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. Email Bob at theknifejunkie@gmail.com; visit https://theknifejunkie.com.
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Bob DeMarco [00:00:00]:
Coming up, two new Civivis, a savage creature defense tool and Japanese wrapped knives. I'm Bob DiMarco, this is the Knife Junkie Podcast.

Announcer [00:00:14]:
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.

Bob DeMarco [00:00:27]:
Welcome back to the show. Some of my favorite comments this past week were from the Aaron Wilbur interview of Wilburn Forge. First was Weiss likes knives. He says thank you for this show, Bob. Knife Nerd Heaven well, glad to deliver on the Knife Nerd Heaven. And the conversation with Aaron was awesome. He really knows what the heck he's talking about and it was great to see his beautiful knives too. Scott E.

Bob DeMarco [00:00:51]:
Dog really got into it. He said, aaron is so handsome with a cracking beard and the best hairstyle in town. He could be my brother from a different mother. Beautiful knives man. Words of wisdom from this guy. If you're going to undertake a skill, find someone who's at the top of their game and learn from them. That was just an excerpt of a of a larger comment, but thank you guys. Thanks one and all for commenting and liking and subscribing.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:18]:
Be sure to share the shows too. That's always a great way to help out the show. All right, that said, let's get to a pocket check.

Announcer [00:01:27]:
What's in his pocket? Let's find out. Here's the Knife Junkie with his pocket.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:32]:
Check of knives in my front right pocket as per usual these days. Post post blade show 2025 is the Aurelia by Mangana Steel, Sharif Mangana's finest design by my estimation. I really love this thing and I think it's becoming a very popular knife. I know that he sold out of these at Blade Show. He had one with special with special time Mascus accents on it. I went for this. I love this. The Plain Jane version.

Bob DeMarco [00:02:06]:
I don't. I take exception to the term plain Jane, but you know what I mean. It doesn't have any bells and whistles besides the fact that the entire knife is a bell and a whistle. Beautiful magnacut blade steel here you got a long clip point, 3.7 inches of blade and a nicely contoured handle. So comfortable to hold to use. It's so sharp. It's made by Reate. Everything about this knife just hits it's on all cylinders.

Bob DeMarco [00:02:36]:
I love it. I love it. It's up there. I I keep it now with my sebenza and my SpartanHarsey folder and, and that grouping of knives that's that's how good it is. All right, next up, another really great one. I've been carrying two tie frame lock folders recently and this is the other one. This is the Jack Wolf knives or JK Collabs Tango. Sorry, this is the very first one from J.K.

Bob DeMarco [00:03:05]:
j.W. Collabs the tango because it takes two to tango. And yep, Ben is now collaborating with other knife makers in his Jake JW Collabs company. So now he's got Jack Wolf knives, the regular awesome knives we know and love, and then he's got a budget version of those that have just dropped. And now he's got JW collabs collaborating with other makers to make knives like this. This was a collaboration with Cerberus Knives. You can see the maker's mark there. Really beautiful, beautiful spanto blade.

Bob DeMarco [00:03:41]:
You've got a deep hollow grind on the main cutting surface and then flat, flat ground tip. So you have a very robust tip. Super sharp, very keen and robust in build overall with that, those nice two slabs of titanium with that radial burst pattern. Real, real big fan of this knife too. So it's rare that I'll carry two titanium frame locks at once, but this has been the carry combo recently. Next up, a very easy, easy to carry fixed blade knife on in my waistband at the three o' clock position. This is the Ken Brock Joe Watson Magni xl. So this is a Joe Watson design made by Ken Brock.

Bob DeMarco [00:04:30]:
So a beautiful meeting of the minds here. I love this knife. It is a very thin 3V blade steel. So a really, you know, fantastic cutter. Super thin, as you can see, nice and hard. You've got some traditional jimping on the top, sort of like file work. Very thin swedge. A swedge so thin you could have brought this down to a secondary edge if you wanted to, but I haven't and I have no plans to.

Bob DeMarco [00:05:06]:
I love the recurve. This is a great cutter and nice and thin. Just overall, a very easy carry for summertime and last for emotional support. Instead of a giant bowie knife, which has been my usual emotional support knife, I'm going back to the roots of the emotional support knife. The ESK was originally something fidgety that I would take out and fidget with and that fidgeting would bring the emotional support. And then at some point I transferred. I sort of transmogrified into giant blades that gave me comfort in my bag. But today I had this and I love this thing.

Bob DeMarco [00:05:44]:
This is the DC Blades Sting. This is a collaboration between Tier 1 and Old School Knives. These guys have just knocked it out of the park with all of these beautiful designs. But this one to me is, I think it's the prettiest. To me, this is the most beautiful of their designs. It's graceful, it's deadly, it's beautifully made by Megaron Knives and it's a great flipper and what do you call it? Waiver out of the pocket. So that's what I had on me today. Let me know what you guys were carrying.

Bob DeMarco [00:06:18]:
I had the Mangana Steel Aurelia. I had the JW Collabs Tango. I had the Ken Brock and Joe Watson Magni XL and the DC Blades stained some, some really beautiful knives. All of these are by people that I've interviewed, which I love. That's so part of my collecting goals these days is to, is to collect knives by people that I've interviewed or at least just have one. And with the Magni, I got two in one. I got Ken Brock and Joe Watson in one knife. Sometimes that's helpful.

Bob DeMarco [00:06:58]:
All right, well that does it for the pocket check of the day. Again, let me know what you're carrying below. Also if you're interested, you can go to Patreon. We just gave away an amazing knife by Northern Knives. It's a benchmade bailout. But it was Northern Knives collaborating with Paul Munco's colorful filth. And they put together this beautiful bailout with really cool anodization. Just gave that away for Thursday, the third Thursday of the month.

Bob DeMarco [00:07:28]:
That's the Gentleman Junkie knife giveaway night. What's Gentleman junkie, you say? That's our high tier support on Patreon. You can scan the QR code right here or go to the Night Junkie.com Patreon and if you sign up for a full year, you save 12%. That's right, you save 12%. So everyone wins. And you have a chance to win every. Every third Thursday of the month. And an especially nice knife we give away or, or package I should say we give away knives on Thursday night Knives.

Bob DeMarco [00:07:59]:
Thanks to Dave of OG Blade Reviews. But every third Thursday we, we like give something a little special away to one lucky gentleman junkie patron. So go over to the knife junkie.com Patreon and check it out again. That's thenifejunkie.com 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. Don't settle for ordinary. Choose the Shockwave Tactical torch. The knife junkie.com shockwave.

Announcer [00:08:36]:
You're listening to the Knife Junkie podcast. And now here's the Knife junkie with.

Bob DeMarco [00:08:41]:
The knife Life News Giant mouse a A knife design house that produces some of the most graceful, beautiful knives out there. About three years ago they released the Jutland. Feels like it was less than that, but that's what, that's, that's what it says here in the article. The Jutland a beautiful sort of outdoorsy clip point knife. Well now they've come out with a smaller version of this in slip joint and it is beautiful. So we're talking about a shrunk down version of the Jutland with a changed mechanism. So they went from a titanium frame lock folder to a. Actually I think that was a liner lock, titanium liner lock folder to a slip joint with this beautiful milling in it.

Bob DeMarco [00:09:27]:
So this now has a 2.65-inch S90V blade. It's got that titanium handle all contoured and fluted. Looking beautiful with washers in there. Sometimes, you know, we get the, we get the somewhat superfluous bearings in a slip joint, wire clip and milled. Now the one false note to me is the wire clip. I know that giant mouse is huge on the wire clip and I'm not about to start criticizing designs that I've never actually owned. But I think that this beautiful knife would be better served with a better looking clip. Anyway.

Bob DeMarco [00:10:07]:
That's neither here nor there. 2.6 ounces ounces. And this thing is available now. It does have a nail neck right before the downward swoop of that dramatic clip as you can see right there. Beautiful looking knife. I really like the Jutland. Probably my favorite overall giant mouse design just from afar is the Jutland. So check out the slip joint which is available now.

Bob DeMarco [00:10:34]:
Also available now is from Tops. It's the Abenico. Abenico is a, a Filipino collie pattern of. It's a technique if you will, a knife fighting or stick fighting technique. So the Abenico is obviously a combative knife. This comes from martial artist and I think he's a guru of some sort or you know like a, a top tier martial artist. I met him a few years ago. Bram Frank.

Bob DeMarco [00:11:04]:
Bram Frank. We know for that, that that very unique peak on the, on the blade, that thing that sticks up like a mountain right by the thumb ramp. Well we've seen that on other knives in the past. Bram Frank has his own line that he has OEM also Spyderco Did a Frank model, but he uses that peak for all sorts of joint manipulations and pain compliance. On the fixed blade and on folders you can use that as a wave and you can strike with it. That peak thing, you can strike with it, but you can also open up the blade on other people with it. So Tops has done a beautiful clip point, fixed blade version of it. Yeah, this, this picture is funny to me.

Bob DeMarco [00:11:50]:
That's like the most awkward way to hold that knife. It just doesn't quite make sense to me the way that I have it posed here. But that, that, I guess that could be a way, um, you, you might use it like that on a flipper to, to open it up. But I, I'm not sure how you would actually use it that way. But rest assured, that thing is there for a reason. And when I met Bram Frank two years ago, he showed me how it gets used and it's quite painful. So a fighting knife. This is his, a very signature Bram Frank design.

Bob DeMarco [00:12:26]:
That ramp thing, that mountain is actually called a Bramp. It's ramp and Bram put together. So It's a bramp 6.32, 6.38 inches of 1095 blade steel in the sort of usual powder coated configuration, G10 handle. Now as you can with a lot of Tops knives, you can order this one directly from Tops with that swedge sharpened, which if I get this knife I will have to buy it directly from Topps because there's no way, if you have the option to have a double edged knife. You know you're not using this to baton so why not go for it? I would love to get this thing double edged Kydex sheath and again available now. Now if you look at the back of the handle, you'll see a speed hole right near the pommel. I don't officially know what that's for, but I'm pretty sure that's for changing grips. You kind of bury the fat of the tip of your middle finger and your thumb on both sides of that and you can flip it around to a reverse grip and and so forth.

Bob DeMarco [00:13:31]:
So very cool looking tactical knife from Brand Prank and Tops called the Abenico. All right, next up, these two knives came in under our radar. These are two new we knife company superstar collaborations. These are not out yet. They're both in prototype four for him, but very exciting. This first designer, I love, I love his designs. I think he himself is a very cool dude. He was on this show and I saw him from afar at blade show this year and didn't have a chance to go up and say hello.

Bob DeMarco [00:14:03]:
But this is from Tashi Barucha and it's the crate snake. Look at that. I mean that thing is Tashi all day long. It's a modified worn cliff, kind of a talon like blade. So this we have everything. Is it a drop point, is it a modified wharncliffe? I don't know. But it's got a harpoon and a slight recurve at the tip. Really cool looking blade.

Bob DeMarco [00:14:27]:
That's 3.34 inches of M390 blade steel. You have a titanium liner lock handle in a classic Tashi Barucha shape. You know with that two finger well up front towards the tang and then the top spine break. This thing is a very signature design by him. 3.89 ounces. So a little bit more than your ounce per inch of blade shape. Again, this is a prototype, so not out yet. But if you go to the we knife website you can sign up to have to be notified once it is available.

Bob DeMarco [00:15:08]:
All right, next up from Canadian knife maker slash designer phenom Brian Ty. It's the tie down. And yes, every knife he designs has tie and his last name in the name. And it's always something quirky and funny like Tie Fighter or Tie down or, or, or, or, or Tie Stick was one of them. You know, like the exotic marijuana. So all sorts of different names coming from Brian Tai but they're always cool looking knives, I gotta say. And this one as usual has a long 4 inch blade. As usual meaning Brian Tye designs usually have large blades.

Bob DeMarco [00:15:51]:
M390 blade steel. It's a compound ground. I'm calling this a harpoon drop point. Not a clip point but a drop point. Beautiful thumb ramp, thumb studs, flipper on an integral handle. So if you're, if you're new to the integral flipper game. Unlike the. Well, what that means is the handle is all milled out of one solid piece of titanium in this case.

Bob DeMarco [00:16:19]:
Other times it can be other materials but usually it's titanium. Integral. I'm sorry, it's, it's got a button lock integrated into that integral and beautiful rose pattern. Carbon fiber inlays on both sides plus a time mask is pivot collar. This thing is beautiful. It's got a, if you can see on this picture, it's got a really beautifully designed pocket clip that just blends right into the top curve of the blade. And it's got that little ball bearing. He's known for that ball bearing clip style, little recurve in that blade.

Bob DeMarco [00:16:56]:
I like it a lot. We knife always coming out with cool stuff that I don't end up getting but exotic and luxury. All right, last up is from Knife Rights Delaware estate closest to me a state we're going to be vacationing in later this year. This summer is had just had a switch blade ban repeal. This is of course thanks to Knife Rights. I'm going to read directly from the article. Knife Rights Director of Legislative Affairs Todd Ratner was in Dover, Delaware yesterday to testify in support of SB108. Jerry Elliott from Willie Knives, who was a guest on this show, also gave great testimony from the perspective of a knife retailer letting the committee know how SB108 will positively affect her family business.

Bob DeMarco [00:17:50]:
The Delaware House Judiciary Committee then unanimous unanimously passed this bill that would remove the restrictions on sale or possession of automatic switchblade knives. It also amends the deadly weapons exemption for ordinary pocket knives by deleting folding in order to cover all types of knives and increases the length from 3 inches to to 3.75 inches. The bill now moves to the full House and we we love how it went from 3 inches to 3.75 inches. One quick little note. Knife Rights has led the effort to repeal switchblade bans or restrictions in 20 states, my own included, starting with New Hampshire in 2010. Repeals have since been enacted in Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. Hopefully Delaware will be next on this list. So thank you, thank you.

Bob DeMarco [00:18:52]:
Doug Ritter, thank you one and all from Knife Rights. We really appreciate and then the legislators who know that knives are not a left right issue, they are a living issue. They are a human issue. Ever since the dawn of man, knives have been here and have been an issue. So thank you guys for making it happen and I just love that I can carry a switchblade legally now in Virginia. All right. Still to come, the state of the collection. But first, I am getting back on the horse today with a newsletter.

Bob DeMarco [00:19:24]:
These come out most Sundays, sometimes some times a year. There's a bottleneck like right now. But today I will be getting one out. So join that. It's a good way for us to keep in touch with you. It's a good way for you to keep in touch with the knife junkie channel in case something happens and we go dark. Not something mysterious. And also it's just a great way to just read what's on my mind and see a couple of cool pictures.

Bob DeMarco [00:19:51]:
So go to the knifejunkie.com newsletter for more. All right, coming up, the State of the Collection.

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Announcer [00:20:27]:
And now that we're caught up with Knife Life news, let's hear more of the Knife Junkie podcast.

Bob DeMarco [00:20:33]:
Okay, before I get into the State of the Collection, I do want to mention something I forgot. Jim has been working hard on a new initiative which is available to all patrons now and it is so very cool and I don't know if he's got it ready to show an example or not, but I just have to mention Jim has been working hard on knife tips. He's got a really beautiful we As a matter of fact, on Thursday Night Live some people commented they had already received their first one. It's a comprehensive. It's a comprehensive guide to some aspect of knife collecting knives themselves, like historical aspects or ways to store all these different kind of knife tips, but fully illustrated and very informative so you gotta check it out. Just go to the knife junkie.com Patreon and that is a new feature that we're offering to our subscribers. So thank you and thank you Jim. All right, first up here.

Bob DeMarco [00:21:32]:
This comes to me from Off Grid Knives, a beauty and it's an update. Off Grid Knives is always doing updates. This is version three of the cleaver and it is now usurping version two. Oh, do you like the reveal of the cleaver right there? So I'll kind of show them both so you can see some of the design changes. The handle is slightly more ergonomic. The blade in profile is basically the same minus the choil and minus that front swedge. But as per all off grid knives, it is thin behind the edge, slicey as hell, and this is one of the more. Well, if you're watching, you'll see that what I'm about to say sounds different from what you're looking at.

Bob DeMarco [00:22:18]:
But this is one of the more wedgie versions and yet it's still wickedly thin behind the edge and just zips through cardboard. Off Grid knives. My favorite cardboard knives. And this new cleaver. Really? I don't know, it's Hitting on all cylinders. It looks more like a straight razor to me than ever before. And I like the lack of choil. Now on the old one, the choil worked great.

Bob DeMarco [00:22:44]:
You come up close and you use it. But why not just be on the handle and have all of that cutting edge, that extra inch or a half inch of cutting edge. I. I pretty much always will defer to the handle for, for getting close to the blade instead of a choil. But, you know, it worked well on this one. You can see how much I used it. I love my off grids, but this cleaver is so good for. For all sorts of cardboard cutting tasks.

Bob DeMarco [00:23:15]:
It's recycling day, et cetera. But this new one just takes the cake. I think it's a overall improvement. Super sharp, super slicey. This old one was D2. The new one is 14C 28N. I know a lot of people like that. That steel still.

Bob DeMarco [00:23:34]:
You get the ins. Inset, deep carry pocket clip with the three screws. So always improving with off grid knives. And I dig that. Also, they got jimping all the way up to. To the tip, almost to the tip of the blade. So nice, long run of jimping. All right, next up, Civivi just sent me two really cool ones.

Bob DeMarco [00:23:56]:
This one is one I would never get on my own, but I'm glad they sent it to me. I love it. This is the baby banter, but it's the baby banter 2 TG. What is up, guys? You remember Ben from. I know you know Ben. Ben now of. Of. I'm sorry, I'm having a total brain lock.

Bob DeMarco [00:24:24]:
But he used to be the guy on Blade HQ who was their marketing manager. And now he's got his own company making awesome knives. And this is his collaboration with Civivi. Now this one looks. Looks pretty sweet. It's very small. It's got incredible action on this bar. Lock it.

Bob DeMarco [00:24:44]:
That tiny little blade, it's less than 2 inches. Just drops into the handle. And usually I find that the smaller the blade, the. The worse the action. But the action on this is awesome. Just drops right in. You got two colors of G10. You got sort of a Indian red and then a beautiful green textured.

Bob DeMarco [00:25:07]:
But then, yeah, you're seeing this. There's a toothpick and a pair of tweezers embedded in there. And I absolutely love this feature. And I had this knife for about a day and had it in my pocket before I realized that these were even here. So toothpick slips right in here, just like a Swiss army knife. And then the tweezers slide right in there. And then you got a beautiful sharp little blade again. 14C 28N and just a very perfect blade drop in there.

Bob DeMarco [00:25:44]:
Very nice. Civivi baby banter 2 TG. And then next from Civivi, I got this beautiful fixed blade knife called the Gander. Now if you know anything about Civivi fixed blades, they send it with a giant rated fob. I took that off. I like it. I just don't like it on knives. But this thing is so comfortable.

Bob DeMarco [00:26:10]:
I love, love this gander, this gander knife. This one is with the wood, Jurabuta style wood. It fits the hand perfectly. You got a nice long drop point or a clip. I would call this a clip point because that drop is, is straight. Very, very comfortable in hand. I've not used this one yet. 14C 28N blade steel.

Bob DeMarco [00:26:37]:
Nice and thin and nice and broad. So this is a pretty slicey knife. I will be bringing this on some adventures this summer. Like what adventures do you go on, Bob? Well, I do my own sort of suburban adventures and, well, we're going rural here shortly, so I'll be bringing that with me. But I'm really, really happy with this. I don't know, I'm a big fan now of Civivi fixed blades. Almost even more than their folders. Their folders are awesome.

Bob DeMarco [00:27:08]:
I'm a big fan. As you know, one of my only real high value collections besides cold steel are Civivis. And I'm, I'm really into them. But the fixed blades, even more. So I want to, I want to back up and try the storms. What is that called, the storm strike or something like that? I can't remember. But they make some really cool ones. And, and I'm digging it.

Bob DeMarco [00:27:31]:
And I love this one right here. So that's my two Civis. Those are my two new cives. Next up, this one comes from my brother. Now I'm going to put this out for size reference. This, of course is the XL Espada from Cold Steel. All right, so my brother just recently sent me this here. Okay, now this is a classic antique navaja from Spain.

Bob DeMarco [00:28:02]:
And you can see it's about the same size as the XL Espada. It's a big, big girl here. And actually the blade is longer. The handle, it's bigger. What am I talking about? This thing is even bigger. So the, the navajas were knives adopted by Spaniards when they could no longer carry swords around to settle their beefs. So they said, fine, we'll do this. We'll make knives this big, big folders and.

Bob DeMarco [00:28:29]:
And you can fold this up and put it in your sash. They wore a cummerbund side kind of sash type items around their waist. And this would fit right in there. They could pull it out and open it. If. If a duel was presenting itself and you had to protect your honor, you could open this up. It locks with this sort of ratchet lock. Now this one, you can tell someone bent this out at some point.

Bob DeMarco [00:28:57]:
They probably didn't know to do this, so they stuck something in there and bent it, which really sticks in my craw. But, you know, it's just something to live with. It's an antique, what can I say? It's not like I'm going to carry it and fight with it anyway. But still, I could. And ever since talking with Rolando Escotada, I. I have some idea of how the navaja was used as he has studied that fighting form. You could, you could do kali with the navaja, but it's cooler to have a cloak and dagger. Right.

Bob DeMarco [00:29:27]:
Take off your coat and surprise them with this. So I'm really psyched about this. It's got three sections of hollow grind here. You've got a hollow ground edge, a hollow ground kind of swedge relief thing here, and then this false false edge. So beautiful. I'm guessing faux mother of pearl, because that's a pretty big chunk of mother of pearl. If it were real, it would have to come off of a giant razor clam, I would imagine. So, yeah.

Bob DeMarco [00:29:57]:
This is synthetic here, but still pretty old. I don't know. I don't know how old it is, but intuitively I'm. I'm going to say 50s or 60s Spain, but I don't know what, what the hell do I know? But this thing is so cool. Thank you, Vic. My brother, he's the best. I've had a lot of you say in the comments. Well, I wish I had a brother like him and.

Bob DeMarco [00:30:22]:
Yes, you do. And I, I hate to put it that way, but yes, you do. But it's not just for the knives. The knives are a nice little benefit. He's a generous dude, but he's also just the one of the greatest guys in the world, period. So. All right, next up, last up, let's get to this. This was just sent to me to buy the maker and it's going to bleed straight into our knives with Japanese handle wraps coming up.

Bob DeMarco [00:30:50]:
But this one, this is a beauty. Brand new. We'll do a tease but first, I wanna, I wanna tease a little bit of merch that we got coming up. But. So this is brand new, so it is part of the state of the collection. But I'm gonna open up with knives with Japanese handle wraps. But first, check this out. Unsheathe your soul.

Bob DeMarco [00:31:14]:
Jim just showed me this the other day. We were eating lunch. He's like, hey Bob, I got a new design. Check this out. And I, I spit out my black beans and rice. It was so cool. This is a. I don't know.

Bob DeMarco [00:31:27]:
I, it's, it's, it's dark, but it's also, boy, it lifts you up. This. Unsheathe your soul because that's what we should all be doing. We should be opening ourselves up to the world and to. All right, I'm just gonna shut up. Right there. You can see what it is. It's got a, it's a Japanese inspired dagger theme.

Bob DeMarco [00:31:48]:
And you can get it on a tote bag. You can get it on an apron while you're out grilling. You can get it on T shirt, a mug, whatever you want. We've got it all. The knife junkie.com/shop. And I'm particularly enamored of this design. But you know, and I'm not a skull guy, I'm put it that way. But this one's damn cool.

Bob DeMarco [00:32:07]:
But you can see page after page of design by Jim at the knife junkie.com shop. Knife themed stuff. Meet like minded individuals. It will make your life richer, better. All right, so knives with Japanese handle wraps. This one was just sent to me by Roger Pearson of, of Savage Creature Defense Tools and man alive, I love this thing. This is his signature design, his flagship design. He's got others and I think I need to get into those others because this one is just absolutely stunning.

Bob DeMarco [00:32:48]:
So you've got a double edged, upswept or pikal style blade, depending on how you're holding it there. You've got his maker's mark RP for Savage. Well, for Roger Peterson, but also Savage creature. Look at the. And Savage is his cute little French bulldog. So it's not all gur, it's. Some of it is cuteness. But look at how thin that tip goes.

Bob DeMarco [00:33:17]:
Oh, my goodness gracious. So this is 80 crv2. Beautifully made with that red, deep, dark red eel skin there. Ray skin. I'm sorry. And then there's a dragon manuki under there. And then you've got this beautiful rat. I'm a huge sucker for the, for the Tsukamaki Rap.

Bob DeMarco [00:33:42]:
I've mentioned it so many times here. I just like saying Tsukamaki, you know, so. And saying it like I know Japanese, but that's this rap style that you see on samurai swords and katanas from the samurai era. But it's been carried forth into the modern day and done with great skill by guys like this and many others that I'll be showing you now. But so this one has the fold in the middle. So when the. When the two laces come and they intertwine and then they fold back, you get this peak. So in cross section you get peaks and valleys that the fat of your hand and your fingers just sink into and it gives you outstanding grip.

Bob DeMarco [00:34:32]:
So this is not only old and cool looking, but it's very utilitarian. This is something that was created on samurai swords and weapons for grip. It wasn't just to look cool, obviously. So I think that Roger did a beautiful job on this. He also does this really cool thing with the steel that I tried to ferret out of him in conversation, but he was adamant that it's a trade secret, so I'll keep it for him. Not that I even know it, but. And then look at that chamfering right here, right at the sharpening choils. Just beautiful work.

Bob DeMarco [00:35:10]:
He's got a lot of different really cool models. All very defensive in. In. In purpose and all very Japanese in inspiration. He does a little bit of G10 in Micarta, but mostly he does this beautiful Ito wrap. And I said tsukamaki. Now I'm saying Ito. I'm not sure if they are exactly interchangeable, but I will use them here as if they are boldly.

Bob DeMarco [00:35:40]:
All right, so I'm going to put this one away. Beautiful sheath, by the way. And it's hard to make a curved blade. Kydex sheath. And he absolutely nailed it. Comes on and off super easy. That very acute tip is not digging into the Kydex in there, so just awesome. I love this knife.

Bob DeMarco [00:36:01]:
Only carried it once so far. Oh, I just got it. Please tell me the tip. All right, the tip is fine. All right, next up. Stop laughing. All right, next up is from Bastinelli knives. He does beautiful wraps.

Bob DeMarco [00:36:14]:
This one I got several years ago. I remember it was a Saturday morning. I was up watching something goofy with the girls. I don't remember what it was. I remember Bigfoot was involved, but it was like. I don't. It was like an old. I know what it was.

Bob DeMarco [00:36:30]:
It was a Star wars show special from the 70s. It was like A primetime Star wars show. But they also incorporated Bigfoot into it because the Bionic Man Bigfoot episode had just come out and was a big hit. Anyway, it doesn't matter but I was not so into it and I ordered this. I remember the Bastinelli anomaly. This is a collaboration with Doug Marcaida. This four knife series of ringed knives. This one was the Picol version.

Bob DeMarco [00:37:03]:
There was one with a, a spade blade, there was one with a spear point. And I can't remember what the fourth one was but I, I had seen this in his in Bastion Coves feed and with that beautiful maroon tsukamaki, I went for it and got it a couple of days later. I love this thing. I haven't carried this in a while but you've got this really nice grippy, tall peaks, deep valley style ITO wrap here. Please tell me in the, in the comments below how the Ito wrap is different from the Sukamaki because I know someone is cringing right now as I, as I volley back and forth with equanimity between those two terms. But really nice knife and you know it's got the paal blade. So you're doing this, you're, you're digging in, you're pulling back, you're digging in, you're pulling back. It's all gross motor motion.

Bob DeMarco [00:38:03]:
It's all caveman stuff when you're flooded with adrenaline. But you get a full fist, you don't, you don't have to alter your fist to hold on to this ring. And then that, that wrap just gives you incredible purchase. So this thing, you know, has a thin handle and it might be getting wet but it's not going to slip due to that grip. All right, so that is the Anomaly by Bastinelli. And also, well, this is a custom version and also that sheath is awkward. The sheath has never been right for me. So I think the one that was a production version of this without the wrap had a slightly better sheath to it.

Bob DeMarco [00:38:47]:
This one is nicely built but it just never kind of sat right on my belt. All right, next up is the Copus Designs lv. Now the Copas Designs Elvia comes with, with an injection molded plastic handle and a 154cm blade steel. We'll call it Scandi Ground Pacal. But the handle was always kind of slick so I got mine wrapped by Josh Mason of Bright. For War Knives. Right, For War Knives. Makes incredible Japanese inspired knives.

Bob DeMarco [00:39:25]:
I have one here. I'll be showing up next. But this was my first exposure to Josh. I had Been following him on Instagram for quite a while. And I said, I love your wraps. Can I send you a. Actually this was after we, we talked on the podcast. Can I send you my LV and have you put a wrap on it? And he did.

Bob DeMarco [00:39:47]:
And he said, what color ray skin do you want? I requested purple because I am a royal dude. And look at that. And so this one also has the twisted peaks, which makes for a higher grip and lower valleys there so your fingers really sink into that. And it's a great. It's the perfect expression of this knife in my opinion. This again is a Picall style knife. So tip down edge in. You're using your sort of caveman motions when you're flooded with adrenaline.

Bob DeMarco [00:40:19]:
This will keep this thing in your hand so no slipping onto the blade and no slipping off. All of these ITO wraps here have inject, have, what do you call it? Epoxy, what do you call it? Impregnated into it. So they are lace, but they don't move like lace. They're not soft like that. They have hardened into plastic basically. All right, next up is an original from Josh Mason, right for war. I, I need to get a bigger knife by him, but until I do, this one will do. This is a beautiful Kwaiken and it's works great as a neck knife, but this is 1095 blade steel.

Bob DeMarco [00:41:03]:
You've got a Kwaiken style blade. He 0 grinds his blades and then knocks off the edge ever so slightly so that it's not too delicate at the tip. But these things are like razors. They're so sharp now you can see some blemishes in the blade steel. And his maker's mark faded. I did something stupid. I tried to force a patina on this. I should have left it pristine because when I went to clean off the bad patina I put on it, I wiped off a lot of his beautiful maker's mark.

Bob DeMarco [00:41:35]:
You can see it right there, Josh. You can just say Jay Mason and a flower there. But I was never able to fully get rid of the staining on the blade. And I got rid of his maker's mark in a, in a big way. So just a bad, bad move on my part. But again, you've got that, that wraparound with the, with the tall peaks here and the white ray skin. And that ray skin looks like actual ray skin, whereas the other one, the purple ray skin I was showing you is dyed and it looks artificial. This looks like it just was peeled off the damn fish right there.

Bob DeMarco [00:42:16]:
Beautiful. Termination right up here at the pommel. The way he finished, finished this off through the hole. A really nice job. Again, this one is a great neck knife and I don't carry neck knives that often, but this one does a fantastic job. Even though it looks big, it's nice and light and the. The broader the sheath, the less it turns under your shirt. So this one nestles nicely between my giant pectoral muscles and just stays there.

Bob DeMarco [00:42:50]:
Nice and good. Nice and good. Yeah, I said it nice and and good. Very comfortable in hand. And then you've got this Turkish knot right here to stop your hands from slipping onto that blade. Josh Mason Bright for war. Check him out on Instagram. Bright for War.

Bob DeMarco [00:43:10]:
That is a quote from some poen I asked him Next up by one of my favorite newish makers. He's not new at this point. He's been doing it for a few years. But the way his work looks, it looks like he's been doing it for many years. Checked in with him at blade show this year and he's doing stuff like this. Just so cool. And then this design was just picked up by Boker Knives. This is the Aaron Bieber or AB Blades 302, the beautiful Sukamaki wrap.

Bob DeMarco [00:43:45]:
And he did that nice knot right up front. And then he terminates it at the pommel with a beautiful knot. It also swells at the pommel. So you feel that between your ring finger and your pinky right here, giving you extra surety of grip. I've carried and used this one a lot. It really does melt onto the belt, so to speak. You put this on and it rides horizontally front in front of the belt buckle and you can barely tell it's there. He did a really good job of following the contours of this handle with its very large choil with the lace.

Bob DeMarco [00:44:24]:
That's not easy to do. This whole process is hard on the hands, as I've heard, because you're constantly pulling it tight, but you're also wrapping it around and twisting it. And so it's. It's painful to the hand on many, many different axes. This one has a very nicely hollow ground swedge. It is magnacut and it is very thin and wickedly sharp. But again, that Tsukamaki wrap feels great and we're used to this kind of wrap on a more neutral handle. But this is a somewhat modern profile for a handle for this kind of knife.

Bob DeMarco [00:45:05]:
And it's cool to see how perfectly he followed those contours with the wrap. Again, that's the Aaron Bieber Knives 302. You can still get these custom. And he has some other similar fixed blade models. A small fighting fixed blade models. Double edged, double edged with serrations. They're very, very cool. And he's working now on these beautiful folders.

Bob DeMarco [00:45:32]:
So if you like his design, this design, go check him out. AB knives or Aaron Bieber knives. By the way, he and I went to the same art school just at different times. So that was a cool thing to learn about one another. Yes, it's a Wonder Woman cup. Okay, next up is from auxiliary manufacturing, Michael Jarvis out of Reno and auxiliary manufacturing. He also does a Japanese wrap, but he does it a little differently here. This is the pocket Bowie XL.

Bob DeMarco [00:46:05]:
So unlike the 3 inch bladed, 3 inch handled pocket Bowie, this one is 4 inch bladed, 4 inch handled. He added 1 inch to both sides and created this view. Fits the hand so perfectly. I love a coffin style handle. Fits great in reverse grip too. Almost better in reverse grip. Actually a really nice blade. This one has the Ray skin wrap, but instead of twisting it at the peak at the center and having it pop up, he goes flat.

Bob DeMarco [00:46:42]:
So flat over and without twisting it, you can see the lace is flat. That makes it much thinner. It's still has great grip. You still have these pockets to sink the fat of your hand into and your fingers. But it's lower profile when you're putting it in the waistband or dropping it in your pocket. You can get this, like I said, in a small version that you might just drop in your pocket. And to have it thinner is going to be better. You're going to carry it more probably.

Bob DeMarco [00:47:11]:
So this one next to the skin is much more comfortable than say one of these other styles with the higher peaks and lower valleys. But still doesn't really sacrifice much on the grip. Of course there's, there's a little bit, but I wouldn't call it a sacrifice. I'd call it a compromise here. He also does a great job of terminating the wrap up here at the pommel in the hole. I love the way that works. This is, this is an art form in and of itself is getting this Tsukamaki wrap to end gracefully at the end. You know, you get started doing something like this, you're wrapping, you're wrapping, you're going down the handle.

Bob DeMarco [00:47:52]:
It's looking great. You get to the end of the handle, you're like, what the hell do I do here? So he did an awesome job at that. I know there's a way of doing it. Obviously there's a, there's a codified way of doing it. And you can see that in all of these. I just have never done it myself. This one also works well in reverse grip if you're to use it in a sort of a Paul situation. This is a combative style knife.

Bob DeMarco [00:48:16]:
This is for self defense among other tasks. And it works great for that. You're like, how do you know, Bob? Have you gotten in fights? No, but I've played around with it in such a way that would indicate that it would be good in a self defense situation. All right, next up, a similar kind of wrap, but this from bg BGM knives. This is the Quen. BGM Quen. Another Quen. But this one actually is not to me is nothing like a Quen.

Bob DeMarco [00:48:48]:
That's a clip on it, but he calls it a Quen, so I trust him. This one, it has some extra epoxy here. That's something I did. That was a mistake I made there. But this, I ordered this right after I did this interview and man, I love this thing. I haven't carried this one in a while either, but it, it's that same flat style ITO wrap. So it's not twisting at the center and not creating a high peak. You got a lower peak here and then underneath there is some gutted paracord.

Bob DeMarco [00:49:23]:
So you've got the purple and green. It looks sort of like the Joker, I guess. Not my intention. I just like the color combo. Again, a good termination of that through a pommel hole like a lanyard style hole. This thing is. I can't remember what blade steel I went with on this. You can order these knives in in a number of different blade steels.

Bob DeMarco [00:49:47]:
Pretty sure this is 154cm. I think I went for the lower end in terms of price. But I love when one before CM and he does such a beautiful deep hollow grind. This thing is wickedly sharp. Oddly enough when I got it, it wasn't that sharp. All I had to do was race it over my strop a few times and that brought it right there. So was within microns of being a razor and took me like two or three seconds on a strop and it was an absolute razor. BGM knives.

Bob DeMarco [00:50:21]:
Check him out. He's got some really cool stuff and pretty prolific guy. Also does a lot of re. Reblade. Not reblades, but you know where he'll sharpen. Put a. Put a new profile on your. On your blade.

Bob DeMarco [00:50:38]:
The new bevel. Beautiful knife. I, I use this one just the way he does with some paracord right on the belt. All right, Second to last here is from Polite but Dangerous Tools. This is a really nice take on the Ito wrap. You've got a sort of, I don't know, Stone Age knife here. Even though it's in 1095 blade steel, but you've got the napping look. It looks like it's a napped blade out of obsidian or something, but it's really sharp and very thin.

Bob DeMarco [00:51:18]:
1095 blade steel. And then you've got a Tsukamaki wrap over jute, which I love. You know, I'm a big jute fan, so this really combines both of my wrapping handle wrapped obsessions. Here you've got the jute underneath epoxy down, which is a great, great surface for contact with the fingers. It's not abrasive, but it's got a good gription to it. And then you've got the epoxy impregnated lace folded over top. So this is kind of halfway. It gives you a.

Bob DeMarco [00:51:56]:
It gives you some nice peaks and some nice valleys, but they're not as high as some of the others and they're a little bit broader. So for the broadness of the handle, that works perfectly. So you can get a nice saber grip on this or in reverse grip, you can get a nice hammer grip with the thumb on the. On the pommel here. He did an interesting way of terminating this wrap. Instead of going through a loop, he did a sort of fold under it. Looks a bit like, like a sheik's turban here. So really interesting.

Bob DeMarco [00:52:29]:
Very nice. And then fits into this sort of traditional looking Kydex sheath. So you have a Kydex sheath, but it's wrapped in leather and got a leather belt loop here. So I love this combination of modern and stone Age. We'll say. But Bob, they didn't have steel in the Stone Age. I know. All right, last up is from Gross Motor Gear.

Bob DeMarco [00:52:59]:
This beauty. This is the mamushi. I have a mamushi and a mamushi mini. But the mamushi is a hot build, cacal style blade. And a mamushi is also an adder or a type of poisonous snake in Japan. And there it is in Manuki style. Thank God, not the real thing underneath that beautiful tsukamaki wrap. It looks like he used not jute but bank line underneath, I think bank line.

Bob DeMarco [00:53:30]:
And then he did that tsukamaki with the super high peaks and super deep valleys. Man, it melts into your hand. This thing is not going anywhere. This Is the, the style wrap that just reminds you that you don't always need quillians and a cross guard to stop you from going onto a blade. These, if you have a sharp blade and a point in the right spot and this kind of wrap, this is going to stay stuck in your hand all day long. A beautiful 10. This is not 1090. This is 52100 I believe.

Bob DeMarco [00:54:07]:
And you can see the radiating lines. I love those grind lines going down the blade. Got a nice swedge. Perfect ergonomics. Whether you're going to use this knife in a saber grip that's very, very comfortable like that. It's very comfortable like this in a reverse sort of clinch pick style grip or in the pal where you have the tip down and the edge in. Actually you can go this way too. That's comfortable too though.

Bob DeMarco [00:54:36]:
To me, the least practical but, but a very, very beautiful blade. Sean Old is awesome. He's a great guy and also a great knife maker and he's been doing Krav Maga for ages and he's a big dude. So he, he, he knows how to fight and he knows the applications of this style of knife. So he does a really great job making them. But one of my favorite parts about them are his Japanese wraps. All right. That all started with this brand new knife from Defensive Creatures Defense.

Bob DeMarco [00:55:14]:
Sorry, Savage Creature defensive tools and just man, I dig this thing. The Masako Hachi. Haven't carried it yet. This is going to be my carry today. I'm very excited for this. Do you like Japanese wrapped handled knives? Let me know. Drop it in the comments below and tell me which ones you like the best. All right, thanks for watching.

Bob DeMarco [00:55:38]:
Be sure to check out Josh, Josh Wolf of Red Beard Blades this coming Sunday, episode 606. 606. A great man. And I mean just a great knife maker. I cannot wait. I, I got to get my hands on his midnight. So definitely check that out. All right.

Bob DeMarco [00:55:57]:
For Jim working his magic behind the switcher, I'm Bob DiMarco saying until next time, don't take dull for an answer.

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