Mickey's Knife

 In an effort to get ahead of my summer fitness cycle, I have started walking with a 15 pound backpack.  I chose a single sling pack from Maxpedition with my special attachment, one of Boker’s collaborations with Mickey Yurco.  It is called The Pocket Knife.  The Ulticlip allows you to clip it inside a pocket making it easy to carry and access a fixed blade.

Boker's Pocket Knife on my pack

I like the knife.  The elongated egg-shaped handle is depressed by about 26 degrees from the center blade line.  This allows the knife to be held in a neutral wrist position.  This is perhaps the strongest, most stable position for your wrist when holding a tool.

The blade isn't quite so long, all due to accidental camera angle magic

Two knives held in the same position with my wrist at the neutral angle. The Boker extends outward more aggressively

We are, after all, tool-bearing mammals and a knife is just a tool.

The blade is a graceful saber grind drop point blade tapering to a point made from 440C stainless steel.  It is 3.3 inches long with a 0.15 inch thickness and the overall length of the knife is 6.8 inches. 

The handle is constructed of black G-10 and has a slight palm swell making it easy to grip.  The finger detent in the steel and the palm swell make gripping this knife easy and comfortable.  It is in the running for the easiest and most comfortable using knife I’ve ever owned.

The Kydex sheath

The Kydex sheath secures the knife upside down and close to the body.  I don’t have to worry about bushes or brambles plucking at my knife in an effort to detach it.  The Ulticlip lets me clip the knife on the padded shoulder strap about the middle of my chest.  This is just about where a surprise or fear reaction instinctually brings the hands to.  The clip allows almost instant removal should I need to move the knife and sheath to a different location.

Why a knife?  Because sometimes I can’t get to a firearm fast enough.  If I had a dime for everyone who told me they would simply draw their blaster and shoot their knife/club attacker I would be a rich man.  While a subject for a different blog, attacks are usually done by surprise, without warning, and with a high level of violence.  Awareness is the key to survival, followed by having a tool and skill with the tool.

The Ulticlip allows you to move the knife and sheath from location to location quickly.  

If you are not familiar with Boker, or only think of the lower spectrum of their knives, think again.  Boker makes some very high and middle-level knives at reasonable prices and excellent quality.   Mickey has at least two knives in the Boker catalog.  I find the Yurco Pocket Knife one of my favorites.

Magic!

I recently picked up a Boker Joule. The name interested me. A Joule is a unit of energy or work. What’s a Joule, you ask? It’s the classical physics definition of the work you do when you lift a medium-size apple one meter off the ground. In other words not much. That’s not true of this knife.

Boker Joule

The design is by Michael Reinhold, whose designs are seen in several high-end companies like Boker and Spyderco. Michael is a part-time knife designer set up in Crooked Lake, Indiana. He started making knives from old circular saw blades and fell in love with bladesmithing. 

The 2.4-inch D-2 blade is a flat-grind Wharncliffe blade. The blade sports Michael’s maker’s mark, a stylized hummingbird. Why a hummingbird? I don’t know. Perhaps the mark doesn’t know the words. 

The handle is black G-10 and stainless steel. I like the reinforced lanyard hole and the frame lock. And that’s where the problem lies with my knife. My Joule doesn’t always lock open. It’s not uncommon. The tolerances required to allow the frame lock to come about halfway across the width of the tang square end are tight. Many knives require you to open the blade forcefully so the blade flexes slightly past the fully open position. This allows the frame or liner lock to fully engage.

I'm pointing to the partially engaged frame lock

 I could have sent the knife back, but I always need something to blog about, so let’s try fixing it ourselves. 

 I took the clip off to get it out of my way, removed the pivot screw, and then… It was at that point I noticed the knife was working perfectly. The frame lock slipped nicely across the square tang end like it was designed to. 

Fixed!?!

What could I do? 

I put the Joule back together and called it a day. All I can say is it must have been some tension distortion I relieved when I removed that screw. 

It’s a nice knife. The removable clip lets me carry it the way I like to, tip-up in the right pocket. You might want to get one for yourself. It’s a nice urban/office/going-to-church knife. Boker has it for $59.95, but you can search around and find a better price.