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]:
Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast. Coming up, we've got failed negotiation knives from a gentleman junkie. We're gonna take a look at large ethno inspired knives, and we celebrate twelve years on the air. I'm Bob DeMarco. This is the knife junkie podcast.

Announcer [00:00:19]:
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 [00:00:32]:
Welcome back to the show. Had, three favorite comments from this past week. I mean, I love all your comments, but this was on the giveaway knives episode. OG blade reviews gave me a bunch of cool fixed blades to give away, and I was showing them off last week. And, Steven Brammel ninety three ninety five says, between you, OG, and Scab, that's InquireboysCutlery, I have all the reviews I need. Because of OG, I now have some Boss Deeds, few Corgis, and an acorn. In reality, your guys' show are really not helping the month the budget this month. And I gotta say, Steven, that you put me in such awesome company, puts wind in my sails.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:10]:
Thank you very much, sir. I love OG, and I love Scab. They're two stand up guys, and their content is, second to none. So thank you so much, Steven. I appreciate that. Second comment, from Cody Broadway 8496. We've had a couple of Cody's comments here. OG, you're such a good guy.

Bob DeMarco [00:01:29]:
If not for my wife, I'd be stalking you for a date. I just hope she never sees how you support this community because she'll be expecting much more out of me. So, Cody, I got I got, got it on good word that OG is married as well. So, you better just stick to his content. Last up was from lone wolf five nine seven, another regular. I used the expression colorway, something I really bristle at much like reverse tanto, but I'm just kinda, like, giving up and and using the term. And he said, madam, did you say colorway? So that made me laugh loudly and out loud. So thank you so much, Lone Wolf, for keeping me in check.

Bob DeMarco [00:02:12]:
It's greatly appreciated. Thanks one and all to all of you people out there who watched the show and commented, liked, subscribed, and shared, all of that. I really appreciate it. Any combination of those things. Sharing, by the way, is probably the, the best thing you can do for the show. So please go ahead and do that if you know some someone a little bit quirky who might like this kind of content. Alright. That said, let's now get to a pocket check.

Announcer [00:02:42]:
What's in his pocket? Let's find out. Here's the knife junkie with his pocket check of knives.

Bob DeMarco [00:02:49]:
In my front right pocket today, the beautiful Kizer Mystic. This was designed by Paul Munco of colorful built design. Paul Munco is just a stand up guy. I've interviewed him here on the show, and I've, spoken with him a bit at Blade Show. A really cool guy, very much an artist, and, so this is, designing knives is not the only artistic venture he does, but it's the one closest to my heart for sure. The Kaiser Mystic, named after Mystic Connecticut where Paul Munco hails from. This this knife is really inspired by, the whaling industry of ages gone by. It has a bit of a whale like and there's a word for that, and I've forgotten it.

Bob DeMarco [00:03:35]:
Whale like profile Almost looks like a whale breaching, the water here. But it also looks like a bit of whaling kit. Like, it could be, onboard the ship with the harpoons and the ropes and everything else. I think they call it tackle. But a beautiful, rendering here by Kizer Knives with the that clip point harpoon blade, the OG green or I should say, sorry, OD green, cam linen micarta and the beautiful titanium bolsters. There's also a pivot collar of, linen micarta. Also, you'll notice the patina on the blade. This is Rex 45 blade steel, the only Rex 45 in my collection, and I love it.

Bob DeMarco [00:04:25]:
I love this knife and hadn't carried it in a while, so I busted it out today and had this in my front pocket. I love this thing. And, if you wanna get a nice patina on Rex 45 or any other kind of, blade steel that'll take it, like, maybe $10.95 hot meat, works wonders. Pork chops. I have found that the very best thing to to cut is hot steak. Hot beef seems to, seems to give you a great natural patina. So there you go, for whatever that's worth. And this is probably how I got the patina on this knife.

Bob DeMarco [00:05:04]:
This is one of my, great eastern cutlery number 15 boys' knife. This one is probably most, most close, to the original style boy's knife with that single blade drop point. I love this. This is not, however, my favorite number 15 by GEC. I have the, the farmer's boy farm boy's knife, that has the clip point blade and the spay blade from, I don't know, 2013 or something. It's an old one. This one I love. I I love the autumn bone jig handles here.

Bob DeMarco [00:05:43]:
So I have three number, three of these in this in this color, and I absolutely love it. This, even though it's not my favorite blade shape by Great Eastern Cutlery with that drop point, this is one of the most, overall utilitarian and just great knives to have in your pocket. That that single bladed drop point design is perfection. Just for a knife that you need to pull out and use for something. Look at that. Look at that jig bone. It is so beautiful. It reminds me of an autumn day in New England, gotta say.

Bob DeMarco [00:06:21]:
Alright. Yeah. I think I pretty much put this, patina on all all the patinas on all of my knives are natural, quote, unquote natural. Meaning I didn't force the patina any more than just, you know, slicing meat or food or, fruit works well. I I kinda draw the line at, you know, soaking a paper towel in in vinegar and wrapping it around the blade. I I did that on one blade, and, that was my, Cold Steel Laredo Bowie. It looks awesome, but, ever since then, it's just just take the knife with you to the diner and cut your steak or whatever. We go to a great time, though, about it quite frequently.

Bob DeMarco [00:07:02]:
Okay. Next up, my fixed blade knife today, just in case the, s hits the fan, is the old Mamushi. It's actually not old. It's the Mini Mamushi by gross motor gear. I've had this for about four or five months at this point. A beautiful knife made by Sean Old, proprietor of Gross Motor Gear. And as is evidenced by the name, he makes knives, for self defense when things are going wrong and you just need someone to get off of you. And you're and you're reduced to your gross motor motions, because of the adrenaline though.

Bob DeMarco [00:07:43]:
And all of your cool collie moves, all of your intricate and, precise collie fighting moves have gone out the window and you're just going into caveman mode. That's what these are for. However, you look at them and they are beautifully refined. They are not gross motor, motions that went into making them. It's these are really, really beautiful, beautiful knives. This one has a black Jeep twine wrap and then a tsukamaki, Japanese tsukamaki style wrap over top. And, man, that grip, those alternating peaks and valleys, gives you an incredible grip, that curved ten ninety five blade with the with the point that reaches slightly north of your knuckles really lands that point right where you need it to be in a in a nasty situation. Also, there's a Manuki under there, and it is a, a golden Mamushi, which is a sort of ass Japanese ass.

Bob DeMarco [00:08:42]:
Great sheath, sheath the sheaths with both my Mamushi and my Mini Mamushi seen here, took a little break in time, which is always the case with a recurve or a curved blade. But in this case, he makes them especially stout because these are not knives. You want to just sort of accidentally fall out of the sheet in a scuffle where you don't need to remove the knife to use it. I mean, to defend yourself, you know, you don't want a knife to pop out unexpectedly or unnecessarily. This one, I've put the, Discrete Carry Concepts clip on. Last up for emotional support today, just riding in my backpack, was the number 12, Covert from station nine knives. I love this thing. It is a bit pickle.

Bob DeMarco [00:09:32]:
It is a bit Persian. It is a bit just it's it's 100 badass, if I may use the expression. You've got the serrations on the back edge scooping, scooping up northward, and then you have a full bellied, main cutting edge, but you have a center line point. So, this is just an awesome self defense knife. I love this thing. I have two of these Ranger bands on it for extra gripion. This is a textured g 10 handle. These scales are textured, but it's kind of a light texturing.

Bob DeMarco [00:10:10]:
So, I've got these grippy ranger bands. When when I look at Paul Lopez and Vol West, the two guys who, are the designers at Station nine and proprietors, owners of Station nine, they always have the handles of their knives wrapped with tape. It looks very utilitarian and kinda nasty. I don't know. In movies, I always saw throwaway weapons wrapped in tape, because I don't think it retains your fingerprints, and you could just throw the the gun or the knife away that you do the dirty job with and not get busted. In in their case, it's not that. It's about actually, gripping the knife as as good as as well as possible. But I do like how the tape looks.

Bob DeMarco [00:10:53]:
But in my case, I prefer these Ranger Vans. Alright. This is what I had on me today. I had the number 12 undercover, that beautiful, knife by, Station nine. I had the mini Mamushi from Gross Motor Gear, knife maker and extra cool guy, Sean Oldmaker. I had the GEC number 15 boys knife in my, front right and left pocket alternating depending on if my phone is in my left pocket and then the Kizer Mystic. Such a gorgeous knife. What did you have on you? Let me know.

Bob DeMarco [00:11:31]:
Drop it in the comments below. I saw this past week, a lot of people put in what they were carrying, and I really appreciate that. Opens my eyes. I know you guys all have great taste, but it's varying taste, and that's what inspires me to get, new knives, kinda seeing what people I respect are carrying and, looking into why. So drop your, comment below, drop what you're carrying, and, let me read it. It's just it's for me. Let me have it. Alright.

Bob DeMarco [00:12:01]:
Coming up, we're gonna get to knife life news, but before we do, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, hit the notification bell, and all the usual stuff. But, also, if you wanna help support the show besides sharing the show, which is something I mentioned earlier, and downloading the show to your favorite podcast app, you can also go to Patreon and help support us there. We just had, one of our awesome gentlemen junkies win a knife, and pen, tactical knife and tactical pen combo from Off Grid Knives just this past week. And we do it every third Thursday of the month. And, quickest way to do that and go see what we have to offer you and to sign up is to go to the knifejunkie.com/patreon. You can also scan this QR code on your screen. Again, check us out on Patreon at theknifejunkie.com/patreon. The Shockwave tactical torch is your ultimate self defense companion, featuring a powerful LED bulb that lasts one hundred thousand hours, a super sharp crenulated bezel, and a built in stun gun delivering 4,500,000 volts.

Advertisement Announcer [00:13:06]:
Don't settle for ordinary. Choose the Shockwave tactical torch, theknifejunkie.com/shockwave. You're listening to

Announcer [00:13:14]:
the Knife Junkie podcast, and now here's the knife junkie with the knife life news.

Bob DeMarco [00:13:19]:
So in our first story, I was thrilled to see Brent Smith, an awesome guy, the the guy who does bald man knife and tool. I met him. He used to come on to Thursday night knives a lot, and then I met him at Blade Show. Then I had him on the show and and been checking out his knives ever since. We gave away one of his knives as a one of his custom knives on Thursday night knives, for a gentleman junky knife giveaway. Anyway, I was thrilled to see that he has a collaboration with Boker for this knife. Now this is the custom version. I'll show it to you here just real quick.

Bob DeMarco [00:13:54]:
This is the thicker clipper. Clipper is one of his models. It's got a, three eighths of an inch thick, almost quarter inch thick, a blade, under three inches. And in this case, a deeply hollow ground Americanized onto. The original clipper has a drop point. But in any case, he has licensed this design to Boker, an awesome knife maker and one that thrives on their, incredible collaboration knives. So this one is 2.14 inches of b two blade steel, just slightly smaller than this one that I have here. D two is an awesome blade steel and two, I'm sorry, point two two inches in blade stock, so about the same thickness as mine.

Bob DeMarco [00:14:43]:
And it's that gorgeous Americanized panto. You have that really stout chisel tip upfront and then a deep hollow grind there. So you get both slicey and robust, scraping and penetration. You get everything with this, blade steel with this, blade design and grind. This one has a black stonewashed to keep the, corrosion at bay. And then beautiful. I love these burlap handles, a brown burlap micarta scales here, hid the lanyard hole on the back, which I don't have on my custom. So that's a nice little addition with this, Boker version and comes with a Kydex sheath.

Bob DeMarco [00:15:24]:
And I can see from the Kydex sheath in the upper, left hand, upper right hand side of the screen here that it follows the contours of the blade, unlike the sheath I have, which works great. But I I gotta say, I liked the look of that pancake sheet that follows the conquerors of the blade. So nicely done, Boker, and beautifully done, Brent of Bald Man Knife and Tool. Congratulations. This is such a cool collaboration. You know, Boker Boker Plus and Boker does some just stupendously awesome, custom collaborations, and I've talked about them a lot. If you don't have the scratch to buy a bald man knife and tool thicker clipper custom knife, you can now get it from Boker. And that is the case with so many knives, including my absolute grail folder, the Marlowe Squail.

Bob DeMarco [00:16:19]:
There's no way on earth I can get one, you know, a custom version of that, but I can have that knife through Boca. So well done, one and all. Okay. Next up from Savivi. This is a cool one here. I got I got something in pocket for illustration as well. The the new, Buster f g. Now do you guys remember the Buster? They did one with, we knife.

Bob DeMarco [00:16:44]:
It was a smaller version and, and then, well, Sneks. Sneks Tan, the guy who invented the Super Lock. He's from Malaysia, I believe. Malaysia, I believe. But, anyway, he came out with these incredible knives, that he was hosting to Instagram the creation of these knives. And, he had the what was it called? Oh, I should not started on that. But, anyway, he did he did a knife that he made 10 versions of, and I believe, Jim Skelton had one for a short while. He did 10 of them.

Bob DeMarco [00:17:24]:
They sold for $10, and they were absolutely beautiful, a, hardware free. No screws. No nothing. Just came together like a puzzle and included an incredible lot. Anyways, Sneks Tan is known as a genius in the, folding knife world. He has a new one with Civivi. That's the long way around, called the, Buster FG. So the Buster FG, as you can see, has a gorgeous modernized, Nitro v, Wharncliffe.

Bob DeMarco [00:17:59]:
This thing is two, four point two inches long, so a big night. I'm very excited about this. I cannot wait to get mine, because I have the Vision FG, another collaboration with SNEX, here with that Super Lock. That's the one that is just ultra fidgety, super strong, and, this one, is probably the most adored Civivi to date. Well, this one, the new one coming out, the Buster FG, is gonna be, quite a quite a bit bigger than this and, very robust with that same lock. So as I said, 4.2 inches in blade length, Nitro v modified one clip, ambidextrous super lock, kinda similar to the shark lock, in in the, what do you call it, interface, but different in the guts. Steel liners, skeletonized g 10 handles. It's it's gonna be a heavy girl.

Bob DeMarco [00:18:58]:
6.46 ounces, available early June. So I'm thinking they're gonna bring this out at blade show. Maybe I will be getting one there. I'm not sure when I'm gonna get one, but I will be getting one. And, an interesting note on the, on the original Buster Feet. So Snextran created the custom, that that will cost $10,000, and he only made 10 of them. People went crazy. There was a huge demand for them.

Bob DeMarco [00:19:27]:
So he teamed up back in the day with Jake Hoback, and they produced, a small amount, maybe 500 of them. And so people could sort of get them. They were more widely distributed than the original 10. So, this is now gonna be a knife that we can all get, in hand. I can't wait to get it. It looks so cool. And I love the blade shape, and I love the super lot. Also, I was around for the original, Sneks, Instagram posts when he was making that custom way back when, and I was flabbergasted.

Bob DeMarco [00:20:06]:
And so now I have a chance, to get something similar, albeit not nearly as valuable. Alright. Next up, from another beloved brand, especially by yours truly, this is a collaboration, the first collaboration from Jack Wolf Knives. This is called the Prickly Pear. Prickly pear is something I used to call people when they were being jerks. You're being a prickly pear. So this thing is cool. The concept is an EDC scalpel knife.

Bob DeMarco [00:20:38]:
We've seen a number of EDC scalpels over the over the years. I think I gotta say the first one was the street scalpel by Topps, but we've seen a lot of them since. And this one is a pretty cool, of re addition to that lineup. This is designed by Taylor Cortez of Tailored by Cortez Leatherworks. One of the, producers of leather, slips for jackal knives. You can get there. And, so they teamed up to make a knife and leather slip combination. This one is a two inch s two inch bladed s 45 v n Americanized Tanto, scalpel.

Bob DeMarco [00:21:23]:
Very, very cool. As is endemic to the the scalpel design, it's got a larger handle. This is a three inch plus handle with either g 10 or micarta scales with that sort of radiating and it it almost looks like a, a not Timber. Who is the well, anyway, it it it's got that radiating sun pattern coming out, leather pocket sheet, of course, made by Cortez and USA made. I mean, I'm talking about the blade too. This is the first Jack Wolf knife knife that's, made in The United States, by a California based company called Misfits Machining. It is available now exclusively on the Jack Wolf Knives website. So go check that out.

Bob DeMarco [00:22:11]:
Alright. Last up, just a quick announcement. The CRKT, Columbia River Knife and Tool Razzle folding knife is back in production. It's a comeback for the, John Graham designed Razzle. I didn't even know it went away, but, this is an interesting knife, because, it is inspired by both the straight razor and the chisel and has inspired over a dozen different, CRKT models that feature that style blade. So that flat front also has an edge. John Graham, who, rest in peace, John Graham, who offered so much to the knife community, and knife collectors. He designed this.

Bob DeMarco [00:22:59]:
He's a he was a mechanic by trade and also had a truck driving brother. And as a mechanic, he used chisels or used his knives like chisels all the time and began to, you know, prying and scraping and that kind of thing and recognized the value of the chisel. And at the same time, his brother who was a truck driver, really loved razors, straight razors. So he kind of combined the the utility of a hollow ground slicing razor with the tip of the chisel and came up with that incredible, and very useful knife design. This has been on fixed blades now, neck knives, folders, even a little sort of ax that we featured here on the show not too long ago. And, as you can see here from this, from the image from the website, you can, when this arrives, you get it with both a normal sort of tactical pocket clip. Or another innovation by John Graham was that spine mounted small spine mounted clip. So, no matter what your taste in in clippage, you can you can have your choice.

Bob DeMarco [00:24:10]:
So pretty cool. Three point, one two inches 3.21 inches of eight c r 13 mov, a favorite steal of CRKT. For the four m, this is under $50. Thumb stud liner lock with that secondary spine locks lock, which is sometimes a buzzkill. But in this case, you're gonna be doing some scraping. You're gonna be doing some hard utility with this knife. And, so that that extra lock is, welcome, I'd say. Blue and black micarta, contoured.

Bob DeMarco [00:24:42]:
This is, also heavy, six point, six ounces and available now. And again and I have to say, before we leave KnifeLife news, the razzle just reminded me of a little anecdote. We were talking about the thicker clipper, which is coming out by Boker and Bald Man Knife and Tool, A good buddy of Brent. He's a great guy. I see him every year at, Brent's, I think his name is John. I'm sorry if I've forgotten your name. John, I think. But a good buddy of, Brent's was telling me he works in construction and uses this knife, the thicker clipper, and how robust that design is.

Bob DeMarco [00:25:25]:
So that sort of razzle ish, in this case, extreme Americanized tanto but with a chisel point is very, very useful in all sorts of pursuits, in, in the shop, on the construction site or wherever else you happen to be. So, the razzle and the, thicker clipper kind of coming full circle from the beginning to end of knife life news. A very interesting and useful blade shape. Do check it out. Alright. Still to come, we have the state of the collection but I wanna remind you about our newsletter. You can check that out at the knifejunkie.com slash newsletter, for a weekly dose of, news and, pictures on the, various knife topics that are of interest to me at that time. Also, check out Thursday night knives.

Bob DeMarco [00:26:21]:
It's another this is another opportunity for me to plug Thursday night knives. It is awesome. It has we've been doing this for six years now, I think, Thursday night knives. It's our two hour livestream at, 10PM Eastern Standard Time on YouTube and Twitch. And, man, alive is it fun. We have lots of people coming on and commenting. It's a it's a full full blown conversation. I put up a topic of conversation, and we talk about it all night.

Bob DeMarco [00:26:50]:
I show off the new stuff. We give away knives. It's just a great time. So be sure to join us there Thursday night knives. Alright. Coming up, we got the state of the collection.

Announcer [00:27:03]:
Visit the knife junkie at theknifejunkie.com to catch all of our podcast episodes, videos, photos and more

Bob DeMarco [00:27:06]:
That was cool. I love that new liner. It reminds me of the seventies and the eighties, eras in which I was born and bred. Okay. This was really cool and a surprise. A surprise because I forgot I was getting gonna be receiving these. But, a great patron of ours, Jeff Wright, has a company called, Failed Negotiation Knives, and I love that name because of the types of knives they are.

Bob DeMarco [00:27:42]:
Let me show them here. Let me pick them up. Okay. So you are now looking at four little knives by Failed Negotiation Knives, and I'll tell you why I love the name. These are all Pakal style knives. And what do we use Pacal style knives for? Failed negotiations. Please, sir, leave me alone. I don't wanna fight.

Bob DeMarco [00:28:04]:
Please, sir, get off of me, and that's what these are for. They're Pacal style edge in tip down knives. Of course, you can use them for other purposes, but they are intended to, get that that person off of you who is menacing you. And, I love these little knives. They're awesome. Actually, so he sent me four knives and a trainer and also a, universal, ambidextrous sheet, beautifully done with a DCC pocket clip on it. So what do I love about these knives? I love the size. I love how small they are.

Bob DeMarco [00:28:43]:
This one has a little tsukamaki wrap on it, and they are just exactly what they sound like. When things have failed and you need to get someone off of you who's, who's assaulting you. Now, let's talk first about this. I don't know model names. I don't know if they have names, but this is a bizarre looking knife if you just, just glance at it. It seems to have the edge on the wrong side and all of that, but indeed, this is for a grip a, a fist. So you have to punch here. I'm gonna go to this camera here just to show you.

Bob DeMarco [00:29:21]:
Look look at the angle of that blade, the handle. This allows you to punch or back fist without having to change the angle of your, your grip or your wrist at all to make it land where it needs to land. So I've I really love this one. He sent me two of this model, one with the tsukamaki and one with the thin wrap, and, I showed my wife, and she is going to be adopting this knife as her new, jogging knife. She runs, She just she just won in her category five k, local five k, and I'm very proud of her. She hates running and yet she does it. I hate running and I don't do it. But she always carries a knife with her.

Bob DeMarco [00:30:04]:
She carries a bastinelli diagnostic, and, she's gonna switch to this. Not the diagnostic isn't an awesome knife, but this is what she's gonna she's gonna turn to because she can keep it gripped in her fist while she's running and without the the tag. It's got these all have cool little tags with the logo on it. But she can keep it gripped in her fist while she's running, and if she needs to, she can just pop it off and use it. And so she's gonna start carrying these. I'm I'm really happy about that because, I know a lot of thought and design went into creating these, Papell style knives. Jeff Wright, thank you so much for sending these to me. I adore them and will cherish them for sure.

Bob DeMarco [00:30:51]:
And, we also discussed my wife and I also discussed that, I have a 10 year old daughter, and she's she'll be 11 in six months. She'll let you know she's 10. These fit her hand perfectly, and she's we have, made her aware of knives in terms of how to handle them. She's got a good number of them at this point, and, this would be a perfect little self defense knife for her. So I think we're gonna give her one of those maybe for her eleventh birthday. Maybe we'll hold off a little bit. But, I really like these because they fit in my manly hands, but they're they're also, really good for the girls in my life. I have, I I am the only male in this house beside the dog, and I worry about them.

Bob DeMarco [00:31:38]:
And so they have been my wife trained in collies, so she knows about knives and how to use them. And we have brought our daughters into the fold, and they are very used to them and very comfortable with them. And, they're beautiful and awesome and shine a bright light, and some people like to glom onto that. And so if anyone gloms on too hard, they have a knife to extricate themselves from the situation with. Anyway, that's Long for saying thank you so much, Jeff, for sending me these knives and this beautifully, three d printed trainer. I really appreciate that. This will go a long way to, making us feel a little bit more secure when we're out and about. Also, very nicely done, ambidextrous sheet here.

Bob DeMarco [00:32:27]:
So check out, failed negotiation knives. Now I I need to get more information from Jeff about, the how available these knives are. That's ten ten ninety five blade steel. He has just gotten a three burner forge in an anvil from selling some of these, so I can't wait to see where he goes from here. Thanks, thanks again, Jeff. I greatly appreciate it. Alright. It's gonna take me a second just to get these in their sheets.

Bob DeMarco [00:32:56]:
And as we do, I wanna say, get this. Sorry about that. I I don't wanna stab these are really sharp and, meant for menace. And so okay. I'm gonna set these over here. I'll be with these in a little while. Alright. So, we have a new design.

Bob DeMarco [00:33:16]:
We, Jim has a new design I wanna show off. Barbecues, blades, and badassery. Yes. Yes. Indeed. You so you can see you've got the the the draw, drawstring backpack that are so cool with kids these days. So, so beloved. And then also, beloved with the, men in your life, or you probably watching, aprons, because we all like the barbecue or in my case, griddle.

Bob DeMarco [00:33:44]:
I'm better on a griddle than a grill. But we all need aprons. So, go check these out at the knifejunkie.com/shop. Now you can get that design, barbecues, blades, and badassery on all sorts of stuff. Mugs, mouse pads, backpacks, yetis, and that kind of thing. All sorts of stuff. T shirts, of course, hats. So go check it out, the knifejunkie.com/shop.

Bob DeMarco [00:34:12]:
And I just wanna say a little tip of the hat to Jim and his weekly designs. He's got more creativity in his little finger than most of us, and he is always, not only creating new stuff, but thinking of newer and better ways of doing things. So much appreciated, Jim. Alright. Let's do this. Let's get to large ethno inspired knives. Now ethno inspired means from different cultures or ethnically inspired knives. And I'm gonna start with, for me, what is the most salient, and that is United States Of America.

Bob DeMarco [00:34:49]:
And you're saying that's not an ethnicity, and I'm saying at this point, yes, it is. Fight me or debate me. Prove me wrong. And, of course, if we're talking about an ethno inspired knife from The United States, it's got to be the Bowie knife. And I decided to show off, in this case, the Bark River Knives Shining Mountain Bowie. An absolutely beautiful example. This one designed by Mike Stewart. That particular blade profile, was originally designed by Mike Stewart, the proprietor of Bark River Knives, before he ever started Bark River Knives.

Bob DeMarco [00:35:28]:
Now before Bark River Knives, he started Blackjack Knives. And before Blackjack, he was a designer for companies like Winchester and others, and I believe he came up with the shining mountain design, when at Winchester. And you probably recognize this from Inglourious Bastards, this blade shape that is. And, I know that the prop knife for that movie was the Winchester version with a crown stag handle. I love that movie. I know I talk about it a lot, but I also love that knife. I love that all of the, Inglourious Basterds carry special knives for scalping, and the ones that we see are usually clip points slash Bowie knives. But the one featured heavily by Brad Pitt and Aldo Raine, is the Shining Mountain Bowie.

Bob DeMarco [00:36:23]:
You're probably gonna you're probably gonna take that uniform off. Right? We know what that means. A very, very cool knife. I love it, and I love the American, clip point or Bowie. A great knife for all purposes. In this case, it doesn't have a sharpened swedge but you can still use that swedge, for fighting but, and I'll talk about that in a quick second but this style knife is an all arounder. You can use this for camping. You can use this for hunting purposes, in terms of, dressing game, though it's a little big for that.

Bob DeMarco [00:36:59]:
But also, you can use this as a fighting knife. So, when you're using this as a fighting knife, in the back here, you can use it in a number of different ways. Now, one of the most storied ways is using that back sweat in what's called a, a back cut. So imagine you and I are fighting and you have a knife coming in towards me. Boom. I back up. Of course, suck in my belly. You always wanna suck in your belly.

Bob DeMarco [00:37:28]:
As we get older, that becomes more difficult, but suck in your belly and curve your back and drop that point. Bang. Bang. Like that, and you get a gouging tearing effect from that, curve there on the clip. Some knives like the one I'm having made right now by Matt Chase, who I gave some away, have a sharpened clip. This is not a sharpened clip, but I've illustrated as have others, many times, on cardboard and other things that it doesn't matter. You can still use that tip if you do nasty, nasty gouges and tears. Some people would fight with Bowie knives.

Bob DeMarco [00:38:07]:
Like, if you look at, if you watch Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, there's a knife fight that kinda doesn't happen because, the opponent gets kicked in the crotch, but he's ready to fight with a western style Bowie, and he has it like this. And I remember when I first watched it thinking, oh my god. How did they let him hold that knife backward? But a lot of guys fought in this kind of mountain man method, later called the Randle fighting method in World War two, when people would hold their Randles like this because they have the sharpened edge and they do that old heave ho stab and pull back. So, yeah, the mountain man method, the regular method, which is kind of more, fencing and traditional European sword inspired, the Bowie has it all, and to me, it's still probably my favorite design blade of all time. With the Bark River, Shining Mountain Bowie, which they rereleased not that long ago, you get you get a beautiful sheath every time. This one is dark because it's been treated. When you get a knife, from Bark River Knife and Tool or that's just Bark River Knives. You can have it the leather treated, which takes it from a beautiful haves leather, tan color to this dark color.

Bob DeMarco [00:39:24]:
Love this thing. Stacked leather handles on this. Antique stacked leather handles. Alright. I could talk about this one all day. I'm gonna set this aside and get to the next one. And then this one is Japanese inspired. Now note I'm saying inspired, because this one has an Americanized tanto.

Bob DeMarco [00:39:42]:
This is the Magnum Tanto 12 from Cold Steel. And you can see it barely fits in the entire screen. So, I will hold it down here for a minute so you can see the handle. It's got that classic Cold Steel Kraton checkered, rubberized handle with the pointy skull crusher. And in this case, a guard that's more like a Tsuba than, the single Quillian version of the regular, Magnum Tanto. This one has a 12 inch long VG 10, San Mai blade. So that means the cutting edge is VG 10, and then it's jacketed with a, I think, a four forty series steel, which is softer on the top and on the outsides. You can see, you just see the separation of the steels right there, just north of the edge.

Bob DeMarco [00:40:39]:
See that line? Okay. So here we have a deeply hollow ground blade. Oh, geez. I almost put myself on that. Deeply hollow ground, main cutting edge and then a flat ground sort of chisel tip. Boy, chisel seems to be the theme today. So if you put it like this and look at it in, from its, pectoral aspect, you can see that it comes to a very, very stout point. Here, we'll flip it over to its dorsal aspect.

Bob DeMarco [00:41:09]:
You can see full thickness of the blade. You can also see the, two different steels here. You can see that center steel there, but you have a full thickness to about three quarters of an inch to the tip. So incredible penetration power with this. A slight upswept, upsweep in the blade gives you awesome shearing power as well as that thin behind the edge, hollow ground, main cutting edge. Just an awesome knife. Now if we're talking about this knife in particular, which I guess we are, it has it it is so great in hand. It moves in the hand like almost no other blade I have, especially for a 12 inch knife.

Bob DeMarco [00:41:52]:
The balance is just north of the or, just just forward of the guard, but on a knife that usually, you want the balance right about at the guard or in the first finger, choil or a fighting knife for for something this long for the balance to be this far back. It just moves, really easily, lightly. Oh, what did I say? Late and lively in the hand, just like the yogurt. Also, like I mentioned before, you've got this aluminum pommel, which is great for a secondary kind of striking thing, but let's face it. If you've unsheathed this knife, you're probably not thinking of, less than lethal options. And I don't I'm not so sure how hitting someone in the head with this, is less than lethal. But this is the Japanese inspired Americanized tanto. Americanized, sorry, I didn't actually mention that.

Bob DeMarco [00:42:46]:
Americanized means this sort of chisel tip. Instead of a gradual sweep from here to the tip, it it comes to an abrupt angle and changes angles. That's the Americanized aspect. When you hear people say American Tonton. Alright. Next up, inspired by the Canucks, the Canadians, and the north of the border, types. This is the Condor Hudson Bay knife. It is a clip point knife, but it's not a Bowie.

Bob DeMarco [00:43:16]:
First of all, you got no false edge, no swedge there. And this thing was a do all knife, for trappers. This thing this thing. This knife was used for all things, for, camping, for kitchen chores, for trapping chores, for dressing out game, for fighting, anything you want. This is this was that night, used by the Hudson Bay Trappers and, people all along, the northern border and and way north in in the, Saint Saint Lawrence Seaway and, west. This this was a, a mainstay on the belt of those folk. You can see these in use in the movie, The Revenant, one of my favorite movies. I love that movie.

Bob DeMarco [00:44:05]:
Every time it's on, I stop on it. This one made by Condor. One of the one of the aspects that differentiates this from, say, a Bowie is that the thickness of the blade is the guard, similar to kind of a French fighting knife or something like that, which we'll get to, which have that same sort of, guard where the guard itself is the blade. So that's sort sort of a butchery, butcher knife style of, setup here with handle to blade. In this case, ten seventy five blade steel made in El Salvador. It's got a bit of a, well, it's like full thickness in the blade just down to the edge, so kinda like the ScandiGlide, but it does have a secondary cutting edge. This one has been completely reprofiled, because I've used this one a lot. I tell this story all the time.

Bob DeMarco [00:45:02]:
When we first moved into this house, there was a giant hedge row in the back that was just scraggly and nasty, and I cut the whole thing down basically with this knife. I also used an axe when down at the roots and stuff, but this knife did most of the work. And I love this. This was a gift from from a friend of mine and, I love it. Here's the pouch style sheet. It comes in I actually did a little bit of wet, molding for this. Didn't do it too extremely, but it now fits in there and has a definitive in and out point. That's the Condor, Condor knife and tool Hudson Bay knife, Canadian inspired.

Bob DeMarco [00:45:46]:
Alright. Next up is Filipino inspired. This one is from Doug Markaida and Fox Knives, distributed through a company called Russian Blades. These are very, very hard to come by. They only made 500 of these in a smaller version of this, which they called the dagger version, though it had the same blade profile. This ins this was designed by Doug Markaida. I talked to him a little bit when I saw him at the Texas Custom, Knife Show where I actually got this in an auction, and we talked all about it. Inspired heavily by the gununting, but instead of a recurve, it is a straight edged, blade.

Bob DeMarco [00:46:28]:
It just has a downward descending straight edge. Of course, there's a tiny recurve right here, but that I'm not counting that. Very, very pointy with a swedge and and, he was thinking that that swedge was broad enough, that false edge was broad enough to actually, sharpen and and give yourself a secondary edge if you wanted to. They didn't sharpen that edge just to make it more saleable in more places around the world. You've got this kind of scooped or swale, here where the you think it's a thumb rest, but really, that is more of a, instead of putting your thumb there, which you can and you'll get great grip, but that is more of a trapping surface. So you're fighting someone else and you use that to trap their arm, for a moment, just for a moment, so you can transition to something else. But, that is used commonly in reverse grip. Someone's coming in like this with a blade, you trap it like this and then go into something else.

Bob DeMarco [00:47:34]:
But that trap, you can see on my arm here how that how those gyms left a a serious mark there. They're pretty sharp. They're not sawing sharp, but you can definitely trap a limb there to transition into a different attack. The handle, also very Filipino inspired, has his tattoo, Doug Markaita's tattoo. The first, the ocean wave is, the ocean wave indicates his culture, a very seafaring maritime, archipelago culture of The Philippines here. This these are like spear points, and they are part of his, martial culture and the culture of of the warrior. And then this last symbol, these triangles with the three lines, represent his children. So I love that.

Bob DeMarco [00:48:27]:
His nation, his his warrior culture, and his children. All sort of represented in that blade design. This thing is wicked. I absolutely love this. Every time I pull this out on Thursday night knives, people wanna know how they can get one, and I say, I don't know. You gotta be lucky like me to get one because when they first came out, I didn't have the money to buy one. And, I just so happened to be at a place that was auctioning them, auctioning this one and I got it for a very good price. Really excited about it.

Bob DeMarco [00:48:59]:
Beautiful leather sheath, Fox, Fox Italy produced. Alright. Next up, inspired by the Spanish culture and the only folder in this list is the Cold Steel Espada XL, inspired by the Navaja, the folding fighting knife that had a ratchet lock on the back, not a beautiful axis lock or, not a beautiful triad lock like this modern Cold Steel. It's gonna set that down. This knife was, kind of a necessity. You know, they say, necessity is the mother of invention. And in this case, Spaniards in the, seventeenth century were no longer allowed to carry swords to settle their beefs. So to get around that law, they created large folders, which they fought with and developed an entire, fighting system around based on cloak and dagger.

Bob DeMarco [00:49:57]:
So you would take off your your cloak or your jacket and wrap that around your arm and have some dangling down like a shield, and you have your other knife and your or you have your let's see. Your, your navaja back here, and you you would do deceptive things with the with the cloak and hide with the cloak and also protect your arm with the cloak. And then, you would follow-up with the with the, Nevada. I will say Espada kind of, interchangeably, but it was called the Nevada. And if you wanna learn more about the fighting style, check out Rolando Escotada's videos. Good buddy of mine, we've had him on the show a couple of times, and he has studied all sorts of knife fighting and sword fighting from around the world to include the Navaja from Spain. I think it's so cool. It is so cool.

Bob DeMarco [00:50:52]:
So definitely check that out. This in this case, the the cold steel version, this is an older one. This is the dress model with the polished g 10 and the polished, aluminum bolsters. This one has a deeply hollow ground Aus eight blade. Now they are not hollow ground, I'm pretty sure, and they're in s 35 or or higher brow steels. But this was what they were doing back when, my brother got this for me. He got it for me at a gun show. And, I'm forever grateful because I had the g 10 version, still do, have the b blasted Aus eight g 10 version, but he was kind enough to get me this full dress, version.

Bob DeMarco [00:51:38]:
Cool thing about this knife, I'm gonna come up here and show you that you can hold it like this. You can, if you're really camping with it or something, you can hold it all the way up here for fine work, unquote, but there's a hand hold here and then you, of course, can move down the handle. And this is a very comfortable way to hold this. It's like a sword. It's like a machete, like a short sword in this in this grip. So very, very cool knife and, my favorite folding knives from history is, and one of my favorite historical knives period, is that, Espada. Alright. Next up, inspired by the Nepalese kukri, this is a traditional Filipino weapons made kukri.

Bob DeMarco [00:52:23]:
I'm going to be as clear as I can because I know someone's gonna comment. The kukri is not Filipino. No. I know that. The kukri is a Nepalese weapon slash tool. But there is a company in The Philippines called traditional Filipino weapons, and they make such traditional Filipino weapons as you see here. This Palibang and this. But few years back, they branched out to do other ethnic blades.

Bob DeMarco [00:52:53]:
They do like a European cruciform sword. They do some Japanese inspired stuff, and they do this Nepalese Kukri inspired knife. So that I just wanna be clear. I know that it's not a Filipino weapon. However, it it this one, in my hand, gifted to me by the great and powerful Dave of OG Blade Reviews, is made in The Philippines by Filipino knife makers called traditional Filipino weapons. Okay. Now that we got that out of the way, of course, the the kukuri, we know this for its very unique blade shape, inspired, by the falcata or maybe not inspired, but evolved from the falcata, the the knife, the short sword used by Alexander and his troops, and we all know he ended up in India, and I think that that's how some of this was inspired, India, Nepal, neighbors. But this one has an interesting thing because, one of the unique selling propositions of the of the kukri blade, I'm gonna put the the flat of the spine horizontal, parallel to the top of the screen, is that downward angle.

Bob DeMarco [00:54:06]:
Well, this gives you an extra downward angle. Maybe that's the Filipino, inspiration because we all we all know Filipino blades have a handle to to blade angle, downward angle. So this accelerates that quite a bit by taking that already curved blade and and adding an extra angle to the handle. So, this thing is really awesome. Here, I'm gonna turn up here. I mean, you can just tell, that the the belly of the blade is reaching whatever you're striking long before it should. A straight or long before it would with a straight blade. So imagine a straight blade would be coming out this way.

Bob DeMarco [00:54:48]:
This is already shearing through, by the time the force of the of the of the blow reaches terminal velocity. That's, that all sounds like a punch. Yeah. But you know what I mean. It's deeply recurved and angled off the handle in such a way, that it's devastating. Longer versions of the kukri were used to sacrifice bulls, and, legend has it you could take a bull's head off, a water buffalo's head off, in one swipe with a larger version of this. So that recurve is extremely effective. Alright, next up, inspired by French knives.

Bob DeMarco [00:55:27]:
This is the, partisan by station nine. These knives, station nine, I showed up the undercover earlier. Station nine is, Vol West and, Tony Lopez, and they are have well, French and heavily French influenced. And, this knife was inspired by the knives that, French, warriors brought into the trenches of World War one, and they didn't have some codified, military purchasing system where they all got the same knives. People brought what they had, and they had butcher knives. They would alter them, like in this case, put a swedge on there and, take this into battle. You know, butcher knives are are legit weapons. They're there to cut flesh and to weave and do all that sort of stuff.

Bob DeMarco [00:56:20]:
Well, that's what they brought into into combat with them. In this case, ten ninety five blade steel. You've got micarta hand burlap or I'm sorry. Canvas micarta handle scales and a super tough setup. I've seen these things, put through hell and, they come back the other side. These, Station nine knives, partisans have just been rereleased. They were out of print for a while and now they have, I think, a green g 10 handle. So very, very cool.

Bob DeMarco [00:56:50]:
And I love the history of that because it was the everyman who was pushed into combat and he brought what everyman had, a butcher knife. Also, sorry. The guard is the blade, which is very common in French fighting knives. The guard is, the blade is wider than the handle and that's what serves as the guard so that your fingers don't slide up onto the blade, when you're thrusting it into something. Next up, the Scandinavian inspired Saxx. This is the Chieftain Saxx, sometimes called the C ax, sometimes called the Scramma Saxx, especially if it was a larger one. These are, to me, almost look like Bowie knives, because they have a bit of a clip, but, usually a straighter edge and, no swedge. Sometimes people are fond of saying that these were made from broken swords.

Bob DeMarco [00:57:49]:
I just don't think that's true. I've I've heard that refuted. They do have, a shape that might not be, as common to our eye, but I don't think it's a broken sword that that was created by the that these were created. Now that's not to say that broken swords weren't pressed into duty as, knives, but swords in the Scandinavian world and in the Viking world were only for the highest nobility. Most guys, most Vikings and such used axes and hand axes and battle axes, because they were easier, cheaper to produce and more robust in battle. There, you know, a lot of metallurgy was still on the up, you know, coming up in those days. And, so swords were far less common than knives, you know, so shorter versions, where they're less brittle and axes. This made by cold steel, ten seventy five high carbon steel, very tough steel.

Bob DeMarco [00:58:58]:
You've got brass accents on the weighted pommel and, the guard here and then a really nice, carved wood. I believe this is produced by Windlass Cutlery in India. Has a very, very nice balance, this does. And, of the, Saxes made by Cold Steel, this one is pretty affordable. And unlike the Woodsman's Sax, it actually looks like a historical weapon. So I really like this knife a lot. I've practiced with it a lot. I gotta say, sometimes if you come too far down the pommel, it can irritate the handle a little bit, that squared off pommel.

Bob DeMarco [00:59:37]:
But, the texturing in the handle and the and the carving in the handle really keep your hand in place. So if you don't wanna come down to the pommel, you won't. Also, really nice leather sheet in a sort of traditional horizontal hanging style. Alright. Penultimate knife in this list, also from Cold Steel, surprise surprise, is from Italy. It's the finest one of all of them because it's from Italy. This is the Cinquedilla, and the Cinquedilla means five fingers because it's five fingers wide. That blade, a really triangular sort of shaped dagger with multiple fullers, and, this thing is awesome.

Bob DeMarco [01:00:22]:
This this one was out of production for a while from Cold Steel, and they've come back, and you can now get them. I've seen them at at various, retailers like Chicago Knife Works or Midway, and I highly recommend it. I know it looks like a a piece of medieval kit because this is what, the sixteenth century Italians. This was their EDC for defense and, but it makes a great modern night. You you need a little, something for home defense, this thing would do, great. Ironically shaped like a slice of pizza. I've heard people say, yuck yuck yuck, but it's true. Kind of.

Bob DeMarco [01:01:02]:
It has these studs in the handle that really aid in grip. And, again, if you use it a a lot, hands start to irritate. This is definitely, more of a gloved knife if you're gonna be, rolling out and fighting with this for hours. I would I would use, gloves with this. Comes with a great scabbard, kind of cheap leather feel but, very nice, shape shape and throat here and it's got a stud so you can slip this in your sash and carry it around with you. I have seen numerous historical examples of this in museums like the Cleveland Art Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and they are so cool. They are so cool. Oftentimes, they have, hourglass shaped handles that are as beautiful as the blade.

Bob DeMarco [01:01:53]:
So there it is. The Cinquedilla inspired by, well, you know, an Italian design and, made by Cold Steel. I defy you to find a better company than Cold Steel for all of these historical reproductions. Maybe Casiberia, though I'm not sure if they have as wide, a range in terms of different different cultures covered. But just an awesome knife and I highly recommend it. Speaking of Cas Iberia, the last one here is from APOC Survival, which is a Cas Iberia company. And this is the waning moon, Yatagan, a Turkish inspired, modern sword here. The Yatagan, an Ottoman, Ottoman Empire sidearm, short so that it didn't, didn't get in the way during marches or sh or or, spear kinda battle, but long enough and recurved enough to sheer and slash and cut just in a nasty, nasty way.

Bob DeMarco [01:02:55]:
Also, the point runs down the center of the blade or down the center of the whole knife so you know, on off angle thrust where that blade is or where that tip is gonna be. And, this yeah. This thing is beautiful. These were produced, all over the Ottoman Empire, and in in, most cases, they had double lobe pommels. So it looked like two big elephant ears, coming off at, 45 degree angles, and that's what would keep your hand in place. No guard on these, usually just a bolster. So, yes, a thrusting weapon but definitely more of a, a cutting, slashing style weapon. These are produced by APOC Survival.

Bob DeMarco [01:03:41]:
Not too many, places you can get a modern, functional Yataghan. So go check out APOC Survival and the waning moon Yataghan. Just, recently had a guest on in a full on conversation about APOC and fast Iberia. So check that out. Alright guys, thanks for joining me on this, journey through my ethnic inspired large knives. Some of one of my favorite categories of collection here, in my collection. I just wanna say, real quickly, we've been on the air for twelve years. Twelve years it's been.

Bob DeMarco [01:04:20]:
And, like I mentioned before, we had a little fallow period, but we came back with the podcast and we've been here ever since. We've been doing this podcast for almost seven years and, I love it and it's because of you guys. So thank you so much. Thanks for liking, subscribing, and hitting that notification bell and thank you for your comments. I love them. They're a great source of, entertainment and inspiration for me, so I appreciate that. For Jim working his magic behind the switcher, I'm Bob DeMarco saying until next time, don't take dull for an answer.

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