Move over Swiss
Army knives! You’re got company.
Swiza is a
relatively new knife company, but they have a long history as a clock
maker. Louis Schwab established the
Swiza clock factory in Moutier, Switzerland where they have a long reputation
as a premiere clock and watch maker. But
change comes to everyone.
In 2006, the
Schwab family transferred ownership to Bedonna Holdings. Who are they?
Good question. Bedonna appears to
be a holding company whose business is making money. Like all holding companies, they own several
companies that make products the public wants.
Kind of like angels on “Shark Tank.”
At some point
Swiza got involved with estragon, a design company. Yes, it’s a lower case “E,” all very artsy
fartsy. But Dirk Fleischhut and André
Lüthy appear to have the chops. They
helped Swiza get into the knife game with a very interesting knife.
The Swiza C04 in Khaki, or as I call it green |
They opened a
plant in Jura, Switzerland, and in Oct 2015 started making Swiza knives, a creditable
challenger to the Victorinox/Wenger Empire.
Here’s a little
aside I found interesting: the geology term "Jurassic" is derived
from the Jura Alps, which date to that era.
Knives and fossils in the same blog, must be a record of some kind.
Here’s a Swiza
D06 in leafy green. Let’s talk turkey,
err… rather knife.
The first thing
you notice is the nail nicks or blade openers.
They are elongated trapezoids holes that penetrate the blade or
tool. The second thing you notice waits
for you to pick it up. The bolsters have
a soft silky feel. Rub your thumb over
the closed knife. There aren’t any sharp
edges with the exception of the back end of the tweezers. You’ll find a curious double step that lets
you grab and remove the tweezers very easily.
Curious looking back end of the Swiza Tweezers, but easy to extract from the knife |
The 3 inch blade
is milled from 440C stainless steel and has a Rockwell “C” hardness of 57. The blade locks open, a touch I have always
liked. The release is hidden under the
white Swiss cross on the handle. It
takes a little effort, but that’s actually desirable in a locking knife.
Various tool
configurations are available. This knife
has in addition to the tweezers and main blade, a #1 Philips screwdriver, a #1
and #3 flathead, bottle opener, can opener and a reamer with sewing awl
eye. I’ve always been curious about the
sewing awl eye. If you’re using that
function, that’s going to be a very coarse repair which will probably do more
damage than the rip, or the fabric is so coarse you can wiggle it through
without cutting large holes.
I seldom need a can opener, but the screw drivers and bottle opener are life savers! |
The tools appear
to have been hardened to 54HRc. Why such
relatively low hardness, you ask?
It’s not
low. We’re spoiled by pricey super
steels with Rockwell values in the 60s.
At these levels bending the blade is likely to break the blade. As Ernie Emerson once wrote, a bent blade
is still a knife, a broken blade is just expensive junk. (My apologies if the quote is wrong.)
At these levels
of hardness you should be able to resharpen the edge with a fine grain
rock. A number of years ago, I attended
a mini-class where it was claimed you could sharpen a blade with mud. That is,
if you had enough time, and if the knife was dull enough that even a slight
improvement was desirable. I’d look for
a fine grain, flat rock first.
All in all, I
think you’ll find the Swiza up to all your urban cutting needs. This Swiza, with its leafy green scales has a
suggested manufacturing price of around $56.