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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]Kaiser and Paul Munko announce a mini mystic, I get a workshop field sharpener, and folders I'd trust with my life. I'm Bob DeMarco, this is the Knife Junkie Podcast.
[0:13]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. One of my favorite comments this past week was from the great and powerful Dion Page. Thank you, Dion. This was on the, he says, Dave is the man. OG Blade equals OG badass. And that I cannot disagree with. Of course, we're talking about Dave of OG Blade Reviews. He sent me a giant box of 21 folders to give away on Thursday Night Knives. And Dion was commenting on that video. A lot of people commented similarly. Similarly, Pete Davidson said, The generosity from your peers speaks volumes about your character, dedication, and commitment to the community. Thanks, Bob, Jim, and all your supporters for your honesty and making everyone who visits your channel feel welcome and included. Well, I guess I just dropped that in there because it made me feel good. It was a little compliment to me and Jim. Thanks, Pete. Also, a frequent contributor. I appreciate it. And I appreciate all of you who watched the videos and commented over this past week. Thanks very much. All right, that said, let's get to a pocket check. What's in his pocket? Let's find out.
[1:34]Here's the knife junkie with his pocket check of knives. Been carrying this quite a bit and feeling like a fancy, fancy man. This is the Herman Knives Ishtar. And this was one that they sent to me. I think they've been on a little bit of a marketing blitz. I've been seeing a lot of people, not a lot of people, but a number of trusted voices getting this, getting knives from Herman Knives. And I was just surprised that I was included in that bunch because a bunch of fine fellows like Metal Complex and Jared Neve and people who have giant channels and who really do focus on the ins and outs of different knives and how they're built. You know, me, I operate more on, well, I'm a little bit different here, and I'm happy they recognize that we also appreciate fine, fine cutlery. This amazing, I call it gravel road texturing on that titanium is really nice in the hand and very easy on the eyes. And then you have this beautiful M390 upswept Persian blade there, and it is wickedly thin and sharp. after about.
[2:43]Two weeks of obsessively flipping this, it started to develop this weird lock stick. And I realized they did not put any Loctite on the pivot, and it backed out a little bit. And they give you a T20 Torx wrench in the box, and so I tightened it down real tight, and it has been butter smooth ever since. And I got to say, I like when they don't put, what do you call it, the thread locker on pivots.
[3:17]They, meaning like Chris Reeve knives, I think they don't put any of that stuff in there. I like that. It just makes it easier to adjust, or in this case, to tighten down. You say, yes, but if there was thread locker, it never would have backed out in the first place. That may be true, but I like knowing that it's nice and clean in there. There um like with my chris reeve knives uh to my two knives i've never needed any sort of bread locker in there so anyway i love this herman knives knife a lot i gotta stop saying anyway because it reminds me of someone anyway uh there's a very beautiful blade that they also serve up that looks like this except with a little bit of a clip at the tip like that and oh man that's a nice looking knife too i'm not sure if it's in the ishtar line or if it's a totally different model but lots of beautiful stuff from the polish uh company herman knives very very cool stuff and you can get get them through um polish custom knives.com.
[4:19]Next on me today wasn't a slip joint but it was in the same spirit and that is the benny i had the Benny on me. I've been carrying this thing a lot. Actually, these two I've been carrying quite a bit. They're both fancy. They're both really, really well made. And they're both fun to have on and to play with and to fidget with. But then when it comes time to cut, they're amazing at that too. The Ishtar I used to prepare a salad this past weekend. It's what I had in my pocket. And my My wife was using the new Steve Collari custom knife, so I was like, well, if I can't use that, I'm going to use this. Not that we don't have three Steve Collari custom knives here, but I wanted to use something new and full flat ground, and this thing worked great. This I've been using for pencils a lot. I've been doodling a lot, drawing a lot, and using knives always to sharpen my pencils. It's one of the best excuses to have a knife on you, especially if you're you know in a drawing mode so that's what this has been going to mostly and this is an excellent pencil sharpener no one ever talks about that but uh um you know, When we're doing our testing, and we, the royal we, I don't really do any testing, but when friends of ours do testing, you never see them sharpen a pencil.
[5:37]It is a common job, and with certain grinds, you can really, really make it fun and make the pencil just look like it came out of a legit sharpener. But this, of course, with the Mars Valley Carbon Fiber, one of my few Jack Wolf knives in carbon fiber, and probably my only carbon fiber Jack Wolf knife that isn't black or blue. So a nice warm tone here. I really like this knife. Probably, I guess, in the top three of Jack Wolf knives releases all day long. All right, next up on me, I had the T-Cal Knives Agent 001. I had this one. I have three 001s. One of them is single-edged, which I love but gets no carry, and then, or very little carry, and then I have the two double-edged ones. This one with the Woodland Burl Carbon Fiber, or Woodland Burl G10, lives in the vertical sheath. So this is the one that rides at three o'clock, or I guess I could put it appendix, but as it's summer, I'm not doing too much appendix carry. And so this one is in this sheath. I wanted to carry this way, so I I carried this knife. The purple-handled one is kind of my main agent. That's the one that sits right up by my belt buckle horizontally.
[7:00]That's got the purple burl, and since it gets a lot more play, it's getting dark and really nicely painted. Great knife. This has actually been a good pool knife for me this year. I know several weeks back I had a pool knife thing, and they were all a pool knife episode, and they were all small, thin, light folders. But I've been carrying this one a lot. It goes nicely in the bathing suit, and then when you jump in, you just pull it out, give it to your wife, and jump in.
[7:25]Because my wife never goes in. So that is the Agent 001. Of course, I love that knife. And just a little footnote, the 002, based on the handle design that Tim and I came up with, he's got the second blade coming out. This is the Agent 002. You can reserve this. And the Agent 003, which has a Night Stalker blade on the same handle. Those are available for order, for reservation, they're calling it right now. And then also a beautiful, and I have to get on this list, I haven't yet, but a beautiful Wharncliffe version of the Combatant. And it's got a separate name, I can't remember what it is. But T-Cal, always crushing. All right, lastly, for emotional support, inspired by last Thursday night, I've been carrying this quite a bit. This is the Mini RSK Mark I by Doug Ritter and Hogue. And it's just a great knife. knife great bar lock on this knife great action great ergonomics and an awesome 20 cv blade.
[8:31]Very colorful uh crew here for me um man if i had the purple handled uh t-cal it'd be it'd be all color but this is what i had on me today let me know what you had on you i had the green anodized herman ishtar i had the lava or no i'm sorry the mars valley version of the benny i had t-cal knives double edge uh agent 001 and of course the rsk mini rsk mark one uh what did you have on you let me know drop it in the comments below always interesting you need to find that out.
[9:06]I always talk about the knives from T-Cal, but I have to remind you, the sheaths, with one exception, the sheaths are outstanding. And when I say one exception, I mean one exception in the world, not like design-wise. My Karambit, my FLN model, I want it to be a little bit harder to tug it out. So I'm going to, I'm setting out, I've just found the heat gun. I'm setting out to pinch that, and then it will be perfect. Love those T-Cal knives.
[9:35]All right, next up, speaking of knives I love and have had a hand in designing, the Nova 2 pre-order is open. This is my custom collaboration with Matt Chase of Hogtooth Knives, and he and I worked on the Nova 1 together. Of course, you know I show off his knives all the time. I love his work. This is based on his EDC Tonto, meaning it's the handle and the front guard that comes from the Tanto. But like the Nova 1, I designed the blade for this, the Nova 2, and we're putting it out there. For all of you knife junkies who are interested for a limited time, this will be up. I'm going to leave this pre-order open through August, my birth month, and then we'll close it up. I know it takes time to buy something like this. It's expensive. It's handmade in Massachusetts, um but it is worth the weight saving up and it's worth the weight waiting for it to be done and in your hot little hand uh so this is the nova 2 a yojim not a yojim but a um what do you call it.
[10:46]Oh my gosh, what's it called? Okay, all right. Let me know. I know you're typing now. It's the Japanese utility blade that I love so much. Nice jimping, ivory G10 handle, red liners, and that beautiful acid stonewashed deep hollow ground blade there. So pre-order is open for this. Go to store.thenifejunkie.com to check it out and to get on that pre-order. Here's a little note if you're interested. did, we're doing a different thing with the serial numbers this time. Instead of, say, we have 20 of them ordered, instead of having 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 out of 20, you can pick whatever number you want. My brother is a tax nerd, so he's putting the number of his favorite tax code. I think it's 513. So if it's 20, it'll be 513 out of 20. Obviously, not logical or mathematical, but fun and interesting and personalized. So let me know if you're interested in that aspect, and we'll take it from there. All right, that is the Nova II, and can't wait to get it in your hands and in your belt. This, by the way, has actually been a surprise this summer. I've been carrying this a lot. I get a little fussy about my fixed blade knives in the summer. This one is working really well in the waistband because of that short and nicely rounded handle.
[12:09]So, all right. Well, thanks for checking that out. And I got some other stuff to check out. It's Knife Life News coming up. But before we get there, I want to remind you that we have a Patreon membership here. And yeah, it helps us keep the lights on and helps us pay for the services we need here at the Knife Junkie podcast. Uh but it also offers you a thing or two um in in uh access to um exclusive interviews so i interview people every week you get extra interviews and get entered in uh to win a monthly knife on thursday night knives uh we give away a lot of knives now on thursday night knives the the um, The Gentleman Junkie knife giveaway knife is always of a slightly higher caliber, so you do get something out of it. Go check it out. You can go to thenifejunkie.com slash Patreon and sign up. I will repeat that very complicated address. It's thenifejunkie.com slash Patreon. 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.
[13:24]Don't settle for ordinary. Choose the Shockwave Tactical Torch, theknifejunkie.com slash shockwave. You're listening to the Knife Junkie Podcast, and now here's the Knife Junkie with the Knife Life News. One of my absolute favorite knives from 2023 was the Paul Monco-designed Kaiser Mystic, a knife, my only knife, with Rex 45 steel, which I've come to really love. I liked it initially for its aesthetic value, it patinas, and that's part of why he put it on the Mystic, he being Paul Monco. Paul Monco comes from Connecticut. Mystic is a very famous port city in Connecticut where they build ships and also had a huge whaling industry. And this is based on that whaling, that historical whaling industry the Mystic is. It's got a beautiful kind of harpoon clip point blade, and the original was a titanium bolster lock with green micarta. Well, Kaiser and Palmonco have announced this, and this will be out by year's end, so don't get too excited yet. But look at this thing. It is a Mini Mystic, taking the 3.75 inch blade to 3.25 inches. They still have not announced the steel. I hope they stick with Rex x45 because it's just cool now if they're doing it with that coating um.
[14:44]It would nullify half of the coolness of Rex 45, that is the patina, but it would also protect the steel and only add to its toughness and hardness. Maybe not toughness, but hardness.
[14:57]So the Mini Mystic will have Ultem bolsters with a different lock. It's not a bolster lock this time, as you can see. It's their clutch lock. That's their crossbar lock.
[15:08]And then black burlap micarta for the rest of the handle. I got to say, it's very handsome. It's a fetching-looking knife, even with the Ultum. And, you know, I thought I liked Ultum, and then I got the Jack Wolf Knives Pioneer Jack and Ultum. And though I love the knife, yeah, I agree. It looks like urine. And I am a fan of different kinds of dark yellows. I love ochre and all of those fall colors. But Ultum just looks too much like you walked into a stadium bathroom, you know, a little bit. But on this one, it looks nice. It looks nice next to black here, and maybe the tone of it is a little more amber than that yellow color. But anyway, I'm getting in the weeds. I think this is going to be a really cool one because the Mystic is a really excellent knife. It's somewhat coveted. I know a lot of people, after I got mine, were wanting them, and they were in short supply. I think they came out in a couple of bursts. So this at the 3.25-inch blade, which is the magical mean for most people for EDC, and the clutch lock, which makes it more fidgety, this thing's going to jump off the shelves. So look forward to that. Look at how beautiful that blade is. I mean, that is a really, really nice. It looks like a piece of whaling kit.
[16:27]All right, so that is the Kaiser Mini Mystic.
[16:31]Look out for Paul Monco. His designs are so cool, and he happens to be a very cool and nice dude. All right, next up is from Giant Mouse. So Giant Mouse, the knife company by Jens Anzo and Jesper Voxnes, two Danish dudes of repute who design amazing knives, come together and they have this Giant Mouse line. Well, they have this Giant Mouse company. They have the Ace line, which is kind of a more slightly more, I thought it was slightly more affordable. This, to me, does not look like a slightly more affordable build because what it does look like to me is a Tom Mayo knife. This does not remind me of a Jen Zanzo or a Jesper Voxen. If I had no idea, I would think that was a Tom Mayo. but it's a beautiful knife nonetheless it's a full-type frame lock that's why that's why it seems like it might not be uh you know more budget-friendly 3.5 inch basically trailing edge depending on where you measure it from uh whether it's from the very very base of the ricasso or the very tip of the forward bit of the handle i think it varies by about a quarter inch there. MagnaCut blade, that beautiful trailing point, kind of Persian blade. And they're expecting this out early August. I do not have any giant mouse knives. I know that they're manufactured, I think in Italy, mostly in Italy.
[17:57]I do not have any. I've experienced a few that like held others at blade show.
[18:02]And they're pretty cool. This one, to me looks really nice. But again, Again, I don't know if it's just my eye today, but it looks pretty derivative. It doesn't look like there's stuff to me that much. But anyway, that's it. The Bleecker. Bleecker, I don't know, named after Bleecker Street in New York, one of the coolest streets, if you will, on the Lower East.
[18:27]Well, I guess some of it's on the Lower East Side, but some of the best pizza in the world. John's Pizza used to be on Bleecker Street. I'm not sure if they're still there. And lots of cool stuff on Bleaker Street. So hopefully the giant mouse. That, by the way, is a reversible wire pocket clip. That seems to be their bread and butter with the clips. Next up, a knife that, I'll admit it, I really like this version a lot. And I'm generally pretty cold with it, the Benchmade 940. The unassailable Benchmade 940 is out in a new special variant. But it's not a special release. release limited numbers but it's not a special release i don't know but instead of the uh satin blade of s um s30v and the green anodized aluminum handle this is in their burnt copper offerings and i think that this burnt copper line is only on the warren osborne design knives and those are some of the most successful knives they've ever released.
[19:27]You know I'm not a huge fan of this knife, but I gotta say, I like the smaller version better, just by looks. And with this burnt copper and acid stone tumbled, whatever you want to call it, magna cut, this to me is the 940. Like if i were to say get a 940 for the collection just for the wholeness of the collection this is this is the one i would very much like the look of this but uh besides the battle wash magna cut blade and the burnt copper this is a 940 and a nine what is that 945 i think the little one is called so keep your eyes peeled uh this one is uh i think this is out now it's not in my notes i I believe this one is out, so go to Benchmade and Benchmade.com to get it and check it out. Burnt copper. Who thought? Who would have known? It's a beautiful color, though, especially next to the black. Alright, last up in knife life news, this kind of thing has been getting a lot more press, and I have yet to come around. And that's because I don't use the knives I have enough to get one of these replaceable blade utility knives. They're cool for, I bet, For guys who are opening boxes all day long for work, you want something like this because you don't want to go home every night and sharpen your blades.
[20:49]Or maybe you're not even allowed to have a knife on the job and it has to be something small like this. But this is called the Cut Weasel by Boker Plus, and it's one of the modern knife enthusiast-friendly replaceable blade utility knives on the market, which is kind of another one. This one has a steel frame in that piece on top that slides and locks the blade in, slides it forward. It is a G10 blade.
[21:16]And then on the reverse side, it's got a big pocket clip that looks like a money clip. And it's as light as 1.38 ounces. So, hey, and that's a replaceable blade we all know and love, and we can go source pretty much anywhere. So a valuable tool, no doubt. It just hasn't captured my imagination, kind of like flashlights for me. You know, I know and like them, and I have a few that are pretty sweet, but that'll do it for me. I don't feel that way about knives.
[21:47]So keep your eyes peeled for the Boker Cutweasel, by the way this is a, Collaboration with Designer Ben Logan Of the Turnback Knife Company And it's a very Very close approximation To a custom version Of that Cutweasel That he does, Alright well that's all I know about New knives coming out this week Go check them out, I get a lot of my information from knife news i love ben schwartz he's the writer there he can take the most mundane knife details and make them interesting so go over check out uh knife news if you will all right uh we're going to get to the state of the collection in a moment but just be sure to like comment subscribe hit the notification bell uh that lets you know when new videos are uploaded share the show with a friend if you think there's someone crazy enough in your circle who likes uh blather about knives Send that to them. And also, you can download this to your favorite podcast app. I listen to Apple Podcasts mostly these days. I think that's due out of laziness. I used to be on Stitcher a lot. And then, I don't know.
[22:55]You can listen to it on all of these. Please, please do so. All right, coming up, we're going to check out my new WorkSharp Field Sharpener in the state of the collection. The Freedom Ringer is back. You bought out the first shipment, so Knives Ship Free just restocked their exclusive Freedom Ringer from RMJ Tactical. This solid 24-inch maple bat has a finely detailed engraving and is made in Tennessee, USA. Get the Freedom Ringer and other great knife specials from our friends at Knives Ship Free. Just use our affiliate link, thenifejunkie.com slash knifeshipfree. That's thenifejunkie.com slash knifeshipfree. And now that we're caught up with Knife Life news, let's hear more of the Knife Junkie podcast. I love that RMJ Freedom Ringer baseball bat. Makes me want to go commie bashing. I love that. Of course, I'm joking about the commies. They can... All right, moving on. Let's see. Right here. This is the only thing I got this week of note And it is awesome I got this as a recommendation from Jared Nee He put out a video Or a short on this This is the Work Sharp Field Sharpener And it's really sweet I think this is quickly becoming My, Everyday sharpener It's sort of replacing my.
[24:17]It's not replacing It'll never replace the Spyderco stone stone. But it's more of a go-to because you have more options here. So you have, on both sides, you have diamond plates. This is a coarse diamond plate, or it's like a medium diamond plate, and this is a fine diamond plate. By the way, these are removable, and then there's a whole bunch of stuff in here I haven't figured out how to use yet, but this removes also. And then you've got a little crayon in there, I think, for marking your edge.
[24:47]I just noticed that right this second. And then you have on top this great rotating ceramic rod. This is fine. So you have fine, coarse, and hook. So if you need to sharpen a fish hook, you rotate it this way, and you have a sort of peaked ridge here that you can sharpen your hooks on, or you have the fine, or you have the coarse. And then up here it's a smaller bit of ceramic that fits most serrations um and then on the back you got a strop so when you're done with the ceramic and you're done when you're done with the um the diamond stone you can go to the ceramic you know different ceramics and then finally you finish it off and knock off that burr with the strop uh it's small relatively inexpensive i think I think this was $24 or $34. It was something $4, and I know it wasn't $44. So it was either $34 or $24 on Amazon. How's that for useful information? But it was inexpensive to me, and so I got it. And I really like it. It could replace most of your stuff, or not replace it, but be the thing you use the most.
[26:04]Something I like about it a lot is that all of the approaches, so this black plastic approach to the ceramic rods, or these yellow plastic rubber approaches to these diamond steels, or even to, no, not to the strop, are placed at 20 degrees. So if you rest it, if you rest the blade on that end and then just drag it across, you're going to get a guaranteed 20 degree edge unless unless in that short span you alter the angle. But I really, really like that. It keeps you honest with your angles and it's put a wicked, wicked edge on this very mediocre edged, but cool and nice case. Love this case. But it came with a really lame edge. I've gotten a lot of cases with lame edges lately or in the past year and a half. And this thing took care of it, no problem. So I highly recommend this work sharpener, field sharpener. And yeah, I want to get more of their stuff now. I just want like a straight rod. Something like that would be cool to have. But it's always good to have a field sharpener. It's always good to have the diamond stone to bring an edge back. And then a progressively finer ceramic to refine the edge, and then you got that straw. Okay. Now we're going to get to folders I would trust with my life.
[27:32]Okay, I'll tell you how I came up with this category.
[27:38]I went downtown D.C. with some friends over the weekend, and it was to see a Star Wars burlesque show for a friend's birthday. And, uh, it was fun. Uh, what was most fun was being with my friends downtown.
[27:55]Um, the, the show was also pretty good. We had an awesome dinner, uh, but I was totally un-knived.
[28:01]I had nothing on me, not even a pen, not even like a pen that I could stab in someone's eye. So I was totally unarmed because I knew after dinner, we were going to a place where they were going to wand you down. Every place you go, any public, like a performance space you go to in DC, see you're walking through metal detectors i've learned that the hard way that's how i lost my hinderer pen my investigator pen i gave it to the lady who who made me she's like you got to throw that out i'm like i'm not throwing it out you have it she's like really i'm like don't give me really doe eyes uh we think i'm just gonna throw it out just take it you know use it against someone okay uh so i'm sitting there thinking wow this is an interesting burlesque show all star wars his theme this is awesome but what if someone came in here and challenged me to a knife duel how would i handle this or what if i had to cut a zip tie right now what would i do i'd have to go find the stage hand and use his uh his replaceable blade utility knife so it made me think like what are the folders i have uh that i that are easy to carry this i was taking this out of the giant cold steel realm and into easy knives to carry that you that i feel 100 secure with like Like, if I had a fighting situation, no problem. If I had a survival situation, no problem. And thankfully, that never comes up, either of those. But I'd be in good stead if I did.
[29:28]The first thing that came to mind is one of the ones that I will never get rid of, and that is the Chris Reeve Knives Sebenza. In my case, the 21.
[29:39]21, this was the redesign of the original Sebenza for its 21st year in production. And then 10 years later, they did the 31. A lot of people, a lot of you might have the 31 where they made some changes where they took some things about the umnums on, like the ceramic ball interface and stuff, and they did some alterations. But this to me is the, what do I want to call this? This is kind of the standard in terms of solid knives that you could count on 100% because the way it's built, it's only put together in these three places, the stop pin, which is huge, the pivot, which is nice and chunky, and then this back barrel, which is also nice and big. Uh the tolerances are all uh very notoriously that's not the right word are famously tight so everything fits together really really really nicely and tightly when you if you've ever taken apart a sebenza you know what i mean when you loosen these screws and lift it up you have to lift it up exactly or it won't move because the tolerances are so tight um you know there's There's no wiggle room between the screws and the holes they sit in. It is, they are exact.
[31:02]And that gives this whole thing an incredibly solid and rigid feel. No weight lightening in that titanium, so you feel the full solidness of those slabs.
[31:15]And then with the way they're put together, I feel like this, along with a couple of other knives that you'll see in this list, make this knife perfect. It really is excellent. Before I ever had a Chris Reeve Knives Sebenza, I was kind of like, what's the big deal? What's the big deal? What's the big deal? But if you have trusted voices out there and they are saying it's awesome, it's not just because other people are saying it's awesome. It really is amazing. and and i would like to try the 31 um but i gotta say i like the inlays i like the look of this one better i know i'm superficial i like uh but to get a 31 with some nice wood inlays would not be the worst thing in the world so this is basically setting the bar um and and then you'll see another light knife down the row that picks it up where this one moves off all right second one is designed by one of my favorite people in knives period, Ernest Emerson, and made by one of my former favorite companies, and that's Zero Tolerance. I say former favorite because it's like, what have you done for me recently, ZT? They've kind of really, really, really radically slowed down. They were never a huge production outfit anyway. I mean, they were large on the production side, but not on the, you know, they didn't have a million models like Kershaw does, does.
[32:37]But they really slowed down from there. I think they released one new knife in the past couple of years, and then a bunch of redos on older knives.
[32:47]This one is based on an old Emerson design, a pre-wave, and it's from his Speckwar series. And I love this one because it matches that really simple design. It reminds me a bit of the Sebenza, that really simple design with a very practical but nice-looking clip-point blade and in an incredible frame.
[33:15]This is a frame lock that's got overlays, so really you get the benefit, the strength of a frame lock, but without the hassle of depressing the bar with your offside fingers. This this one by the way is also uh 20 cv and an incidental front flipper like many earnest emerson designs you can front flip them because that sort of tang protrudes so this was this was a front flipper before front flipping was cool one thing about this knife is that it came with split pea soup carbon fiber this kind of ugly green carbon fiber that everyone dished down I didn't mind it, but I minded it enough, or I liked this knife enough that I wanted a material I really liked, so I got some sort of blonde micarta for it, and I had a deep carry MXG gear pocket clip.
[34:12]All right, next up, you see this knife a lot. This is my go-to car knife. This is my road trip knife. It's actually dirty from the last little trip. I got to clean that off a little bit. But this is the one that always rides in my pocket when I drive somewhere more than an hour away. That's basically my cutoff point. Why, you say? Why are you such a superstitious dolt? Well, because this had a lot of firsts for me. This was my first S35VN, my first Microtech, my first blade on bearings. Didn't even realize it at the time. First knife with a glass breaker. First knife with carbon fiber. I got it used from a gentleman in California who was building a house and had to sell his knife collection, apparently.
[35:00]And I've always, always loved this knife. So because of that glass breaker, it rides with me in cars, as even though I now have plenty of other knives with glass breakers, this is just the one. So when I load the family up and we take off, this is the one that goes in my pocket. If you want to see how this knife performs, there are some great videos by a gentleman named D-Ring on YouTube. He does a gun channel, but he's also affiliated somehow with Microtech. I think he works for them i see i see him at the shows and stuff uh and he does some torture testing of this and the ledt and a couple of other um microtech knives and they are astoundingly robust you should see what he does to this knife so definitely check it out that that is a um that goes a long way to putting this in that category for me because i haven't done all that stuff with this knife Seeing someone else do it and knowing that this is a, you know, a, representation of the knife he's doing it with just makes me feel better um but this knife has done everything it's cut everything because of that roll you know it's it's opened oil cans or oil not cans but the foil on the oil things uh oil bottles and it's also cut like a million waffles and and pancakes and stuff so it's done all sorts of duty i love this knife it's never Never leave the collection.
[36:30]All right, next up, this one is an off-grid knife. This is the Off-Grid Knives Enforcer. This one is the Red Dawn Edition, as is evident by the red and black G10. Very nice G10. Not this one, but my other one of this that's all black with D2. This has 154C on blade steel. It used to ride in my car for a couple of years before it was replaced by a different off-grid, an off-grid rescue rapid strike. But the reason I had this one in the car door, or the D2 version, is that. Look at that. It looks like a water tower in New York City on top of an apartment building. But that water tower is actually a glass breaker, noggin knocker, attitude adjuster, what have you. And this big 4-inch wharncliffe blade is also super, super good to go. It's very, very thin when it comes to cutting. Cuts cardboard great, all the off-grid knives do. And even this saber grind is really, really excellent, but also very robust. This is not a shrinking violet of a knife. And the size The gription on the handle It's got these raised pyramids That are pretty aggressive.
[37:54]Um, this, so the traction plan is nothing fancy would call it. The fact that it's got a finger guard for forward motion, it's got this amazing, uh, glass breaker back here, a very nice big handle to hold onto and quite a robust liner lock. Um, yeah, this is definitely on that list of folders I would trust my life with. And, and if I'm keeping it in the car, that's basically what I'm saying and so having this in there I have never actually used a knife to save my life but if I ever do these are the knives that I hope I have on but again as they say it's whatever you have on and it might just be a keychain knife you know might just be a little.
[38:41]Classic SD Victorinox but hopefully it's not it's hopefully it's one of these all right next up is the Spyderco Yojumbo. I really vacillated between this and the Yojumbo, but ultimately landed on the Yojumbo just due to its size. The 3.25 inch, the smaller size of the Yojumbo was also a factor that, you know, that's what I was balancing. I'm like, actually, the 3.25, it's easier to carry. It might be more likely to be on you. And I was thinking about that. But in my specific terms, no, I'm more likely to have the larger knife. So it could be this or it could be the Yojimbo. It's kind of personal preference. But a lot of it has to do with this compression lock. A lot of why I'm talking about these knives in general is that they lock up so tight so well and are, you know, most likely the failure, if there's a failure, will not be with the lock. And that's the case with the Spyderco compression lock. It's like...
[39:50]It's like nothing else. I hear people call it like a liner lock on top, but really, it's like a liner lock, but instead of a liner lock, which you have the tang here and you have the liner lock and it slides over, and then you're locked up. This one has a slot, so it not only slides over, but it locks in the slot. Lot so in order for this to fail you would have to shear a piece of this lock a piece of this, steel out of the pocket it sits in on the tank it's just not going to happen i mean i think before that happens uh the g10 might go or the or the blade will break or something but it's got a super super strong lock and not for nothing if you're uh if you're in a survival situation and you need to fidget your way to sanity, this would be a good one. But survival situation is not what this is about, because that's a pretty thin, hollow ground blade with a very kind of dainty point. This is more of a self-defense knife, let's say. So I would rely on this to save my life in that sort of situation. Not that it's the knife that will save my life.
[41:05]S30V. I love S30V steel still. still, even though it's so old and so dumb. But a lot of people still using it. Benchmade, Spyderco, cheap among them. And they're still a great blade steel. So this also, I took off the center partition that separates your fingers. Just didn't care for that too much. And I've seen people alter the handle quite a bit on this. MXG gear clip for deep carry. This ships with a large, shiny Spyderco clip. I don't like shiny clips at all these days. I just want muted. I don't need anyone up in my business. And the shiny clips just draw more attention. Oh, you have a knife.
[41:51]All right next up uh emerson i mentioned him before um but i also have a nice collection of emerson knives and of them they're all stout sturdy and good to go but of them i think this super cqc7 is just the one it is so solid and it's got a very large neutral handle i almost don't like the blade to handle ratio almost but the handle is so good it's large and neutral and And it really is like from here to here, from spine to belly, it's a tall handle. And so it really feels secure in hand. It's not going to twist. It's not going to turn when you're trying to do hard stuff with this. It's a chisel ground, meaning on one side, full chisel ground blade, and one side is totally flat. The other side has the bevels and the chisel edge. This thing is wickedly sharp. I know you look at that and you think, how could it be sharp? Sorry, I'm giving you the dumb guy voice my wife uses. I will do it differently. How, Robert, how could it be sharp if it's flat on one side?
[43:00]It's counterintuitive, but if you've ever used a chisel, that's the concept behind it. Instead of having your edge and cross section like this, your edge and cross section is like this. So half of it is there. But you still have the full beef of the full thickness of this blade not that far up.
[43:23]So, yeah, maybe not the most efficient slicer of Swiss cheese, but an excellent cutter and piercer and thruster. And this knife in particular...
[43:35]Or maybe it was just a regular 7, was one that our good friend Edwin used to help rescue people when his local area was flooded. And that's how he got his love for the Emerson knives, how sturdy and stout and sharp and usable they were. They do lack some fit and finish for some people. Some people don't like that you can sometimes see machine work and stuff on there. Doesn't bother me, like right here next to the jumper. You can see a little machine chatter. Not a big deal.
[44:12]But that's the thing about Emerson knives. They are rough and ready, and they're not dainty. They're not even dainty. They're not overdone with the fanciness because they're supposed to be used to pry people out of cars and that kind of stuff. All right, next up, a knife that would be great at that and was probably invented for something similar is the Rick Hinderer Knives XM24. You can go with the 18. I like the 24D size. Rick Hinderer used to do stuff with horses, but also he was a firefighter. And I know he did a lot of the designing of the XM models while he was doing firefighting still. And he came up with the over-travel stop on the lock bars because in tense situations he had apparently overextended the lock when closing it, when closing a knife on a fire call or whatever and it bent the.
[45:16]Bent the leafing lock out and then there was no detent and it rendered it useless basically so he created the over travel stop which is ubiquitous now across the board whether it's done like this or whether it's attached to the now ubiquitous stainless steel insert in the lock bar a lot of of the times this technology is just integrated into that technology this thing is super sturdy i was talking about the sebenza being one of the um one of the benchmarks for sturdiness basically this is the other to me i look at this and i see those super wide standoffs you could roll that you could roll over this with a truck no problem i would imagine i'm not going to uh but this would not receive any damage it's you've got again tight tolerances here in the pivot and and also in all of the drilling so when you're sticking these standoffs when you take this apart and you put the standoffs back in the titanium housing cup it fits perfectly there's not a hint of play everything is like that so again this is one of those knives when you take it off when you disassemble it and take off the top you have to do it exactly perfect everything has to be coming up at a perfect level. Otherwise, it won't move because the tolerances are so perfect.
[46:42]So that adds to the rigidity of the knife. Of course, this is a big knife. It's thick. It's like 0.6 inches thick. It's got a really thick slab of titanium on the lock side and then a thin titanium liner on the show side. It's just built for action. It's so tough.
[47:04]Um, not tough, but you know what I mean? Uh, robust, uh, toughness. I can't speak to, cause I've never really hammered this through a, through a, uh, stump or anything like that. M three 90 blade steel. And of course that is one of the most beautiful one cliffs ever. I love his one cliffs. They are similar to the Kiridashi. That's the word I was looking for before here. Uh, this, this knife actually was a huge inspiration for that blade. Um, that upward angled edge, the extreme tip.
[47:37]So I love this knife, but I also have it in the, in the buoy and I've seen it in other blades, the other blade shapes. The point is the frame and the, and the, and the format, the XM format is so durable. Yeah, I would definitely trust my life for this. All right. The next two are, are also by the same designer. The first one is the AD-20 by Demco Knives. The AD-20 is a super sturdy, thick, chunky, robust little buddy here. Again, we're seeing super thick stout standoffs, squat stout standoffs. And so that means a lot more surface area on both sides of the knife making contact. And then with the, again, perfect tolerances, meaning the barrels fit perfectly in the holes without any play tighten those all down and it is a rock and then you add the whole block here that is the shark lock mechanism.
[48:39]And if you look down in there, you can see that all adds to the rigidity, and it's all based around that big pivot. So this knife, to me, is really up there for, well, I don't want to say it usurped the triad lock, but I feel as confident with this lock as I do the triad. I think part of it is because Andrew Demko has explained this lock to us and others so many times. It just makes incredible sense. And also, there's a reinforcement that happens if you put your thumb there. That kind of happens with a frame lock and with other, like the Scorpion lock, also a Demko design. And that all comes together in this knife with great ergonomics and a stout steel. Look at the steel on this thing. It's thick and chunky, but wickedly sharp. I think I'm going to do a wardrobe change today. I think I'm going to start carrying this today. I haven't carried this in a little while. And man, it is awesome. It is a great knife. And I'm very lucky to have this. A guy who used to be here a bit, Lavender Pants, hooked me up with this. He was at River's Edge Cutlery sent me a text I know you want an 8020 I'm here with six of them, do you want me to pick one up for you And that was a very cool Nice moment Lavender Pants, I hope you're doing well sir.
[50:08]Next up is also an Andrew Demko knife, but this one uses his famous triad lock, and this is the Cold Steel 8010. Yes, I have a large Cold Steel collection, and yes, many to most of the folders have the triad lock. So I could have chosen from a lot of different knives, but this one to me is what really –, this is the one that really jumped out to me because the other ones are are bigger and stouter i thought about maybe the um the 4max scout but this just comes together with the xhp blade the hollow ground blade so this is the very first run of ad10s it had the x8 oh this is the s35 i take it back but it did it does have the hollow grind which you only saw on the first one and this This incredibly comfortable, contoured, full-sized G10 handle with the triad lock just engenders, that's not the right word, just inspires confidence. Also, not for nothing, but these can be very fidgety. Triad lock knives can be very fidgety. They're all designed with a ricasso that can bump off your forefinger. So when you drop it, it's not cutting you, it's taking you right to the ricasso.
[51:33]Very thick liners on this, that triad lock, that very useful blade shape, the contouring and ergonomics. This is just a great knife, and I would definitely test my life to it.
[51:50]Also, by the way, this has a nice little aluminum-arched noggin knocker there that works well if you need to use it in reverse grip, though this isn't a very reverse grippy kind of knife. All right, last up in this list of knives, folders I would trust my life on is the Spartan RZ Folder. Spartan RZ Folder, to me, feels with its wide standoffs, its thick slabs of non-weight-relieved titanium, titanium. It's very nice tolerances. It reminds me of the love child of the Sebenza and the Hinderer XM series. To me, this has a lot of the best qualities of both of those. And when I look at this knife from the spine, I get a nice feeling. I like how thick the slabs are, but I also like how close together they are.
[52:46]It's not a very slender knife. This is also a 3 point or about a .6 inch wide knife. But the thickness of the slabs and the closeness of them, they're literally the width of the blade. I was going to say the width of the blade plus the washers and I guess that's the case in every case. But when you do it exactly right it feels like nothing else. And this one has a hydraulic feel like this hydraulic meaning there's resistance the whole way but it's totally smooth and light resistance um whereas a knife like this has that drop shut drop shut action this has the hydraulic action so the spartan harsey folder to me is uh kind of the ultimate expression of all of these knives and not just because it has my logo on it but that has something uh but just in terms of stout sturdy um never any blade play always just always good to go this is the knife i think that i put at the top of the heap and recently having someone else who's not as familiar uh with knives really picked this one out of a bunch and be like yeah this is the one i would take and this is a guy who who knows and has relied on weapons to survive and this was This was the knife that...
[54:07]That he pulled and that really made me think and uh so yeah i love all of these knives and you know they say the knife on you is the best knife so i would stake my life with any of these if i had anything i have here um but hopefully if i ever needed one in a in a situation.
[54:25]Where my life depended on it i'd have one of these all right thanks for joining me uh let me know what your knife is and i'm talking folders right now we have a lot of fixed blades that that could I could do the trick, but not every folder could. So let me know down below what folder you would bet your life. All right. Be sure to join us on Sunday for a great interview show. And tomorrow night for Thursday Night Knives, we will be giving away a knife. I haven't determined what that will be yet, but we'll be giving away a knife on Thursday Night Knives, as we will for some time, as Dave has given me the motherlode of giveaway knives. So very excited about that. All right. 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 review the podcast.com for show notes for today's episode additional resources and to listen to past episodes visit our website the knife junkie.com you can also watch our latest videos on youtube at the knife junkie.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.
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