PocketKNIFE dual_sport_dork • 5d ago • 100%

Weird Knife Wednesday: Snake Eye Tactical CE-5079BL

And. My. Axe.  That's it. That's the joke. **The Inevitable Conclusion**       ... ^What?^ ^Okay,^ ^fine.^ ... This is the "Snake Eye Tactical" CE-5079BL. Like many of its ilk, its name doesn't exactly ring melodious. And yes, that is "Snake Eye," singular. Not "Snake Eye**s**," like throwing a pair of ones.  I have no idea why. Whoever-it-is is very consistent with this nomenclature, at least, regardless of the fact that your brain's been trained to get it wrong every single time. The CE-5079BL is, without a doubt...  ...Yeah, that wasn't much of a stretch. What this is, is, a frame locking spring assist folder with a *very* funky blade shape. The way it's designed is as if a 14 year old D&D nerd just drew what they thought a fancy dwarven bearded battle axe ought to look like, from the top down. And that metaphor is more apt than you'd think.  That's because there's very little else axelike about the CE-5079BL. Its blade has none of the wedge-profiled thickness of an axe, for instance. It's just a regular old 0.110" thick slab of "440" series stainless steel, the exact species of which is unspecified. The bevel is hollow ground, not convex as you'd expect an axe to be. And then of course it's dinky. It's 7-7/8" long open and 4-1/2" long closed. I've blocked out a half an hour on the schedule here for the argument about how the blade length ought to be measured. The whole thing from the forward end of the handle to the tip is 3-3/8", but the actual sharp part is only 1-7/8" and the rest of it is largely empty air. *Neither* of these figures match the manufacturer's stated blade length of "2.75 inches."  The CE-5079BL's got one other measurement going for it, as well. It is extra, extra broad. Easily 1-7/8" across when it's closed thanks to the wide handle and upswept horn on the peak of the blade.  Here it is with a selection of other wide bois picked at random from my collection. If you absolutely need to pick a superlative, I think the CE-5079BL has the highest breadth-to-cost ratio out of anything I've ever owned since it was only $15. I did not dig into this in extreme detail, but it may just take the crown for the broadest folding knife I now own, *period.* The CE-5079BL's looks are also very funky. The handles are steel of some description with this groovy machined finish -- both figuratively and literally -- that winds up a striated surface that really catches the light. I like this blue incarnation best out of the available options, and the accent color is very shiny and almost appears... anodized? I wasn't aware you could color anodize steel like that. Maybe it's something else. In any event, the blade is finished the same way.  It does sport clip that is even deep carry, if you feel like being perverse and actually bringing this with you anywhere. Although the clip is not reversible, lacking screw holes in the opposite handle slab. Which is weird, come to think of it. I mean, just look at the thing. It's obviously not like anybody was afraid to drill any holes in it.  I'm going to keep showing off pictures of the shiny handle slabs for no other reason than I think they're so damn neat. Anyway, this is a spring assisted opener and can be set off either via the ambidextrous thumb studs or the flipper on the back. But that said I found the spring action on mine to be... what's the word... *iffy*. Often it would not lock open unless I rotated the blade out all the way manually. I figured out why pretty quickly.  Ever wondered why you haven't received anything coated in Cosmoline recently? That's because the world's entire supply has been used up by packing it into *this* thing. I think this was so liberally gooped by the factory with the expectation that this would be a lubricant, but I'll be damned if the stuff doesn't look and smell just like [Cosmoline,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmoline) so it probably is. Which, I should point out to anyone blessedly unaware, solidifies over time.  Needless to say I cleaned the bugger very thoroughly on both sides of all of its surfaces before taking this picture. I will also mention that this zigzaggy spring for the assist action is certainly a novel way to do it, and not one that I've seen before. Maybe I just haven't taken apart enough spring assisted knives. The CE-5079BL is a weird hybrid design with two handle scales, both steel, but only one liner. It is a frame or body locking knife, with the bent lock portion being on the side that hasn't got the separate liner. I think the liner serves no other purpose than to keep the spring in place, and provide a pocket for it to wiggle around in and do its thing.  Here's the hardware. The shiny blue accents around the pivot are clearly just ordinary flat washers that have had the same bluification process as the other parts applied to them, whatever it is. There's nothing else clever in there whatsoever. The pivot screw is completely round, with no anti-rotation flat. The pivot rides on the customary grubby Nylon washers. And the halves are separated with two shiny but otherwise very basic round threaded spacers. All the screws are the same save the two spacer screws that must pass through both a scale and a liner, and are thus longer. Oh, and while the pivot screws are probably *meant* to be T8 Torx head, the male screw on my example actually fit a T9 driver much better. The female side solidly fit a T8. Search me on that one.  Whatever these are dipped in to make them blue, the process was clearly applied to the entirety of every part. The accent work is then accomplished by machining the rest of the part which exposes the shiny metal underneath. I now know this, because the pocket beneath the pivot screw washer also has this finish in it, albeit unevenly, and despite the fact that it'll never be seen. If I had to guess I would say the handle scales are probably cast, then dipped, then machined afterwards. I can think of no explanation for the weird slope present in that pocket.  This may go some way towards explaining why the entire assembly is somewhat canted. Not just the blade in the channel, but the entire knife. If you rest it on a flat surface, it just always sits off kilter. **The Summation Or Whatever, Again** There's no getting around it that the CE-5079BL is probably precisely suited to the type of purchaser where it is likely to be sold, vis-a-vis the bong shop. Otherwise, the blade shape really begs the question of what the heck anyone is supposed to use this for or how. With the tail of it ending in a wicked point aimed right back at the user, this is probably one of those deals where it's just as dangerous for whoever's holding it as anyone else. It looks cool as all hell, though. 

3DPrinting dual_sport_dork • 6d ago • 96%

Configurable Gridfinity Bins

www.printables.com

Wouldn't you know it, I've been messing with the current release candidate for FreeCAD lately. Just now, I used it to make [this.](https://www.printables.com/model/1039928-gridfinity-configurable-parametric-bins-freecad-so) I got annoyed at having to search through all these multipacks of files to find a Gridfinity bin in the size I want. So I decided the hell with it, and made a parametric configurable FreeCAD model that creates bins or you, in *any* size (within reason) and also with a configurable number of fixed dividers in the bargain. My main intent was, of course, to use these to organize oodles and oodles of pocketknives. You'll never be able to *guess* why. But if you have a use for it, knock yourself out. 

PocketKNIFE dual_sport_dork • 2w ago • 98%

Weird Knife Wednesday: Heng Hui "Z3594" Ring Fighter Balisong

Ring-da-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding...  ..bom-bom-baaaaaaoo.  Usually when I show you guys this kind of malarkey I have to sheepishly admit to you that I have absolutely no idea who made it or where it comes from. *This* time, though, that's not the case. This knife was made by none other than "Heng Hui Hardware Industrial Co., Ltd."  I know this because they were kind enough to stamp it into the blade. I've probably owned this knife for going on 16 years at this point so in light of that you may be surprised to learn that Heng Hui apparently somehow [still exist,](https://www.globalsources.com/henghui-hardware/homepage_6008838749722.htm) and they're still cranking out chintzy knives, among other things. Nothing quite like this, though. Here is clearly their high water mark. Our little tradition is not completely abolished, though. While I know with certainty who made this, I can at the very least tell you I don't know what its designation is. There's nothing else marked on it. I can't find this knife for sale anywhere anymore except [here,](http://www.primakauf.cz/product/noze/motylkove-noze/prohnuty-motylek-heng-hui-s-okem-23/1660) which is in Czech, and it's labeled "Z3594." This may or may not be the manufacturer's designation or it might just be the SKU it's sold under on this particular site and therefore means nothing. On this point the internet remains silent, and the trail runs cold. But given that the URL calls it item "1660" instead I think the former is as good a theory as any. So I'm sticking with it. (And while we're at it, just get a load of those product photos. Phowar.)  Regardless of what who is calling it where, the Z3594 is obviously a balisong knife. It's got one thing going for it, which is the rather hard to miss ring on the heel of the blade. Obviously I bought it for no other reason than this. And I *know* what you're thinking.  Yes, you absolutely can. The ring is 0.890" in diameter 22.62mm, and it's easily big enough to get a thumb through. This is no dinky decorative drilling, barely suitable for sticking a lanyard through. No, it's large, ostentatious, and ready for you to grab this knife confidently by the scruff of the neck and ninja forth with it right the fuck into the night.  To assist in this, there actually is a pocket clip on the other side which is a surprising inclusion. As usual it's on the wrong side of the handle, but I can excuse it this time because it keeps the ring positioned away from your pocket seam, which realistically is the only way you're going to get this thing in your pants anyhow. And all that said, the clip works well and feels pretty good. I can't even come up with something incisive and sarcastic to say about it. It's fine. You might think at first blush that the ring would get in the way when you're flipping this thing around, but it really doesn't. The Z3594 is actually competently designed in that respect, which is a thing that sounded much less absurd before I saw it written down just now. You'll note that the ring is actually positioned such that at rest it's on the bite side handle, which is not the one you're normally manipulating. The extreme curve throughout the whole knife allows the pivots to be very offset and that also keeps the ring out of your way during normal operation. Once you get the knife fully open, though, it's right there in the perfect position to get your index finger through. Update: All of the above is surely because this knife appears to be a clone -- albeit not a perfect one -- of Terry Guinn's "Ring Fighter," which was a short production run semicustom (20 or 39 units, depending who you ask). Thus any design competency present is certainly borrowed. And, competently designed is not to say that the Z3594 is competently *made.* Because it isn't.  For instance, these casting flaws are really rather laughable. My granny could do a better job casting the metal in a pot on her stove. I have no idea what that pattern is supposed to be, either. A row of bunny ears? Deer tracks? Kamina's sunglasses? Beats me.  This is definitely a throw back to those good old/bad old days when every piece of Chinese cutlery you were able to lay your hands on could be counted on to be a source of never ending hilarity. The handle slabs are clearly cast, so it's a puzzle how they also managed to utterly fail to manage to be flat at least on one side. The tips of both handles where the pivot screws go through exhibit this pronounced flare, which can't be improved with any amount of dicking with the screw tension, no matter how hard you try. Thus, then, as you would expect the pivot action is very, er, *free.* And it is, because the entire thing rattles like a pair of castanets. It's a red letter day indeed when I can say that a balisong fails so hard at the wiggle test...  ...That it's not only possible but downright trivial to cause the latch to *miss the opposite handle entirely.* But never mind the quality. Feel the price. I don't know how much I paid for this back in the day, but it was surely less than $10. You couldn't pry my wallet open for anything more even if you had a crowbar ninety feet long. Of course anywhere there is machine work it is visibly crude. There are no sharp edges on the metalwork other than the cutting one, the one that's supposed to be there, but as an example the inner surface of the ring is more than a bit rough and I'm convinced its shape is actually stamped rather than milled. It works well enough, but feels distinctly unrefined and could probably benefit from with a pass with a Dremel -- a job which I've been putting off for all these years. And plan to continue to do so.  Since I have a reputation to uphold around here I think I am obliged to provide you the above, so I did. For archival purposes, I left all of the components exactly as filthy as they were when delivered. The Z3594 actually wasn't *too* tough to take apart at least to the point you see here. This despite its best efforts, up to and including all of its screw heads being not Torx like we've become accustomed to, but rather Allen heads which manage to not quite properly fit any size bit I own -- neither metric nor fractional inch.  The screws came prefastened from the factory with one of only two torque values: Finger-tight, or irrevocably cranked. Luckily for us, enough of them were the former that I was able to get all four handle slabs apart and extract the blade. The knife is spaced out by two Chicago screws forming the pivots, and one simple threaded barrel on each handle, down towards the tail. Among the screws that would not come out were one of each of the spacer screws, and one but not the other of the screws holding down the clip -- which helpfully arrived pre-stripped from the factory.  Here's a lineup of... most... of the hardware. No fancy features are evident whatsoever. No anti-rotation flats on the pivot screws, no fancy decorative screw heads, no springs, not even any pins. The blade rides on what are easily the grimiest plastic washers I have ever seen in my life. At first glance I thought whatever is all over them might be graphite, if we could be so lucky, but I think in reality it's just dirt. Some of it could be cleaned off. Most of it couldn't.  The blade works thusly, and when it's dismounted you can see how offset the pivot points are from each other to accommodate the high Banana Quotient present in the assembled knife. Strangely, the press job on the kicker pins is actually pretty good -- among the better examples I've seen on flea market grade cutlery, actually. Weird.  Above: You, versus the guy she tells you not to worry about. The Z3594 probably *wishes* it were a Benchmade Model 42. It's probably got pinups of it all over its room, and spends all afternoon listening to Depeche Mode and Morrissey while wistfully gazing into a mirror at itself and halfheartedly doing curls using weighs made of balsa wood and leaded Chinese paint, dreaming one day it might grow up to be half as good. Proportionally, it looks as if somebody took a Model 4x, clamped it in a vise, and whacked it with a hammer until it bent. From the tip of the tail to its forwardmost kicker pin, it's almost exactly the same length as from the tail of a the Model 42 to *its* tang pin. That can't be a coincidence. All in, the Z3594 is precisely 6" long. Open it's 9-1/8", and the taking of both measurements is confounded in no small part by the radical curvature in it when it's both open and closed. The blade is 3-15/16" long measured from the tip of its scimitar-like profile to the forwardmost point on the nearest handle, with the one near the edge winding up noticeably closer to the front than the other one by the time it's open. The blade is 0.098" thick or 2.51mm, and is made of an unspecified alloy which is *presumably* stainless. Being entirely of low-tech materials, it weighs a not inconsiderable 197.8 grams or 6.98 ounces.  The taper is hollow ground -- the cheapest kind of grind, of course -- and exhibits those ratty old machine marks we all know and love by now. I can't say anything about the edge because mine is not original. Perhaps unwisely, I elected to sharpen mine some years ago. I didn't put a lot off effort into it but alas, what was once the crude and sawtoothy original factory edge is now lost to time forever. However shall we cope. **The Inevitable Conclusion** There is a Venn diagram. On the one side, the Illustrious Pantheon of Knives with Cool Rings In Them. On the other, objects purporting to solve problems that most likely don't actually exist. Somewhere in the middle rests this knife. I couldn't tell you exactly where. "Hey kid, do you find your balisong knife too hard to hold onto? Of course you do, nerd, that's the point!" So maybe it's not built very well. But despite everything stacked up against it, the little Heng Hui actually manages to do something kind of special: In the world of balisong knives, it brings something genuinely new to the table. The ring might be silly but so are balisong knives in general, really, when you step back a bit and look at it. I won't go so far as to say that there are "myriad" ways you can use the ring to add to your repertoire of spinning tricks but there are certainly at least *few,* and thus there are things you can do with this that you can't do with most other balisongs. That's got to count for something. It's just a shame that it's... you know. Crap. 

Fountain Pens dual_sport_dork • 2w ago • 90%

Ohto F-Lapa: *Certified* Drama-Free

Here's a short one today, regarding a pen I have not picked up in a very long time. I assure you this pen is not from a problematic origin, and in light of recent discussions I've queried it quite thoroughly for its political leanings and thus far received absolutely no response. I'm starting to form the conclusion that this may be, in fact, because it can't talk. I'm not entirely sure.  This is the Ohto F-Lapa, which comes in -- or came in -- a variety of interesting finishes. Burgundy, brown, blue, that sort of thing. Those colorways are for people who *didn't* make the proactive decision to obtain a goddamn disco-ball mirror polished pen that'd present the maximum amount of difficulty in taking detailed photos of it while yammering about it on the internet, a decade after they bought it. Not that I'd know, or anything. This silver variant of the F-Lapa might just be the shiniest pen in the universe. Its body is actually quite striking in person. If I had to guess, I'd it's probably chrome plated. Handle it under bright lights at your own peril. Despite this, the F-Lapa is and always was a budget pen, but it's one of the few I can think of off the top of my head that isn't made out of plastic and is also refreshingly slim. The widest part of its grip section, which is slightly tapered, is only 9.09mm in diameter. That makes it slimmer than most of its peers I can name off the top of my head. I don't know, really only the Pilot Cavalier leaps to mind as comparable, but even that's triple the cost. I'm pretty sure the F-Lapa's body is aluminum. It's *really* light. Only 14.6 grams -- just a hair over half an ounce -- and that's fully filled with a typical International Short ink cartridge installed. Thus it's perfect for the use case I had for it at the time, which was to serve as a cheap daily carry replacement for my aging and continually appreciating in value Sheaffer Targa, while contriving not to look cheap and being compact, light, and easy to carry without making my shirt sag. It also has a clutch fit cap that just pulls off, and isn't a damn screw-on. These are all plusses in my book for practical daily use. (This was obviously before I developed my current fascination with retractable fountain pens.) But if that's what you want, too, the F-Lapa has you covered right down to the ground.  If what you want is a flexy, expressive, valuable, or glassy smooth nib, though, this isn't it. The F-Lapa has a pretty typical steel nib that, frilly decorative scrollwork on it aside, provides completely ordinary performance. It comes with an apparently monomolecular gold coating which on my example wore away pretty quickly with cleaning and so forth, although this didn't impact the performance any. So even if it's ugly, it works. This is a "fine" point which runs maybe a touch wider than a typical Asian "fine" pen. I have not been able to verify if this was ever available in any other nib width, but I suspect it was not. It has no flex whatsoever but writes predictably with no trouble. It's not exceptionally smooth, which I guess is what folks these days call "high feedback" in the same way that back in the 80's cheap cameras were marketed as "focus free." I find it nicely controllable and basically zero pressure is required on it to write, which combined with the light weight makes it pleasantly non-fatiguing to use. Before writing this I hadn't touched this pen for years and even so, I just jammed a random cartridge in it of unknown brand or origin and it picked right back up writing again as if I'd never put it down. So that's pretty cool. The nib purports to have an iridium tip, and is also marked "Germany," and I can neither confirm nor deny the veracity of either claim. That's kind of weird for a Japanese pen, but maybe it's true and that's why it writes broader than you'd think. I couldn't tell you.  There are no surprises inside, but that said I've always been amused by the ridiculously fine pitch of the threads on its section. It's the little things in life. By the way, this is one of those pens where you can carry a spare cartridge behind the one you've got installed, tail-to-tail, although only if having it rattle around inside won't annoy you.  The only other point of note I have about the F-Lapa is that when Ohto refers to it by it's full title, they consistently call it an "Auto Fountain Pen." Well, I for one can't for the life of me figure out what's supposed to be automatic about it.

3DPrinting dual_sport_dork • 2w ago • 95%

Very Specific Object! Gummy Latch for BRS Replicant and Friends

www.printables.com

This one's a real reach. Mo' obsure, mo' better. I got annoyed by my BRS Replicant (clone) showing up with very swanky channel milled handles, but no latch. Yes, it came with a little ballistic nylon belt pouch and no, even I of all people am not a big enough nerd to actually wear it that way. So I made this, which is a little friction fit dingus you can print out of TPU that fits quite snugly over the bite handle and holds the knife shut, but you can slip it over the end of the safe handle with your pinky easily. 

PocketKNIFE dual_sport_dork • 3w ago • 97%

Weird Knife Wednesday: CIVIVI Typhoeus

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the CIVIVI Typhoeus. (Gesundheit.)  No, the Typhoeus is actually named as far as anyone can tell after the monster from Greek mythology. You know the one -- so tall his head brushed the stars, controlled the wind and breathed fire, had snakes for a butt. What? No, [really.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhon) Anyway, this incarnation of Typhoeus is not, in fact, so large it brushes the stars. It's actually pretty compact for what it is, which is a 6-1/4" long fixed blade knife shown here in stylin' purple, with a very modern looking upswept drop point blade that's 2-3/8" long. It weighs 81.1 grams or 2.86 ounces, making it quite light compared to many other fixed blade knives. Actually, no. A fixed blade isn't quite what the Typhoeus is. But it's not a folder, either. In fact, it's kind of hard to describe just *what* it is, which I guess is exactly why it's here. You see, it has a trick.  Thanks to its articulated handle, it transforms before your very eyes...  Into a punch dagger. (Yes, another one.) Well, "dagger" is the wrong word, too. It's only single edged. But still. Can your zooty Zero-Tolerance-Benchmade-Emerson-5.11-Strider-Chris-Reeve even do that? I submit to you that it cannot.  CIVIVI themselves call this an "adjustable fixed blade knife," which I guess is one way to describe it. Mind you, that's because the one thing it doesn't do is fold. Well, okay, it self-evidently does because you just watched it do so. But it doesn't, like, *fold* fold. Not in such a way that the blade can be packed up within the handle.  Therefore it comes with this leather sheath, which despite being decently made is unfortunately is rather horrid in how it's designed. That's a shame, really, because the Typhoeus itself is actually pretty well built. The sheath holds the knife only in its punch-dagger configuration, and you can either pull it as such or give it a little twist when you draw to convert it into its traditional mode in the process. But the sheath is one of those ghastly fold-over retention flap jobbies with a chunky crude button snap on it, which makes it impossible to draw quickly and just plain old annoying to draw at all, what with the damn flap getting in the way and the snap scraping you and knocking against everything. Undoubtedly it would be better served by an injection molded or Kydex sheath with some kind of passive retention. But it hasn't got one of those, at least not from the factory, and not until I can be bothered pressing my own. So despite superficial appearances this is not in any way a self-defense knife. On the bright side, storing the knife in its punch configuration shortens the overall length considerably to just 4-1/2" (albeit now at 3" wide) which means it won't stick up as far to poke you in the ribs while you're carrying it. If only CIVIVI marketed this as a selling point. Instead, they don't seem to mention it at all.  The Typhoeus' blade is, depending on how you look at it, either a design *sans ricasso*, or is one of those hip and trendy "all choil" dealybobbers. When you're holding it in what's for lack of a better word normal knife mode, your index finger goes in that space naturally. There is no jimping anywhere on it but the G-10 handle slabs are both milled and textured, so keeping a hold on it isn't too tough and its design lends itself to easy controlability. The upswept edge has a cutting profile that presents the entire length as a functional belly, making it quite usable.  In punch dagger mode, a narrow tang is revealed behind the bulk of the blade which goes in between your fingers like so. The ensemble is not symmetrical and the blade is noticeably offset in the handle. While you can hold it either way 'round you'll probably find it more comfortable to have the shorter end of the handle towards your thumb, which is how it will naturally fall if you switch it from the traditional grip to punch dagger configuration anyway. The lack of a ricasso does present a bit of a problem here, though, because it's easy to nick yourself with the corner of the blade at its base. Even moreso if you're trying to get a grip on it in a hurry, which is probably a further ding against it for self-defense duty. I probably wouldn't want to use it as such, anyway -- there are much better options available.  I was going to take the Typhoeus all apart but I decided at the last moment I couldn't be arsed. The pivots do ride on bronze washers, though, which you can see peeking through the gaps. In total it has four pivot points, with two linkages between both handle halves. The pivots don't present any perceptible wiggle at all, and the mechanism moves quite freely, to the point that you can just flick it back and forth between modes. This is sure to amuse anyone to no end.  Well, it'll amuse *you* to no end, and annoy all bystanders in the process. That sounds like a win/win to me.  The Typhoeus' action does not lock in either position. What keeps it there is your grip on the handles, which cam themselves together as you squeeze. Notably, pressing on the spine of the blade with your thumb does make it want to start folding up, and there's probably no jimping there specifically to discourage you from doing that. Keep your fingers instead on the handle itself around the scales and it's not going anywhere.  The made is made of 14C28N steel which CIVIVI take great pains to point out as Swedish. Despite this it is still very much made in China. The blade is 0.119" thick, and I am very pleased to report that it's flat ground. It has an attractive satin finish on it, and bears no markings other than...  ...This nearly microscopic steel descriptor laser engraved into it. It bears no other inscriptions or maker's mark, although it does have CIVIVI's "C" logo as an emblem on the head of the center pivot screw:  The Typhoeus is quite compact for a "fixed" knife, as evidenced by how much smaller it is even than a bog standard CQC-6K.  **The Inevitable Conclusion** The Typhoeus is a fidget toy *par excellence,* but at anywhere from $65 to around $100 depending on which color variant you want, it's kind of tough to justify on that merit alone. Luckily, it's also competently manufactured and pleasantly functional in the bargain. If I were you, I'd look at it as a "fixed blade" style knife that's easier to carry than most by magically making itself shorter when you put it away. It's a shame about the sheath. You'll probably have to add $10 worth of Kydex and rivets to your bill of materials. 

PocketKNIFE dual_sport_dork • 4w ago • 96%

Weird Knife Wednesday: A Very Naughty Push Dagger

*Hello my friends, the day is once more / Just wait to see what we have in store / A silly knife no doubt, and one that is furthermore...* *...Naughty.*  I have on multiple occasions mentioned owning several knives with various aspects that the law finds it within itself to frown upon. And probably just as often, expressed my own personal conclusion that regulations outlawing this feature or that particular mechanism or the other shape or whatever are ultimately all very silly when viewed from the perspective of anyone familiar with, you know, reality. Byzantine knife laws make the least sense out of pretty much anything because at the end of the day blade is a blade, and there is self-evidently no such thing, for example, as a "high capacity assault knife." You could cut someone just as well with a 4" paring knife from the Dollar General as you could with the latest tactical spring loaded all black half serrated tanto point karambit switchblade from 5.11 or Emerson. Or a chunk of obsidian you've knapped on a rock, for that matter. One sharpened chunk of metal is much the same as any other from the standpoint of someone wanting to perform mischief with it -- or one having mischief performed upon them with it. (And that's notwithstanding the racist motivations that underpin specifically the US federal switchblade ban, balisong bans, and "dirk and dagger" laws.) But this. *This* is easily the single most likely thing I've got liable to keep a harebrained legislator up at nights worrying.  I've probably had it for about 20 years, and I'm pretty sure I bought it from BudK back in the day, when I was in one of my "get it before it's banned" moods. Yes, this is a punch or push dagger. It is an early example of a brandless OEM Chinese special, so it never to my knowledge had any name or formal model designation, and while I can't find its exact ilk for sale anymore you can still find things online rather like it. If you prefer a brand name option, the Cold Steel FGX Push Blade leaps to mind. It has very little utilitarian purpose. This blade, it is made for stabbin'. It's also made entirely of G-10, and is therefore *completely* nonmetallic. In last week's column I gave an overview of a ceramic bladed folding knife, which doesn't have a metallic blade. But it still had a metallic liner, clip, and screws and therefore would not pass through a metal detector. This doesn't, and it absolutely would. But even still, don't try it.  This "knife" is a 5" long, 0.175" thick, single flat piece of textured G-10, which has a cord wrapped T handle and a flat ground "blade" profile milled into it. For its part, G-10 is extremely strong for its weight (in total here only 17.4 grams or 0.62 ounces) and also surprisingly rigid. But considering that the thing and the whole of the thing is just fiberglass suspended in an epoxy resin, it doesn't actually hold an edge worth a damn. Like, at all.  So while there is an edge bevel on it, it's not even sharp enough to make a reliable letter opener. Even if you carefully sharpened it, it's unlikely it would last for more than one cut. The material is just too soft and prone to abrasion.  But that's not the point. The *point* is the point, and this knife is probably quite stout enough to Render Unto Caesar that what is Caesar's. Maybe not all 23 times, but certainly at least once. As a last-ditch holdout, it would seriously inconvenience anyone you punched with it although I imagine given how soft the material is it would utterly fail to penetrate leather or even the cheapest soft body armor. Even so, I would not want to have this coming at me unexpectedly in the dark. I present this to you bare, because although it did arrive with a belt sheath -- which ironically contained a large steel button snap on it, completely defeating its implied purpose -- this was made of fake leather so abysmal that it literally disintegrated into fish flakes while in storage in my knife cabinet. So I threw it away. Maybe some day I'll 3D print a replacement one, or something. Whatevs. I'm obviously not carrying this thing with me anywhere, so I can't think of a single thing that's a lower priority. **The Inevitable Conclusion** It's probably because of things like this that all of our airports have switched over from plain metal detectors to those backscatter X-ray machines now. It's all theater, though. Both that and this. Despite what the hysterical shriekers would have you believe if they could, to the nearest couple of decimal points no one is actually smuggling these anywhere, nor are they the crux of any kind of secret terrorist plot, and while we're at it nor is anyone realistically going to successfully use it as a last-ditch self defense tool when so many other ones are both better and just as readily available. Even so, it's sometimes nice to know that just by owning something like this you're pissing off the right people, even if only passively.

PocketKNIFE dual_sport_dork • 1mo ago • 98%

Weird Knife Wednesday: Schrade SCH404

`SCH404: Weirdness Not Found`  "What the hell is this?" I hear you ask. "This looks like the ordinariest ordinary thing that ever ordinaried." Here's a hint, by way of a magnet.  The Schrade SCH404 is indeed one of those from the burgeoning, but still uncommon, sector of ceramic bladed knives. But unlike the cheapie translucent ones that Amazon perpetually refuses to ship to your location, this one has a zirconia ceramic blade with this attractive obsidian finish.  The SCH404 is very old and thus very discontinued. So much so that it's actually pretty tough to find any info on it online. It's also one of those things that perfectly illustrate how us spacemen are already living in the future, but we're so numb to everything nowadays that the mere presence the advanced wondermaterials it's made out of -- things unfathomable to an observer from, say, fifty years ago -- now just feel like they're old hat. And this was an inexpensive entry level knife in its day, not even remotely premium.  But despite its age, the SCH404 still has quite a few modern aspects about it. Like like the deep carry pocket clip, highly textured G10 scales, and slick single sided liner design. These are all highly desirable hallmarks of current EDC knives. Just in this case also including a blade made of a weird nonmetallic material. For a start, this is a *very* light and compact knife. It's only 48.7 grams or 1.72 ounces -- that's actually 2.4 grams lighter than a Benchmade Bugout. It's just 3-3/4" long closed, 6-1/2" open, and sports a 2-3/4" long blade made of that groovy glassine ceramic. I think the only way to go lighter per displacement would be to pay a lot more and pony up for the likes of, say, a Böker Anti Grav.  The SCH404 is pretty thin overall as well. It's 0.346" thick not including the clip, with its lack of bulk in both dimensions and weight combining to make it very easy to carry. The ceramic blade is 0.80" thick.  Actually, let's talk about that blade. Ceramic blades like this one are typically billed as "forever sharp." The zirconia ceramic material is incredibly hard, falling somewhere between 8.5 and 9 on the Moh's scale and thus much harder than steel. It resists abrasion to an incredible degree, and is essentially completely immune to the inherent abrasiveness of cardboard, sisal rope, leather, and even wood. The glossy obsidian surface is a veritable beacon for fingerprints but not, it must be said, scratches. There is very little that can truly scratch the surface of the SCH404's blade. Basically only sapphire, diamond, and tungsten carbides -- all things you're unlikely to be trying to slice with your pocketknife on a daily basis. But the material is also very brittle, and the thinner it is the more brittle it gets. Thus a ceramic knife like this chips near-microscopically rather than dulling via abrasion or the edge getting rounded down like a typical steel knife. It's also not a good idea to put any torsion on it at all, because the material would be prone to just snap.  And I know what you're thinking. No, this knife will not sail through a metal detector. The liner, clip, and screws are all made of plain old steel. So forget it. Only the blade and scales are nonmetallic.  It's a very good thing these come preground, because they are functionally impossible for a hobbyist to properly sharpen. Yes, you can *theoretically* do the job with resin bonded diamond stones but the process is arduous and difficult, and the penalty for failure is high. My example is very lightly used, so I can only imagine these tiny imperfections in the edge came from the factory. The SCH404 is not quite shaving sharp although it glides through paper and cardboard quite easily still. That's just as well, because if it were truly dull I probably wouldn't be too keen to do anything about it. I dig the subtle refractive rainbow effect of the light playing off of the texture in the edge like a starling's wing. The SCH404's blade really is stunningly beautiful. The flat of the blade is literally mirror polished, to the point that it casts reflections. The machine marks, meanwhile, sparkle in the light. It's like waving a black diamond around.  The edge is also fortunately exactly mathematically true. As it bloody well ought to be, given all of the above. If it weren't, good luck trying to correct it. So, I mentioned the Böker Anti Grav earlier, and I did that on purpose. That's because I suspect, but cannot prove, that this knife was actually OEM'ed by Böker using much of the same equipment, material, and template.  What clues me in is this highly distinctive five-holed spanner nut on the pivot, which is *suspiciously* reminiscent of the [one on the Anti Grav](https://www.bokerusa.com/anti-grav-01bo036) and its sibling, the Anti MC. If so, that's huge -- that makes this an incredible poor man's version of that knife, especially considering that the former retails for about $195 nowadays. The main thing you're lacking is the zooty carbon fiber or titanium scales, but for the end-of-life retail cost of around $15 on this thing I'll sure take the $180 discount. So if that's true, there's the other half of the oddity surrounding this knife. We'll probably never know for sure.  I bothered to take a macro photo of the SCH404's model number etching, so I'm going to show it to you and nobody's going to stop me. Here it is.  Size wise, the SCH404 falls firmly into the compact category. It's basically the size of a Mini Bugout. Compared to the usual CQC-6K, there, it'll ride thoroughly unnoticed in your pocket. **The Inevitable Conclusion** You can't buy the SCH404 anymore, so there wasn't much point in me yammering on about it. But it's the only folding ceramic knife I own these days so it's the one you got. Ceramic knives like these -- in their pocket knife incarnations, anyway, and not as the fairly ubiquitous cheap white kitchen knives -- shine for basically one and only one purpose. If your workflow involves cutting a *lot* of cardboard in a day, something like this absolutely will save you from endless resharpenings or having to go through box cutter blades like popcorn. Like many things in my collection, both those I've shown you and ones I haven't gotten around to yet, the SCH404 is a bit of a relic. It's a peculiar combination of materials, construction, and price point we're not liable to see the likes of again. At least, not for what it cost when it was available.

PocketKNIFE dual_sport_dork • 1mo ago • 96%

TGZUO Q19: Singing a Familiar Tune

I'm almost feeling like I'm being personally called out, here. This is the "TZGUO" model Q19. As I'm sure you're getting tired of me telling you, both the brand and the model on this thing really don't mean much; you can find this and many of its near identical siblings wherever Chinese white-box goods are sold, under a near infinite array of names and non-brand monikers. *This* particular instance came from Amazon, hence the unpronounceable five letter combination. The fact that it sneakily violates the "no balisongs on Amazon" rule is just delicious icing on the cake of overt cheekiness. You can also find these all over AliExpress and probably Wish and Temu by now, too, where they're cheaper and you can score one for about $35. The search term you want is "titanium design balisong," apparently. But never mind all that. Just check this thing out.  The Q19 is a balisong utility knife. It takes standard Stanley style trapezoid blades, as are readily available everywhere.  It has a spring loaded latch, too. Does that remind you of a particular knife? It certainly reminds me of one... [Mine!](https://lemmy.world/post/17328458) Now, I don't think I've been scooped, here. Rather, I think this is a case of convergent evolution, as it were, with both myself and whoever is churning these things out arriving at some similar design conclusions for similar reasons. And it turns out I *like* The Q19. I've actually been using it as my daily driver for about the past two weeks, which is why you haven't seen me blathering about much of anything else in the interim. And this will go a long way towards explaining the tape gunk stuck to the blade in some of these pictures.  The Q19 is, as implied by its product description, made of titanium. Well, a lot of it is, anyway. The handle scales and latch certainly are. A magnet reveals that the blade carrier and clip are actually steel. That's fine, and the combination of materials adds up to a total weight of 76.5 grams or 2.7 ounces exactly. It's definitely more of an "EDC" size and not a competition sized knife, measuring out at 4-9/16" long when closed including the tail of the latch sticking out, and precisely 7" long when open with a typical blade installed. It's square in profile with flat sided handle scales, 0.416" thick not including the clip.  Said clip is a traditional design and rides in a little pocket machined into one of the handle slabs. Of *course* it's not reversible, with no matching pocket on the other side, because this is in accordance with the deeply rooted worldwide conspiracy among all balisong manufacturers everywhere designed specifically to annoy *me* in particular, wherein it is also on the wrong side of its handle.  Ahem. Anyway, the heel of the blade contains a slotted screwdriver tip or, as it's described in the specs, a "pry bar." And the hook on the end of the latch functions as a bottle opener. The manufacturer is thus pathologically driven to bill this as a multi-tool.  Fair enough, actually. The tailhook does open bottles like nobody's business -- provided you manage to lever it the right way around, and don't try to use it backwards.  I spent some time trying to research what the Q19 is a knockoff of and ultimately came up empty. If anything, the closest I can come up with is the Artisan ATZ-1823PO, the now discontinued utility knife version of their [Kinetic Tool thing.](https://lemmy.world/post/17891721) This certainly has a T shaped latch strongly reminiscent of the Artisan one, although that isn't spring loaded and this is. And the Artisan tool has that weird combination switchblade/balisong action which this certainly doesn't. Annoyingly, then, the Q19 appears to be a more-or-less bespoke design that against all expectation actually turns out to be pretty good. Yeah, I'm just as surprised as you are. That's not how these things are supposed to go.  Its action is excellent, for a start. The titanium handles are fairly light but the Q19's balance is spot on, with the center of gravity remaining well inside the handles and not out in the blade carrier. The pivots exhibit no drag and are totally consistent in their nearly complete lack of friction throughout the entire range of travel. The rebound is pleasant and distinct, without setting up any vibrations or resonances in the handles. And thanks to having an extension spring driven design ripped off directly from Benchmade, the latch is held out and away from the handles at all times and can't strike either one during manipulation. It just feels good overall. You would think that the bottle opener hook would make it snaggy as all hell but somehow it doesn't. The knife is thin enough and rides against your pocket tightly enough that it doesn't seem to cause an issue. The only real fly in the ointment I can see from a design perspective is the prybar tip sticking out of the end, which might get in the way if you're trying to do over-the-finger spin tricks. I guess if it bothers you, you could just grind it off. It's a $35 knife with no collector's value. Who cares?  Hier ist Der Viggletesten. The Q19 scores favorably here, exhibiting very little wiggle and absolutely zero tap of the blade carrier against the insides of the handles.  Yes, this is a $35 knife wherein a significant portion of it is constructed of titanium, *and* it has ball bearing pivots. Nice ones, too. And the inside faces of the handles are pocketed for the bearings, so this wasn't a case of some existing design somebody just decided to slap bearings in and add $2 to the bill of materials. No, it was designed for them from the start.  Here's the latch spring mechanism, which is dead simple and suspiciously similar to that of the Benchmade Model 42 and subsequent knives. It will spring open from either the latched or unlatched positions if you give the handles a hearty squeeze together. The Q19 also has a Zen pin design without the need for kicker pins to be pressed through the blade carrier. This is just as well, because every time you see kicker pins on a cheap Chinese knife they're invariably pressed badly. In this they're just basic straight pins with no shoulders or fancy features, but they sit acceptably square when assembled and don't cause any problems or weirdness.  You might think at first blush that installing or changing a blade in this requires tools, based on the two little Torx screws on the blade carrier. But those are a cost cutting measure, not a mechanical necessity; they obviate the manufacturer from having to machine a narrow slot into the blade carrier and instead allow it to be assembled out of two pieces which has got to make it much easier to manufacture. Rather, the nubs that engage the cutouts in the blade are actually mounted on a flexible prong, which you can pull down with the aid of a fingernail just far enough to allow you slide it in and out. If you're chicken you can still install a blade the hard way, by removing those two screws and the top plate. But that's not actually necessary. Again, this is highly reminiscent of how I do it on all of my printed utility knives. Obviously great minds think alike.  The pivot screws have anti-rotation flats and the handle slabs do indeed have matching D shaped cutouts in them for once -- on all four of them, even. Thus undoing the pivot screws is easy provided only that you start reefing on it from the correct side. There is no visual indicator on either of the screw heads which is the male side and which is the female. But you'll quickly discover that the female side refuses to turn, which clue you in pretty quickly. The Torx head on that side is thus ultimately just decorative. You can install the pivot screws either way around depending on whatever suits your fancy.  The Q19 comes in a pretty nice woven-textured box, and I was surprised to find that it even comes with a nearly complete set of replacement hardware inside as well. It comes with a spare clip, too, which may be an addition prompted by the smattering of reviews on Amazon bitching about said clip breaking. But I can't prove it. To be fair it is only held down by one screw, so I imagine if you were truly hopelessly uncoordinated it's possible you could rip the clip clean off of the knife. Remember, kids: The clip is for carrying the knife on the *inside* of your pocket, not for dangling it out in the open off of your belt to get snagged on every damn fool thing you might happen to pass by. You get two replacement assembly screws (all five are the same, including the one mounting the clip), one each of the male and female pivot screws, one spacer barrel, and a clip. You don't get a replacement spring, though. It also comes with a box of "WYNNS" utility knife blades, so you don't even have to get on your bicycle and pedal down to the hardware store to get your own. These aren't great, exactly, even easily outperformed in edge retention by those in my cheapo 100 pack from Lowes. But they'll do to start with. Of course you can mount any Stanley style blade in this provided it's thin enough to go in the slot, including fancy composite edged or even the forever-sharp ceramic ones.  Oh, and the handle slabs are completely interchangeable so when I put it back together I swapped the bite side slabs, so I could put the clip on the correct goddamn side of the knife. I will begrudgingly re-award the points I docked for this originally, even though it should have come this way from the factory in the first place. Dagnabbit.  While we're flaunting that Benchmade Morpho, though, let's do our usual size comparison thing. The Q19 is actually very similar in proportions to the Model 32, the smaller of the two Morphos. It's smaller than my Rockhopper balisong, although not for any mechanical reason -- I just designed the Rockhopper to be longer than it strictly needs to be for comfort purposes.  Open it's the same story, although both the Q19 and my Rockhopper's blade carriers are shorter overall than a normal fully steel blade probably would be. **The Inevitable Conclusion** This is pretty much the second coolest box cutter in the world. (The absolute coolest, of course, would be the one *I* designed. But I would say that, wouldn't I?) In fact, the Q19 is way better in reality than it has any right to be. I can't find much of anything to complain about, really. It's actually built rather well, it's slick as all fuck, it has *all* the features, and the price is right, too. Plus, I think it'd probably make a good introduction for anybody looking to get into balisongs. With a spring latch, titanium handles, and ball bearing pivots all in one package you really can't go wrong. And it's worth mentioning that it's significantly safer to be fucking around with than a normal live bladed balisong, for two reasons: One, you can just take the blade out of it if you feel like it. And two, even on the sharp "bite" side of the blade carrier, about a third of it has no edge exposed. Unless you're holding the handles really far down it's a fair bet you'll just whack the blunt part against your index finger rather than find yourself contributing an express blood donation.  Usually I spend all of my time with this type of thing damning with faint praise. Oh look at the little thing, it thinks it's a real knife, isn't that cute? But with the Q19, I can do no such thing. It has all the hallmarks of crapness. It's a Chinese made, cheaply sold, generic and endlessly rebadged non-brand product that, for once, actually turns out to deliver 100% of what it promises. I'll be damned.

PocketKNIFE dual_sport_dork • 1mo ago • 100%

Weird Knife Wednesday: Treszen EDC Pocket Knife

Okay, okay, this one is kind of a cheap shot. Not just because this knife is cheap per se, although it definitely is: Only $6 at the moment. Rather, it's because I kinda-sorta posted it already. But not really. This knife has no real designation other than it's non-brand name, "Treszen(R)," and we are led to believe its model name is literally "EDC Pocket Knife." I have to wonder if that (R) there means whoever the hell is flogging these things on Amazon actually bothered to register their trademark in the US. Do you know, I'll bet you a nickel they didn't.  This knife bears more than a passing resemblance to one that I showed off in one of my very first Weird Knife Wednesday posts. That was the ["SDOKEDC SD604A,"](https://lemmy.world/post/6618337) and both that and this are very nearly clones of the [Scorpiodesign Shapeshifter.](https://www.scorpiodesign.de/messer/shapeshifter-edc) All three of the above are strong contenders for the king of knives that the uninitiated are guaranteed to never be able to figure out how to open. Just let motherfuckers find out you have one of these on you and they'll stop pestering you about borrowing your knife in a big hurry.  The action is this Rube Goldberg triple-jointed nonsense that achieves, at least according to the design goals of the Scorpiodesign original, a knife with an effective blade length longer than the handle is once it's deployed. If you find somehow that this was a void that absolutely needed filling in your life, well, here you go. The product description goes on to describe it as, "Special Folding Method." Yeah, that's for damn sure. It doesn't really feature a lock as such, but when it's all folded out your grip on the handle forces the two halves to cam together, which effectively holds it open and prevents it from folding up on you.  The critical difference here is that the Treszen here is much, *much* smaller than its inspiration. Small enough that you realistically could actually carry it if you were so inclined, which means I like this incarnation a lot better than the others -- which, novelty aside, are entirely too large and doofy to actually keep on you. That's the SDOKEDC on the right, there, which is near as I can figure identical in dimensions to the original Shapeshifter. And on the left, the bog standard Kershaw CQC-6K.  The Treszen is 5-1/4" long when open and 4" long closed, which puts it well within the realm of actual EDC friendly sizes. It's also only 0.320" thick.  It's way slimmer than the SDOKEDC/Shapeshifter. It's about as thick as a Bugout, actually. But despite this, your EDC aspirations won't be helped in any way whatsoever by the complete lack of any kind of clip, lanyard hole, or even perfunctory ratty nylon belt pouch. You'll just have to let it slosh around in your pocket, I guess. If it helps you any, though, it *is* extremely shiny. That's because it is constructed entirely of metal. What kind of metal? Who knows. The best anyone can tell us is "high carbon steel." But because of this it weighs 61.3 grams overall or 1.16 ounces and feels denser in the hand than you'd expect. Its 2-3/16" blade has a drop point-ish profile that's not too weird to use for things, and is 0.096" thick. The near mirror-polished surface is, of course, a complete magnet for both scratches and fingerprints. But damned if it doesn't give the thing an unexpectedly grown up vibe. This could, at least in dim lighting perhaps, pass for a gentleman's knife.  Playing with it is strangely satisfying, too. But that's only after you figure out the inherent fly in the ointment, which is that the tip of the blade by necessity pokes through one of the sections of the handle as a part of the opening process. And if you don't know this and you're not careful about it, it'll poke you, too. I'll tell you what's not so elegant, though. The Treszen's build quality is actually kind of crap.  The edge grind features this rather hilarious chicane in it at the tip, for instance. I figure whoever had this on the grinding wheel must have sneezed right when they got to that part.  And but of course, the edge is *gloriously* out of true. At this rate, I would almost be disappointed if it weren't. For $6, would you really deprive yourself of the amusement, nay, *sheer joy* of spending an hour with your very best diamond stones bullying the edge back into shape?  To its credit, the Treszen actually does away with the ridiculous gaps between all the moving parts that the old SDOKEDC featured. Despite not actually being built that well in an objective sense, this helps in making it at least superficially *feel* quite a bit less naff. The main pivot where the blade slides down along its track is spaced out with these nylon washers, for instance, which probably help reduce the mechanism's friction from completely untenable to merely absurd, and also result in a fairly low amount of wiggle in the blade once it's deployed. I was going to take the Treszen apart to show you this, but I'm ashamed to admit that, well... I can't.  That's because while it's theoretically held together with Torx screws, several of them are pre-stripped from the factory and some of the others are so malformed that they don't fit any driver I own. Just look at them. I have no idea how the factory even managed to assemble it. **The Inevitable Conclusion** I've never held a knife so crappy that I liked so much. I don't even really know *why.* At the end of the day, the Treszen really isn't any more practical than its larger brethren despite being markedly easier to carry. There still isn't any way to describe its method of operation that does not somewhere include the words "deeply silly." And yet. I can say one thing about it, though, which may also be a result of its German roots: It is categorically impossible to open with one hand. That's not a benefit anybody, except for someone who lives in a place where one-hand opening and locking knives are illegal. Like, oh, Germany. Just a thought. Strange as it is, ridiculous as it is, I think it would take a indefensibly unreasonable leap for anyone to claim view the Treszen as a weapon. You can't call it anything more than a pennknife. Hell, a Swiss Army Classic is just about John Rambo's Bowie knife compared to this thing. It's so stupid that it's completely nonthreatening. I mean, just look at him face. How can you not adore that? 

Fountain Pens dual_sport_dork • 1mo ago • 98%

The Retractable Bunch

I took this photo and the one below for my post about the Dialog, but did not wind up using it therein. From left to right: - [Platinum Curidas](https://lemmy.world/post/13185979) - [Majohn A2 Press](https://lemmy.world/post/17334793) (Modified) - [Lamy Dialog 3](https://lemmy.world/post/19547692) - Pilot Vanishing Point - [Oaso K016](https://lemmy.world/post/13543144) 

Fountain Pens dual_sport_dork • 1mo ago • 92%

NPD: Lamy Dialog 3 Medium

Gentlemen.  I promise I'm not doing this as a showing-up. Given my predilection for retractable fountain pens, I've had my eye on one of these for *years* and it's the one I've never actually been able to own. Up until now, anyway, because I finally found the opportunity to get my hands on one without going broke. This legitimately did just show up the mail just recently. And since we don't get to do this every day, why not share in the unboxing experience of a pen that lists for **four hundred** United States dollars?  It seems how seriously the manufacturer takes any given pen is directly proportional to the size of the box it shows up in. The box my Oaso K012 came in, for instance, could barely contain a deck of cards. Hell, my Ohto F-Lapa didn't even come in a box at all, just a flimsy baggie. The Dialog, meanwhile, comes in a woven-textured matte presentation box that's so big it won't even fit in my illuminated photo booth, so to get this picture I had to take it outside. Hence the shadow. It's 7-1/8" square and if my algebra is correct, if you were so inclined you could easily fill it with about 44 Lamy Dialogs.  But alas, inside you only get one. The box is lined with some kind of fuzzy fabric all over the inner surfaces, and the walls of the lower half of it, at least, feel like they're about five layers thick.  The Dialog is one of Lamy's flagship pens. Thus as you would expect, the Germans left very few stops unpulled when they were constructing it. The body is all aluminum, with various internal structures made of stainless steel. It's ridiculously dense, weighing 46 grams precisely with a standard Lamy ink cartridge installed. It is without a doubt the heaviest fountain pen I own and possibly the heaviest I've ever handled for any length of time. For comparison, my OG Pilot Vanishing point -- which is made of *brass*, mind you -- also feels incredibly dense but still only weighs 29.8 grams.  Lamy always go for a Euro-chic minimalist vibe with their nicer pens and the Dialog is certainly no exception. Its profile is a postmodern, untapered capsule shape with nearly spherical ends. It is thus exactly 14mm in diamter down its entire length by my measure, or 0.551", not including the clip. So that's actually slightly thicker than a Platinum Curidas and noticeably thicker than a Vanishing Point or clone thereof. If you are a fancier of slim pens, this one probably isn't for you. It's available in four finishes: The satin silver I got, matte black, and a duo of "piano" gloss black or gloss white that frankly I'd be terrified to even store outside of the box. The latter two have got to be both fingerprint and scratch magnets. That, and they almost look like they're trying to be an Apple product. So yeah, I got the silver one. And this is the current Dialog 3, not the slightly newer [Dialog CC](https://us-shop.lamy.com/en_us/lamy-dialog-cc) which is shorter, has an aesthetically different tail, and lacks the pocket clip. What kind of heathen philistine would want a pen like that with no clip is beyond me, but the option to pander to such strange individuals does at least exist.  The Dialog is, needless to say, a retractable fountain pen. One of the very few entries into that select brotherhood, in fact, along with the Pilot Vanishing Point and its clones, the Platinum Curidas, the aforementioned Oaso K012, and the historical and quite collectible Platinum Knock and OG Pilot Capless. There may be others. Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.  As the youngsters are fond of saying these days, no cap. The Dialog is unique among all of these because it's the only one that's not a click pen -- It is a twist-to-extend mechanism, instead.  Here's the part you all want to see. The various retractable fountain pens of the world use an array of mechanisms to prevent themselves from drying out when their points are retracted. Hinged or spring loaded trap doors, or in the case of Oaso's entry a flexible rubber diaphragm. The Dialog meanwhile uses what Lamy describes as a "ball valve," a hemispherical rotary cover that pivots into place over the open end of the pen when you retract the point. The Dialog's operation is a mechanical symphony conducted by a helical thread inside the grip section that drives three separate mechanical actions. First is the extension and retraction of the point itself, second is the operation of the ball valve cover...   ...And third is the slight but noticeable retraction of the clip when the point is extended. Now, Lamy's marketing materials try pretty hard to imply that the clip sinks flush into the pen body but this is not the case. It would be rad it if it did. But the retraction is only probably about two millimeters. Note the difference in the amount of daylight showing through the gap in the pictures above.   The Dialog's twist mechanism has a tactile detent in it when you rotate it into either the fully extended or retracted positions. There is no tactile indicator on the surface of the pen body, though; it's completely smooth all the way around. Instead there is a visual indicator in the form of these two pairs of lines marked on both halves of the body. When the point is fully retracted these all line up with each other as shown.  The Dialog comes packing Lamy's fanciest premium nib, their "Z 55" which is made of 14k gold with platinum plating. I got the medium variant, the 585. The gold nib is fairly flexible although at least with the medium point the variation in stroke width with pressure and direction is fairly subtle. (Magnified shot [here](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8f011dbf-d749-4995-956d-d679afb8a504.jpeg), although it fell out of my depth of field slightly.) I prefer a broad-ish stroke and the 585 certainly delivers on that front. It's the second fattest you can get in Lamy's gold nibs, and the second fattest overall without going to one of their calligraphy or oblique options. Combined with the Dialog's feed it is a very wet writer as evidenced by the feathering on the cheap Post-It I used for my headline photo as well as this comparison:  Some of this may be down to the ink, since both of my Lamy pens are currently loaded with genuine Lamy branded ink and they both do this. The Majohn in the middle is filled with Diamine Shimmering Seas which, although weird, seems to be slightly better behaved on bad paper. If you like novelty metallized, shimmering, glittery, or iridescent inks that require you to flood the paper with them in order to do their thing, I think they should all work exceptionally in the Dialog. At least if you select one of the broader nib options. This thing would certainly drive any writers of tiny katakana completely nuts. Which is exactly how I like it.  Towards that end, though, all of Lamy's nibs are interchangeable (except on their 2000 pen) so you could in theory yank the stock nib off of this and replace it with anything. The Z 55 series nibs retail for an eye-watering $155, so if gold isn't your jam you could probably flog yours on eBay and buy, like, a hundred steel Lamy nibs of all shapes and sizes. You're on your own for figuring out how to get the stock nib off without damaging it, though. Lamy describes the standard procedure as to clamp the nib upside down against a table using the bottom of your pen's cap and yank it off thusly, but the Dialog hasn't *got* a cap and the notion of applying unknown tools to a $155 nib isn't one I find immediately appealing. Especially one that isn't made of indestructible stainless steel.  And for its part, the included 39 page double-sided full color glossy instructions manual doesn't describe how they intend for you to remove the nib, either, despite going into significant detail about everything else.  Not even the page specifically about (and titled) the nib. So I think I'll leave mine right where it is for now, thanks.  For four hundred bucks you figure they could at least include more than one poxy cartridge. But all you get is a single lonely blue T10 cartridge, an inkwell converter, the pen itself, and one official Lamy Dialog Kurled Thingy. Lamy apparently do straight-facedly expect you to dip this thing into an inkwell as one of its intended modes of operation, which I think is *deeply* silly. An entire page is devoted to this in the manual, in fact. Sane people, if using the inkwell converter, will probably want to fill it with a syringe separate from the pen so as not to get ink trapped in every nook and cranny inside that expensive retractable mechanism. Like most (possibly all?) Lamy pens, the cartridge is not held captive by the tail end of the pen body once assembled and just screwing the halves together won't pierce a cartridge like on a Sheaffer or Parker. You have to shove it home yourself all the way to get the ink flowing. It's not even close to being restrained even with the pen assembled and the point fully retracted, with at least half an inch of empty air behind the tail of the cartridge. So it is theoretically possible for it to get knocked off the feed in transit somehow, although I have to imagine any force capable of doing that to a fresh cartridge would probably cause other problems for the pen... or you. But if you're a habitual cartridge-refiller, be mindful of the necks of your cartridges eventually getting wallered out and loose over time. The neck of the inkwell converter has a rubber gasket on it but the plastic cartridges don't.  The Dialog comes apart simply by unscrewing it beyond its tip-retracted position.  Inside Lamy is surely showing off with the core feed and nib carrier precision machined with fine crosshatched grip knurling, not to mention various threaded parts. This unscrews from the front section rather than pulling straight out, and is captive until you do so. Unlike other retractables, the Dialog doesn't appear to contain any springs.  The Knurled Thingy is actually a cleaning tool.  It can be screwed on in place of the core, and if you twist it further it'll open the ball valve mechanism at the front of the pen, the same as if you'd deployed the point normally.  This enables you not only to peer straight through the thing and out the other side, but also gets the valve out of the way so you can rinse the section out or get a Q-tip through it.  As far as feel in the hand goes, the Dialog is, of course, absolutely boss. Flawless provided only that you can handle its girth. I was surprised to find that mine did require a noticeable amount of break in before it would write reliably, however. Maybe this is normal for Lamy's gold nibs, but it's the first and only one of those I've ever owned (despite having handled oodles of their steel ones in my time) so maybe that's normal. Out of the box it was reliably unreliable, invariantly failing to write for the first quarter inch or so any time it'd been left idle without putting down any ink for more than a few seconds. Once it got going it was bulletproof. This behavior stopped after about two days of use. I've seen this sort of thing before and it's either cured by a few lashes on a fine Arkansas stone or a thorough cleaning, both of which I was avoiding at first to see if the Dialog would improve on its own, because at the price it retails for it's the principle of the thing, damn it. And it eventually did. So that's nice. Like most modern pens, the Dialog (and by extension one must assume all Lamy Z 55 nibs) seems to be designed for "smoothness" first and foremost, that being the quality that most fountain pen writers constantly rave about. So its nib is indeed extremely smooth and quite polished. It has no noticeable scratchiness at all, even on cheap paper. It produces a very low resistance writing experience, which is fine if that's your preference but if your writing style relies on friction against the paper to maintain control then the Dialog may annoy you because it has very, very little of that. Also, despite its massive heft it actually will not reliably write with no pressure on the paper other than its own weight. Very *little* pressure is required to get the ink to flow, for sure, but some is always required. More pressure results in a wider stroke, and depending on your habitual baseline level of pressure against the paper you may find you wind up with little to no variation at all which is certainly the case for me. If you conscientiously *try* to begin all of your strokes with the absolute minimum of pressure to get the Dialog to write reliably you can achieve about a 2:1 variation in stroke width. With my medium nib and by my measure, the Dialog will produce a 0.52mm line at minimum and 1.04mm at maximum. I don't know how that ranks on the scale of "expressiveness," but I have $2 Speedball dip pen nibs that are capable of more variation and are more controllable to boot. Make of that what you will.  Everyday practicality is where retractable fountain pens aim to shine, of course. That's why I like all mine, anyway, but on the topic of the Dialog I'm of two minds about that. It is, undoubtedly, a very fine pen. Exquisitely constructed, luxurious, and without a doubt a very special object to behold. I can't say a single thing against it, there. It's just that the twist mechanism is kind of a pain in the ass. Don't get me wrong, mechanically it's certainly very *nice.* It's just not exactly practical. It's essentially impossible to deploy the Dialog with one hand, which is something that allows its myriad plunger-clicker competitors to walk all over it. Getting out the Dialog certainly feels like an event, a sense that's no doubt also contributed to by its price. But for quick note taking, intermittent on-again, off-again use, or any spur of the moment anything, it's just much easier and more convenient to use a clicker pen instead. There's also the issue of its completely round cross section. Sure, the sleek Bauhaus minimalism makes it look very nice. But it also makes the bugger very prone to rolling away on you. On a flat surface this is no problem, because any casual accidental bump or nudge will be stopped fairly shortly by the clip. But if you ever use an angled work surface like, oh, a drawing or drafting table, the clip doesn't protrude enough to stop the pen's own weight and inertia. The rounded edges on the clip also don't help. It doesn't take too steep of a slope at all to enable the Dialog to roll right over its own clip and onto the floor. Said floor had better then be carpeted, because otherwise you are sure to utter a word that starts with F and ends with K, and it sure won't be "fire truck." Especially if the point is deployed at the time. **The Inevitable Conclusion** The Lamy Dialog is a very, very nice pen. It is certain that the majority of its owners, however, will only be two types of people. Type the first will be those who buy it as a bauble or a status symbol, a prestige piece, probably to use it rarely if ever. Type the second will be dyed-in-the-wool enthusiasts, who will buy and use it despite knowing all of its shortcomings because of what it is, and that's the type of people they are. Either camp will have to be willing to part with the better part of a week's paycheck or more to afford one. For a pen that ultimately doesn't do much to functionally outshine its competition, that's a pretty high bar to clear. But none of that prevents the Dialog from being an item that is even at a glance from a casual observer, uniquely and unquestionably special. 

PocketKNIFE dual_sport_dork • 1mo ago • 100%

Catch The Wave, Dude

It may in fact happen to transpire that I, too, have a type. Actually several, probably. Left to right, top to bottom: - [Kershaw CQC-5K 6074OLBLK](https://lemmy.world/post/9409553) - [Kershaw CQC-6K D2 Version](https://lemmy.world/post/4740294) - Kershaw CQC-6K 8Cr Version - [Kershaw CQC-11K D2](https://lemmy.world/post/16365018) - Zero Tolerance ZT0630 - Zero Tolerance ZT0620 - [Kershaw CQC-4KXL D2](https://lemmy.world/post/16189921)

PocketKNIFE dual_sport_dork • 2mo ago • 98%

Weird Knife Wednesday: CIZPIROK Double Edge

You know balisong knives, right? I mean, you're here. So of course you do. Two handles, two pivots, and the blade in the middle...  No, not like *that.* ...This is the "CIZPIROK Double Edge Blade Folding Knife," which comes variously plus or minus the usual mantle of edc-gadget-gift-cool-folding-knives-for-men. It's one of those. You know how it is. The CIZPIROK, quite aside sounding like somebody who just sneezed in Polish, I think is considerably more interesting once you *don't* consider it to address the question of, "How do you make a knife with two edges fold?" I mean, that much about it is glaringly self-evident.  The 4-3/8" long double edged dagger blade is there, plain as the nose on your face. That's barely interesting at all. Rather, I think it's better as an exploration of this: What if someone who had never seen one before set out to make a balisong knife, possibly by having one described to them over a bad telephone line, but happened to get one critical parameter **absolutely wrong?**  The CIZPIROK, you see, has all the elements of a balisong knife. It has two handles, drilled through with decorative and lightening holes. Just like a Benchmade Model 42, right? And it has two pivots at the heel, one for each handle, and it's even held shut by a reversible latch on the tips of the handles that can lock it both open and closed. All the ingredients are there, but somehow despite starting with some ground beef and a bun, the chef wound up producing a flan. And it's just wobbling away on the plate, damned if he knows how it got there.  You can even, with a fair bit of practice, luck, and a following wind, manipulate it somewhat akin to a balisong knife. Though overall the experience feels mildly cursed.  But rotating the entire kit and kaboodle 90 degrees makes the whole thing decidedly uncanny, if you try to think of it in balisong terms. The CIZPIROK's major defining feature, other that what we've already covered, could best be summed up as "flat." The two handle halves are unitary flat slabs of steel, rounded over on the edges, and with the entire thing painted black. It's 9-1/4" long open including the latch, and folds up to about 5-1/4". It's precisely 1/2" thick either open or closed, not including the pocket clip. Said clip is mounted very far down on the side of the knife and leaves a huge 1-1/4" or so of it sticking out of your pocket. But it doesn't get in the way otherwise, because it winds up in between the handle halves, trading places with the blade, when the knife is opened.  There's a "thumb" ring in the tail where the point of the blade winds up when it's closed. Calling it that is a bit of a stretch, really. The hole is a shade under 3/4" in diameter which certainly makes it much too small to get my thumb *or* index finger through, and failing that I can't find any other use for it. The entire thing has a kind of techno-dirk vibe to it, a cross between one of those classic diver's knives and an OSS dagger. If this appeared in a movie the femme fatale would have it tucked in her garter, and the directors probably couldn't resist making her try to use it as a throwing knife. Being entirely made of steel, it feels quite dense in the hand at 163.6 grams or 5.75 ounces. The blade purports to be made of 440C which is plausible. As for the country of origin? Go on, you'll never guess.  The CIZPIROK's sideways design automatically engenders some mechanical weirdness. The pivots are riveted together so nondestructive disassembly is, unfortunately, completely impossible. So much for that. Running the axis of each handle through the blade would otherwise require making the heel of the blade really thick, which obviously hasn't happened. Instead, there are two of these H shaped plates, one on either side, through which the pivot pins go.  You would imagine that this would make it awfully hard to keep the entire assembly within square and resist torsion, and that's exactly right. When it's unlatched, the whole thing can wiggle pretty significantly. But at less than $20, you weren't really expecting this thing to be machined by Swiss watchmakers, were you?  As such, close inspection of the details reveals all the places wherein the crudeness lies. Here's the tip, for instance, which is definitely capable of administering a poke but the finish has been rubbed off in the process of grinding the edges. It works, but is decidedly unrefined. The bevels have highly pronounced machine marks on them, plus all the usual other hallmarks of cheapness. They're all here.  So as is tradition for these types of things I'm positive the edges have been ground freehand, and they're quite out of true. But in this case there are *four* edge grinds to contend with rather than two, so it can be twice as whacked. What a bargain.  From the factory the grind doesn't even make it all the way to the point. But then, given the hyper budget construction and unknown heat treating quality, this may ultimately be for the best.  With its all black finish, double edge, and crossguard-eque side protrusions which are really more finger guards than anything else, the CIZPIROK postures itself with fighting knife aspirations. It's a little big for EDC duty but not excessively large. And of course, it can posture just as much as it feels like. That doesn't make it so. Here in reality, I think you'd probably prefer something that's a little less tough to open in a hurry. **The Inevitable Conclusion** The CIZPIROK Double Edge is a fascinating case study in bonkers knife design, and probably serves as a good example of why we don't do it this way. It's novel for sure, but I'm not entirely certain the problem it's setting out to solve is one that actually needed solving.  But just the fact that it exists means you don't have to ask, "what if?" Here it is, in reality, where you can hold it. Now you know. How strange.

PocketKNIFE dual_sport_dork • 2mo ago • 98%

Weird Knife Wednesday: NLX Steampunk

Our novelty cutlery train will now be departing according to its regular schedule. The conductor will come by to slice your tickets clean in half very shortly. I admit I was absent last week, but that's because I was out perambulating upon my velocipede, whereupon I took [this daguerreotype.](https://lemmy.world/post/18496117) (Knives carried on said expedition: My Leatherman Wave, Böker Rold, and HUAAO Bugout clone.)  But never mind that. Strap on those goggles, tie up that scarf, and doff your top hat for **this.** I'm going to have to have a bit of a stretch and a warm up before I can rattle off its name. One moment please... ... R*o*ight. This is the "NLX 8'' Steampunk Design Lockback Pocket Folding Knife With Coated 420 Stainless Steel Blade. For Collection, Everyday Ccarry and Outdoor Activity Tool Knife (Damascus)." [[sic]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/cf854b9f-8f44-441a-9074-e2f77ab07c84.png) It's obviously a novelty knife. But that probably doesn't matter much for the, shall we say, *specific* type of individual this is clearly meant to appeal to. You're already not listening to anything I say, are you? Ah, I see you've already put one in your cart.  The NLX Steampunk[er](https://terraria.wiki.gg/wiki/Steampunker) is tailor made to just complete that look for anyone who's already got a pair of brocade fingerless gloves, nine pocketwatches, and an impressive selection of waistcoats. It certainly has, to use the vernacular, an aesthetic. Not an ᴀ ᴇ s ᴛ ʜ ᴇ ᴛ ɪ ᴄ, mind you. Although if anyone made a Vaporwave knife, unironically or no, I'd be the first to buy one. No, this has an *𝖆𝖊𝖘𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖙𝖎𝖈*, and it's one that's engraved on a brass plate in curly writing riveted to a mahogany door. An aesthetic that's wearing a tailcoat and smoking a pipe. It's a wonder it hasn't got anywhere to shovel the coal.  This is a lockback folding knife, and answers a question thus far unasked: "What if we put the lock springs on the *outside?*" And so it does. Four highly visible extension springs are what power the lock bar.  This has the side effect -- no doubt intentional -- of leaving the lockback mechanism itself proudly displayed while you operate it. Right there out in the open, ready to get either packed full of lint or pinch an incautious fingertip, all in the true 18th century tradition. So if you've ever become overcome by burning curiosity about how a lockback knife works, well, here it is showcased and ready for inspection.  The springs are indeed fully functional and are not just visual frippery for the sheer joy of making the thing look like a Victorian light switch. They are truly what drives the action. They're easy enough to unhook with a small pair of pliers or nimble fingers, and when disconnected the lock bar is unrestrained and is free to flop around of its own accord. To help prevent this from happening without your input, each spring's eyelet rides in a small groove in its corresponding pin. But if decorative frippery is what you *want,* the Steampunker has it in spades. Clubs, hearts, and diamonds too, probably.  I am particularly fond of the shiny scrollwork medallion embellishing the middle of the handle. There's only one of those on one side, because there is indeed a clip on the reverse:  The Steampunker is all wood and "brass," and while there are a couple of variants of this knife mine is the "Damascus" version. I'm having to use a lot of scare quotes here because a lot of things about the Steampunker are, that is to say, per se, in point of fact, actually fake. None of the "brass" elements are actually brass, for instance. The bolsters, the clip, the liners, screws, and backspacer all have that brassy gold finish but a magnet sticks to them readily; they're steel underneath. And the filigree embellishment is definitely a casting and its done surprisingly well, but it appears to be made of zinc that's been electroplated with something.  We can, if you like, dredge up the old argument about whether or not modern pattern welded "Damascus" steels *actually* technically deserve to be called Damascus steel or not. (You're looking for the argument over whether or not a katana could cut a European sword in half? You're in the wrong room. That's three doors down the hall, to the left.) But there's no question that the Steampunker's blade isn't regardless, because it's clearly just a painted-on pattern silkscreened over a plain steel blade. The dead giveaway is that the loops and whirls of the pattern fall *into* the fingernail nick and jimping notches and remain completely uninterrupted. Which they obviously wouldn't do if the steel were truly layered and these details were machined in afterwards. Another clue might be that the "Damascus" pattern is exactly the same on every single example of these, just printed right on from the same template on each and every one. If you grab any random product photo of one of these off the internet, compare it to mine and you'll see the pattern is identical. The sole purpose of this sort of thing is precisely to look good in a catalog to anyone who doesn't know any better, in order to part them with their money.  The wood, at least, is genuine. That's not much of an impressive feature, though, because it is of exactly the same type of pedigree as the wooden scales on the souvenir pocketknife you'd find at a roadside gift shop right outside the National Park, the kind that's pre-engraved with every name in the world except yours. It's even stained in the same color, although to its credit it is nicely CNC routered with some grooves and scallops and a beveled finger notch on each side. The clip is a traditional design and it is not repositionable. As above it is definitely steel and not brass, and it is mounted quite offset from the centerline. But its saving grace is that it's offset to the correct side for a right handed user, i.e. nearer to the rear seam of the pocket, and it pains me to say this but it actually draws very nicely with a pleasant feel and the right balance of tension and release. I have a few knives worth hundreds of dollars with clips that I like less. So stick that in your mill and grind it, why don't you.  The Steampunker is definitely akin to a full sized knife. It's every bit of 8" long with a 3-1/2" drop pointed blade that's 0.110" thick and 1.041" across at its widest point which is at the root of the edge. There is a small almost-choil at the base of the edge followed by a ricasso that protrudes about 1/8". In total it weighs 128.7 grams or 4.54 ounces. This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a tactical knife. Towards that end there are no thumb studs, although there is a fingernail nick in the blade -- only on the side opposite the clip. But the lock springs are weak enough and despite its gimcrack appearance the Steampunker's action is smooth enough such that it actually is possible, with practice, to open it with one hand. Though only just. The blade lockup is surprisingly solid both laterally and rotationally. Very little blade wiggle is present. In fact, the flexibility of the blade and very slight flexibility of the handles are the only notes I have to make. Despite these, there is no rattle within the actual mechanism. The Steampunker's thickness measurement is compounded not only by the clip, but also by the springs. Without them the handles themselves are 0.465" in thickness. With the springs it bulks up to 0.779", and including both the springs *and* the clip adds up to 0.859" which was a measurement that was damn difficult to take. There's very little else to say about the feature set. There is no spring assist or switchblade action; despite all the springs it's just a regular old folder. The backspacer does include a loop that can be used as a lanyard attachment point. The spine on the lock bar is very broadly jimped, and for some reason there's a superfluous hole in it, akin to the ones the spring mounting pins are pressed through but empty.  What with all springs and pins and greebles sticking out you'd expect the Steampunker to snag on every damn thing on the way out of your pocket but surprisingly, it doesn't. If you are truly incautious it's still possible to hook the springs on things inadvertently and if you're truly hopelessly uncoordinated it's not too difficult to knock of them off of their mounts in the process. They're captive on the other end, though, each held in place with the head of a screw so it's not like they'll get lost if you do. And they're really not too tough to put back on, if it comes down to it. The lock will even still work with all but one of them disconnected, so you'd have to lose all four before anything dramatic happens.  The Steampunker shatters into what feels like about a hundred pieces when you take it apart. It's less complicated than it looks, although I do have one grievance to air out.  Here are both halves of the pivot screw. One is an ordinary Torx head (T8) but you'll notice the other side doesn't have a head at all; it's just a threaded tube with a tiny little lip around the end.  This sits nearly but not quite flush with the surface of the inner liner, and since there is no anti-rotation flat on it and every screw in this thing was threadlockered to hell and back, attempting to undo the pivot screw just causes the entire assemblage to spin in the hole. So getting the little blighter apart was a puzzle box I was *not* expecting to have to open today. You can see the aftermath of my grabbing it with pliers in the photo above. A soldering iron was also involved. I don't think it would have been too much of an ask for the manufacturer, whoever they are, to put a hex head or some wrench flats on it or something.  The Steampunker is largely held together with these three threaded barrels, which accept a screw on either side and once again do not have any anti-rotation features or engage with the liners in any mechanical sense. One of them is the pivot point for the lock bar and the other two go through the backspacer in the tail. All of them will merrily spin forever without fully releasing their screws unless you clamp them with something.  The clip has this little bit of scrollwork decoration on it, and on my example is already showing some rust spots. A visible indentation was left in the metal where it met the bending brake at the factory as well. It's easily the crudest part of the entire ensemble. I haven't decided yet if I'm motivated enough to pickle and re-electroplate it.  Earlier I said nearly every "brass" component on this knife wasn't really brass. Nearly, because the pivot washers actually are. They're not ultra-refined or anything, but they get the job done and brass is a fair sight better than plastic. Or no washers at all, come to think of it. Note also the "PRC" marking on the heel of the blade, which is the only inscription on the entire knife. Needless to say it is unequivocally made in China.  Here is the medallion from the handle. It's easily my favorite detail on the whole knife, which is why I keep harping on about it. The casting work is excellent and contrives somehow not to appear to be cheap, even though it unquestionably is. I don't doubt for a second that you could find this same part as a generic decorative [finding](https://www.josephjewelry.com/guide/glossary/findings) somewhere, probably in purchase lots of a thousand units. The one curious thing about it is that it's mounted with the same M3 machine screws as used elsewhere in the knife, but they don't touch the steel liners and are just reamed straight into the wood.  It is deeply silly, with a $19 novelty piece like this, to enter into it with any kind of expectations whatsoever about the edge. My example arrived noticeably dull, with the crude edge grind illustrated here. Dull I can deal with, but those notches and chips in it are as it was delivered from the factory. I haven't used this knife to cut *anything,* and to be fair it's doubtful that I ever will. The product description claims the blade is made out of "420" steel but does not specify which variant. It's *possible,* I suppose, to maintain some kind of whimsical faith that it might be as nice as 420J2, for instance. But I wouldn't hold your breath on that, because all you're liable to do is turn your face blue.  I would conjecture that the edge was ground by hand, given how it noticeably changes towards the tip.  Here's the essential *truth* of the matter, as it were. As you can see, the edge angles are quite noticeably different from one side of the blade to the other. At this point I should quote some aphorism about price, but you've surely heard them all before. **The Inevitable Conclusion** I deeply respect the dedication that's caused you to read Neal Stephenson's *The Diamond Age* cover-to-cover seventeen times, I really do. But they still won't let you into the convention with any real edged weaponry about your person. The NLX Steampunk knife may be silly, and it may be kind of impractical, but damned if it doesn't look cool. And that's what it's really all about, here. All the urchins and society ladies will see you strutting down the street and they'll say, "That chap right there, he is one anachronistic muthafucka."  You already know if you want one. You already know if you don't.

PocketKNIFE dual_sport_dork • 2mo ago • 97%

Ozark Trail T2203R1-11: Deftly Dynamic Discount D2 Drop-Point

I was recently alerted to a new Wal Mart / Ozark Trail release by fellow user [@cetan@lemmy.world](https://lemmy.world/u/cetan), yet another in their line of Benchmade-eque crossbar locking folders. A mechanism which they've finally given a name, now calling it the "slide lock." As you know, I'm pathologically drawn to this sort of thing like an idiotic moth to a bargain basement flame. Goodness knows I've already featured enough generic Chinese garbage on here to sink an entire container ship, and that's because I think this sort of thing has something of an inherent bent appeal. Plus, it's a lot easier for me to buy this kind of crap on a lark just to show you guys rather than whatever the latest collectible *du jour* is. So today.  *Hmm...*  There's been a minor scuttlebutt about this knife on the internet lately. Can you guess why? Yes, it's because whoever Walmart is using as an OEM for these knives has come just about as close as you can get to ripping off the [Benchmade Bugout](https://lemmy.world/post/15061224) as you can do without getting sued so hard your underpants spontaneously combust. At least for a stateside brick-and-mortar oriented retail product. We've seen clones of this ilk [before,](https://lemmy.world/post/15143278) of course, but they've always been the purview of nameless fly-by-night nonbrands relegated to grey market drop shipped online shopping; wretched hives of implicit mediocrity like Amazon, eBay, and Aliexpress. But this isn't exactly anonymous. You can just walk into a major store and *buy* one. Easily, as it happens. Unlike the [last](https://lemmy.world/post/14341934) few [go-rounds](https://lemmy.world/post/13313938) with this type of thing, it seems Walmart has contracted whoever-it-is to make more than, like, twelve units of these. I didn't have to do any searching to lay my hands on my example because my local store had about 30 of them in stock. And Walmart's web site indicates it's the same story at all of their other locations just about everywhere, at least for now. And at the time of writing, these retail for a princely **$9.97.**  And whoever-it-is still remains a mystery, although historically Walmart's private label Ozark Trail knives have been made by Hangzhou Great Star Tools Co. Ltd., a Chinese OEM for low end cutlery who are also the force behind several other budget brands. And whose web site I'm not linking this time because it appears to currently be broken. I'm not sure what that forebodes. So I can't prove they were the ones who made this, but they've made similar knives before. It's as plausible a theory as any. So, what do you get for ten bucks and is it any better than the previous Walmart crossbar folders?   Well, the answer to the first question is this. And the answer to the second one is yes. As usual, this appears in generic Ozark Trail packaging on a hang card that doesn't provide much in the way of information or identification. It doesn't have any kind of name aside from the uselessly nondescriptive "7.5-Inch Folding Knife," although it does appear to have a SKU of T2203R1-11 as stickered on the back of the package. These are likely subject to change without notice, because Walmart is *so* noncommittal about this thing's designation that the SKU and UPC aren't even printed on the actual cardboard -- they're a sticker, ready to allow the packaging they've already cranked out a billion of to be reused for the next thing. There is also a sticker that just contains the numeral "1" in the upper right corner on the back. I don't know what that's for. Maybe where it's supposed to hang in the planogram, or which slot it corresponds to in the glass case?  Why anyone cares about this is, of course, because it's a crossbar locking folding knife like unto Benchmade's Axis lock. This sort of thing has become increasingly popular recently since -- as I'm sure you're sick of me telling you -- Benchmade's patent for their Axis lock expired in 2016 which means now anyone can have a runup at the idea. This sort of thing excites us no end, but presumably the novelty will eventually wear off.  Walmart distributes a huge array of cheap and nasty folding knives under their Ozark Trail label that are plain liner lockers or lockbacks, of course, but none of those are especially... special. Nor much good. Which is why I'm not featuring yet another one of them every ten minutes. They're just commodity disposable low quality knives, so much so that the packaging never even bothers to indicate what kind of steel they're made out of and barely even contain a bullet list with a perfunctory set of standard features.  *This* time, however, there's something new. For a start, we actually get a named steel! This model is alleged to be made of D2 steel, which is printed right there on the back of the card. That's already a serious upgrade over the previous two models, which were made out of... Well, nobody actually knows, really. D2 is no longer considered exotic (such as it even ever was) and nowadays is pretty much regarded as an entry level steel. But this [wasn't always the case,](https://lemmy.world/post/13846602) and even so at least we can state with some degree of confidence what the heck this knife is made out of and thus possibly predict how it should perform. D2 is a tool steel that is tougher than the typical standard for entry level knives, 440C, and also has superior edge retention compared to 420 or 440 series steels. It's not very corrosion resistant, though, which probably goes a long way towards explaining why this knife has a black epoxy coated blade. Knife people can probably be trusted to properly maintain a semistainless blade. Any average cross-section of Walmart shoppers you care to make, well. Probably not.  The coating is consistent and even looks pretty nice with a fine texture to it that prevents it from being completely shiny, and looks pretty thick. It'll wear and get scuffed up with use, of course, but at least it appears it ought to be a while before you'll work your way completely through it. That said, I'm not a fan of coated blades in general -- D2 or not -- and I'd much prefer if this just had a bare blade. Corrosion be damned. The rear tells us this was made in China, as if we didn't already know. The front is printed with the Ozark Trail logo but stops short of specifying who the actual manufacturer is.  The packaging further goes on to state that this knife has an "4.25-inch injection handle." It's injection molded out of glass filled nylon if I'm any judge, since it looks, feels, and sounds exactly like the stuff e.g. if you scratch at it with your fingernail. Insofar as I can tell this knife comes in only one color, which is Ostentatious Orange. This will probably appeal to the Mossy Oak crowd whose custom it will undoubtedly attract; for the rest of us it means at least you'll be able to find it again if you drop it in the weeds.  The T2203R1-11 is fully ambidextrous as far as the controls go, but its deep carry pocket clip is not reversible. It carries tip up only with the clip on the left side when held with the blade deployed and the edge out. And that's your only option, short of taking it off.  Look, we may as well rip this Band-Aid off all in one go. There's no denying that this is manifestly meant to be a poor man's Bugout. The comparison to Benchmade's perennially dominant bantamweight folder just can't be avoided. The T2203R1-11's design clearly started by copying Benchmade's homework, and the details were shuffled around just enough to keep the men with briefcases and very somber ties from showing up at the door. So the overall vibe of the deep carry clip, the molded fiber-nylon handles with checkered grip pattern, Axis/crossbar lock, the blade shape, and the lanyard hole worked into the scales on the top rear corner of the knife, it's all deeply reminiscent. Oh sure, the shape of every design element is just different enough to remain Legally Distinct. But you can see how it is. Even the sizing is the same. Looking down on it flat from above, the Ozark's footprint is functionally identical to the Bugout. 7-1/2" long overall when open, 4-1/8" long closed, with a 3-1/4" drop pointed blade. The blade is 0.89" thick, which is basically the same as the Bugout's as well.  But you see, where it differs significantly is in construction methodology and thus the thickness. And it sort of solves what, er, bugs everyone about the Bugout. Benchmade are so confident in the strength of their fiber reinforced nylon handles that the Bugout eschews handle liners entirely. But I'll bet you whoever made this wasn't. So the Ozark has full length steel liners beneath its scales. As a consequence, then, it's thicker: 0.533" across its scales, not including the clip. So it's 0.144" more than the Bugout, which is enough to be noticeable. But it's also *significantly* more rigid than a Bugout and if you ask me more confidence inspiring in the hand. Naturally this must mean that the Ozark is heavier than a Bugout, too. And it is, at 80.5 grams or 2.84 ounces. (That's 29.4 grams more, if this matters to you for the purposes of backpacking and/or being launched into space.) The Ozark's blade is also hollow ground whereas the Bugout has a flat grind. That's to be expected, really, because doing a true flat grind is expensive and a hollow grind isn't. (In fact, if you're using a grinding wheel to create your blade's bevel it's very difficult *not* to naturally wind up with a hollow grind.) But all that notwithstanding, it's still got nice machined aluminum diabolo spacers separating the halves and everything.  The Ozark T2203R1-11's scales are a little more rounded and the texture molded into them is not as aggressive as the Bugout's. That makes it theoretically less grippy on paper, but in reality it's unlikely to matter. The Ozark has some jimping on the back of its handle right above the lock but it also has some at the base of the spine of the blade whereas the Bugout doesn't. Oh, and the Ozark's draw from the pocket off of its clip is *much* nicer than the Bugout's. I imagine this is down to the smoother texture on the scales, but no matter how you come at it, it's noticeably easier to draw despite the clip still providing more than sufficient retention to keep it from just falling out of your shorts if it's inverted.  It also costs $170 less than a Bugout. Make of that what you will.  The previous Ozark crossbar lockers were cheap and cheerful, but really left a lot to be desired in the action department. This doesn't.  I'm going to skip ahead a bit here, because the other update this knife got is a big one. It's got ball bearing pivots. And you know I am all about that. Yeah, that's right. No more shitty plastic washers and no more dicking with your pivot screw tension to find the magical quarter of a degree where the blade neither locks solid nor wiggles like an extra on a Jason Derulo set. The T2203R1-11's action *kicks ass.* It's not spring assisted, but it doesn't have to be. Give the thumb studs a little push and it flies open like you've got telekinesis. Hold the crossbar back and it'll Axis flick open and closed extremely readily. And its travel is basically completely silent until the lock clicks into place. This puts the Benchmade original in the rather unfortunate and unenviable position of being outdone in both hand feel, draw, and action by an off brand $10 piece of shit that hangs on a peg right below the telescopic hot dog fork and just above the plastic whistle and compass carabiner. That's got to hurt. Actually, all of this does raise one point of contention. I think this would have been even better if it were a *Mini* Bugout knockoff instead. See, at a 3-1/4" blade length this knife is slightly above the typical magical legal maximum of 3" which'll get it automatically Naughty Listed for carry in a lot of places. The Mini version's blade is 2-7/8" which cruises under that limit. It would be especially cheeky, not to mention beneficial for a lot of people, if this did the same. Oh well.  While we have it apart, here's what the liners look like. They are plain steel, not aluminum or anything else fancy, but they do have holes machined into them to at least make them somewhat lighter.  The full bill of materials. All this is minus two screws compared to the OG Bugout, because the latter requires one screw in each scale to retain the little crossbar liner plates and this obviously doesn't need to resort to any such trickery. For $10, it's not hard to guess that a Benchmade will certainly be put together much more nicely than this, and so it is. My example had inconsistent screw tension all around, and there are no anti-rotation features on the spacers which also had their screws threadlocked into place. Getting the spacer screws out on both sides is absolutely mandatory for disassembly of crossbar/Axis locking knives like these, because this allows for removal of the scales which is necessary for getting the lock crossbar out before you can fully separate both halves. I wound up having to grab one of the spacers on mine with some padded pliers -- with quite some force, as it happens -- to get both screws out.  I'll be damned if this thing doesn't have an honest to goodness fully functional anti-rotation flat on its pivot screw, though, complete with a matching D shaped hole in one of the liners. That also makes guessing which of the two liners the female end of the screw goes into completely idiot-proof.  As you can see here, the clip is under an alarming amount of tension at all times, based on how much of a bend there is in it. It still draws cleanly as described, though, so I guess I can't argue with results. Once again like the last two Walmart crossbar lockers the screws go inside the clip and are accessed via a hole in it, and are not placed to either side like on a Bugout. And once again they are not flush with the inner surface of the clip, but there's enough of a throat in it that I didn't find this to actually be a problem. Its width at its throat, where the U bend is at the end of it, is actually noticeably wider than on a Bugout. It's slightly wider than the last two Walmart crossbar knives, too. My only other note on the clip is that despite ostensibly being "deep carry," it's mounted with its top end about 1/4" down from the tail end of the knife, which means that a noticeable portion of bright orange knife is left peeking out above the hem of your pocket like Kilroy at all times. Don't you think that kind of defeats the purpose?  Here's all the hardware. The only booby trap inside is the endstop pin, which is not shouldered nor retained in any way and can fall out as soon as you remove either of the scales. The rest is completely straightforward, and all the screws are even all the same as each other (although I separated out the two for the clip in this photo, that turned out to be unnecessary). That means there is no way to wind up with an Idiot Mark on your blade by fucking up and installing a too-long screw in the wrong position so it pokes out past the inside of your liners. So that's nice for retaining the finish on your $10 knife. When all is said and done, a genuine Bugout is definitely more user-friendly to disassemble to fiddle with or to clean, and it provides you more options. The Bugout has a reversible clip and this doesn't. You can dismount the thumb stud easily on a Bugout by unscrewing it as well, whereas this one appears to either be press fit or very firmly glued into place with no evident screw heads into which to insert a tool.  Obviously you can't expect the edge on this knife to compare favorably to one that costs 18 times more, so the Ozark T2203R1-11 doesn't. A genuine Benchmade has a much finer edge and its grind is clearly superior, but I have to say the Ozark still isn't bad. The grind is acceptably fine for a working knife...  ...And carries on pretty consistently all the way to the tip.  The edge is just slightly out of true, but should be well within reach of correcting by anyone with either a storebought guided sharpener or a stone and a modicum of skill. I'm not going to go so far as to say I'm impressed, but I'm definitely not disappointed. **The Inevitable Conclusion** It's been interesting to watch evolution in action with these Walmart knockoff knives. We've seen them develop from trash to broadly functional if a bit weird, with the previous run of crossbar lockers, to this model which is -- if I dare even say it -- actually pretty good. You have to be careful where you tread with statements like that. I'll make a lot of people with expensive knives very angry indeed if I take it too far. So all this isn't to say that the T2203R1-11 is as good as a Benchmade Bugout, because it isn't. A Benchmade is better built, more nicely machined, comes from the factory with a better edge, is easier to take apart, and is made of much fancier steel. But the Ozark's action and clip are genuinely better than the Benchmade. And that's a hell of a thing, isn't it? The Benchmade is better quality, yes. But not, it must be said, 18 times better. Four, six, or maybe eight times better, sure. You'll get no argument from me there. But the price disparity between these two for the actual difference is quality is absurd. For $10 I think this is a fantastic deal. And barring any unexpected surprises like finding out later that the entire batch had a uselessly bad heat treating job or something, that comes without all the usual qualifiers. It's not, oh, a good kinda-sorta okayish backup knife to leave in the glovebox, just in case, you know, better than nothing. No. This is genuinely a decent knife. For $10. If I actually had to carry this knife exclusively for a month, for instance, I certainly wouldn't be mad about it.  I just wish I didn't know what I already know about this knife and others of its kind. Things like how it doesn't even have a name. I mean, two decades from now, nobody's going to remember this thing. Nobody's going to say, "Yeah, the T2203R1-11, back in 2024? That was where it was *at.*" Fucking "T2203R1-11?" Come on. It'll be a flash in the pan, here today and gone tomorrow, and nobody upstairs will care. To Walmart it's just another faceless commodity product, one of a million, and if they're actually turning a profit on this at $9.97 then I shudder to think of what it actually costs to produce... and by who. The sad truth of it is, it's probably only any good by accident. They probably *think* they're ripping us off with this, same as they do with everything else. I'll bet you neither Walmart nor their OEM set out to build a knife at this price point and as decent as this on *purpose.* And sooner or later some bean counter somewhere will figure that out, he'll get ordered to widen the margins on it, and it'll be ruined and that's the end of that. You can never win a race to the bottom. But every now and again you can get lucky, jump on, and enjoy a damn good ride for just a little while.

KLR 650 dual_sport_dork • 2mo ago • 0%

Morning on the Mountain

If it looks like my bike has too many mirrors on it, it's not because I've converted it into a Quadrophenia tribute. My buddy's KLR is actually parked directly next to mine and at this angle it's unintentionally *almost* completely concealed...

PocketKNIFE dual_sport_dork • 2mo ago • 97%

Weird Knife Wednesday: Elite Tactical Guardsman

Today's feature is brought to you by the color black.  This is the Elite Tactical Guardsman, and when you see all three of those words together you know you're about to see a Very Serious Combat Knife. Or, perhaps, something that just takes itself a little too seriously. The Guardsman answers a question that I think very few people have actually asked: Why don't folding knives ever have crossguards on them? Actually, I think it doesn't quite ask "why" but rather skips right to answering "how."  It is written, for some damn reason, that a "fighting" knife should have a crossguard. So of course there have been oodles of attempts to incorporate a daggerlike crossguard into a folder in the past, some solutions being more awkward than others. [This](https://whitemountainknives.com/tac-force-folding-knife-blk-alum-ss-cross-overlay-handle-black-blade-tf817bk/) is a perennial contender, for instance. Or the likes of the [CRKT M-16.](https://www.knifecenter.com/item/CRM1613DSFG/columbia-river-m16-13dsfg-carson-special-forces-flipper-tanto-combo-blade-desert-tan-g10-handles) Et. [cetera.](https://www.tacticalelements.com/a-g-a-campolin-mini-dominus-lever-lock-automatic-knife-polished-blade-w-buffalo-horn-handle-go-dom15-hb/) This sort of thing has been going on one way or another for a [very long time.](https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/vintage-lock-folding-knife-dirk-jack-1812742249) What most of these have in common is that they're just as wide and doofy when they're closed as when they're open, either incorporating the crossguard into the heel of the blade so it's always sticking out, or building it into the handle in some way.  The Guardsman, however, takes a different approach. To maintain a sleek overall profile when it's closed, its crossguard folds flat against the handle.  But when you open it, the guard pivots out with the blade. This idea is neither new, nor unique. The [SOG Quake](https://www.arizonacustomknives.com/products/1067529/) leaps to mind, and the internet is just rife with those goddamn ["Russian NKVD"](https://www.amazon.com/Russian-Finka-NKVD-Polished-Aviation-Aluminum/dp/B0C6LTQN5S?th=1) folders these days. This is the "Italian swing guard" design and has occasionally (and probably also originally) been found on various stilettos over the years. I don't know who actually invented it or when. If you want to know that sort of thing, ask a historian. I just take pictures of silly knives.  The Guardsman is like unto one of those but it takes its protein powder every morning so it's got a distinct added beefiness. Out of all those among this breed I think it's probably the least ridiculous and among the more functional. Not least of which because unlike the others it's got an Axis or crossbar lock, and you know how I do enjoy a good one of those. Plus it's made of D2 which is a steel I like, and it purports to have ball bearing pivots. All of those are plusses in my book. Oh, and it also helps that it's only about $27. Let's check off the rest of the list.  The Guardsman has modern and trendy a deep carry pocket clip.  To add to its fighting knife pretensions, the Guardsman has a rather militaristic, Ka-Bar like drop point profile blade with a partial flat grind and a black powdercoat or epoxy finish. There's even a fuller in it.  Although, curiously, only on one side. It's pretty long, 8-9/16" overall when open and 4-3/4" closed. It's 1-5/8" across if you count the crossguard or about 15/16" if you don't. The blade is 3-7/8" long. Altogether it weighs in at 126.9 grams or 4.48 ounces, part of that weight doubtlessly contributed to by its full length steel liners. The blade is 0.120" thick across and the entire knife, not including the clip as usual, is 0.616" across its handles at the thickest point. Needless to say, it's made in China and marked as such on the blade. Beneath the crossguard, curiously. More on that in a sec. All the pictures of this knife online seem to depict it with some kind of charcoal-on-black 3D machined Micarta scales or similar. But my example hasn't got those, and instead has scales that appear to be made out of some kind of injection molded something. Probably glass filled nylon. They are quite heavily textured, though. Maybe this is some kind of rolling change. Maybe mine's a counterfeit. Who knows.  It must be said that the Guardsman's pivoting action is quite satisfactory. I'm not going to claim revelatory or anything, although it's damn good for the price. It'll Axis flick readily, and in fact will fall open or shut easily via gravity if you hold its locking crossbar back. That's just as well, because while it does have a thumb stud for opening it's only got it on one side. The clip isn't reversible, either. At least it'll ride tip up in its one and only carry position. The crossguard does indeed fold out automatically with the blade via a very simple mechanism. While it works, that part of it is on shakier mechanical ground.  I'm not 100% sold on the whole crossguard thing as it works here, truth be told. It doesn't lock into place and there's a fair bit of free play left in it when the knife is locked open, as illustrated above. You can push it forward pretty far which doesn't inspire much confidence in saving your fingers at first blush, although closer inspection reveals that there's a pretty generous ricasso at the base of the blade and the crossguard can't in fact be pushed past that point. So you're ultimately saved from giving yourself the mother of all papercuts. But the overall feeling is... incomplete, if that makes sense? It feels more natural that the crossguard should lock solid when the knife is open like the blade itself does, but it doesn't. It could have, via the addition of maybe a little nub on the spine right at the forward end. But that'd sully the square, businesslike looks, I guess. The guard can't be pushed backwards towards the wielder, though. So obviously it's more for, what, blocking incoming strikes or something? Against your sub 4" folding pocketknife? I'm not buying it. I'll freely admit that I've never had to drop and give anyone 20, soldier, nor have I spent much time on my elbows in the battlefield. But if I were going to make a habit of it, I have to say I'd probably pack something a bit less... foldy.  You could argue instead that the Guardsman is intended more as a self-defense knife, maybe. That's fair, and the crossguard probably would protect you from yourself pretty effectively if you got a little too enthusiastic rendering undo Caesar -- rocking horse action aside. But then, a humble Kershaw CQC-6K is still faster to draw.  The Guardsman will be more discreet to carry despite being longer, though, thanks to its deep carry clip.  A CQC won't broadcast to the world that you're Elite, either. The Guardsman has one more thing going for it, at least on paper. It claims to have ball bearing pivots. Well, as you know I like to keep knife makers honest. So, does it?  Yep, it sure does. Inside, the Guardsman has exactly the Axis/crossbar componentry you'd expect. Complete with two omega hair springs, the crossbar itself, and the familiar quarter-note slots for the same in the liners. Overall it's pretty easy to take apart, although do take care that the liners can be reinstalled backwards which will prevent you from mounting the clip, since its screws thread into a pair of holes present only on one of them.  I have to say, despite my complaints about it that crossguard is definitely *engineered.* You can break it down further into these components and it contains no less than four tiny plastic washers, a pair of threaded aluminum spacers, and these screws. One of them is the thumb stud and you can with care take it out and reverse it -- although you still can't reverse the clip if you do.  The halves are separated by this rather nice machined aluminum backspacer, which has threaded brass inserts in it. It has slots milled into it to provide enough flex to install the inserts, which is an unusual and certainly interesting way to do it.  Here are the mechanical gubbins. The crossbar has a unique design with what appear to be a pair of independent washers to hold the hooks on the springs, and they're swaged onto it or something. Search me how these were installed, since they're an interference fit and don't move, but the crossbar doesn't unscrew or otherwise come apart in any way I can figure out. The bearings have ten balls each in plastic carriers. Neither the blade nor the liners are pocketed to accept the bearings, so upon reassembly you have to line everything up manually. Holding the crossbar back helps. It's kind of a fiddle but otherwise not too difficult. Also for some reason the pivot screw has an anti-rotation flat on it, but the holes in the liners and scales have no corresponding flat spot and are just round. So you need two T8 Torx drivers to take it apart. As usual for a bearing knife, the Guardsman is pretty insensitive to pivot screw tension and because of that it can be locked down firmly to have no blade wiggle in any direction. **The Inevitable Conclusion** Look past the weird crossguard thing and the Elite Tactical Guardsman has all the fixings of an underrated gem of an inexpensive little knife -- or rather a big one. It's tough to argue with an Axis locking, bearing pivot, D2 folder for only $27. And it's also built pretty well on top of it. Okay, the guard is a little hinky but other than that nothing about it manages to come off as feeling very cheap. I could surely come up with a lot more interesting to say about it if it were a piece of crap. But it isn't. Go fuckin' figure. And you can own it without looking like a goomba, a skinhead, *or* a tankie. That's gotta count for something, right?

PocketKNIFE dual_sport_dork • 3mo ago • 97%

Weird Knife Wednesday: Svörd Peasant Micro

Forsooth, I hath made the journey down to yon local smithee, and picked up this.  I think no discussion of cutlery is complete without eventually, at some level, touching upon the Svörd Peasant series. To label this knife as a "classic" probably doesn't quite go far enough. The Peasant is a crocodile; a veritable relic, unchanged in its design since antiquity and yet still here today filling its particular niche. In a certain sense this *is* The Pocketknife, with the capital T and capital P being important.  The Peasant is a tang grip folding knife. It is brutally simple, and its design is a deliberate throwback to what is quite possibly -- no hyperbole -- one of the oldest known folding knife designs in the *world.* The Peasant's included pamphlet specifies that it's based on a design observed in Bavaria and Bohemia around the 1600's. However, there are documented examples of folding knives with similar albeit not identical tang grip designs dating back as far as the time of the Roman empire. The Romans did indeed have folding pocketknives and some of them were quite complex, even including one notable example not too dissimilar from our modern Swiss Army knife, as displayed [here.](https://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/4587) Simple friction folders were obviously where it all began and were exceedingly common for hundreds and hundreds of years. But by 300 AD or so it is purported that examples were appearing with a familiar extended tang design along the lines of what we have here. The Peasant is intentionally made out of low tech materials using low tech equipment, mostly by hand, by B.W. Baker's Svörd knife company in New Zealand. It comes in multiple sizes and multiple handle materials, most visibly polypropylene in various colors and also wood. You can get kit versions, too, if you want to have the satisfaction of assembling yours yourself. This is the "Micro" variant, the smallest version on offer, and strap on those goggles and don your top hat -- I just *had* to get the brass version. I mean, of course I did. Come on. Modern knives have a seemingly endless of supply tricks and mechanisms, and of course we've had a grand old time inspecting, dissecting, and discussing many of them in this very column. The Peasant, however, doesn't. Its mechanism is purely that it has *no* mechanism. Only a single pivot point through a hole in the blade, and that's all. It's the absolute king of vintagecore. You might think your fountain pen and your pocketwatch and your waistcoat are anachronistic chic, but I'm telling you all that stuff is kindergarten playground time compared to how ancient this thing is.  The Peasant's extended tang serves both as its opener and what holds it open. You'll note the method is extremely reminiscent of how a classic straight razor works and the lineage between those and this is no doubt shared. The knife is held together with just three screws, which are literally just commodity brass machine screws that are cut to length after screwing them through the handle and then peened on the ends. One acts as the fulcrum point for the pivot, one serves as the open position endstop, and another one holds the handle together at the tail end. And that's it. Job done, that's the whole system completely described. The Peasant stays open by way of you gripping the tag against the spine of the handle. This method is exceedingly simple but also remarkably secure. As long as you're holding it firmly the knife won't close up on you. The tang ends with a little hole which comes with a small split ring in it, via which you could dangle it from your keys or tie on your own lanyard if you were so inclined.  The Peasant's blade is made of simple 15N20 steel which is not stainless, and takes on this dark patina for maximum medieval cred. You should probably keep it lightly oiled. It has a mildly drop pointed blade with a deep edge grind that's got no secondary bevel whatsoever. It's a convex grind a little under a quarter inch deep, and that helps the Peasant with cutting performance and allows it to perform well above its weight class provided the shortness of the blade is not an impediment to what you're doing. What, you thought Fällkniven and Bark River developed the convex grind as the hot new ticket? New doesn't enter into it. All they did was nick it from history. This Micro variant is quite diminutive, although the tang sticks out by necessity even when it's shut. That brings the overall closed length to 4-1/16" not including the split ring on the end which flaps around freely in any case. It's precisely 5" long when open, and its little blade is 1-7/8" long. There is no ricasso so the entire length is a usable edge. There's a V shaped choil of sorts at the base which is where the endstop screw slots into when the blade is closed. The blade on mine is 0.057" thick at the spine, although I wouldn't be surprised to learn there is some variance from piece to piece. Across the handle scales the Micro Peasant is just 0.180" thick not including the heads of the screws. With them, it's still just about 0.265". You want to talk thin and light? Modern knives *wish* they could be as little as this. My brass variant is probably the heaviest model of the bunch, but even it is only 41.9 grams or 1.48 ounces, and that includes the keyring because I was too lazy to take it off.  Modern knives may have fancy composite backspacers, or anodized aluminum diabolo barrels, or maybe precision machined washers. These are decadent fripperies. Mere lace and frills. The Peasant, for its part, has no handle spacers whatsoever. That means the blade rubs against the insides of the brass handle plates. And so what if it does? You got a problem with that or something? It turns out, it still works just fine even so. And the brass is softer than the steel, so the handles are absolutely incapable of scratching the blade in any case. Rather, the reverse happens.  The entire bill of materials consists of just seven components, and that's if you count the split ring. The screws, as mentioned, are just ordinary brass machine screws. Like, from the hardware store. One of the handle plates is threaded and the other one isn't, and the screws are proof against backing out by having the ends peened into place. This is evidenced by the flat spots on the heads, for instance. This means the Peasant is actually not quite so simple to take apart as it appears, because backing the screws out ultimately involves overcoming their smashed tips. As you can see, I broke one of the screws getting mine apart for this picture. But it wasn't a big deal; I had some suitable #6-32 machine screws just lying around on my workbench already. I believe the stock screws were actually originally fine thread #6-40, but it was the work of a few seconds to ream the threads out to 32 pitch with a tap. No harm done, and keep on keeping on.  Rather than hammer my new screws and annoy myself further in the future, I instead fabricated these brass jam nuts. In keeping with the spirit of the occasion, I turned them freehand on my bench grinder. The brass Peasant's handle plates also shine up very nicely with the application of a little Flitz. Although admittedly, probably not for long unless you clearcoated it or something.  I also found a trio of random brass washers in my odds and ends, which make the perfect tail spacer. This is completely unnecessary, but the beauty of it is you can customize your Peasant like this with just any old trifles and junk you have lying around and it *works.*  Here's a very modern knife next to it. This HUAAO Bugout clone may look simple by today's standards, but its elegance is peanuts compared to the Svörd. The HUAAO is all titanium, anodized aluminum, and stainless steel. Wonder materials. Black magic! The Peasant has, and needs, none of the above. You could hand one to your hypothetical time traveling medieval friend and he would experience no future shock; he'd tell you how it could be made, precisely what out of, and he'd probably even be able to make another one just like it.  Oh yes. And I would be remiss if I did not mention the pamphlet it comes with. If I haven't played up the historicity of the Svörd Peasant enough, the pamphlet does it some more. Simplicity is the Peasant's selling point, and this as well as the knife's inherent cheapness are driven home all throughout. True to form, the documentation is just printed on regular old paper. Nothing glossy, no bond, not even in color. For your entertainment I've scanned both the front and reverse, which are available [here](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/78585a21-b452-4050-9f25-00b506ba51ec.jpeg) and [here,](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/7284e2c3-d269-407d-8d24-0325c4c51d8b.jpeg) respectively. The bloke with the wedge of cheese is a nice touch. He's very Phil Foglio. For his part, B.W. Baker guarantees your Svörd for life. There are some included care tips as well, the highlight of which being the sharpening tips which boil down to basically, "Use a stone on it or something." There's no way you can't respect that.  For the the price of admission you also get this leather sheath. And it is genuinely leather, albeit split grain. I have no doubt that it's just as handmade as the knife is.  It's a bit of a squeeze but it'll conform to the shape of your knife over time. The tang is left sticking out along with its ring, if you leave it installed. It's not much, but it'd absolutely complete the ensemble along with your canvas messenger bag, designer beard wax, hemp beanie, and vintage flannel shirt. **The Inevitable Conclusion** I think there's a place for a Svörd Peasant in every knife person's collection. It's not exactly cheap in this brass guise at about $32, but nor is it really unreasonably expensive for what you get. Especially considering its hand made nature, plus the sheath and all. I have used the phrase probably one too many times referring to something as a warning from history. The Peasant is anything but. It's not a warning; it's a celebration. It's the closest thing you'll probably ever get your hands on absolute genesis without owning a museum. It's a chance to hold a fragment of the thing from which, ultimately, everything else in this hobby sprung forth. Maybe its two handle slabs aren't quite technically identically shaped to each other. Maybe it's got grinder marks on it, and it shows up with an uneven patina, and its blade will rub scuffs into the insides of the handles as you use it. For any cheap mass produced knife we'd decry this sort of thing to no end. We'd label it crap, and to hell with it, and declare it Temu garbage of the worst kind. But what makes the Peasant different is that all of that is the *point*. Therein lies the charm; that's what makes it special. It's flawed, but intentionally so. And thus every one of them is in some tiny way unique compared to all the others as well. I would not at all be surprised to find, for example, that the parts from this one wouldn't quite interchange with the parts of any others. And that's something you never see anymore. Maybe the Svörd Peasant's real value is making you stop and look at every manufactured thing in a different way. Someone made this. Some *one.* A person. Not a factory, not a country, not a conglomerate, and if you choose to look at it hard enough, maybe not even a brand. In more ways than one, then, it comes from a different time. And that's where the magic is.  So see you later, alligator. Never change.