As is tradition I am going to give you a bit of a story here. While I may not be as eloquent as Dual hopefully I can get half the charm.

My old man is an engineer coming up on the end of his career and has lived working with CAD of some flavor for the majority of it. This past Christmas to his fatherly discontent the kids got him a Bambu Labs PS1. Even with is himing and hawing about it being too expensive and he was not ready to use it, it got the ball rolling. Come the tail end of February he has a standing desk, dual monitor, a Dell refurb with a Nvidia fancy ECC GPU that I told him is overkill....yet he got bit by the bug which I am greatful for. Warms my heart to see the old enginerd excited.

Now, time for the part that is actually pertinent to this sub. He has been having fun learning his new software and tools so I asked him to print me some new scales for my Penquin as I was not a fan of the tan ones I ordered. I am a big fisherman so he learned how to create textures and what you see is an attempt at fish scales. It took a bit of manual filing in some areas as he is a perfectionist and wants the tightest tolerances. Then the small buttons that actuate the sliding lock(press fit) are too tight of tolerances for the PS1 so I might try another solution there or even leave it as is.

If anyone is interested I am sure he would be tickled pink that others are using his design so let me know and I will pass them over. Just be ready to do some minor filling, although I will give him notes so he can update the files, fingers crossed yours will fit even better.

As a last note, I have some DCM I was planning on attempting some vapor smoothing on PLA with. I have a degree where I took plenty of chemistry and slung around my fair share of nasty solvents in labs so I will take the correct precautions so my progeny have the correct amount of digits. But if anyone has experience here I would take any insight as I tested on some BambuLabs silky PLA and the results were ok but not stellar.

The main image is my attempt as a sexy photo, but here are a couple more simple ones.

Life is full of things that are special, but cruel reality ensures that you won't realize it at the time. Like the fireflies dancing over the meadow at dusk leaving their trails of curves and loops in the air that last a just a second or two each, thousands of them, glimmers that form a whole that can only truly exist in memory.

Long summer days spent with friends, when the world was still full of wonders and anything might still have been possible. New adventures, new experiences, new horizons to explore. And, perhaps, a new knife in your pocket. You can never go back to that time, and to someone without the right kind of mind you may never be able to explain it. That's how it works; some things are only clear afterwards, when any curious thing may take you right back to that fond memory.

Youth is wasted on the young.

It's been easily twenty years since I last bought a Benchmade balisong knife. It's been twenty two, I think, since I bought my first. I didn't note the date. You don't think of that at the time, because you won't realize that it's one of those moments.

It was my Model 32, which was not my first balisong and truth be told it wasn't my first Benchmade either, but it was my first balisong that was actually any good. Truly, a revelation after a whole procession of ghastly flea market rattletraps. It immediately became my daily companion for many years, and to this day is a treasured old friend living in prominent position in my knife rack. It's the knife I wore to my wedding, and one of the very few in my collection of a couple of hundred to meaningfully appreciate in value since I bought it.

I pedaled my bicycle to the local gun store to pay $199 for it, an incredible amount of money hard earned from my dinky part-time job to pay for a mere pocketknife, but being pleased as pie the whole time to finally be 100% of the unimpeachable legal age to do so and thus there's wasn't a damn thing anyone could do to stop me. Maybe in some small way I already knew this was one of those pivotal moments, the otherwise unforeseeable kind that firmly sets somebody on one of life's inevitable paths.

I've bought a couple of Benchmade balis since. A Model 53. A Mayhem. Oodles of clones of the 42 of various stripes from appealing to awful, some of which I may some day write about here. But never again have I quite managed to recapture that magic of the first time. It's said that sort of thing is actually impossible.

But we can damn well give it a good try.

When I was given an opportunity recently to pick up a Model 82 "Laro" in person new in the box for slightly less than MSRP and well below the current going rate, I might have felt that little spark, that lift, the wind beneath my wings one more time. I knew I couldn't pass it up.

The thing about angels, you see, is that most people only get one.

If you can get your hands on an 82 — a prospect that is as usual getting increasingly unlikely, although some of the lesser known retailers purport to still have a couple — you will pay the thick end of $650 for it. With that type of price tag, the Model 82 absolutely must be something special, because otherwise its entire existence would be moot. This immediately delineates the world into two types of people: those who get it, and those who don't.

In order to explain, let's talk about Harley Davidson for a moment.

Like them or hate them, the one inalienable truth about a Harley is that it is the one motorcycle in the world that anyone, even non-motorcycle people, can name. Harley Davidson did not invent the motorcycle. They did not, if we are going to be completely truthful, even meaningfully innovate or iterate on motorcycles as a whole in a mechanical sense. There are manufacturers in the world who make motorcycles that are cheaper, motorcycles that are faster, motorcycles that are more reliable, motorcycles that drip less oil in your driveway, and in fact in some cases all of the above. But none of that is the point.

What Harley Davidson has is the quintessential essence of the motorcycle. The shape, the outline, rumble in the seat, the wind all around you, the chrome flashing in the noonday sun, the zeitgeist and indeed the very image of the motorcycle is Harley's stock and trade. Tires, engines, handlebars, spark plugs, tanks, and paint; All of those are mere details afterwards.

When you sit on a Harley, regardless of all else, there is the ineffable sense of occasion. Nothing else is a motorcycle, only this. It is James Dean and Hunter Thompson and Evel Knievel and Danny Trejo and even Clark Gable, and nothing can change that. Not management missteps, not the coddling with kid gloves by the Reagan administration, not even being owned by a bowling pin company; love them or hate them, it's unlikely anything is going to diminish the legacy of Harley Davidson any time soon.

And so it is, winding our way circuitously back topic, with Benchmade and as it follows the Model 82.

Benchmade certainly didn't invent the balisong knife — far from it. But a balisong knife is literally where Benchmade began, a fact which they celebrate to this day on the 82's box and indeed even its blade with their now iconic bali-song logo. With it comes that same sense of occasion, a certain gravitas that's impossible to quantify but somehow doesn't come with a balisong from any other maker.

But before you accuse me of being the brochure for this thing, let it not be said that I haven't been hard on the big B many times myself in the past. Often have I decried the ludicrous list prices on their mainstream models while they stolidly cling to an apparently static lineup while their competitors in many regards cruise right past. Finally being in a position to see things from the other side of the counter myself, so to speak, now I understand. It's expensive because what goes into it is expensive and getting moreso all the time, especially if you're still going to make it in America. So I get it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

But some part of that is by the opposite side of the same token something that makes the Model 82, yes, that little bit special. Objectively, perhaps, there is no call in the world just yet for a $650 general purpose pocketknife. But if we were going to be purely objective all the time there would be no call whatsoever for any high end knives at all.

The 82's drop pointed, stylized, and ventilated blade is made from Magnacut. That's Larin Thomas' home grown supersteel and the current state of the art and darling of high end knife steels.

This marks another first for me as well as it's my first Magnacut knife.

That is to say my first that's actually made from Magnacut, and not just one that says it is. (That "CLA" there is, I'm very sorry to report, fake as a snake. If the lack of a choil didn't tip you off already. It's mechanically impeccable and very interesting, but still fake. Perhaps we'll discuss it later.)

I have no experience with Magnacut other than what I read. It's supposed to be the all-singing, all-dancing, does-everything perfectly balanced wunderstooff of, if not the future, certainly this very minute. I'm sure I'll find out about all that at least a little bit. But probably only a little, because it's unlikely I'll use this heavily.

But does it keeeeeel?

Probably. The Model 82 scores respectably for a factory edge out of the box. It's an unfair comparison as usual, because the Bugout I use as my control has had its edge fanatically hand-polished by yours truly and then used for no purpose whatsoever other than producing these chart figures. The Model 82 has a tumbled stonewashed finish on its blade surface which no doubt introduces a tiny amount of drag, and at 0.104" or 2.64mm in cross section it's also 20% thicker than the Bugout's blade. All of these will negatively impact it on my dinkum paper cutting test by its very nature.

For whatever it's worth I used it to open a pack of Gummi Bears last night and it went through the plastic packaging like it wasn't even there.

The 82 is a compact number for a balisong, measuring up at 4-3/4" (120.65mm) closed and a whisker under 8-1/4" (209.55mm) open. The blade is 3-5/8" long (92.08mm) from the tips of the handles, but the usable edge starts before a large choil and is about 3-5/16" (84.14mm).

The styling is of course reminiscent of the Model 87 and/or the 85, or perhaps vise-versa, although the 82 is much closer to EDC sized. It has the same channel milled solid billet titanium handles, glaive headed screws, and even the same pattern of slots and holes milled in for lightening. It's 125.3 grams or 4.42 ounces. With that plus the size, in reality maybe the more obvious comparison is my beloved Model 32 instead.

The 82 would be eminently EDC capable except I'll bet you wouldn't actually do it, you chicken. It also lacks a pocket clip, although in its stead you get what is, for lack of a better description, a holster. You may have spotted it nestled in the box above.

It's either made from Kydex or something moulded very much to look like Kydex. I can't tell if it's an injection moulding or simply pressed with some manner of hideously complicated jig. It's certainly not pressed around your individual knife, as it has distinct clearance and relief areas built into it to facilitate a clean draw without, presumably, scratching up the knife.

It's got a clip on the back picked out with the Benchmade butterfly logo, and which is obviously intended for a belt and is not a pocket clip per se. It's hooked over on the end and very highly sprung. There's a grab tab on the tip of it but flexing it to snap onto your belt while you're already wearing it is kind of a three handed job. Threading your belt through it is a better bet. The clip seems extremely robust and is just wide enough to clear a 2" pistol belt and even has adjustable retention, which is the sort of thing that'll surely get any old whacker to pitch his tent.

The clip is folded over the top of the holster and screwed in through the back, which seems like it ought to be a tailor made recipe for scraping and damaging the finish on the handles.

...Except there are a pair of wings formed into the edges of the holster that space it out so it doesn't touch. You have to be very ham-fisted indeed to shove the 82 into its holster such that it runs the risk of getting scratched.

Which is just as well, because it is an absolute thing of beauty.

The Torx and glaive headed hardware create a cohesive style throughout the entire ensemble. It's a kicker pin design, so there are no Zen pins to be found in the handles here. But the pins and even the latch head carry the theme.

Squeeze the handles and the latch springs open of its own accord. Spring is the wrong word, though. This puppy is actually magnetic, with a trio of opposed doughnut shaped magnets tucked under the screw heads and on the shank of the latch. When the handles are squeezed far enough for the crosspin in the latch to clear its keyhole shaped home, it's silently pushed out by magnetic repulsion and kept there proud of the handles and blade so it can't clash.

The action is faultless. The 82 is a ball bearing pivoter and it's also extremely rigid. There's nary a wiggle, no tap, not a rattle to be found anywhere within it. It's quiet, too, producing only a single understated click with each rebound. It is the polite, distinguished cough of the professional butler, nothing more. Just as you say, sir. Very good, sir.

Originally I was going to take this apart to show you, but I found that the screws were highly threadlockered and mine came from the factory in a perfect state of tune. The screw heads are matted just like the handles, and pristine. Do I really want to sully all of that? I don't think I do.

The Inevitable Conclusion

I went out to breakfast with my wife the other day and the bill came to just over $50. It wasn't anything fancy, just diner fare with a menu modification or two. Maybe that puts it all into perspective, these days.

Maybe we really are all headed to hell in a handbasket. Maybe it really was better back when and it's not just that we remember it so. Cherish the special moments as we find them, then, and recognize them for what they are. They'll never come around quite the same way again.

So maybe six hundred bucks is a bargain after all. Mere nothing, for the opportunity to hold perfection.

This is another ad. Since the last time I mentioned this sort of thing it worked so well that you guys cleaned me out completely, let me see if that works again.

So you remember how I said I wasn't going to let this gig turn into another web development project?

It turned into another web development project.

I just pushed out an update to my website. In light of the debacle last time, vis-a-vis more people buying knives than knives I've got, I finally decided it's time to get off my duff and do the right thing. I mean, if I have to. I guess.

So now I'm a Real Boy. No more dinkum prefabricated credit card form. Inventory tracking, an actual shopping cart system, checkout, it's got the works. I could rattle on about all the clever things I did to make it work because I'm a colossal nerd and also apparently some kind of special purpose purist who probably belongs in a padded cell rather than anywhere near, say, power tools. For instance, it uses absolutely no Javascript whatsoever. None. Could I? Yes, absolutely. I know Javascript. Did I feel like using it? No. I abused the shit out of the quirks and foibles of CSS instead. And so on, and so forth. I could go on all day about if you let me.

Now if you want to buy more than one thing, you can do that. And it won't let you buy more than what's available, to avoid embarrassment on my part and having to send apologetic emails to people with my sombrero gripped pensively in front of me by the brim and all. By the way, for the people in said camp: The steel for your knives arrived today, which was sooner than expected. I'll be getting back into production in a little bit and then I can actually send you the stuff I owe you. You know, now that I'm done spending two days fighting with integrating with my credit card peoples' system with their stupid janky incomplete documentation which is exactly the pain in the ass I predicted it would be which is why I didn't want to do it in the first place.

Ahem.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. I also have two fancy new colorways for the Adélie for you. Okay, they're not that fancy, but I still think they look cool. A royal-ish purple and azure blue.

And. And, and, and.

You saw the headline image: I have boxes for them now. Just like everything else I do the boxes are completely bespoke and I make them myself.

Yes, I had a hoot designing these. Some folks who ordered recently have already received earlier revisions but I've been keeping mum about it up until now.

Here's a quick off-the-cuff snap of one of the prototypes. I assemble them with the glue stick that came with my 3D printer. No, I'm serious. Up until now I've categorically failed to find a use for it, so I'm just chuffed to pieces about that as well. According to my calculations at the rate I'm using this thing up I predict that in three years I will have to buy a second glue stick. Maybe I'll upgrade my printer before then and I'll get another one for free. Hmm.

If we're honest this is in no small part due to the tiny seedlings of regret that are starting to sprout from my decision to provide my Rockhoppers in bespoke 3D printed cases. These are neat as hell and I love them to bits but each one is a print job that's just a shade under two hours and that's really kind of the pits. The Rockhopper is an agonizingly complex multipart printing and assembly operation and I'm mostly bothering to crank them out at all because I love you guys (and for some reason they sell). New colorways for those are coming soon, also. I just... uh... have to print more boxes, which is my bottleneck. And do the photography.

This is turning into a second job.

I have two new real steel knife designs in the works also which will be along at some point. I promise I'll have shiny new review content in the upcoming days, also. I may have spent some more money. You'll see.

Dork, out.

These are now sold out! Thank you to everyone!

Original text commences:

---

I've been staring at an empty text box for the last couple of minutes now, wondering how I'm going to start this.

Guys, I kind of messed up.

The other day I set about to make some knives, and in particular I wanted to try a slightly smaller rendition of my previously showcased Emperor using thinner stock and resulting in a marginally lighter weight final product. That seemed like a solid plan. In the hypothetical hierarchy of flightless waddly birds, the king penguin is one notch down in size from the emperor, so I called this one the King... S.

S for slim. Don't worry; I'll probably make a couple of fat ones later.

Then I had the brilliant idea to try the same radiused Scandi grind technique as I used to make the last batch of Macaronis, of which there is just one out of four left in stock (hint, hint).

Normal people, professional people, they do this by spending a bunch of dough on a nice solid tilt table for their grinder. I haven't got one of those. It will probably not surprise you to learn that the beveling jig I used for the Maraconi was one that I developed and 3D printed. That's fine when your bevel angle is 14° instead of 5° and your work piece is only three inches long instead of ten. I have to say, though, it very nearly worked. But then I encountered rigidity problems. At the polishing phase my platen started to dish. Then my tool rest shook itself loose and wandered out of square without me noticing. And the thing about metal, see, is that once you grind it off you can't put it back.

In short, I wasted 140 bucks worth of steel producing, in assembly line fashion, three ugly knives. Oh, for sure the third one wound up a bit less ugly than the first one as I tried everything I could think of short of actually purchasing the correct equipment to rescue myself from my mistakes. But I still didn't quite succeed. One of them I gouged slightly. The other two have noticeable surface imperfections.

Oh well. Is the journey and not the destination, right?

The Japanese have this thing they call "wabi-sabi." It's a zen kind of philosophy of appreciating things for their flaws. My own perfectionism drives me towards the goal of wanting to produce a hand made knife that's as visually perfect and flawless as a commercially machine made one. Which is, once you get right down to it, silly. I can't find the quote right now but I'm positive it was Terry Pratchett who once wrote that the makers of, for instance, handmade souvenir knick-knacks no matter how skilled downright have to leave the occasional lumps and fingerprints in them or otherwise nobody would believe that they're hand made. If anybody wanted a geometrically perfect knife I'm sure they could go and buy one from Benchmade or Spyderco or Esse or hell, even the Chinese.

No, this absolutely isn't a bunch of sour grapes. Perish the thought.

The King is a couple of inches shorter than an Emperor at about 10-5/8" long and half the thickness at 1/8". It's still D2 that's tempered for toughness, and I cunningly recycled the exact same handle design so I wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel. Learn to expect a lot of that sort of thing in the future. There are the same hollow handle bolts that accept cordage and a Kydex sheath for each.

I also printed up a couple of different colors for the handles. I did super thin 0.1mm layers this time which actually make them look and feel really nice. It's the only part of this entire debacle I'm really happy about.

The red one I've already promised to a friend (it's also the ugliest of the bunch and he won't care), but the orange and the green one are up for grabs. If you really want a particular color I could also just print it for you. Heck, I have a whole new spool of blue lying around I haven't even opened yet.

I thought long and hard about this, and ultimately concluded that I can't sell these for anything approaching my full price. Instead, I'd be happy to break even on materials. So until I manage to get rid of them I have these on my website right now at the fire-sale price of $75 a piece, shipped.

Yes, I just made you read this whole thing and it turns out it's an ad. I'm sneaky like that.

So do me a favor, will you? Help me get rid of these things.

Transient, the knife

Like cherry blossoms in spring

Vanished from the Earth

I'm back. Did you miss me?

I figure I ought to finally show my face around here now since other people are finally starting to post as well. I've been so quiet lately because I've been focusing on other things. Making knives rather than buying them, for a start. Possibly sacrilege, I know. Don't worry, I have several ill-advised recent purchases lined up to write about.

For instance, this. Which I actually bought on a lark a quite while back with the intention of writing about it and never did.

This is the "Japan Design Samurai Style OTF Knife Outdoor Pocket Knives D2 Blade Zinc Aluminum Handle Utility Camping Portable EDC Tools," apparently inherently plural. I paid a whole $27.87 for this, which is not exactly dirt cheap as far as commodity Chinese cutlery goes but as it turns out you get a pretty good deal for your money with this if it's the kind of thing you're after. Well, you did; I dithered too long in putting pen to paper over this, because in the meantime it's apparently disappeared from the Internet completely as these things tend to do.

All of the above doesn't exactly roll off of the tongue, either. Portable EDC tools, indeed. So I'm going to call it Kibagami Genjuro's Toothpick instead.

It's not difficult to spot the kind of vibe this thing is going for. I, I, I am your tiny samurai; not quite a sword but a switchblade little guy.

If nothing else the Toothpick's ornamentation is rather a master class in minimalism. The pattern of diamonds and lines is actually much simpler than it appears at first glance, but it's just enough to let your imagination do all the heavy lifting required to see it as representing the ito wrapping on a katana's handle. It's clearly just a casting, as the Toothpick's handle is made of zinc or some similar potmetal alloy thereof (the blurb claims both aluminum and zinc, which I suppose could be a plausible alloy) but it's a nice one with clean, defined details and nothing in the way of blemishes visible to the naked eye. It affords a decent grip and feels nice in the hand, too, which is surprising.

It also allows me to present this gratuitous bit of showing off by way of illustration:

Look, if you nerds were laboring under the impression that I am not a truly dyed in the wool weaboo, I don't know what show you think you've been watching all this time.

While we're capitalizing on opportunities, I'll take another one to show you that Kigabami-san's knife here is in fact not the smallest katana adjacent thing I own. That'd be this:

Which I've had for decades and I'm certain is meant to be a letter opener. I have no idea where it came from, but I used it to equip this guy...

...Who resides on my credenza and I am surely never going to have a more appropriate moment to show off ever again. (Yes, his obi is made out of black hockey tape. Truly I have brought dishonor to my ancestors. I'll do something about that some day, but not today. If you can name the origin of the glyph on the scabbard, by the way, I'll give you a gold star. Go on, you'll never guess.)

Genjuro's Toothpick is indeed an out-the-front switchblade, which is far from an unknown commodity coming from the Chinese. Typically, however, you see this sort of thing ruthlessly knocking off some Microtech or Benchmade model or another, complete with counterfeit markings and all. I own a fair few of those, but the Toothpick drew my eye because as far as I can tell it's a bespoke-ish design that clearly benefits from the experience gained from cranking out all those clones — the glass breaker and clip assembly on the end definitely riffing off of Microtech's groove, for instance — while nevertheless doing its own thing.

Historically this has not been a recipe for success. The Toothpick, however, manages to be a breath of fresh air in that regard. For what it's worth it's also quite possibly the single most spring loaded in/out compact switchblade ever manufactured by the hand of Man, for reasons which we'll explore later. All in all, I rather like it.

You'll get no identification help from the packaging. This comes in a plain black box with no maker's mark, model, or UPC. It is apparently impossible for the Chinese to manufacture an out-the-front switchblade without also pathologically including a webbing buckled nylon pouch, a further clue that this is probably being stamped out at a factory that normally makes counterfeit Microtechs. This is despite the Toothpick self-evidently coming with a perfectly serviceable pocket clip which renders the stupid nylon pouch redundant.

Including the aforementioned glass breaker, the Toothpick is precisely 5" or 127mm long. It's about 8-3/8" (212.7mm) open with a 3-3/8" (87.7mm) blade. Nearly all of that is usable save for a small choil at the bottom. It's not terribly thick, just as these things usually go, at 0.086" or 2.19mm. And it is, of course, distinctly upswept with a rounded point. It hasn't got a kisaki although it would be totally rad if it did. It has got a fuller or, if you must, a blood groove in it, though. Which actually turns out not to be as pointless as you'd think in this case. It purports to be made of D2 which may or may not actually be the case.

It's not very broad, though: Not including the toggle sticking out the handle body is a slim 0.771" across or 19.58mm. It's 0.441" or 11.21mm thick, again not including the clip or any other protrusions. The blade itself is 0.478" / 12.14mm wide for basically all of its length, save for up around the point.

The whole shebang is a hefty for its size 4.37 ounces or if you prefer, 123.9 grams. That's because it possesses the one attribute you should absolutely strive for if you insist on buying a cheap Chinese out-the-front automatic: For all that is holy, do not get one that's made out of plastic. That's because the inevitable end of all of those is to crack at the muzzle, whereupon you have an ineffective ballistic knife of the sort that only works once.

Even the Toothpick's toggle is cast, and that's a good thing for squeezing as much durability as possible out of the little thing. The clip and glass breaker are steel.

By the way, both it and the clip complete with its tiny lanyard hole in the tail are definitely showing some, ah, let's call it inspiration from Microtech.

This thing has an aesthetic to uphold, vis-a-vis coming over all katanaesque. So its overall banana quotient is rather high, with its curved blade neatly firing out along a curved track into a similarly curved handle. I have no doubt that if you got your hands on about twenty of these and laid them all out lined up tip to tail they'd add up to form a perfect circle.

Somehow for the cheap bauble that it is, though, it's remarkably solid. Getting a traditional out-the-front not to have any wiggle in its blade is difficult to nigh on impossible, and for the big brands also typically a very expensive feat to accomplish. The Toothpick's blade base is very square and at least generously sized, and slots in as nicely as can be expected with the throat on the end of the handle given the materials being used and the fact that there probably isn't much if any actual precision machine work done anywhere in here. It has a small and noticeable amount of rattle left-to-right, but basically zero fore and aft along the axis of the edge. You've got to shake it very hard indeed to get it to make any noise when the blade is out. When it's closed it doesn't rattle at all. There also seems to be enough material at the business end that it's likely to be a very long time before any breakages might occur that'll find your blade rocketing off into the sunset never to be seen again.

You can, or at least could, get this is black, green, or tan. I actually bought two, a black one and this green one. The black one I'll keep sealed in its box for now in the delusional hope that it may accrue in value or, more pragmatically, in case I need to loot it for parts in the future to keep this one going. If I'd have known I would have bought a tan one as well and completed the set while I had the chance. Oh well.

I'm astonished at how well this thing is put together. It appears nobody at the factory used a lug wrench to drive any of the screws, either; mine came apart without fuss. Putting it back together, of course, is always a different story with these things.

The glass breaker unscrews easily enough by way of sticking any suitable object through its holes. This reveals that the clip is reversible, since its mounting hole is centered on the tail of the knife and there's nothing stopping you from sticking it back on facing the other way. It's also not curved, unlike basically every other component of this knife. So it won't even look wrong if you do.

A couple of things stand out to me about the Toothpick's construction which lead me to believe that, against all rationality and expectation, I made the right call in picking this particular model out of the metaphorical hat. I've owned and handled any number of cheapo Chinese OTFs over the years that were so ghastly it'd still be a bad deal if somebody paid you to take them away. The Toothpick isn't one of those.

The handle body is either a hideously complex casting operation I can't begin to fathom the mechanics of, or it's got a second machining step in its production. It's got overhangs, it's got pockets, it's got the works. The gate latches are sprung with their tiny hair-thin springs as usual but they're captive in their places and don't go pinging off under the furniture the instant you open the thing which I think is the nicest present a cheap Chinese OTF has ever given me.

It also turns out the silly blood groove in the blade isn't pointless after all. It actually serves as a guide which rides on a pair of rails inside the handle which keeps the edge from ever striking the inside of the body. Even if you shake the thing as hard as you can when the blade is retracted you can't get it touch. This prevents the Toothpick from being self-dulling, which sounds like a low bar to clear but you might really be amazed.

One other unusual wrinkle I noticed is that the mainspring is under a ridiculous amount of tension all the time, even when the blade is at rest. So much so that it's a three handed job to keep it in place before you can slap the cover back on it before one or both ends leap off of their own accord, which must provide no end of merriment to the urchins who have to assemble these in the factory. That probably accounts for the vicious amount of force the blade rockets out with every time you flick the switch. The actuation force required is likewise rather absurd. You can consider this tacitly childproof, as youngsters with small hands will probably be unable to muster enough strength to set it off without a couple of years of bushido training first. Needless to say there's no safety interlock, either, but it's not like that'd actually be necessary.

The glass breaker terminates in a shiny ball bearing which is theoretically hardened and pressed into place. Whenever a shiny spherical object like this is present it is obligatory that a gratuitous high magnification photo of it must be produced. Don't blame me; I don't make the rules.

Also, don't expect the edge on this thing to be true from the factory and you won't be disappointed. It's also not terribly sharp out of the box, for instance utterly failing to complete my usual Post-It note test. I suggest that a contemplative evening spent in the moonlit bamboo grove with your water stones will be in order before you put this into service.

The Inevitable Conclusion

I await with interest the first comment insisting that, acktshully, I should have displayed this with the edge up rather than the edge down in all of these photos in order to be truly authentic and correct.

Well, this thing is about as authentic as a Disneyland animatronic, and it doesn't balance very well on its spine, anyhow. But, hands up everyone who's surreptitiously flipped all the fake swords in the daishō behind the counter at your local sushi joint the right way up? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Well, I had a whole post written up. Bunch of photos. Talked about YouTuber's designing knives and then PieFed.World just decided "oh here's an error, how about you lose all that work"

So, I'm not re-writting all of it. Here's the summary:

This is a great knife. Blade is really thin. Crossbar lock is very well tuned. The burlap micarta is very much burlap micarta. I've used it for food prep, made fatwood shavings, cut a bunch of paracord, and reduced boxes to confetti. It's been very solid. It displaced my previous long term EDC (the CJRB Maximal) for the time being but honestly both of these knives are excellent. You cannot go wrong with either.

If the 2.88" blade is too small for you, there's a newly released "Over Yonder" with a 3.35" blade that might be to your liking. Same blade thinness, just longer.

Here's a bunch of photos, including some comparisons to the Maximal.

I got this knife as a gift several years ago, I don't really use it a whole lot but I do like to take it camping and such. However, on a camping trip a year or so ago, it got stuck open.

There is some little wire loop looking thing that seems to pop out of wherever it's supposed to be and blocks the thumb unlocker from working. I can take a tiny screwdriver or Allen wrench and poke around in there and pop the thing back into place, and then it works and closes just fine. And it'll be fine for a few times, opens and closes correctly, but after a handful of times that piece inevitably pops back out again and locks it open.

I've tried to use a tiny torx bit to remove the sides to see if I can figure out what's going on, but the screws just spin. The big screw at the hinge unscrews as expected but all the little ones all act like they're stripped.

What else can I do? Is there some trick to removing the sides? Any help would be appreciated.

Here's what it looks like opened correctly with the little piece still wherever it's supposed to be:

And when the piece pops out and gets stuck:

Somewhat useful red circle if you couldn't see the problem:

Crossposted from https://slrpnk.net/post/38255937

It is a Kansept Model 6 Left-Handed with liner lock.

For years I have dealt with a right-handed, or "ambidextrous" pocket knife. Like many of you, struggled with and eventually got used to things made for righties, but marketed as "works in either hand" but really is garbage.

The blade shape is not my first choice, and I would rather a thumb knob. But I have always liked liner locks, and anything that met all of my check boxes was over $500. This was $170 from knife center.

It just arrived, so I have not used it much yet.

Made a notch in the handle to make opening the blade easier, burned the handle, and gave the blade an artificial patina with lemon juice. It's an old knife I don't use much - just keep it in my bike backpack - but it's great for carving and food prep thanks to the thin blade.

The image is my current EDC, it is close to 30 years old. I cannot remember where or when I first got it. I do like the knife, but it is 100% right-handed. The image above shows how far I can open it one-handed before I have to place my thumb on the blade to finish opening it.

I am looking for a knife that is 100% left-handed, not ambidextrous. Those knives always have some part, typically the blade lock, that most be made for either left or right and right always wins.

I would like something with the same kind of blade, minus the serrations. I hate sharpening this thing because of them.

The handle is decently thick, I would like to stick with something like that. I have a Ken onion knife that has a really thin handle and I do not like it.

I would like to keep it under $150, but for the left blade that is negotiable.

I'm generally not a knife whore since I basically carry my Sebenza everyday unless there are reasons not to like camping. I picked this up late this winter when I went looking for something with a reasonable blade length that was also light for the more stretchy lighter weight pants I've been wearing.

This is one of the best knives I've ever purchased and have half a mind to pick up another just in case

Tanto Zaan and a Benchmade Grip with AWT Hive scales

Sometimes you buy knives. Sometimes you have knives thrust upon you. But not, preferably, in the coming-from-a-dark-alley sense. So it was with this, which somebody gave to me a while ago and I've been putting off writing about it ever since.

This is the Hot Knives HKO1, which is very much a Chinese knife and thus in the tried and true Chinese tradition is also known as the Hightron Sharplyn, and possibly many other monikers besides. To tell you the truth I was originally just going to put this thing on the knife rack and skip telling you about it entirely, because there is nothing interesting to say about it. Except, as it turns out, there is.

Some say, he has a tattoo of his face... on his face.

All we know is, never before has an ostensibly commodity Chinese product included such a concise depiction of itself on the box. The rear also goes on to state...

...That it is "proudly" made in China. Among the words that have ever been printed in history, these are certainly some of them.

You have already heard my spiel on the general state of Chinese knives many times before. Despite their incredible manufacturing prowess and expertise, by and large it still seems that the only time the Chinese can be bothered to turn out a decent knife is if they're making it for someone else or, increasingly often these days, they're cranking out counterfeits or knockoffs of a stolen design. We're already familiar with the results of when the Chinese try to go it alone in all those wobbly and awful examples festooned with eagles and skulls and pot leaves on display at your friendly local truck stop, flea market, or bong shop. What inroads they could make, I have oft conjectured, if somebody in China could finally see their way clear to manufacturing a bespoke design but, critically, actually doing so with the same care and attention they already apply to ripping others off.

Well, in the case of the Sharplyn insofar as I can tell they have.

Of course you can never leap to conclusions about such a thing so easily. Any time you're handling what you thought was an original Chinese design it's often only because you haven't looked hard enough to discover what the pattern was actually stolen from. And so in what's now becoming tradition around here I went and plumbed the dusty, petrochemical smelling depths of the Internet once again to try to determine the exact origin of this thing and along the way found a few interesting tidbits.

"Hot Knives" appears to be a sub-brand of Hightron knives, the latter of which being a moniker only slightly less unfortunate than the former, because it gives the impression that rather than cutlery these guys ought to be selling cheap transistor radios and southeast Asian VCRs. Hot Knives seems to be the marquee intended for selling budget stuff on platforms like Amazon, which alas mostly just has the net effect of diverting prospective buyers away from their products and into something else entirely, even if you search for it verbatim.

You know how we usually only get those meaningless robotic search optimized word-salad tiles on these sorts of things? This is like the opposite of that. It's a bold strategy, maybe. Let's see if it pays off.

For some reason the Sharplyn is explicitly sold under both the Hightron and Hot Knives brands, with insofar as I can tell no actual difference between them other than how they're marked and, at least in their OD green incarnations, the shade of green being slightly different. They're both listed practically adjacent to each other on Hightron's website, and they're both even the same list price. But the Hightron version specifically is billed from some sellers as "the lite [sic] version of the Dark Feather by NOC Knives." That raised my eyebrow.

...The what from the who, now?

NOC Knives is another company that is very, very Chinese. If you hadn't gathered that from the type of things they sell, their mission statement at the bottom of their home page ought to be a clue:

FOUNDED IN 2017, NOCKNIVES IS A VERY POPULAR KNIFE SUPPLIES COMPANY. The company's mission is to integrate the design concept of "beyond oneself" into the life of every player. NOCKNIVES is mainly engaged in the design, research and development, manufacturing and sales of high-quality tactical folding knives, and has formed a perfect product layout such as the top mass production series S, the high-end mass production series MT, and the entry-level DG series over the years. At the same time, we also provide OEM services to other top brands in the industry.

Beyond oneself. Uh-huh.

Anyway, I can't find any hard evidence that NOC and Hightron are the same entity but it sure makes me suspicious. Several of their knives are rather similar to each other, only being significantly less fancy on the Hightron side. It's likely that Hightron are using NOC as their OEM at minimum, and the Sharplyn is allegedly — if you believe various sellers' blurbs about it at face value, anyway — a direct collaboration between the two having been designed by NOC in the first place. It even uses their homegrown crossbar lock design which they go so far as to name drop it as an "Axis" lock.

I wonder how Benchmade feels these days now that their innovation has been, ahem, finally fully Xeroxed.

NOC, for their part, display an interesting array of screwball models with a strong predilection for what I can only describe as purple cyberpunk regalia. I dig it. Quite a lot of them are also alarmingly expensive, tempting though they may be. We'll leave that for later, possibly after I've been made rich and famous.

Why anyone should care about this, winding our way circuitously all the way back to the Sharplyn, is because at the moment it's rather a good deal... provided if and only if you buy two of them.

At the time of writing the OD green version of the Sharplyn is $37.99 which is only a middling deal for an EDC knife from an unproven brand that doesn't do anything exceptionally novel or strange. But it's also apparently perpetually the subject of one of Amazon's buy two, get them 50% off schemes which means it'll cost you exactly as much for two of them as it'll cost you for one. So you really may as well. At $19 a pop these are well on their way to being an impulse purchase provided you can find a suitable use for the second one.

I'll give you three guesses why I wound up with mine, then.

This has evidently been the case for at least three or four months, because that's how long this thing has been gathering dust on my shelf and that was the deal back then, too. None of that is the real headline about the Sharplyn, though.

The lede I've buried is that it's got a blade made of Sandvik 14C28N, which is a rather good steel for the price. For this kind of money that very easily could have been pokey old 420-something, or 5cr or even 3cr, or AUS-6, or insert-the-name-of-your-least-favorite-steel here. And it isn't, which is very nearly astonishing. (It would be, if it weren't also for the existence of things like this.) Among all of the various other ghastly options we could have received, 14C28N is one of the steels specifically formulated to be used for knives, and also holds the distinction of being Larrin Thomas' self-professed favorite budget knife steel. Already this is shaping up to be a winner.

It's also got ceramic ball bearing pivots which you'll see in a moment, the aforementioned Axis-alike lock, and possesses a curiously good build quality. All of this also comes with only minimal obligatory Chinese design deficiencies attached.

This is, then, something that ought to give a lot of traditional knife makers some pause.

The crossbar or Axis lock is of course unmissable. The Sharplyn also has a pivot screw with a stylish driverless head on one side.

The back reveals the only major concession to ineptitude, which is the lack of reversibility on the deep carry pocket clip. Myself, I share the one thing in common with what everyone knows about Inigo Montoya so I don't particularly care. If you're a southpaw, however, you will. Everything else about the Sharplyn is ambidextrous including the thumb studs and of course the lock. Just, as usual we're two screw holes short of nirvana.

Two things stand out about the Sharplyn on the performance side. It's not that it's particularly thin'n'light overall, even though Hightron make a bunch of noise about how it ought to be. It's 80.4 grams or 2.84 ounces, constructed largely of G-10 and in a typically Benchmade-eque tradition lacking full length liners. It's curiously exactly 7/16" of an inch in thickness across the scales, or 11.12mm, not including the clip or any of the screw heads or anything. The upswept triangular blade is 3-5/8" or 92.08mm long and the sharp part measures up at 3-3/8" or 87.73mm.

None of that is particularly interesting. The blade's geometry is, though, starting with it being a very thin 1.6mm thick at the spine or about 1/16", and tapering down with a true full flat grind to an unexpectedly sharp cutting edge that certainly helps the thing live up to its name. It's very reminiscent of the thought process behind quite a few Spyderco models in that regard, only at a small fraction of the price. The spine is also pleasingly rounded off, but they took the time to integrate a thickened portion up near the tip for reinforcement.

We haven't seen our good friend the sharpness cutting force chart in a while, but here it is. As usual the gold line is my hand sharpened Benchmade Bugout, which serves as a decent enough control as any. The green line is the grams-force sharpness data from the Sharplyn's factory edge, which glides through paper even more effortlessly. Doubtless this is in some part due to the slender flat ground blade geometry, which provides excellent cutting ability with the tradeoff that you probably oughn't to twist the blade too much nor try to chop at any excessively sturdy objects with it.

A bushcraft knife this is not, but for the types of package opening, box flattening, rope cutting, fruit slicing tasks you're more likely to find outside of the woods it's going to be a stellar contender.

The second thing is the somewhat unique way in which the Sharplyn's edge hangs down below the lowermost edge of the handle noticeably. If you use just the right grip, this allows you to get the full length of the edge onto a flat surface like this fancy cutting board, here. That sounds humdrum, but it's actually a remarkably rare property and a difficult thing to do with the majority of pocketknives, which you'll probably find if you take out the one you've got in your pocket right now and try it.

All of this might just make the Sharplyn one of the better options for a field food prep knife if it weren't for that giant thumb hole in it, which turns out to be superfluous anyway because it's also got dual thumb studs right behind it.

The Sharplyn looks like it started off with your typical factory-ground edge, but close examination reveals that it seems to have been polished on top of this somehow right down at the very apex, which might explain why it's so damn sharp out of the box.

The edge is, alas, out of true noticeably in keeping with its ultra budget price point. 14C28N isn't terribly difficult to sharpen so this shouldn't be hard to fix, when the time comes. But fix it you shall, at least if you ever want to regain its original scalpel-like sharpness.

I also really could have done without the blade being black PVD coated. 14C28N also ought to be more than corrosion-proof enough for most people, as even Hightron themselves mention in their various blurbs. So it's undoubtedly there to hide the cheapness of the polishing job on the flat underneath rather than for any protective purpose. It'll inevitably get scuffed and gouged and get dirt ground into it over time and, as usual, all of that will be categorically impossible to repair or polish out. So cherish yours as it comes out of the box because that's as pretty as it'll ever be.

The Sharplyn's machined G-10 scales are quite nice, though. They're thick enough to provide plenty of rigidity for everyday use, and are attractive, grippy, and all the other adjectives us reviewers are supposed to use. The shape certainly doesn't do anything ergonomically special and everything's a bit angular, which if we're feeling unusually charitable we might say gives it a bit of a 1980s future punk sort of vibe. There's a finger notch there wide enough to get two fingers into, and really the only major wart on it is the rather dopey Hot Knives marquee carved into the side opposite the clip. If I were going to be completely cynical I might conjecture that the reason the clip isn't reversible is only because it would then cover the logo, and the manufacturer certainly couldn't have that, could they?

If you spring for the Hightron rather than the Hot Knives branded version this is absent and instead the logo is silkscreened onto the clip itself. It's still not reversible on that one, though. So there goes that theory.

The clip is not especially wide or fancy or even shiny, but it does have the right amount of retention and snap and it allows the Sharplyn to come off of your pocket cleanly and easily. Its mounted down far enough that about 3/8" of the tail of the knife is left sticking out from your pocket, either ruining your concealment or providing you something to grab depending on how you want to look at it. There is no lanyard hole. The mounting end of the clip isn't recessed, either, but the metal is thin enough that it doesn't seem to cause any hangup issues. The screws, at least, are countersunk and flush fitting with the clip.

Of all the nitpicks you could fault this thing for, the action is not one of them. Of wiggles, rattles, and creaks there are none. The Sharplyn is ceramic bearing equipped and glides open effortlessly, veritably leaping up as if you've just insulted its mother on a daytime talk show. This is regardless of whether you hold the Axis lock back and flip it, or just open with the thumb studs like a normal person.

You can just about see the ball bearings peeking out at you if you look down at the pivot from the end. These are the real deal, in brass carriers and recesses cut out for them and everything.

Inside there are a few things that will appeal to very select types of nerds which are... odd.

The Sharplyn's Axis/crossbar lock, for instance, is a three piece design which doesn't screw together but rather consists of a center bar that just sits in there loose and is retained by a shoulder in the hole of each of the nubbins on the sides. The springs hook up to said nubbins and not the crossbar itself.

There aren't liner plates for the Axis lock per se, but instead this assembly which I think can only be described as a cartridge. It puts one in mind of, say, one of those fancypants drop in trigger assemblies for an AR-15 or something.

The endstop pin is a very tight friction fit which, despite not being shouldered in any way, resolutely holds the entire assembly together such that you can just leave half of it hovering in midair like this. You can swivel it around on the pin and it stays there. I question the wisdom of trying to take it apart further, because it might be a hassle to get it back together again. Because I'm chicken I didn't try.

All of the screws came out of mine without incident save for two, which were two of the ones that go through the scales into the backspacer and thankfully both of them were on the same side. So I was still able to get the thing apart, but beware. The main pivot screw is very nice, but also curiously lacks an anti-rotation flat despite there being no driver head in the opposite side. Surprisingly it was not so gunked with threadlocker that nuclear weapons were required to undo it.

So the build quality is actually very good for what is at the end of the day a sub-$20 knife. There are a few quirks and foibles, but no showstoppers. And that's rare.

The Inevitable Conclusion

Axis lock with bearings inside

Sandvik blade, performance implied

Two for one with discounts applied

Hot knives on the loose

Hot knives on the loose

Update: These are, in fact, for sale. Actually, I've managed to sell three out of four of them already somehow. I'm just chuffed to bits over it. There's one of the little ones left, and if you want to snag it you can do so here.

Original post continues:

---

Sorry for not posting anything in a while. Believe it or not, I haven't bought anything especially interesting lately. I did order some more steel but it's taking an age to show up.

So in the meantime I've been staring at my offcuts and getting ideas.

Check these little tackers out. I've stuck a feather in my cap and called them Macaroni, after the most prolific and flamboyant of penguins. I can fit two of them yin-yang style across the breadth of the 3" stock I use to make my Emperors out of.

There's a wee little mini one:

And also slightly less wee than wee but nae as big as medium sized one:

The mini ones have an overall length of about 3-3/8" whereas the maxi ones are 4-3/4" or so. And lest you think these are just more dumb holdout micro neck knives or something, no. They're even dumber than that.

...Because they are a full quarter inch thick. I don't want to tempt fate here by saying this, but wholly aside from being outstandingly ridiculous that may also have the knock-on effect of making these functionally indestructible.

In fact these are so pequeño that I had to make a special downsized version of my logo. (No points for guessing that I immediately turned around and made this into the favicon on my web site.)

I will also draw your attention to that bevel. I'm quite fond of that, actually. These are a 14° per side Scandi grind finished with a 20° micro-bevel which makes them alarmingly sharp. This despite the overall geometry resembling an HO scale viking battle axe. I finished these down to 120 grit, and I could have kept on polishing but I decided I liked the effect of leaving the grind and its impeccable radius — if I may continue to toot my own horn — clearly visible. It catches the light in a rather pleasing fashion, if you ask me.

The handle scales are printed again, using the same bolts as the Emperor. You wouldn't believe how many of these things I have. Look, I've got to use them up on something.

Sheath making is quite easily my least favorite part of this gig. Don't get me wrong, I'm a dab hand at pressing Kydex and I've made oodles of them, even long before I was making my own knives. But it's tedious and winds up dusting my entire shop with nanoscopic polyvinyl dust and we hates it, hobbits.

So I spent probably nine times more effort designing and 3D printing the sheaths for these instead.

On the bright side, this allowed me to build the retention mechanism right in. Time will tell if this turns out to be a dumb idea.

The rivet spacing is as usual Tek-Lok compatible, or I suppose I could print up some simple belt loops instead.

---

This is not an ad. Here's why: Despite my having four of them all lined up on my desk in a neat little row, the Macaronis are not for sale. Yet.

That's because PayPal inexplicably banned my account after selling a grand total of one lousy knife on my website. At the moment they're holding a couple of hundred bucks of my money hostage, while outright refusing to elaborate why. I'm still fighting with them on that. Thus at the moment I can't take payments for anything from anybody, which is the sort of thing that really kind of cramps your style.

I'll have to get set up with some other payment processor, and truth be told I was only using PayPal because they were the path of the least resistance despite being overtly evil, plus they don't charge any fees until you actually make a sale. I explored other options that are purportedly specifically friendly to the knives-tactical-firearms market and they all seem to have per-transaction plus monthly fees that amount to basically my entire profit margin, which for somebody who might sell a grand total of one knife a month if I'm lucky seems like a raw deal. If any of you guys have any bright ideas on that front I'm all ears.