Coming up, the TL29 electrician's knife. I have four new
blades in the state of the collection and kukri knives,
ancient to Modern. I'm Bob DiMarco, this is the Knife Junkie Podcast.
Welcome to the Knife Junkie podcast, your weekly dose of knife
news and information about knives and knife collecting. Here's your
host, Bob the knife junkie DeMarco.
Welcome back to the show. One of my favorite comments from this past week on
the James Williams interview was from Sean Clark. He
said love his intensity and boy, that's an understatement. I have
a Williams blade, Quaken 3.5 inch apocalyptic blade
and fat copper scales. Made by TRC. Made by
TRC. Great EDC. Yes, he is
quite an intense guy and man, you could, you could have
him on a show for three hours. And not get through all he's got to
say. Next comment was from Jason Small who says,
I've never heard of James before. And wow, what an impressive
guy. I've recently started checking out the systema. Stuff, that's that
Russian martial art and. It'S weird and cool. I
like James. Well, I too like James and Jason.
I know Jason a little bit from Thursday Night knives and I've seen his
collection and I'm betting he knows kind. Of of
James Williams but didn't really know the man. So I'm
always glad I can bring these kind of luminaries to light
here on the show. James Williams doesn't need me,
but maybe you guys need me to bring him out for all of you
to see. And to learn from. Very cool guy. A pushing
80 and still stout and sturdy and I would
never ever want. To mess with that guy. All right, that said,
let's get to a pocket. What's in his pocket? Let's find
out. Here's the knife junkie with his pocket.
Check of knives in my front right pocket. One that's gotten
a lot of carry. Since I've, I got it about two. Months ago, I guess
I'd say at this point. The concept Bison Array
Laconico design. That's a four and a quarter inch blade,
beautiful S35VN Bowie style blade
with a very unique looking handle with the integral
guards on the top and the bottom for your thumb and forefingers.
This is a very elegant and also kind of
nasty knife. Nasty meaning you can sort of
surmise some of its, its greatest qualities,
but not a usual sort of Ray Laconico knife. He
does oftentimes much more simple
and elegant knives with drop points and
Beautiful stuff. Usually much smaller than this.
But I've always had a fascination with his knives. Don't really have
any, I don't think, besides this one. So when this one dropped,
I had to get it really well made from concept. One of
my favorite Chinese production companies out there
is concept knives made up of some
alum from Kaiser. So they know what they're doing. All right. Next up
in my front right pocket, right next to this one, but in a leather slip,
I had the second knife ever released by Jack Wolf
knives. The laid back Jack. This was back in the
M390 blade steel days. Now they're on
S90 volts. A majority of their knives at this point
are S90V. Really, really
thin, hollow ground, full height, hollow ground blade.
Beautiful. Just sway back.
Not construction. What's the word I'm looking for? Profile with
a bit of a straighter handle than you see on a lot of traditional
swaybacks. Just an awesome knife with great
walk and talk and everything else you want out of a, out of
a slip joint knife. I really love these. I've been revisiting
some of my older Jack Wolves. They just keep dropping better
and better, newer and newer. But it's nice to go back
and see where they started and where they started. You know, they started
on third base. Already, so just an amazing. Right there.
Next up, this one. I don't carry too much,
but I love this one. A much coveted knife.
As a matter of fact, I coveted it. Coveted it
from others until it was very generously offered to
me in a trade by my buddy Strings right here. You
can converse with him on Thursday night knives and he's like, I
know. You want a desperado. I've had one for years. It's in
great condition. I'll trade you. We made a trade and
you know like you, like you think when you make a trade. I made
out like a bandit. I love this knife. Hopefully he's happy with
the knife he got. But I always wanted one of these. You know, I'm a
huge sucker for the vaquero blade style. And this is
the old blade style, so slightly less serpentine
but equally wicked. And then this one with that kraton
egg shaped handle really nestles in the hand very nicely.
Feels great in this forward grip. I'm not so sure about it in
reverse grip. I feel like you need some thumb pressure
down to really shore this up so it doesn't twist in hand.
But I haven't really tried in any sort of ballistic testing.
So who knows, maybe it's great in reverse grip and I just don't know it
yet. And last up, my Esk today was. Yeah, you've been
seeing this a lot so I hope you're not getting tired of it. But the
positively beautiful Hog tooth knives
Fighting Bowie. This one is a. A
commission. I, I commissioned Matt Chase to
make me a sort of Bagwell esque
send up something to
something to pay homage to Bill
Bagwell and his beautiful Devil's horn style
guarded fighting Bowie knives like. The Hell's Bells
etc And this is. The beautiful thing he came up with.
WW1 or 2, what is it?
W1 steel, I guess. Correct me,
I'm sure I'm wrong with the Hamon. So beautiful. And
this Australian gidgee ringed gidgee
wood. On that coffin shaped handle. I love this thing.
I've been really flowing with it and. Doing my carenzo
with it. That's basically shadow boxing with a knife and it just
feels great in hand. And I absolutely love this knife.
So this is what I had on me today. A happy little
grouping. I had the Hog Tooth Fighting Bowie on me. I had the
cold steel Desperado sadly. No longer available
from cold steel. Better be careful sheathing that. I had the first
run of the laid back Jack from Jack Wolf knives
and the Bison. Nice big beautiful clip point
blade from. Ray Laconico in concept knives.
Just a quick announcement about the knife junkie Zippos
I have sold. I only had six of them
made. Kept one for myself. I've sold the other five
and I think I'm gonna make another little run of them. Seems like people
like them, they're not like jumping off the shelves. But I've had enough people
want to buy them. I'll, I'll do another five. People are
interested. I'll, I'll get them out to you.
They're 50 bucks. They cost me.
Well less than 50 bucks. Obviously I gotta make it worth the
shipping. These do not come
with that jet insert. That's something I have in there for
my cigars. You can buy those aftermarket. It comes with the traditional
wicked. So if you like the knife junkie
Zippos, just let me know and I. Will, I will be
ordering more and I will get those out to you. Speaking of
giveaways, which we weren't really doing, we were speaking about sellaways. But this is
a giveaway for the gentleman junkie. This month,
the month of October 2025. Lt
Wright sent me this beautiful
Frontier. Valley knife or me
to give away. To one of you handmade by LT Wright in his
factory, in his facility. I guess factory would
be, would be. A little bit much. It is a
beautiful place from what I could see from his videos.
And this is where he makes these gorgeous knives.
I have had the Northern Hunter, the. Small Northern Hunter for a few
weeks. Now and I'm absolutely crazy about it. This is his
highest selling knife right now. It's sort of a do everything
sort of EDC fixed blade for camp, for.
Trail, for around the house. This is an
AEBL and it's a full height flat grind with
a 90 degree spine that throws sparks like they're. Going
out of style. I've been keeping this in the sheath so
it has drawn some of the oil. This was
freshly oiled when it showed up to me out of the micarta. But
that'll you, you can oil it. Up when you win it
or it will, you know, quick enough. The more you use it, it will
take on your own oils and that micarta
will become darker. I really, really love
LT Wright knives. I love the sheaves and
he himself. Is a great guy and I'm really.
Honored to be giving this away. And thank you so much LT for
sending this to me to send along to one of my lucky gentleman
junkies. You can become a gentleman junkie by joining on patreon the knife
junkie.com patreon or you can join right here
on. YouTube, actually join us here. One quick thing before
we go to Knife Life News. I want to tell you a little bit more
about Patreon because this is something cool that Jim, who works his.
Magic behind the switcher, as you know. One of the things he
does is he puts up nice notes. He puts up makers
notes about makers, articles about makers and different blade styles.
And, and, and the like. Well, this is the newest one and it's
basically how to clean your knife properly. Don't be such a barbarian.
Keep it clean and take care of that knife and it'll take care of you.
So he put up a whole article on this and
it's nice and to the point. And you get to the
point. See what I did there? And you get one of these every week along
with other things. Friday funnies, the
Makers Maker's Corner, you. Know, where he talks about different
makers. And specific knives throughout history.
So it is awesome. Just go to the knife junkie.com
Patreon and check that out and see all the
things we have to offer. You can scan the QR code on your screen. If
you sign up for a year at once you save 12% again,
that's the knife junkie.com. Want
to sell your custom knives online? With Launch Cart, you can easily create
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You're listening to the Knife Junkie podcast. And now here's the
Knife Junkie with the Knife Life news. Okay, first
up in Knife Life news, from Tashi Baruch
and Civivi comes the. I'm
not sure how you pronounce it, but I'm a big fan of Tashi
Baruch's designs and he's also a super cool and classy
gentleman out of France who's been designing and making
knives. I don't know, I guess
15, 20 years at this point. But he's like
a serious designer and architect type and he's got a
serious career outside of knives. This is just kind of
something cool that he does, which is impressive to me. But he's got
a, his first collaboration with Civivi and this
is his modernized. Take on the Higo Nokami.
And you know, the Higo no Kami, that's like the Japanese version of the.
Open M. You know, it's been around. For a little bit over a hundred years.
It's a folding knife, it's a friction folder, and it has
a sort of vaguely upswept
chief's point blade. Well, that's what he's doing here. He's, he's making
a very small version of the Higo no Kami for
Civivi. So this is 2 inches of blade
steel. That's a full flat ground. A blade of nitro V.
Again, a modified sheep's foot. Now
it has a flipper, but it's very subtle. You'll see it when
it's closed. And it's not jimped like the, like.
The pommel there, where you would think. That that's like a
front flipper, but it's not, at least not yet. And we are still
in prototype form. Here, so we'll see. That might change.
Yeah. So as you see the picture there. You can,
you can see it all laid out. So a
liner lock instead of a. Friction folder from a traditional Higo
Nokami. This is coming with wood or carbon fiber
scales. So far you know how it is with
Civivi though. I'm sure they are likely to bust out a whole bunch of
different cover materials and colorways.
1.57 ounces. And though there is no
release date, there is a price and the MSRP. For this will
be $70. Next up, another prototype
from Civivi. This also has no release date. This one
looks really cool, especially the blade. This is
called the Lunaris. It's an in house design
from Civivi. And they do awesome stuff when they. Keep it
in house. And as I mentioned, this is also in prototype form.
This is a 3.43-inch
modified Wharncliffe. Modified just because it's got all of. The
cool features to it like the. Finger
choil, the flipper, traditional flipper and that curving
fuller. Very, very nice looking knife. So this is
a liner lock with a flipper and that fuller is
intended for middle finger flickage and slow
rollage with the thumb. The prototypes
so far are coming in this purple or also purple
and yellow. Are also a red and black and. I have to say, a little
dizzy. Too many notes for me personally on the handle. But I love that
blade so much. I, I'd like to get a
crack. At this one when it comes out. G10
and deep carry pocket clip though on this a
prototype format. It is not ambidextrous
but who knows how that'll change. Again, no date
release for this, but we do have a price
and that is $90. So
tell me what you think about that. I think it's pretty cool. Let
me, let me pull up something here.
I know this is, this is bad tv, but I wanted
to read you a quote and it just. There
we go. All right, last up in knife life
news, this is kind of interesting news from Rosecraft
and I have to say I'm not a hundred percent surprised
by this. Rosecraft is discontinuing its
modern folder lineup and
I have one modern
Rosecraft knife. I've heard good things about them, high quality and all
that, but I always thought that they were definitely living in the
shadow of their traditional slip joint
offerings. And apparently that's how the company feels. And that's how the public
feels at large. So they are discontinuing the
modern folders and for a while knives like the one you see
on screen will be available and they will be at, you
know, discounts for sure until they are. Done
with, with that. And here's a quote from the company.
While our modern knives have the same quality of materials and
workmanship, our Customers seem to love other categories
way more, especially our traditional slip joint knives.
This is something they wrote on the website. That's why we've
decided to move from the modern knives altogether and focus on our
traditional, modern, traditional and fixed blade
lines. Gotta say, I am, like I said, not
surprised. But also, I'm not mad. I.
The, the, the modern style knives that they make
never really resonated with me. And I guess they haven't resonated with
others. At least not nearly as much as they're really,
really cool and beautifully designed and well
executed traditional slip joint style knives.
All right, still to come, we have the state of the collection. I have
four new blades I'm going to show off. We're going to take a look at
some kukri knives. But before we get there, let's take
a look at the TL29 electrician's
knife. You're listening to the Knife Junkie podcast. Here's some cool
knife history with the knife junkies. The first tool the TL29
electrician's knife knife okay, picture this.
It's the 1940s. A soldier crouches in a muddy
foxhole in Europe. In his hand isn't a rifle or a
grenade, but a humble folding knife stamped with a
simple code TL29. To most
people, it looks like any other pocket knife, but to
electricians, linemen and soldiers alike, it was a
tool of survival. The TL29 was born
out of necessity. In the early 20th century, as a world
wired itself with telegraphs, telephones and electricity,
the US Military realized it needed. A dependable knife
for its signal core. Something compact, rugged and
specialized. So around World War I, the quartermaster
issued a specification tool lineman's
number 29. And that's where the name comes from.
TL29. At first glance, it's unassuming.
A two bladed folder, one standard spear point blade for
cutting and one flathead screwdriver that could also be
locked in place for prying, scraping,
and other sorts of jobs with insulated wires.
That screwdriver blade even had a notch for stripping. Simple
but effective. Pair that with durable wooden scales,
usually blackened for a no nonsense look and you have a knife that
could take a beating. By World War II, millions of
TL29s were in circulation. Electricians carried
them, yes, but also so did mechanics,
radio operators, and everyday GIs who found
100 uses for that screwdriver blade in the field. And because they
were government issued, they. Were built by dozens of American cutlery
companies. Camillus, Ulster, Kingston, Imperial
Case or cutmaster. This was my grandfather's.
For collectors Today, that means TL29s exist
in a wide range of subtle variations, each stamped with
a maker's mark and. Each telling its own story.
But here's the charm of the TL29. It wasn't
glamorous. It wasn't a bowie or a stiletto.
It was a working man's knife. Soldiers came home and kept them in
their toolbox. Linemen hooked them to the belt with. A
bale rig, this bale ring right here.
Farmers tossed them into their overalls pockets. It became one of those
knives that simply did the job. Even today, the
TL29 design lives on. Some companies make electricians
knives in that same pattern a century later. Because
when something works well, why change it?
The TL29 rather reminds us that knives aren't
always about flash or fame. Sometimes the most important
blade is the quiet one, the tool that keeps the. Lights on, the
radios working and the wires humming. The
TL29 is a knife that powered. A
newly wired wire world. Now
let's get to the state of the collect adventure. Delivered your monthly
subscription for handpicked outdoor survival, EDC and
other cool gear from our expert team of outdoor professionals.
The knife junkie.com battlebox
this first one comes to me from James.
Yes, that's right. Jim was fixing his garage, going through his
garage, getting rid of some old empty boxes and, and, you
know, taking care of business on a Saturday. And look at what he came up.
With, look at what he found. And he knew that I would love this thing.
Now this is a straight razor from Sheffield, England and
it's very hard to read. I have yet to,
I've yet to polish this. I am a little worried that when I do
it will remove some of the, some of
the writing here. So I gotta be very careful. But it is
very sharp, especially now. That I've run it over the
ceramic. And the strop and it's got this beautiful
early acrylic style handle. Just a gorgeous,
gorgeous razor. Incidentally, before I could
shave myself, when I was like 12 or so in the, in the
middle of the 80s and GQ was a big,
a big magazine, I thought when I'm older, I'm going to be a classy
gentleman and. The only thing I'm going to do is shave with straight razors.
And I've tried it a few times and
it hasn't gone well for me. So I like to go to the. Barber every
once in a while for a razor shave. But Is that not totally
sweet? And yet again, thank you, Jim, for this.
I told him I should probably keep. It in my boot. Is the kind of
thing you pull out when someone knocks you down and they think they. They got
the drop on you, and suddenly you got this razor. I'm gonna cut
you. So. So thank you very much, Jim. I love this thing.
And next time you all see it. It will be polished up and I'll. I'll
know what the name is. But like I said, I'm worried of. I'm worried.
I'm worried about abrading the name.
All right, next up. This just arrived. Like, I've had this for
an hour in my possession and it is
super cool. This is from Pirate Tech. This is called
the Tsunami and it is a beautiful s
90v blade. Reminds me a little bit of the 940
and a titanium body here. Now, I've seen other
people with this knife mention that the scales
are held on by magnets and that they come off.
I have no evidence of that yet. I have not been able to pull these
handles up just by, like going like this. But I
also see no hardware, so I don't know how they're staying on. And
maybe I'm just not giving it. As much juice as I
need to. But I really, really like this
thing. So this was the company. Piratek reached out to me and
asked. If I wanted to see this. And I. I just about
did a spit take when I saw that. Spit my coffee out at the computer.
Because this thing is beautiful and I've seen it
on other people's channels and was very excited. They reached out to me.
I love their logo. It's an octopus and it's engraved in
that titanium. So that's in relief. You can feel
it. I have a special affinity towards octopi
these days. My wife is really into octopuses.
She's been reading books and watching video
series and stuff about octopuses. And she's convinced that they
come from another planet. And I am not. I'm
not gonna fight her on that. A, she's done more research and B, you
ever see an octopus change color or texture as
it. As it walks across the sea floor? It's crazy.
And sometimes just out of fun, for fun, they'll punch fish.
They'll curl up their little tentacles and bang, just punch a fish.
Now, I could see that. I could see wanting to punch a fish. If you're
an octopus all the time getting overshadowed by the.
By the fish swimming through the reef. Why not? Why not?
It's not like they're gonna sue you. So this is the
pyrotech tsunami hidden hardware. And I'm gonna get to the bottom of
this and figure out if this is indeed the model that
has scales. Held on by, by
magnets. Very, very cool and beautiful knife. And to
pyrotechnic I say thank you very much. I can't wait to really dig into
this, carry this around and do my review.
Next up, as you may have remembered, we just had
Amazon prime day and this had been in
my cart for a long time and it was even cheaper than
usual. So I just bit the bullet and bought it.
This is the cold steel kudu. Now you might be saying,
bob, you. Already have a kudu. I've seen it. Well, that's the slip joint
version where the blade stays in just
with this back strap. This is the real traditional
or, or their version of the traditional okapi knife.
No copy. Is that kind of animal, that sort of
savannah deer kind of thing that runs fast. And here's
a stylized version of it on the handle. The okapi knife. We did
a, we did a bit about that here. On the first tool
is a peasants knife from South Africa. So today
we, we, I mentioned the Higo no Kami, which is a sort of
peasant or worker's knife from Japan. The
okapi OK API
is that sort of knife except from South Africa.
Traditionally they have this ring here which
disengages the lock and
allows you to shut it. This has a ratchet,
so it's got about six stops open and closed.
And when it's fully opened, it's, it's locked
nicely. Now these knives are known for being ultra
super inexpensive and cheap. And that's why they are a
favorite of the street
gangs of South Africa. As a matter of fact, there's a semi
codified version or style of knife
fighting called Piper, which specializes in
using this knife. And I'll have you know
that the sound that the ring makes
when it rattles is a big part of Piper.
You'll, you'll see guy, Piper, guys doing this, shaking it around and
being very elusive with it. That's about as far as my
Piper knowledge goes. But we did have Brian Kanata
of American Khalis on here, Southern Calis,
and. He talked a lot about Piper. So a very cool fighting
system. And I love the okapi knife. I don't have a traditional
one, but. Now I have this cold steel version.
And last up in the state of the collection is
this, this little beauty. I've wanted
this for quite some time. This is the Raja 3
and this is the knife that inspired my look into Kukris
today. But this was also a Amazon prime
day purchase. It was, it was
kind of cut. Rate and I didn't know they
still made this. Frankly, I thought that this was discontinued a while ago, but
indeed it is not. Still going strong in
AUS10A steel. You've got
great, great triad lock action,
some of the most fidgety triad action out there.
I know people don't think of back locks as
fidgety, but as with all of the
triad locks in the cold steel lineup, if you put your finger up
in the front of the finger well and drop the blade, it will
not cut you. So you can open and close these one handed
all day long and they're very fun. And
you know, this knife is just wickedly sharp and you can tell
from. That Kukri style blade that it is a high
performer. Also very, very comfortable in my
medium, sometimes large size hand,
sometimes large when I'm retaining water.
All right, so that said, I want to get to the kukri but first
check out these awesome T shirts
and hats and aprons and things that Jim's. Come up with
this week. I'm into long blades and short
conversations. Yes sir, I do understand that. I mean
I like myself a good chin wag. I like a good long
conversation, especially. When talking about knives. But sometimes
you just, you just don't. Want to be bothered. And this is
for those times. Tell everyone what you stand for. Meet
like minded people. Go to the knife junkie.com
shop and check out the pages and pages and we've got over
25 pages of merch there with lots of cool messages
and lots of beautiful designs. So go check them out. And
who knows, you might be out there in public with your knife junkie gear
on. You're going to see someone else and it's going to be an
instant connection. So hopefully she's
not just kidding. All right, so first up, let's talk about the kukri.
Now we know that the Kukri is the knife of the
Gurkha, the legendary soldier from Nepal.
The special soldiers from Nepal, now they. Become became a part of the
British. Empire's fighting force and
still are. And my brother in law, actually when.
He was in the Marine Corps in. The early 2000s, he was
teamed up with some Kukris and I tried to. Get a hold of his
Gurkha kukri but I could not get it in time.
They, they issued Kukris to all the
Marines. The Kukris to all the Marines. Yeah, so it's a
pretty cool thing. But the first, I'm going to take you through
traditional and also. Modern
and new ones. But these two here are the
traditional type. And I got this first one from my mom
and dad when they went to India and
nepal in the 80s. I was but a. But
a pup. And they brought this back. And I had only
seen this knife in pictures and thought it was kind. Of
ugly and weird. And that's because I was ugly
and weird. I was just a dumb adolescent kid. I had no
idea the beauty and. The power I was staring at. And then
they brought this home. They brought one home for my brother too. And
we were just gobsmacked, like, oh. My gosh, these
are amazing. And they didn't have very sharp edges, but we
changed that. We put very, very sharp edges on. This is still pretty damn
sharp, but. This is the one. This is one of my oldest knives. In my
collection period. I've had this one for a
long time. But you can see that it's got the traditional.
I, I'm not even sure what that is. I mean, we look at this today,
we think it's a sharpening notch. I heard someone say not too long.
Ago, I said, a whiskey and cigar hang. Someone mentioned the kukri and how
this. Is for when the blood runs down. The blade, it stops there
and drips down and doesn't get your hands wet. Not. I was like,
I'm not even going to engage this. I just like that the guy know. Knows
about kukris. I. I think it has
symbolism. I also think it could be used. As a blade catch if you go.
And blade against blade, like a, like a Spanish notch. But
I highly doubt that either of. Those are the reason. I think it's probably
more of a symbolic thing. This
one is marked India and
has that arrow. And the arrow makes me
feel like this was at least
made to look like part of the
British. What do you want to call it?
Supply. Because if you look at certain things. From World
War II and maybe beyond, I'm not sure. But
on British watches that were, that were given to commandos
issued commandos, they. Had the arrow, the upward pointing arrow
that, that indicated that this was a. Property of the crown.
And when you're done using it in service of the crown, you
give it back. So I, I kind of wonder if that's what that is.
I also think that this one happens to be a tourist piece,
so probably not.
All right, I'm going to put these away. These are the traditional style
Nepalese pukris. Oh and by the way, this one. Has
the, the full leather scabbard with.
The two little knives in there. I
a long time ago wrapped them with duct tape. That duct tape is
possibly older than some of the audience, but it has kept
those two knives together. So there they are. All right,
I mentioned the Raja
3 pocket Kukri. Here is the Raja
2. This is a beautiful
kukri folding kukri made by cold steel. And
this One is in AUS 8 blade steel with the blasted
blade. So this is an older one.
See my brother gave this to me about 13 years ago when we moved into
the house we live in right now. This one has that beautiful
long clip that really allows you to be versatile
with the pockets you put it in. That's one complaint I have about
some of the XL's, XL cold steels. When they have these
small clip high. Mounted it can be difficult to find the
right pants. This will fit into any, any pair.
Of pants though it might pop out
the top. You, you've got what mimics a traditional.
Sort of horse hoof handle here. It really
gives you with this upswell here on the pommel
and that pinky ring, it gives you a not ring but
that pinky notch there, it gives you great
leverage when chopping. This is a great knife to,
to. Cheat your, your hand back on to. Get the most,
the most out of your swing.
You can come all the way up here. If you're using this like a camp
knife and you need to get close. You can come back here which
is. Kind of the standard way to hold it or I like to have it
back here. Now I mentioned camp use and that's the thing about
the Kri. A lot of people think it was
maybe derived from the Copus, the sword that Alexander
the Great brought into India because it had that same
sort of. Or falcata had that same sort of
downward heavy, forward heavy chopping
blade. But these and the kukris are
not intended to just be weapons though they are fierce weapons
and have a storied past as being weapons. There are
also straight up camp knives, chopping
knives for kindling, skinning animals,
all all your knife chores. This is like the Nepalese
bowie knife. If you will. And this
just happens to be an awesome folding representation of it. The
Raja 2 and the Raja 3. Next
up another folder. This one is called the Kami
K A M I. This is designed by
the great Dirk Pinkerton and it is
emulating a Kukri
Kami K A M I is the knife
maker. The Nepalese knife makers who make
kukris, they're called kamis. And just in
speaking with Dirk and and also seeing the
name, I know that kukris were heavy on his mind. When he
was making this. He did. Or when he was designing this, he did
throw in some, some changes to. The blade to make it more of. An
EDC friendly knife. For instance, he put that tip
in the center line instead of pointing downward
so that you would get more EDC usage out of it. More
universally, easily used. This one is
in Titanium with S35VN. It also
came in a. This is titanium and micarta. Excuse
me, with S35. This one also came in a
full. Titanium with S 90v blade steel, I believe.
Really excellent knife. The handle
encapsulates the hand really, really well between the
flipper tab and the. Bird'S beak pommel here. It also
makes it excellent for reverse grip. If you want to
put that thumb right there on the pommel. Really, really
great, great knife. One of my favorites from
the year. 2024 is this
Hami. Oh man, look at that. Beautiful micro milling
all over this. Heavily chamfered.
Gorgeous, gorgeous. All right, this next one is I think,
my absolute favorite folding cupri and it
is the Jason Knight
design Elements
MK Ultra made by Fox. It's got a lot of names to it, but
when this came out, this was the Night Elements MK Ultra. Now I
think you can just buy. This straight from Fox, but don't quote me on
that. It's got that beautiful kukri blade with the
harpoon swedge and the very large fuller,
very much in the Jason Knight design language.
Jason Knight is just a cool guy. I gotta have him back on the show.
Very nice guy, very chill and just. An
incredible forger of beautiful blades. And a
lot of them look a lot like this. So it was no
surprise when he. Came out with this folder. It just really
captures the spirit not only of his knives and his sort
of modernized take on the kukri, but the kukri itself. Look at
the handle. The handle is, is a perfect folding
representation of a kukri handle. Here it is with
the more traditional style handle.
That flare, you get a lot of. That same thing happening there.
And made by Fox Knives, it's got really nice action,
great fit and finish. Beautiful titanium,
cerakoted everything. Good to go. What is the blade steel on
this M690Co? As to be expected from Fox
knives. I think that's pretty much all they use. Maybe, maybe an occasional
M390. But yeah, N690CO
is the ticket over there. And this one I've had long enough.
This was a birthday gift from my. Wife, who is
the second biggest Forged in Fire fan that I know and
she loved Jason Knight. And when I said, oh well, Jason Knight's got
a knife I'd love to have for Christmas, she, she,
she obliged. And it's always nice to have that sort of buy
inside, you know, educate your ladies or if you're a
lady, educate your man on knives and, and. Then get them
excited and the gifts will keep coming. I
work with a guy, great guy, whose wife is a fan
of this show and he is not a knife guy. So
he'll come to me occasionally for gift ideas.
And I love that. All right, so this is the
Knight Elements MK Ultra Folding Kukri
made by Fox 9 and taking on quite a. Nice little bit of
wear on the corners. I love that. Okay, next
up is a modernized version of the Kukri. This time a
fixed modernized version of the Kukri and from
one of my all time favorite knife designers, period, Bill Harsey
Jr. Yep, you know it. This
is the Spartan Blades RC Kukri.
Another great modification in this
style of knife. I mean, I feel like this style of knife has
legs, is the day is long.
You've got a deep recurve here, but you still have
that point on or close to the center line. It's a little bit
below if I'm looking at the screws in the handle. Yeah, it's a little bit
below. But the blade overall and the knife
overall has a straight form factor.
It, yes, it does curve down a little bit and it does have that deep
recurve. But all things considered, it's, it's a pretty straight
knife. So I feel like it walks of the, the tightrope really
well. We could see, we could imagine that
a heavily curved blade is going to. Be more
specialized, more specialized for chopping. And slashing,
less so for thrusting though. I, I have an argument about that. I
think kukris are quite easy to. Thrust and you can do so
without. Even like canting your wrist at all. But to
those of us who are familiar with a more traditional
straight overall profile knife, this kukri
designed by Bill Harzy and masterfully
produced by Spartan Blades really nails it.
You have a very emblematic
signature style. Handle from Bill Harsey. I mean, his Gerber
Rock from back in the day is a cheap big box
store Knife from Gerber, designed by Bill Harzy,
had that same sort of profiled handle. It just
works great jimping here, great finger
protection, and then great palm swells that flare
out not only at the palm but also at the pommel. So it makes
it that much more difficult to loose
this from your hand. When you're swinging, shopping, and coming into contact
with things. This one, to me, I gotta say. Is
more combat than utility blade. That's.
Maybe that's the lens through which I look at knives, but to
me, this one favors the combat part.
First, though, in utility. I have heard from
many people that this is a great knife. As you can tell
by looking at my example, I have not done much.
Except maybe swipe a few vines with it.
The one thing that sticks in my craw about this knife is
in the sheet. And I know that a
lot of. This is not exclusive to this
sheath. See that? It's got a little thing you gotta
push to release the blade. I think they have that on the new
KA Bar Slabby. I know they have this on the. Other.
Bill Harsey design Spartan blades. I do not like that.
I don't think that you should have to rely on
this sort of thumb manipulation to draw the knife.
I can see that on like a. A holster or something that a
cop is carrying, a police officer is carrying. With a pistol or whatever.
Yeah, you might want that little extra bit of. But what if you're carrying
this and you need to draw it in reverse grip or need to.
You know, even if you had this thing lashed to your leg,
if you needed to draw this and you didn't have that thumb available
to push off, you're kind of out of luck
unless you just get rid of it all together. So that's one thing I'm
not crazy about. I do understand that it precludes the need to have
a strap to lash. It down and all that,
whatever that. Implies, and you don't need something going around the
handle. But as a trade off, I don't think
that's fair because I would rather have something with a
strap that I don't have engaged or buckled and be
able to pull it out and drop it back in without it.
Without needing that manipulation. Maybe I've gone too far, but
the rest of the knife really outshines that. One little
tarnished spot on the sheath. What do you think of this
knife? All
right, next up. This one is. This was a gift
from my good friend Dave of OG Blade reviews.
And this thing is huge. This is the biggest KUKRI I have.
And I have, I have some other Bud K
style cookies. I have one that a. Another listener sent me,
and unfortunately I have it stashed in an
emergency spot. But this one is the biggest. Now
this is made by a company called Traditional
Filipino Weapons. Now, before you start typing,
it's not a Filipino nut. It's so funny how many times I've shown this knife
and said, this is a kukri,
a traditional Nepalese knife made by smiths
in the Philippines for a company called Traditional Filipino Weapons.
It's a lot. I, I get it. But this, this is
a. You know how we're American perhaps, and we make
knives that might be an ode to Japan or anywhere
else. It's kind of the same thing here. Traditional Filipino
Weapons making a traditional Nepalese weapon. They do, they
do a lot of other non Filipino weapons as well,
but everything they do is just awesome. Including this
kukri. Incredibly sharp. I mean, they,
they do not half. Step it with the edge. And it's got a
lot of weight. Up front, a lot of mass. And then it's got this beautiful.
I think this is kamagong wood, that super hardwood from
the Philippines. And then you have some traditional file.
Work up the back of the handle there. Some
jimping just because. And then there's
the traditional Filipino weapons logo. It's
a crossed Chris and
Taliban or something or some other knife,
some other big Filipino sword. But
this one here, I'm gonna show this on the big screen so that. You can
see how big this thing is. I mean, this is a large,
large knife. Is it a short sword? Not quite yet,
but it's getting there. And
it's incredibly intense. Intimidated in, menacing. Comes
in a great sheath, too. A leather wrapped wooden sheath.
Most of the traditional Filipino weapons like you see on the wall,
have a wooden sheath. So this is pretty much the
same. It doesn't have the two little accessory blades on it,
but I don't even know what those things are for, frankly.
All right, I'm gonna put this one away before I hurt myself. This is the
traditional Filipino Weapons made kukri.
All right, Last up in this cavalcade of kukris
is cold steel. Yes. You know, it's going to be a cold steel.
This is the most ridiculous and possibly the most intimidating
kukri in my collection. And it is the cold
steel Chaos kukri. And
like all Chaos models, it comes with this cast
aluminum D guard for protecting your
hands and smashing things. It is
really stout and sturdy and.
Like I said, very intimidating. It's got a full tang that comes all the
way through the handle. You've got two mechanical connections here with these
bolts and then a third mechanical. Connection here with
the, with the skull crusher that is
screwed on there. These are
SK5 blade steel. So a
carbon steel. So tough these will take a
lot. Of abuse and.
And you've got that. Incredibly weight forward tip down,
heavy chopping, curved blade. I gotta say
this, this would be. One heck of a melee weapon.
I think it's, I think it's complete with this,
with this D guard. The thing I like about the D guard on the Chaos
series is that it splits the hand. You're, you're not trying to
make your finger go into each individual hole when you
do that. Hand size matters too much. Like for instance
this 1918 trench dagger fits my
hand perfectly. But most corn fed
modern guys who. Are giant, that would be too small.
So I guess I would have fit. In size wise in World War I.
Here we have room much, we have a lot of
room on both sides of this center partition to put your
finger, to put your fingers and they fit. You can
fit a big, big pot and there.
So that's, that's what I love about this. I don't think it looks as cool
as the individual knuckle duster
finger holes. But sometimes it's not about looks.
Sometimes it's about utility. And this screams
utility. Yes, that's my cold steel
chaos gookery. Here's the securex sheath. It works great. I like the way
it has a little arrow. Careful. Do not put your hand
here when you're drawing it out or you will get sliced. All right,
tell me about your kukris. I know you guys are dying too because we
got some kukri lovers in the audience here and I, I, I suspect
I haven't shown enough traditional kukris for the liking
of this crowd, but let me know. Drop it in the
comments below. We're at 42000 subs. When we get to 50,
000, Dirk Pinkerton is going to make a custom knife
for me to give to you. Any one of you. You don't even have to
be a member or a gentleman junkie. You just have to be a
subscriber. So when we get to 50,000 subscribers, I'm giving
away a custom made Dirk Pinkerton
fixed blade. And we don't know what it's going to be yet. So do stay
tuned for that and if you're not subscribed by gum, subscribe.
All right. For Jim working his magic behind the switcher. I'm Bob DeMarco, saying
until next time, don't take Dull for an answer. Thanks
for listening to the Knife Junkie podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please
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