometimes we have a guest, and that's always fun, too. Lots of giveaways.
[10:39]And so come join us on Thursday Night Knives, and tell me there, live, what you're carrying. All right, I got something cool from a company that reached out to me. And in the past, I may have said, no, thank you, but it fits into what I'm interested in right now, which is creating sort of outdoor survival kits and outdoor fun kits. And this company, Roaring Fire, reached out to me and said, hey, can we send you our super cool waxed canvas tool roll? And I said, yeah. I happen to be very into waxed canvas right now. I know that sounds cheesy or waxed cotton, but I really like it. It's kind of an old-school material that still is relevant today. It's not the quote-unquote high-tech garbage that my friend Kurt coined that phrase. And it's an endearing phrase for all the awesome, lightweight.
[11:36]Modern materials that keep you warm and dry. But there's also old-school materials that keep you warm and dry, and this is one of them. So I'm a big fan. I have sort of new to pipe smoking. I have a nice wax canvas pipe smoking kit. I have a couple of haversacks in wax canvas. I have a jacket in wax canvas. I'm just a sucker for it, material I really like. But I'm also a sucker for these sort of things that organize your EDC stuff. So I'm going to figure out what tools go in here. I just received this. You can fit knives in these bigger pockets. Some of these screwdrivers and smaller items would go in here. You've got some webbed portions here. I could see little survival kits in tins going in there, whatever. I'm going to nerd out on this thing. I really like it. It's called Roaring Fire, or the company is called Roaring Fire. And something I really like is how it closes up. It's got a traditional sort of belt closure. Not a snap, no Velcro, just a traditional belt closure here that will not wear out, like Velcro and that kind of thing. So really, really nice. Of course, that goes tighter.
[12:46]Really nice product. Thank you, Roaring Fire. I'm going to check this out, figure out how it fits into my EDC, and I'm going to show it off right here on the channel.
[12:56]All right. Still to come, we're going to get to knife life news, but I wanted to mention we just gave away the awesome off-grid knives, Mamba V3 and the Bullet V2. That's a bit driver from off-grid knives. Just gave those away, and it was very exciting to hand those over a couple months in a row we've been giving away some really high end stuff so very excited about that if you want to get in on that you can go to Patreon check out well you can go to theknifejunkie.com slash Patreon and check out the different things we have to offer we do random giveaways here on Thursday Night Knives.
[13:34]Where we give away other great knives given to me but lately we've been giving away some real real top shelf stuff so come check us out on Patreon. TheKnifeJunkie.com slash Patreon. Okay, still to come, Knife Life News. Adventure Delivered. Your monthly subscription for hand-picked outdoor, survival, EDC, and other cool gear from our expert team of outdoor professionals. TheKnifeJunkie.com slash BattleBox. You're listening to the Knife Junkie podcast, and now here's the Knife Junkie with the knife life news all right we have a four cool new things coming out uh i want to talk about first is from andrew demko demko knives it's the 80 20 i which stands for international slim so the international knives are uh andrew demko has been sort of mid-teching some of his 80 20s and what.
[14:32]We all know how good they are at knife making in Taiwan. And then he has the blades milled in Maniago, Italy, and we all know about Maniago. And then he assembles them in Wampum, PA. That's where his shop is in Wampum, Pennsylvania. So a true mid-tech kind of thing. Mid-tech is an older term if you're a little bit younger. It's an old term that was used when people first, when custom knife makers first started having some of their parts made out of house to make things flow, make the business flow better. You can get more knives out the door if someone else is cutting out your liners and water cutting your blades, water jetting your blades. So Demco still makes full production knives, still has some full production knives made in Taiwan, still makes some full customs in Wampum PA. But now he's got, now they, Andrew and John, have the 8020 International Slim, which is cool because we all know how bulky the 8020 is. Or maybe we don't. But if you've picked up an 8020, you know it's a bulky knife.
[15:40]So this one is 3.6 inches as usual now in MagnaCut. Beautiful drop point blade. I'm saying that more and more these days. Maybe as I get older, I appreciate simplicity more. But I love the shape of that blade. Magna Cut Same dimensions but slim And same slim dimensions As the slim as the full custom Slim available now in four patterns Of DigiCam I like that.
[16:07]You want the knife? You gotta pick from one of these Four DigiCam patterns I wholly endorse that Alright so looking forward To checking that out Probably a Blade Show though because I won't be getting another 80-20 anytime soon. I have other knives to get. Real Steel, next, Real Steel, a company that comes and goes. I feel like they pop in and they pop out. And Real Steel has a new one. They do a lot of collaborations with Jacob from Poltergeist Works, a Polish custom knife maker, and with an aesthetic that I love, personally. This new one is pretty cool looking. It's called The Viz, or Viss.
[16:50]Depending on how you pronounce it. But 2.72 inches of 12C27N. Really cool stylized modern clip point blade, if you ask me. No one has, but I'm sure everyone will call that a drop point. It is a clip point. Really nice long opening hole. You've got a bar lock, which they actually just call a cross bar lock over there at Real Steel. And this comes with something cool that we've seen from real steel before, which is a somewhat integral construction. The liners and the backspacer are one piece of folded over steel, and it rolls over the top. So you have the backspacer is nicely crowned, so to speak. It's rounded off because that's a bend in a contiguous piece of steel that goes from one liner on one side to the other liner on the other side. A pretty cool construction. You know it's going to be robust. I wonder how it sounds. I bet it sounds cool, just having it be one piece of folded steel. This is going to be, it's 1.94 ounces, available at the end of October. Well, here we are at the end of October. And, oh, deep carry pocket clip, both sides. Look at all the different, let's see, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight different varieties, white, pink, tan, green, blue.
[18:17]Green again black and and sort of a tiffany teal very very handsome and charming looking knife all right next up did you know that the buck 110 folding hunter is turning 60 years old yes that's right uh i i thought it was way older than i am turns out it ain't that much older than i am born in 1964 i in 71 sold for 16 bucks then 16 bucks but 16 bucks in 1964 was akin to 164 of our modern day nearly useless dollars uh i'm not calling it useless but look that's a 10 that's a wow that's a 10 increase.
[19:02]No, no, no. 10-time increase. Jeez, man. Anyway, I'm no economist, but my, how things are changing around here. But when the Buck 110 Folding Hunter was born, it was lauded as a robust and somewhat affordable, if you're a knife guy, I guess, knife, and really left an impression forever. And here, we're still collecting them. I have one. An awesome, very pedestrian version with the diamond wood that I bought at Walmart. But I love that knife, and it's got a great edge, and it'll go all day long with 420. And you're like, yeah, Bob, but the way you use knives, but yeah, the way I use knives is how most people use knives.
[19:45]But if you use knives a little harder and 420 ain't going to do it, well, this new 60th anniversary model has MagnaCut, so you're psyched about that because you know that Buck is very much known for their awesome heat treats, and that's how they can make 420 work. Use modern times. But indeed, they're making magna cut work here. Ebony wood handle, which is very nice, ebony wood. And then they're putting the badge on the original side, which is kind of the off side in a weird position so that you can read it when it's open and on the off side, so to speak. So I think this is pretty cool. It's a true throwback to the original 110 Folden Hunter in the placement, though they have done things like, you know, it's a little bit more rounded off than the older squared off models.
[20:37]Brass black leather case, as you would expect, and it's available now from Buck only. They only made 2,000 of these, so you better jump on it. All right, lastly, one of my favorite knife, well, he's just a great dude and also an amazing knife maker, And that's Matthew Christensen. Christensen has teamed up with Concept, a company that I absolutely love. If you didn't know this, Concept was created by a number of people who were at Kaiser for a long time and kind of peeled off. So it took a lot of the engineering prowess and design sensibilities and that kind of thing to start Concept. So I'm a huge fan of concept. They do a lot of really great collaborations. This is an excellent one with Matthew Christensen. It's called the Tarkin. I wonder if that has anything to do with Grand Moth, which I don't really remember who that is, but I know it's someone from Star Wars. Anyway, the Tarkin is a front flipper only. We don't see that too much, front flippers only, and that makes a lot of sense.
[21:45]Well, people who are set in their ways might make them sweat a little bit, but, man, we know that front flipper technology and design has really settled in, and people know what they're doing now in designing front flippers. So never the worry. You will be able to front flip your Tarkin, no problem. It's 3.4 inches, Japanese Tanto kind of design, with just a bit of a secondary point you can see where the straight transitions into the belly. It seems like there's a little... But, you know, for all intents and purposes, it's a Japanese Tanto 20 CV, unless you're going to go for the Damascus model. So if you go for the 20CV, as you might be seeing here on screen, you'll get a satin blade with a flame anode handle. I think flame anode is cool. I only have one, but I love the way it looks. A flame anode handle with the plane. Or if you get the busy Damascus blade, they give you the plane handle. So it's not too many notes next to each other. You won't have Mr. Furley issues with this one. This will be out, quote-unquote.
[22:55]Soon so we're looking forward to that matthew christensen in uh with with a knife with a blade size at concept that is in my wheelhouse for size 3.4 is almost 3.5 and i can do that for a beautiful design so look out we might be seeing that here or maybe not no promise all that said those are knives i really want but there are other knives that i've got and i'm going to show you those in a minute, but something else I want to show.
[23:23]With the change of the season, Jim has been busily working in his design studio, and he's got two cool new t-shirts coming out for the holiday season, and yes, they are knife-themed Halloween t-shirts. The trick-or-treat on top got a really cool knife. I was telling Jim his knife designs are really coming along. I could see people using that knife. That looks like a good outdoors knife. As long as it's got the 90 degree angle, you can cast sparks with it. Trick or treat. And then down below, a very cool knife. It looks like a push bowie. So Jim's been doing not only some t-shirt design, but some knife design. Looking cool with the ghosting ghouls. Check it out at theknifejunkie.com slash shop. All right, coming up right here, the state of the collection. 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. I just got the new one from Jack Wolf Knife. You didn't hear that because I was holding it too close to the camera. So let me do that again. Listen to this.
[24:52]You hear that, Ting? This thing is amazing. This is the new Bionic Jack from Jack Wolf Knives. It is a front-flipping or middle-finger-flicking, folding-locking version of the Cyborg Jack. So this is in the Cyborg family, cleverly called the Bionic Jack. And man, alive each one that comes out is more beautiful than the one before, this one has so many cool colorways, well four very cool colorways plus an exclusive with a purple anodized handle but this one.
[25:29]And the yellow Kieranite are my favorites I saw this one come out, I was hoping, Ben would send this one to me and he did I know it sounds very privileged and it is but I am a lucky man. I get one of these when they come out. Uh.
[25:48]And I just really appreciate it. Ben, many years ago, well, not many years ago, two and a half years ago, sort of talked about the birth of this company on Thursday Night Knives. And we had it exclusively. And I'm grateful for that because it yields me. It has yielded me this amazing collection. So full disclosure, this was sent to me, but I am totally smitten with it. I also just yesterday morning watched the video, Melissa Backwoods' video, getting this knife, and she got hers in the yellow smoke with the black blade.
[26:27]Man, so gorgeous. He's doing all these really cool surface treatments and such. This one is an S90V blade steel, very thin, hollow ground blade with the horizontal hand satin finish and excellent lockup, beautiful blue and white carbon fiber. I think that's called, I can never keep these carbon fiber names straight, but 3.25 inches. This one has just gone on sale at all the dealers and at jackwolfknives.com and at thenifejunkie.com slash jackwolf. So you can go anywhere and check them out. I personally recommend you go to thenifejunkie.com slash jackwolf to check it out. But if you want to buy one of these, you can go anywhere. If you go to the website itself, I think Ben, who just started selling on his own website, is doing so because he can offer you other things also, maybe freebies or something. I know on the last knife he did, so go check that out too.
[27:30]So beautiful, beautiful knife in line with the Cyborg, the original Cyborg, that one in Micarta, and then here the mini Cyborg in full titanium that came out a little while ago, about six months ago. So look at the three of them together. take that picture in your mind and and uh man maybe maybe just maybe you want to get the folding locking version of it it is super sweet all right next up i got a couple of things from sen cut savivi first one uh in yellow g10 at first i was like but now it's i gotta say it's grown on me right quick but what i really love is that blade beautiful drop point blade nearly full height flat grind. Just a serious working knife. I know they are marketing this one as a hard use knife. I'm not sure why this is more hard use than any other Civivi, though I gotta say it does feel quite robust. It's pretty plain. That yellow is actually pretty nice. I imagine you set this down somewhere.
[28:38]You pick it up pretty darn easily, even among the autumn leaves. It's bright enough that it will definitely stick out. This is 9CR18MOV. Let me get the cheat sheet over here. Yes, 9CR18MOV, 58-60 Rockwell hardness. I didn't mention the name, and I will now because it's a funny one. It's the Practisk.
[29:06]Practisk. I've been practicing my bushcraft outside. Tonight, I'm going to be making Italian sauce. I'm going to be making my gravy over the fire. I've been practicing cooking over fire. So this thing is really cool. I love the blade shape. It's definitely a hard use. It feels pretty robust. Also, you could go to town. I mean, as a self-defense knife, it's also pretty darn cool. All right, I'm going to put this away and show you the main, the big star that Civivi Sencut sent me. This thing is so cool. I will definitely be keeping this for my personal collection, you know, for research. This is the Sentinel Strike 2. Now, you probably remember the Sentinel Strike 1 with that really cool wharncliffe blade, full flat ground with the integral backstrap.
[30:05]So the backspacer is one solid piece of FRN that wraps around the back. Same handle, same treatment, same super smooth button lock action. But here you have, I'm going to try and get the light to catch this, a very subtle compound ground blade. So here, very, very thin hollow ground on the straight transitions to a very thin, very fine, very thin flat ground point. and it has a beautiful, super long, curvy, let me try and get there. It's really hard to get because it's very subtle. But you can see where the two angles transition. This thing is crazy sharp. I've been carrying it around for a day and a half, and it is wickedly sharp. I'm a big fan of this knife and this line. I just can't quit you, Civivi. I have all these Civivis I don't carry, and I still, I just can't get rid of them. They're so awesome. This one has aluminum, like the metal part of the handle is aluminum. And then you have that FRN backspacer. It is just super light, super useful. And then you've got a very subtle but very useful, I think, I haven't used it, honestly, a glass breaker, tungsten carbide glass breaker on the back. But if you cap the back with your thumb on a downward stab with this thing or thrust, you don't feel that it's not going to menace your thumb.
[31:28]So this will be coming out. When is this? By the time you're watching this, this has already come out. So go check this out. The Civivi Sentinel Strike 2.
[31:38]Civivi Sentinel Strike 2. If I hold it at this angle, you can see that transition from the hollow grind to the flat grind. It is an impressive, cool, beautiful blade. And I really, really am a fan of this Sentinel Strike line. I want to see more with more blade shapes. More. Give me more What's his name in Star Wars Alright so that's the state of the collection Thank you to Jack Wolf Knives Of course as always For sending me that beautiful.
[32:10]Bionic Jack And of course thank you to Savivi And Sencut for sending me The Practisk and the Sentinel Strike 2 Appreciate it greatly Alright so it seems that every year I do a dagger update And this is the 2024 dagger update i was looking back through the um through the archives i was like i have a great idea i'm going to do a show just on daggers i'm like wait a second i've done this many times haven't i and i look back and i'm like oh it's an annual thing so this is the 2024 i've gotten a few uh so this is an update and most of my daggers though if you if you think about it i think i have a few extras. The Rondell dagger, a medieval weapon, not in this one. The Cinque Dia, technically a dagger, also a medieval weapon, not in this lineup. These are all modern. Okay, first up, one that I waited a ridiculous amount of time, like I think 25 years or 30 years to buy, finally got it, love it, can't believe I lived without it, is the Cold Steel Taipan. I got this one with an incredible, the original one had the leather sheet, this has the.
[33:20]I'm interrupting myself. This one has the regular Grivex sheath. I do wish, or Securex sheath. I do wish I had this in the leather. That's why you shouldn't wait on something if you can afford it and it's in a way you like it because it might go away, period, or they might change it. So that's my long way of saying that. This is one that I got on Amazon, and the first one I got was janky. Just be careful buying cold steels on Amazon. on. That's all I got to say. But I sent it back. I got a fresh new one. This is a good one and a real one. A genuine one. Sanmai 3 steel. My one cold steel with Sanmai. So it's got two different steels. A harder steel at the edge and a softer steel at the spine to absorb shock. And just a classic beautiful dagger. Big belly and deeply hollow ground bevels. So it's a slasher and a thruster. A lot of daggers are just thrusters. And if you can get something that multitasks, I'm all for it. Just like Alton Brown would say, get a tool that multitasks and you'll be a happier person. This one has the very rubbery handle that feels great in hand. And I'll tell you, because I have some very old cold steels, this doesn't get weird.
[34:44]This doesn't turn into like a sticky, tacky, dissolving rubber, at least not over 30 years. So if you think you might have your knife long enough and you're concerned about a rubberized handle, don't worry about the cold steel rubberized handle. Also, a nice attitude adjuster and noggin knocker back here. That is the cold steel Taipan. I think I might do a lineup like old school. Let me see if this will work.
[35:09]Let's see. Next up is a very, very small one. This appeared in last week's lineup as well when I was talking about small practical blades. This is the Station 9 No. 4 SOE, the Special...
[35:27]Something executive. Now I'm spacing. Oh, Special Operations Executive. It was like an SAS precursor in Great Britain. This is a Station 9 remake of Lapel Dagger. A lapel dagger was a small dagger that would be sewn into a spy's pocket or under his lapel or somewhere where it could be easily accessed, but it was small and would be missed in a pat-down. Now, this, of course, is in a modern Kydex sheath, but...
[36:03]In the old days, they were in little leather sheaves. Now, I'm telling you this. This is a bit urgent. If this were an email, there'd be a red exclamation point. This thing is now being discontinued. So if you want it, go check Chicago Knifeworks or check Midway. I think Midway has them. Chicago Knifeworks has Station 9 knives, and I know that they have another discontinued Station 9. So if you're interested, go check it out. These things are so cool. If you want a lapel dagger, you can find them elsewhere, but for a really great price, and it's $10.95. And those lateral gyms really do hold this thing in your hand. Before I had this cord on there, I'd like to tell the story. I stabbed up a watermelon we let go too long on the counter, and it did great.
[36:55]My wife, a day later, because I didn't throw it out right away. Being a guy, I was like, let's just see what happens. and it started leaking this nasty black fluid and um or nasty fluid that turned black my wife was like what are you doing what have you done like you don't want to know wife you don't want to know all right uh next up is a really cool one from polite but dangerous tools uh this is the wrapped dagger uh check out polite but dangerous tools on instagram i've been following him for a long time and was just like, man, I got it. And he came on the show. Sam came on the show. I was very... I don't know. Every time I saw one of his beautiful... He puts up very cool pictures as does his brother Ethan from Vandrear Knives. Two different knife companies. They used to work together. Now they have their own knife companies. And both of them have a great aesthetic and they post great pictures.
[37:52]This dagger, of course, looks napped. It looks ancient. But it's got that... It's a total cultural mix-up. It looks like a caveman knife here. It looks like a Japanese knife here. And then you've got the, underneath, you've got the jute, which is sort of a, I don't know, modern, primitive thing. So just a really cool aesthetic. All of his knives have a really nice aesthetic. Here, the Kydex sheath has a nice leather wrap to it or a presentation side. But oftentimes, there will be scribed into the leather on his sheaths different survival things, little, I don't know, survival glyphs, that's what we call them right now, that might help you in a pinch. Really, really nice knife. Very thin, very thin knife.
[38:45]I have put a wickedly red, it came sharp, but I put a crazy edge on this thing. And the one thing I have to do is make a sheath that's more comfortable for in the waistband carry. This is great for on the belt, but I need to make one that's either, well, a little bit more discreet for the belt. That's polite but dangerous tools, a sort of primitive wrapped dagger. And if you just saw or listened to the Donnie Dust, interview, I'm going to have him back on on Thursday Night Knives tomorrow night you will love this and he's a very cool guy and I'm very into that sort of napped aesthetic as you've seen from older knives in my collection like the Monkey Thumper for instance okay next up is a classic sort of a modern classic designed by A.G. Russell and in this case produced by CRKT I know A.G. Russell did their own version of it. That's who designed it, A.G. Russell. But their knives are... So they licensed this design out to CRKT, bring it into reach for some of us. This is on the list of cool knives that my brother-in-law has given me. I talk a lot about how my brother has given me cool knives. Well, my brother-in-law has given me a lot of cool knives, too. He's a former Marine and a current...
[40:05]Can't say, but very, very cool dude. and knows a lot, super smart, and just a great guy. And I mean, men out there, you will be lucky. I know people say, you're lucky you have the brother you have. And I am. I most certainly am. I'm also lucky in the brother-in-law that I have. I lucked out with my wife, and she came with an amazing family, brother included. He gave me this for my birthday years ago. For a while, this was our bathroom knife. If we would keep this not in the shower, but in the cabinet, just in case we're, you know, primping and and someone comes in and we have to stab them. That's what this was for. Of course, I put this leather cord on here, this paracord, because I always thought that though it's got a great divot for the thumb and a shovel grip like this, I always thought the chance was there, especially with a metal handle. This is all one big drop forage piece of metal. The chance is there to slip up onto that blade, so I put that cord there to stop that. Love this. I always thought that this sheath.
[41:15]Which allows you to mount it horizontally or vertically. I always thought it was lacking, but I have it on good word that a buddy of mine who rode motorcycles used to carry this upside down and go over bumps and stuff, and that never came out. So great sheath and a great blade. The AG Russell Design CRKT Sting. All right, next up from Max Knives and Fred Perrin. And Max Knives is a company out of France.
[41:48]France, they make the knives for Fred Perrin, his label. And this thing is so cool. First of all, I've got to say, it hangs around my neck very nicely. It's a thin and light knife. But this is a braided leather cord that my daughter made me. And if you want one for $5, let me know, and I'll have her whip one out. And I'll sell it to you for $7. No, I'm just kidding. You'll get it for $5, and she'll get all the proceeds. This is kind of teach the girls the value of hard work. This is the Ledac, and it's a cool little dagger designed by Fred Perrin, who is a former French commando and just general badass and cool dude. And this thing comes without any handle, So it's either a very slim last-ditch sort of knife or you can put a handle on it. I've seen we have people on Thursday Night Knives. Now I'm trying to remember who, and I don't remember. But a regular on Thursday Night Knives has put micarta handles on his. I did the jute cord wrap. I love jute cord. And it keeps it nice and thin, and I can wear it right next to the skin.
[43:06]The jute allows it But actually I don't because of the sharpness there But, And it gives you something to grip onto Very small, very light But man alive, is it daggery And will it help you out In a pinch The Max Knives, Fred Perrin design La da, Oh and don't forget, if you want one of these, let me know, Alright Next up is the Pinkerton Broadhead This was also on last week's list because it's extremely useful and small.
[43:39]In this case, it's useful for a lot of different things, but probably the kind of stuff that we don't want to talk about here. It is a double-edged dagger. This little beauty was made for me by Dirk Pinkerton. It was a gift, and I'm so grateful for it.
[43:58]I'm sorry. This is MagnaCut. This was actually my first MagnaCut knife. CPM MagnaCut. And then it's got the GL Hansen & Sons G. Carta here. And then, of course, hand-ground by the great Dirk Pinkerton. He's an awesome designer. We know so many of his models we see, but he is an incredible knife maker. When he has steel in his hand in front of the grinder, he does some incredible work and is very well respected amongst his peers. And that's always cool. So I have this one, and it's double-edged. I have other double-edged Dirk Pinkertons, but this one is the dagger-iest. And by dagger, I guess I should define my terms right here. Dagger, of course, is double-edged to me. Dagger shape without a double edge is not a dagger, as far as I'm concerned.
[44:48]But double edge, symmetrical. So you split it down the middle, it's the same on both sides. If you split it down the middle and it's not the same on both sides, but it's double edge, then to me that's a fighter. A fighter blade. The Agent 001, the Loveless Subhilt Fighter. Those are fighters. Double edged, but not symmetrical. All right. Next up is from Michael Jarvis and Auxiliary Manufacturing. This, of all of them, is the most EDC dagger I use. Now, the Fred Perrin Ladakh is starting to outpace this because it's so much thinner and easier to carry, but this is super comfortable in appendix. And I often talk about how a nice curve is comfortable. Well, a nice straight is comfortable, too. It fits along certain lines of the body.
[45:42]This is a 3.25-inch dagger. This is Nitro V blade steel, just beautifully ground by Michael Jarvis. Perfectly symmetrical. I mean, I've scrutinized this knife. Not only is it symmetrical in the blade, but in this very complex handle. It's faceted octagonally, and the width of the blade stock is one of the sides of that octagon, as are these very broad chamfers. You also have nice scoops cut out, swales or twills, whatever you want to call them, cut out right here for the forefinger and thumb in that pinch grip or in reverse grip. Back here you have it. Makes it great to draw, easy for drawing here, drawing it out of the sheath the way you have these scoops no matter how you orient the blade handle. This is just a brilliant design. He does a couple of other blades, shapes with this, but I think, in my estimation, because the handle is so symmetrical, kind of works no matter how you turn it, it sort of is begging for a double-edged blade, you know, so that you don't mistake the orientation of the edge.
[47:01]Okay, next up is from Stroop Knives. This is a push dagger, one of two in this collection. And you'll see that this also has a sort of primitive napped look that I just, I don't know, I just go for it. It does something for me. This one is chisel ground, meaning totally flat on one side, this back side, and then the bevels ground on the show side. It makes the edge pretty obtuse. You can definitely cut with it And if you swing and you hit something soft like flesh You will definitely slash with this But it's not your slicing knife You're not going to go slice the Gruyere with this cheese But then again, who's slicing Gruyere with a push dagger? We do not cut the cheese with a push dagger This one is called the SD-1 It has an asymmetrical handle, which I prefer to the T-handle, you'll see a T-handle next. But I like it when the blade in a push dagger doesn't protrude from betwixt the ring finger and the middle finger, swear word finger, other way, but between the swear word finger and the forefinger. That's what I prefer. I guess we would call that the bird, the bird and the forefinger.
[48:21]I prefer this. I'm going to go to the main camera to show you why, because I'm right-handed. But it seems like you have a lot more control over your, the finer motions with the tip, the slashing. As soon as you move it down into the middle, I'm kind of like, where is it exactly?
[48:38]But right up here, it's closer to the forefinger. And you know how we do everything and direct everything with our forefinger. So it feels more intuitive to me there. But a push dagger with a central protruding blade is definitely not a deal breaker. Put this down and show you this. So this was a 2023 blade show. I was there looking for a custom, um, Custom handmade push dagger, this is what I walked away with. Okay, next up, this is an old one, tried and true, definitely over 20 years old. I'm not sure, probably more than that. Double hollow ground, three and a half inch, safe keeper two from cold steel. This one is made in Japan, that's how old this one is. And just a wicked, wicked, wicked knife. This is the kind that, of course, protrudes from the center of the fist. And, yeah, it'll work. It'll work fine. But, again, I prefer this. And, yeah, I could do this, but at least, and by this, if you're only listening, I put the center protruding blade between my forefinger and my middle finger, and it still works, and you have a lot of thumb control this way, but you have no pinky control. So choose your poison.
[49:59]But with a knife like this, this is not something you're pulling out in a pinch, like say you're on a riverboat and gambling and someone cheats you, but you've already checked your pistol at the door. You pull this from your cummerbund and you lunge across the table that you've thrown over. And you take out the person who has besmirched your honor. You grab all the money and dive over the side where there's another boat waiting for you. That's what this knife is for. So you're not really thinking about the grip. You're really thinking about the ease of draw. And how sharp is this thing? Is this going to go through the bulletproof vest this other riverboat gambler is aware in? I guess back in the day, I guess maybe it's a flask of whiskey or maybe a metal jacketed Bible, something like that. Next up is from Cold Steel also. This is one that's out of print. It's the Peacekeeper.
[51:03]By the way, this Safekeeper also is. This was an eBay purchase. I was burning for this knife because I had one and I gave it away. It was a fair trade. A friend of mine gave me a great pair of American Opticals, a brand new pair right off his face. So I was like, I can't just accept this. So I gave him this knife. This was many years ago at this point. Hope you're doing well, Matt, and hope the knife is still treating you well. Something I always loved about the Peacekeeper blades is how much they flare out, how much belly you get towards the tip. So this would make for an excellent slashing knife, and the hollow grind on this is deep. So an excellent slashing knife. The tip will definitely work. This one, it looks like before I bought it, was dulled slightly and resharpened. You can just sort of see it. You can just sort of see it. But it'll still do. And I'm very happy I have this one in the production. Next up, this is a new one. This one is one that was given to me by Doug Bull, one of my gentleman junkies. And a gentleman indeed. He's also given me that SOG Sidewinder. Such a cool folder.
[52:25]The same model of folder that Doug carried when he was in the mean streets of law enforcement. Well, he bought this, and it was not doing what he wanted. I think he appreciated it and liked it, but it was a little too big for his carry. And so he sent it to me in a very, very, very, very generous gesture. I have always coveted these John Eck Commando knives and so happy that K-Bar knives has been making them. This one made in Olean, New York. Eck 44, that's injection-molded handle scales in that old-school Eck style. And very similar to that, these facets are similar to the auxiliary manufacturing pocket rocket I was showing. A nice long handle, and ordinarily you don't hear me say a long handle is nice. Usually I go for a short handle, like on this knife. But this long handle, I have discovered, allows you to hold this knife in that fencing grip or in that saber grip with your thumb running up the blade like that. I'm sorry, running up the handle like that. And on a lot of knives, you'd have room to put your hand forward on, say, a thumb ramp or something like this. Well, here, that long handle allows for that grip.
[53:51]Very interesting blade geometry, flat, super strong all the way to the edge, and then it dives precipitously to a sort of a scandy ground edge with a relief edge. Very stout and sturdy dagger. You could definitely plunge this into some hard materials and I think that that's going to go through. Thank you so much again Doug for this knife, for this Eck44. It definitely was a big part of inspiring this list here. Next up, one that I love, also from Les George and Spartan Blades to outfits that I'm crazy about. And I'm going to show it in the sheath for a second because this is an excellent sheath. As you can see, it offers a lot of different ways to lash this very tactical knife to your gear. Also allows for a lot of different clips, clip options. But this one, I also love how thin the sheath is in this dimension here. The width of it.
[55:04]Or the breadth of it, you know, this measurement here, the highness of it, if you're laying it on its side, is nice and thin, and it's not bulky for someone who's not lashing that to gear. I'm putting that in my waistband, and it's still nice and thin. This is based on that Marine Raider dagger that had a very short life. It was known to be very thin and somewhat brittle, and oftentimes guys would get these and just square off the top and make sort of a chisel tip because these were known to break very easily.
[55:43]So this was Les George's chance to work, another chance for Les George to work Spartan blades to take this classic dagger and make it in modern materials in a more robust way. At the time the original was made, it was wartime. So materials were at a premium. I know they had a very kind of janky past aluminum handle, and it was just a troubled knife from the start, but a beautiful design. So Les George dusted it off. He is a former Marine EOD guy, so Explosive Ordnance Disposal, and a lot of his earlier knives were bent towards that past, but he dusted off this classic dagger. Oh, by the way, Les George is a dagger guy. He has resuscitated the 1918 and has done these great knuckle duster knife projects with some knife-making greats like Alan Elisiewicz and Matt Chase.
[56:43]I don't know, Les George is a legend to me, and I absolutely love this dagger. This one gets a lot of pajama duty, and sorry to let you in on that little secret, but, you know, late night, I'm cruising around in my sweats or whatever. This is one that rides along with me. It's so light, comes out of the sheep easily, and, you know, someone uninvited in the house, if they're not getting a face full of lead, will not like what they get with this knife. All right, next up, also from Spartan Blades, this one is from Bill Harsey, and I'll show it to you in this beautiful Chattanooga Leatherworks sheath. The sheath is, man, it's a work of art in and of itself, but look at this design. Bill Harsey, another one of my absolute favorite designers. Like, you might put him in the same category as Les George, but a generation older. Man, I love this thing. So this is a 6.5-inch dagger, so a little bit shorter than some of the others.
[57:45]Beautiful slabbed handles. These are very, very contoured and coke-bottled, if you will. Nice pinch point here right up at that beautifully forward swept guard. The bevels are short, but they are deeply hollow ground, so you'll get some slashing action out of this, but also super stout at the tip. This blade maintains its medial ridge and full thickness to about an inch in front of the point so this one to me represents real —.
[58:18]It's like a real update to the Fairbairn Sykes. It's a real modern day, I don't know, it's a design as beautiful as the Fairbairn Sykes, to my eye. Leaves a tiny bit of tang exposed for attitude adjustment, glass breaking and such, but a fighting knife through and through this beautiful Spartan Harzi dagger. And I would posit that the shorter blade might make it even easier and better knife to fight with. But who knows? I mean, God, it all depends on the situation and all that, and your skill level and who you're going against. And if you're a super cool guy who actually can knife fight and you're not just spazzing out, all those things aside, Something about a shorter blade seems like it would kind of serve you well in that sort of tight, confined situation. Okay, I will stop talking about something I know nothing about and talk about something I do know something about. This knife here, this is the Odinwolf Sowcatcher. I know that's a menacing name. But this is marketed as a pig hunting knife. A big recurve dagger. I love it. A big recurve dagger. That's what it is. So you've got the full thickness of the blade Again up to about an inch To the point So very robust In a thrust Very sharp on the edge though So you have.
[59:46]You don't have that sort of medial ridge and then the edge coming right from that. You have a flat and then the edge. And then a fuller down the middle. That fuller adds strength and reduces weight. You have a really nice handle here on this. This is a $60 D2 blade steel, $60 purchase on Amazon.
[1:00:08]It is, I would say, well worth it. This is another one of those knives that if you're definitely a folder guy but would like to have a fixed blade, menacing fixed blade knife around just for troubled times, this would be a great one. It's not going to break the bank, but it is pretty dang sturdy. I've seen other people go to town with theirs. I have not with mine. I don't really see the point. Unless it's to prove to you that it's awesome. but I know it's got a full tang because I've seen someone take this apart and it's got a pretty good sheath but you cannot take the dangler off of it unless you cut it off permanently but a big impressive 10 inch double edged recurve dagger is the sow catcher alright lastly and arguably the most classic is this beautiful knife the Randall made 2-7 The Model 2 combat stiletto, and the 7 indicates the length of the blade.
[1:01:09]Just a classic superlative dagger. You've got quadruple hollow ground bevels, though very, very gently hollow ground, and a beautiful symmetrical brass guard. And in this case, you have the commando-style handle. The commando style handle is Randall Maid's handle that looks like this. It looks like a commando knife. Symmetrical, coke bottled, swelling in all the right places, pinching towards the pommel and flaring back out. You can get this knife if you custom order it with any of their handles. If you want that grooved number 14 handle, you can get it. You can get the Border Patrol handle or any number of handles on this. But clearly, clearly, this is the one this should have. I particularly love the stacked leather, but I'm just talking the shape. Because it's a dagger, you might pull it out and be using it in any orientation. You don't need finger grooves like in your palm of your hand when you're trying to use your dagger to save your life. So I would say if you're going to get one of these, definitely go with that Commando style handle. All right, well, thanks for joining me for my 2024 dagger update.
[1:02:26]Hopefully 2025 yields an even more hefty collection of these gorgeous knives. I love symmetrical double-edged knives. I love asymmetrical double-edged knives. It just depends on the time of day. So let me know if you have a dagger or if you have a particular taste in daggers. Let me know. Drop it in the comments below. And who knows? Maybe it'll make it onto my favorite comment of the week. All right. Thanks for joining me here. Be sure to join us tomorrow night. And if you're watching this as it drops tomorrow night, we will have Donnie Dust, special guest on the show. He is a former Marine and primitive survival specialist who really drew me into his videos with his really cool weapons and knife flint napping videos.
[1:03:13]And if you want to open up a cart for something you're selling, If you're a knife maker, I'm talking to you. Check out the American version of Shopify. Shopify is Canadian and they care what you sell. Do you want some Canadian Karen selling your stuff? No, you want LaunchCart who doesn't care what you're selling and is right here in the United States of America. All right, 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, TheKnifeJunkie.com. You can also watch our latest videos on YouTube at TheKnifeJunkie.com slash YouTube. Check out some great knife photos on TheKnifeJunkie.com slash Instagram, and join our Facebook group at TheKnifeJunkie.com slash Facebook. And if you have a question or comment, email them to Bob at TheKnifeJunkie.com or call our 24-7 listener line at 724-466-4487 and you may hear your comment or question answered on an upcoming episode of the Knife Junkie Podcast. We'll be right back.
[1:04:25]Music.