The Knife Junkie Podcast is the place for knife newbies and knife junkies to learn about knives and knife collecting. Twice per week Bob DeMarco talks knives. Call the Listener Line at 724-466-4487; Visit https://theknifejunkie.com.
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[0:00] Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast, the place for blade lovers to learn about knives and hear from the makers, manufacturers and reviewers that make the knife world go round.
I'm Bob DeMarco. And coming up, we're going to take a look at the new Off-Grid Knives Grizzly version 2. In Knife Life News, we'll see Ethan Becker's new interpretation of the Nesmo. And then 11 timeless knife designs.
Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast, your weekly dose of knife news and information about knives and knife collecting.
Here's your host Bob the knife junkie DeMarco.

[0:39] Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment from this past week is a long one, but definitely worth the read.
Especially given the kind of topics of conversation we have on this show. This was a comment on my YouTube short about folding karambit or folding the call which would you pick in a of complication. And rpjii 9771 said, being formal, former federal law enforcement with five and a half years as a deep undercover operative group, one UCO for those familiar, combined with 26 plus years as a senior CQO CQB instructor, that's close quarters battle, I guess. While having been involved in three knife slash blade encounters while undercover, I would select neither of those two knives. One would never ever use a folder or auto as a self-defense.

[1:31] Knife. That only happens in YouTube or in the movies, lol.
Secondly, the karambit is one of the worst choices for a fighting knife. A folder even worse, lol. The karambit was invented and used as a farming tool, not as a fighting knife. It was only morphed into one due to the fact that the farmers had no money to purchase a legit fighting knife, so they used what they had. I still do carry fixed blade pickale as it was the only knife slash punch dagger of the six fixed blade knives slash daggers on my person that I was able to deploy in two of my three encounters. That's pretty interesting, that. If I had carried a folder auto as my self-defense knife, I would not have made it out of the first confrontation, lol. As most normal people, quote unquote, never have to deal with a real world knife fight, thank god, or psychopath blitz attacking them with a fixed blade. They can run around carrying, flicking, flippin' any blade they like and it doesn't matter lol. May god help them if it ever does. As always, just my three cents worth. Stay safe, RP.

[2:40] I really do appreciate this comment because I'm more apt to trust my fellow brother and sister out there with real-world experience than I am.
You know, people who like to push certain products or people who have certain ideas or movies themselves.
Movies are great, they're fun to watch.
Also, when you do martial arts and you get used to self-perfection techniques and you start thinking that they're self-preservation techniques, the muddy, the waters can get muddy, but comments like this are really helpful because presuming this is all legit and all real kind of doesn't matter. It is good advice.
The actual drawing and using of a folding knife that's not waved and even that even that seems like it could be a real problem in a pinch. So anyway I really like this comment thanks very much and putting a little bit of reality and a little bit of this person's perspective to that question. Folding Pakal or folding Karambit? Thank you one and all for the viewers of this channel people who have commented it's it's always great to read them and especially ones like this.
All right, all that said, after that long one it's time to get to a pocket check.

[4:08] Well, for self-defense in my front pocket was exactly what was not recommended. So actually I and I am now carrying fixed blades as my.

[4:20] Self-defense knives. This one is a great utility blade. This was in my front right pocket.
This is the TR3 from Pro-Tech, the Tactical Response 3.

[4:33] A classic at this point from Pro-Tech, and just a very clean drop point design, 154CM, aluminum handle, handle and that amazing pro-tech action.
This is a knife that I put in my pocket that I feel both fancy and 100% tactical.
And I say that because I saw a soldier once talking about his TR-3 and how he lost it in the sand and found it like a year later and it was still working, still a great knife.
And that's what turned me on to this in the beginning was that testimonial.
But you know, it's a real luxury item. It whacks out with authority.
It's not inexpensive. But what a great carry is this Pro-Tech. Nice and light, too.
All right, next up on me, I had the Little Bro from Jack Wolf Knives.
I dig this knife, especially in the summer. I keep finding myself carrying it because it is just a little bit smaller. It does go in the same size leather slip as every other Jack Wolf knife.
But it in profile is smaller because the leather is sort of pressed around the blade and it's just a little bit lighter. And psychologically, it's smaller, too.
I mean it's physically smaller, but it has a smaller feel in hand. Look at that view.

[5:56] So jackwolf knives are now all in fancy carbon fiber. I am lucky to have a good number of them, in my carta. I'm lucky to have a nice collection of them. Thank you Ben Belkin for that. So I had this beauty in my pocket. What else did I have? I had this beauty in my waistband. And this is the Nova 1, a blade designed by me on the platform, designed by Hogtooth Knives. Just a great, great everyday carry. This one I have moved, like most knives, up to the front. Unless it's big, I'm not carrying it at 3 o'clock anymore. A lot of it has to do with what the gentleman was saying in the comment, in terms of A, having a fixed blade, and B, having it readily available. You don't need to be searching around. That was a pretty alarming statistic that he could he could access two out of six and they were all fixed and all on his person, Anyway had this one on me. This is a great. Uh, I love carrying this. It feels good I hate to say this next to my skin next to my belly, Uh, that thing will be uh, that handle is nice and smooth and it's uh, it's comfortable. Let me put it that way. Um.

[7:10] I have a number of fixed blade knives that I carry in that same position that if I don't have a t-shirt, between the handle and my skin, it's quite uncomfortable.
Not so with the Nova 1.
And then for emotional support, oh, I had an extra one on today, actually.
In this, in my pocket, I had the Futo Forge scalpel.
An impulse buy at the Fudo Forge table. They make beautiful, at Blade Show this year, they make beautiful chef's knives and outdoor knives, but they had these little $30 scalpels as impulse buys right by their cards, so of course I had to buy one. I wrapped it with jute, made a little drop sheath, goes in the pocket, and it's a great little handy as hell hidden knife. Actually, yesterday I used this to cut wrapping paper I had three birthday gifts to wrap.

[8:02] And it was very precise and very sharp and then for emotional support on me today that is for for fidgeting and just general appreciation I had the holiday from Finch knives a great great modern take on modern flipping take on the doctor's knife. Doc holiday. It's holiday with the two L's.
It's not holiday like going on holiday. Great knife and also could flex into that pakal style if you if you manage to bring it to bear. Could be a great, great little knife for that. But like all Finch knives, very, very charming. Look at this. I I had a wharncliffe, a drop point, two clip points, and a scalpel on me.
What did you have on you today?
Drop that down in the comments below and let me know. Also, and I'm not going the down the watch avenue, but I'm interested if anyone has an Arnie watch, the Seiko Arnie watch.
Very interested in that as Commando greatest movies of all time.
And I loved that watch when I was but a young pup. And I have one now sitting in my Amazon bin for weeks now.

[9:24] Does anyone have the Seiko Ernie? Should I get it? All right, thank you for your advice.
There, still to come on the Knife Junkie Podcast, we're gonna take a look at some knife life news, including something cool from Ethan Becker, but that's not unusual.
And then we will get to the state of the collection coming up right here on the Knife Junkie Podcast.
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That's theknifejunkie.com slash knives. You're listening to the Knife Junkie Podcast And now here's the Knife Junkie with the Knife Life News.
So new from K-Bar and Ethan Becker. You know Ethan Becker and K-Bar, what a timeless collaboration. Sort of timeless, they don't appear on my list later, but, they have been, that collaboration has been going for about 20 years now. I had one of the early ones, I gave it to a friend in New York and I can't remember, BK6 I think it was. They're.

[10:41] Amazing knives and they kind of keep coming over the years. The newest one is from Ethan Becker is this Nesmuk. It's his, interpretation of the Nesmuk. So you have the K-Bar recipe of.

[10:57] Full tang 1095 Cro-Van steel, coated, Cerakoted, so as not to rust. And you have the GRN handle scales there. This is the the BK-19 and uh it...

[11:12] It has the sweep on the spine of a Nessmuk and that curve, but the rest of the blade to me is a little bit more, well, it's a lot more of a utility knife, but it's a lot more point-driven to me, which makes it feel a little bit more like a military or tactical knife.
Yes, Bob, that's my lens.
So forgive me if that's a ridiculous thing.
Mr. Becker does not seem, he's a really cool guy. got a chance to meet him. Also, by the way, you know, he helped write The Joy of Cooking.

[11:47] Not sure if you knew that. I found that out and was happily surprised. Anyway, this new Kephart BK-19 comes in a nice injection-molded sheath. I love the color, that sort of desert tan. I would love to see this in a longer blade, but that's just, you know, me. A great, overall outdoor knife with that nice big belly and the center line point, which, you know, you can definitely use that for a lot of outdoor things, having that point in the middle, sort of drilling applications and such. And with the rounded sort of handle, well, I'm not going to speak to outdoor, to bushcraft stuff. That's about where I end. I think it's a good looking knife, and it looks more like a combat knife than a lot of the other PKs, in my opinion.
Okay, next up, Custom Knife Factory is now celebrating its 10th birthday, and they are doing so with a design.

[12:45] Called the OK, it's okay, from Alexey Konigin, I think that's how you pronounce his name, but he is a big time and long time collaborator with Custom Knife Factory.
If you don't know, Custom Knife Factory is a Russian outfit known for its small batch, very high end production knives from just, you know, incredible designers.
And looking at this OK folder, you see that blue Timascus on the side there?
That is the clip side scale and the clip.
So, Connie Jin is known for his really complex folder builds and designs, And this is a nice little tip of the hat too.
To not only his complex designs, but it's like everything custom knife factory comes out with is proving how great their milling and.

[13:44] Building skills are. Look, this is a, thanks Jim, this is a good view down on the knife where you can see that it's asymmetrical and you can see that right hand side is A, the clip and B, the scale, and also a gorgeous piece of time mask. Very nice, high peaked, futuristic sort of sheep's foot blade. And just a cool little thing to put on your list. If you're a fan of custom knife factory, no doubt it will be very, very low in in number, production number and I think it's coming out. I think they I said end of August.
So mark your calendars, yeah, ETA is August.
Mark your calendars.
That's the okay, and it's just okay from Custom Knife Factory.
Just kidding, look beautiful. All right, next up is an interesting and quirky design from poker and custom knife maker slash designer Henning Marksen.
And it's called the Gearhead.
It's sort of a slip joint, except it's not a slip joint at all.
I think it's a slip joint in that it does not lock.
But if you look at this three-stage sort of illustration here from the Boker website, you can see that.

[15:04] It's basically the shape of a credit card, sort of like a dog tag-style knife from Spyderco, where the blade is visible on one side.
So you open it up, and what keeps it open And what allows it to open is a gear pattern under that plate there at the pivot.
You can see hints of the gear on the very right-hand knife there, you can see a couple of teeth there.
But you can one-handed open it with that sort of tab there, and then you get a really odd looking knife.
D2 blade steel, that's a G10 on the handle side.
But the real interesting thing, the USP here, is that gear thing.
So hence, the gearhead.

[15:53] Uh, when is this around? Is this available? Gearhead is slated for release in the latter half of 2023.
All right, so latter half of 2023.
And I guess we're in that half, so keep your eyes peeled. All right, last up, I just wanted to bring your attention to the fact that, uh, that Knife Rights, their, um, app, Legal Blade, uh, has, uh, is being re-released in its 3.0 and, and 3.0, what do you say, iteration.
This is a really amazing app that breaks down knife laws across all 50 states.
This thing, this app was co-sponsored by Blade HQ and Blade HQ has mentioned that they get calls and emails.

[16:42] This is Mark Christiansen, the CEO of Blade HQ. Says, Blade HQ was thrilled to work with Knife Rights Foundation on the development and sponsorship of this app. That's LegalBlade 3.0. We regularly get calls from customers in certain areas of the country with questions about, what knives they can own and what knives they can carry in their pocket. Customers traveling across state lines have similar questions. Helping with the sponsorship and development of this app was an easy way for us to get this information out to knife owners across the country. So a really nice, well, a boon to Blade HQ, no doubt. They don't have to answer as many of those calls. But really an excellent thing for all of us. Because who among us isn't a little bit baffled by the intricacies of our local and state knife laws. So go check, out Legal Blade and download it 3.0. It is free. I have done so I've not cracked it open yet, though. But I will be looking at, that. I know that in Virginia, the knife laws over the past two years have changed significantly due to knife rights.
So it'll be cool to see that reflected on my screen. All right, that's it for Knife Life News.
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And now that we're caught up with Knife Life news, let's hear more of the Knife Junkie podcast.
If you've been around this channel for any length of time, I'm sure you're familiar with this knife here.
This is the Off Grid Knives Grizzly, and this is a camp slash kitchen knife.
It's really great, excuse me for the cracking voice over, it's really great.
I've taken it on vacation for a number of summers in a row. It's just a great chef's knife, and you can bang around with it in the woods, even though Bushcraft is not suggested for this knife. Well, anyway, in their usual sort of.

[19:50] Push for constant improvement in design and build Off-grid knives has come out with a version 2 of the grizzly and I have.

[20:00] This version of it right here. I'm really excited about this improved sheath as usual this is a great taco sheath with a great push off on the thumb and excellent retention and a, Really good belt loop here that you can take off and swap out if you don't like, but Here it is. This is the new off-grid Grizzly v2 and man the improvements are there. Let me show let me show them off to you.

[20:28] The first thing you might notice right away is that like most chef's knives it is a full height flat grind So that's a full flat grind there on, on this new Off-Grid Grizzly. This one, instead of Aus8 blade steel, which is the first one that was in Aus8, this one is now in 14C28N, a great blade steel, much loved by many.
And then the ergonomics of the handle are really improved. Now this is a trend you're seeing, across the whole Off-Grid Knives product line, but the handles are going from somewhat boxy to, Relatively contoured, I say somewhat boxy because I wouldn't characterize them as boxy, but with the releases of the version 2s of most of the knives, the contouring is becoming more noticeable and more pronounced.
You definitely feel that here.
And it's just a slightly thinner grip, slightly less broad with those choils there, those little swales for your fingers, And it feels more like a chef's knife, in that sort of pinch grip like this that you find yourself using a lot.
Something I love here, this is a 2 1 1 1 2 inch thick or broad blade.
It's a great platform to pick up all those onions you just diced, to drop them in the pan.

[21:55] I love the off-grid grizzly. And this is definitely feels like a nice improvement.
A little bit more of a belly here, Gives you a little bit more to rock, you know, area to rock on a flat surface.
Now, I have to mention that off-grid knives does go out of their way on this iteration to say this is not a bushcraft knife.
Do not go bang this through logs. This is not for batoning and stuff.
They don't get that specific, but I think the point is it's really intended more for camp kitchen, you know, meaning it's something you can drop in your sheath and you can do all sorts of light utility tasks with.
And I would say to include carving and light chopping, personally.
At least I have with that Aus-8.

[22:47] But you know, it's not a survival knife, basically. Really nice grip, that G10 is contoured so nicely.
And then right here, like as in the other one, gives you that little ramp for your thumb.
So you can do those chest pull things and all those kind of things.

[23:03] Don't do the chest pulls, it's not a bushcrap. Okay, I gotcha.
But excellent knife, I love it. Go check it out. Also, the jimping has been extended, up the blade another inch. I'm always for more jimping. So, nicely done on the off-grid knife.
Off-grid knives, V2 of the Grizzly. All right.
Now, the next thing I got was something I've been wanting for a long time, because, All right, well the original is not here.
I used to have the FGX karambit steel tiger in the shower.
I took that out, I showed that off last week on Ringed Things.
And in making that video, Ringed Things, it really got me back into that knife.
And I thought, you know, I've never ever had this.
It's the Cold Steel steel tiger.
And this is the karambit from which the my FGX plastic shower knife was was based. And, you know, I'm very, very picky about rings and how they how they fit the fist. And if they realign your if you have to change your your fist at all to accommodate it, I don't like it. And I've noticed for years that with the one that we have in our shower, I don't have to it fits my hand perfectly. So I decided I should just get this and I got it as a a gift to myself in commemoration of finally interviewing.

[24:32] Lynn Thompson, and what a great interview it was.
I really enjoyed it, really enjoyed talking to him.
He's a really nice guy, really great guy, very interesting, smart, and a total badass, and it was great talking to him, and I feel like given the longer conversation, he had a chance to open up more, and it was cool.
A distal taper on this blade, You can see it starts out pretty fat, and then gets nice and thin there, wickedly sharp. I mean, that is a big blade.
That's a big blade for a karambit. You know, we think of karambits as these small, small things.
Yeah, you know, I know a thing or two about using a karambit, and I just haven't done it in a long time. So I'm gonna shake off some of that dust, and not use this. I'm gonna use the FGX-1 as a trainer, and start fooling around with it again. It's fun.
And that's all it is for me, is fun. I don't carry a karambit for self-defense.
And after reading that comment today, I will not be most likely carrying one of my folding karambits for self-defense.
They're just things of interest and maybe areas of self-perfection when it comes to martial arts training.
The karambit.

[25:48] All right, let's get into these timeless knife designs. Now let me just tell you a little bit about my stipulations here.
There are many classic, specific knife designs.

[26:02] And I'm going to do that a little bit. Some of these are classic knife designs in and of themselves, and others represent a type.
So that's what we're doing here. All right, first up in timeless knife designs, yeah, you may have guessed it.
First one I have to do is the Buck 110. This is the Folding Hunter, the Buck 110 Folding Hunter, and it was supposed to simulate the fixed blade experience using the Buck 119, a famous hunting fixed blade knife.
This has the same style swooping clip point blade, the same 420 blade steel.
I think this has the Boss V2. and then the heavy and substantial handle.
If you've ever held the Buck 119, you know that it's got a very substantial handle.
That plastic material is molded all the way up to the sides of the guard, and it makes it really fat.

[27:09] And I think that that is so that you have something easy to hold on to when your hands are getting slippery from doing your hunting, you know, dressing out game or whatever, skinning animals and such.
You can tell I'm quite the huntsman. So yeah, this also offered the strength of the back lock, still one of the strongest ways to lock up a knife out there, and this is a back lock all the way in the back.
We see now a lot more mid-back locks The lock is right here, like on cold steels.
So you can one-handed close them. These are very difficult to one-hand close, Though, you just hold it like this and do it on your jeans and...
You can close it like that. Something funny Rob Bixby, the Apostle P, said in his video about the Buck 119, he was like, this is the original tactical folder, this is the original redneck tactical folder.
He was saying like, and he was saying redneck lovingly, basically like, this has been on the hip, in the pouch, on the hips of country boys for a long time, and therefore protection and everything else.
So when we talk about other modern tactical designs, this is the one that basically started it all for the really sturdy folding locked knife.

[28:33] Not including some of the earlier ones, this is the one that popularized them.
The Buck 110. Okay, so next up is a pocket knife, very, very, what do we wanna say, ubiquitous pocket knife.
That is the case trapper or any trapper, but case really is the one that I feel has made this one.

[28:56] Famous and the one to emulate. I love that yellow Delrin. You see that on their CV models, and and it's a chrome vanadium is basically 1095. I think it's been determined and it patinas so nicely. It also takes an incredible edge. I feel as if the, I feel as if case knives takes their CV blades a little bit more seriously, does a, does sort of a better job on the overall builds of these knives. So the, the Classic Trapper is a three and a quarter inch overall, closed measurement and then it's got a clip point blade and a spay blade, spay blade for spaying animals, let's not let's not make any mistake about that that's why the tip is sort of blunted like that so you don't poke anything else down there you're not supposed to when you're when you're separating an animal from its genitals. So this is in the pocket of many a farmer over many many years, for its, and not just farmers, but for its pure utility in in everyday tasks, but also in that very specific farming past.

[30:17] Okay, the next one is from Jack Wolf Knives. So you can see now, this is timeless in its design, not necessarily this particular model, because they have not been around for a long time.
But this timeless design is the Big Bro Jack.
And I was carrying the Little Bro Jack today, but they both fit.

[30:39] The Little Bro Jack is like a boy's knife. This is just a big, classic, American jackknife.
Nearly three inch blade, and a nice, big, neutral sleeve board pattern handle sleeve board pattern emulating the shape of the sleeve board on an ironing board. My grandmother, my grandma, Tenurelli used to have one where they would open up this door in the kitchen, and then the ironing board came down. And then there was a secondary board that came down after that. And that was the sleeve board. So when you're or ironing a shirt, man, I wish we had one of those.
I hate ironing shirts, I just usually just fold and bring it to the dry cleaner, but when I'm feeling industrious and I'm ironing my shirts, I'm always jonesing for a sleeve board.
Anyway, modern problems.
This has really excellent action and really great non-locking lockup, so to speak.
So it stays open due to that very stiff spring And, man, I keep bumping that, sorry about that.

[31:43] It's got just great action. You feel very confident in hand with this that it's not gonna close for a couple of reasons.
First of all, you're not a Momma Luke, you're not using the spine for anything.
You're using the blade edge and cutting and going against the lock, so it's not gonna fold on you for that reason.
But also, that spring is just so stiff that if you find yourself pushing on the blade with your thumb, for whatever reason, you're still, it's not going to, it's not going to pull down on you. And if it does, it'll stop at that half stop.

[32:17] Double bolster, classic, I love this thing. And in micarta, like this, one of the last micarta knives they put out, it really does have that classic American feel and that classic timeless design sort of feel, because the modern carbon fibers that Jack Wolf Knives uses primarily, to have a more less classic look.
Okay, next up, this one is a sort of a meta-knife, we'll say.
This is the knife that led to this, this and many knives like it are the knives that led to the Ka-Bar.
So that's why I didn't choose the Ka-Bar for this.

[33:00] I chose a knife that would lead up to it, like a classic clip point American hunting knife from the early 20th century.
This is a Boone II from Bark River Knives, representing that type, in a beautiful leather sheath.
This one, this past heatwave weekend, I did a lot of work outside, and this one was on my hip.
And I didn't clean it, and I meant to, because it looks nasty, but this one was on de-vining duty.
Vines are just out of hand especially this late in the summer everything is so lush here in Virginia and the damn vines especially the the English ivy my god.

[33:47] Just going crazy trying to pull trees down and everything so I was taking care of business with this and this is 3v steel one of my few knives in 3v and, it's got that really nice clip point blade it does look a lot like a K bar doesn't it? Just a smaller version. Nice fuller there and it being a Bark River knife, it's got a apple seed or convex grind which is very, very sharp and quite stout. So this thing does a great job. I swung it a number of times, you know, light chopping to cut things at the base near the ground And every time I had just a little bit of pucker for that tip for this edge here because so many times I've done that and hit, Stones, and then I regret it.
This one didn't happen, and I wonder, 3V, what's going to happen?

[34:43] Sorry about that. 3V is a very tough steel, right? That's one of the properties that people gravitate towards it for outdoors knives, right?
So, I guess I would've found out if I hit the rock. Love the antique stacked leather handle.
It's very comfortable. And then you have an aluminum guard, double quillion guard and butt cap.
And I'm glad that it was aluminum yesterday and this past weekend as I was sweating a lot and my arm kept rubbing against this and I was thinking if that were steel, it would start to rust in patina.
All right, so we're gonna say Bark River Boone II to represent the pre-K-Bar American hunting knife that a lot of GIs were deploying with early in World War II.
Okay, next up from Cold Steel, it's the Master Tanto. This is the one that started it all in terms of the American tanto with that faceted tip.

[35:47] Interesting little tidbit, I always thought and assumed that this was Cold Steel's first knife. It wasn't.
Cold Steel's first knife was the Urban Skinner push dagger.
Learned that in my interview with Lynn Thompson. But this came shortly thereafter.
And I got this one in the late 80s. So this is a nice early model of this with the classic leather sheath.
I wish I could get a new one.
They just are not existent anymore. I guess I could have one made.
You got the tarnished brass here.
So nice, there's the noggin knocker on the back. And the Grivex.
But what is, why is this a timeless design? It's because of this tanto shape.
That tanto blade has become a...
A staple. It's become a regular pattern, so to speak. Just like that trapper, just like that case trapper I was showing you made by millions of different companies, not literally, made by many, many different companies in the same way.
Well, that's kind of what happened with the Americanized tanto. People, different knife makers really recognized, Bob Lum was doing this too. It wasn't just It wasn't just Lynn Thompson, there were other knife makers and knife people doing this, but really recognizing the value of that very stout tip in penetration.

[37:17] Because the big combat knife, the big tactical blade up until this point would have been either the Ka-Bar or the Bowie or the Dagger.
And both the Bowie and the Dagger, especially if the Bowie has a sharpened swedge are going to be finer at the tip and be more likely to break. We've seen historical examples of Marine Raider daggers, for instance, where the tip was so acute that the Marines would take it and just round it off so that it wouldn't break and, it wouldn't stick in bone if you were fighting and stabbing people. It was a sharpened rounded tip but a rounded tip nonetheless. They would make it that way. This, with the new American nice tanto with that chiseled tip, that faceted tip, and that really nice thick tip from the top, prevented any of that sort of breakage, but gives you plenty of breaching capability.
So that has become a timeless aspect.
And I would say that this knife itself has been copied so many times, just that overall shape, that this also, as an overall knife, is a classic.

[38:35] All right, next up, a folder. Yes, it is the Chris Reeve Knives Sebenza.
In this case, the 21, and we're gonna stick with the 21, even if I had a 31, which I'd love to, but I don't.
I would still be putting up this 21, because to me, the first Sebenza came out, and then it had a redesign for the 21, and I feel like this is the apotheosis.

[39:04] Is that the right word? Someone tell me what that word means.
I've heard it used and I like it. So I gotta look it up.
This is the pinnacle, I would say, of the Sebenza design. I know the 31, they made some refinements, or what a lot of people think are refinements, i.e. the ceramic ball interface and detent ball, and then several other, I think maybe the pivot has changed.
But this 21 is really the quintessential.
And this one right here is what introduced the frame lock to the business and to the world.
And it's pretty much the most.
Coveted form. The titanium frame lock is what most of our most coveted folders are made of, or in that format. And this is the knife that brought that about. Yes, you're saying, well, it wasn't the 21, it was the earlier one. And yeah, I guess you're right. But, overall, you'd have to agree. The Sebenza 21 is a timeless design. And everything like the The umnamzana, everything else that sprung out of it, did just that, sprang out of this.

[40:21] This one, I had a broken tip, or I dropped the tip. It didn't have a broken tip, it didn't just happen. I made it happen.
But I also made the sharpening happen and sent it off to Jared Neve back in the day, and he put a great edge on it and fixed the tip.
So, awesome, awesome knife. Okay, what else? In this kind of category, I'm thinking of modern, I'm thinking of tactical, I'm thinking of automatic and out the front.
Well, there's only one answer to that, and that's the Ultratech by Microtech.

[40:55] Lots of great out the front knives out there, but this one has really become the, I think the quintessential out the front, because it does a couple of things.
It represents a certain quality, that's Microtech.
It is it is within reach, because it is not super expensive in terms of some of the micro techs out there. And and it has been proven to be now, when I say that it's like a $275 knife, or more depending, I'm not saying it's inexpensive.
But in turn, it's not like it's not like a sebenza. It's not like some of these other some of the other knives, especially for or out the front automatics, but what it has done is sort of simplified the shape and it accepts.

[41:47] It has a bunch of different blade shapes and what I was trying to get to before I derailed myself was that it's been proven time and time again through tests and abusive tests to be an incredibly stout and capable knife.
It's not just a toy, which is kind of, you know, I have it because I like using, I like the action, It's a very cool knife to me, but if you're going to have one of these, say, in tanto or drop point and use it as a hard-use knife, this will go the distance.
That's aluminum, and in this case, you know, they have a Pecos special steel. This is M390.
And 390 blade steel.

[42:28] Very, very nice knife, this one. So to me, it's the dagger, which makes it timeless also, because this is the one context before Hinderer.

[42:43] And before Sharp by Design and before Arcane Designs came out with their folding daggers.
This was the only way you were gonna get a dagger in a folding sort of format.
Format. It doesn't fold but you know what I mean. In a blade hidden in handle format. So that's the Ultratech and I'm setting that down there. My Ultratech has always been a little stiff, much easier with my right hand which is a stronger and it you know it doesn't feel as as lux as some of the newer models. All right next up we're going back in time a little bit and it's the Opinel. This one is the number 10. I would I would argue the number eight is the true classic. That's the the one that they sell the most of and I think that was the original size. They go all the way up to 13 which is immense and all the way down to like a keychain number one I think but just great knife. It's got a twist collar lock.

[43:47] And that is about as locked open as you can get on a folder.
You know, very simple, simple design. This is French and was originally a peasant's knife or a farmer's knife.
They come in orange beechwood. Is it beechwood? Yeah. I think it's beechwood. Orange beechwood.
And you see people alter them as you see I have done here. Put on a, I don't know, my little rock pattern or something and stained it.
And this is my favorite casual dining steak knife.
So, we're going out to dinner somewhere and the diner, say we're going to our favorite little diner, and I think I'm gonna get a steak.
I'll bring this and love to cut food with this knife. It's a great size.
That 1095 steel, high carbon steel, really patinas up nicely.
Actually, I'm not sure if it's 1095. I do know it's high carbon.
Patinas up very nicely. It's so thin, full flat ground, and slicey.
Also handsome. I think these are great, great lookers. I got my mom one years ago.

[44:52] She keeps it in her purse and travels with it and all that. It's a great picnic knife, great little folding food knife.
I have one at my desk at work that I use for food. The one thing is you want to be careful if, I mean, action on one of these should not be your concern, but you do want to be careful that it doesn't get too wet here because if that wood expands it can make it more difficult to open.
But I know some people like to try and one-hand open their openels.
So yeah, very, very inexpensive, very good knife, and the only thing is, yes, I would recommend some sort of alteration to the handle because if you don't, it's totally round, it will, the only thing that saves it from being totally round is the contouring from this perspective.

[45:45] Great knife is the Opinel. All right, next up, this could have been kind of almost any Spyderco, because at this point that Spyderco look with the giant opening hole and the weird-shaped blade, is a timeless classic. But in this case, I chose the PM-2 because, well, for a number of reasons.
It's a knife that has been used for years as a standard of measure when people are reviewing other knives.
So I figured that would make this truly the most timeless of the Spydercos.
Yeah, you might say more people own the Endura, or more people have the Delica, or whatever design, you know, the Tenacious, but this one stands for the most.
Plus, it's got the incredible innovation of that lock on it.
A sort of a version of a liner lock, it's the compression lock, it's got a spring-loaded tab here that fits into a notch on the tang, and you would really have to, you see that notch right there on the tang?

[46:56] You would really have to crush the little tab that fits in that steel, in that notch to make that fail.
So the blade itself or the handle, something else will fail before that lock.
So it's innovative in its form, but also they put on Earth one of the greatest things to fidget with.
So I think in terms of timeless designs, there has to be a Spyderco, and I think it's gotta be the PM-2. What do you think?
I was also thinking about the police model. That was the one that really opened my eyes to Spyderco long before, say, Cold Steel was making folders.

[47:37] But I don't think the police model is nearly as common, commonly found.
God, I can't wait to get the military, too.
All right, two more here. Next one is the Spartan Harzee Dagger.
Now, why'd I choose this? It's timeless.

[48:00] Okay, I'll tell you why. It's timeless because it incorporates a lot of aspects, from various daggers throughout history.
That handle, that wasp-waisted handle, is an improvement on the sort of shape you see on the Fairbairn Sykes, but also, which is fully round in cross-section.
This pinches it off right here at the guard and gives you some jimping and a...
Makes it so it's not going to turn as much, but still fits the hand.
So basically, this is the quintessential modern military dagger.
It has all of the right shapes in the handles, that coke bottle, lost, wasted handle, but also it has the hollow ground edge that you see in a classic, like the Randall number two, combat stiletto.
So you can get more than just stabbing out of this. You can get slicing and, I should say slashing.
You're not gonna get much slicing here.
You've got the medial ridge that gives it real rigidity, almost all the way to the tip there, that you see in a classic like the Gerber mark two.

[49:21] So there are a lot of different elements from various classic stilettos and daggers, that have gone into this design.
And to me, like it even beats the Les George Spartan Raider dagger for just overall timelessness.
That dagger I love and I actually carry it around with me a lot more than this, I never carry this one.
But that one looks too much like a specific thing out of history.
This one is sort of an amalgamation, and a beautiful one.

[49:58] Just as a side note, Bill Harsey Jr. is one of the greatest, in my opinion, greatest modern knife designers.
That's his little tree logo.
Next to the Spartan hoplite helmet. Bill Harzey grew up in a logging family. He's a tough, tough dude, but a really nice guy and designs incredible knives. So his Harzey dagger is to me the most timeless of the daggers, the modern daggers. All right, gonna stash this in the The beautiful Chattanooga Leatherworks sheath.
I love this thing. Look at this.
You can also remove this belt loop and actually put a, like a discrete carry clip or something else here.
I've never done that, but it'd be kind of cool to do.
All right, last up. Yes, you know, there's gotta be a Bowie in this lineup.
And I racked my brain, thinking about Cold Steel. They have a lot of great ones.
I was thinking about tops. I was thinking about some of these great Bowies I have, but I kept coming back to this one.

[51:07] For the most timeless of Bowies, I would say it's the Western model, the Western 49 Bowie, W49.
It's got that classic upswept curved clip that you don't see in the Cold Steel, say, Trailmaster, for instance.
You've got that classic curved clip.
This one is unsharpened. Real nice belly that expands towards the apex, of the clip here and gives you a nice sweep for slashing and chopping and pull cutting and all sorts of stuff you might wanna do with this knife.
This one in particular was bought, this is from 1980 and I know that because of some of the markings here, you can find what the markings are.

[52:00] You can find out what some of those markings mean, there's a D on there that you can't quite see because it's so shiny, but there's a D on there indicating that this is from 1980.
My brother got this at a pawn shop, I love this story, just because it's from a pawn shop, and I just imagine the person who had this was some sort of badass, I don't know, maybe a motorcycle guy, maybe a one-percenter owned this knife.
But whoever did went to great pains to bend this incredibly thick brass quillion down, So it would come a little bit further down on the knuckle to protect the finger, I say that they went to great pains because I tried to pound it back and, I was like, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna deform this here where I'm making contact before I bend this so.

[52:49] So Someone either did that in a machine shop or something like that or they fell off their motorcycle at like a hundred and twenty and it Bent while they were rolling some sort of anonymous bone, On the replacement handle here. I don't know what kind of bone it is But it always kind of wigs me out just because I don't know what kind of bone so I always think the bone of a victim perhaps the femur of a sucker of a fellow one percenter on the wrong side of, the Wrong side of the road. I don't know but it adds to the mystique of this knife, But to me of all bowies, that is what first comes to mind I it's not even wouldn't even be my first choice. I like the Musso style bowie better. I like the, The long slender fighting style bowies better, but but this one to me is the most timeless bowie of all, So that is it. I know that there are more, and I know I could keep going, but these not only represent giants of the knife industry and modern knife history, but also they represent some of the knives that inspired those kind of historical knives, say like the Kaaba.

[54:08] All right, thanks for joining me. Let me know, drop some comments in the, drop some suggestions in the comment below for other timeless designs.
I know this is all my opinion. I'd love to hear your opinion.
Be sure to join us next week for Michael Martin of American Blade Works on Sunday, a great guy.
He's been on the show a couple of times.
I've had two of his knives, they're amazing, and we talk about new developments there.
And then Wednesday for the Midweek Supplemental, And then of course, Thursday Night Knives, the start of the weekend, 10pm Eastern Standard Time, right here on YouTube, Facebook and Twitch. All right, for Jim working his magic behind the switcher. I'm Bob DeMarco saying until next time, I, implore you, don't take dull for an answer. Thanks for listening to the Knife Junkie podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review at reviewthepodcast.com. For show notes for today's episode, additional resources and to To listen to past episodes, visit our website, theknifejunkie.com.
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[55:37] Music.