What's In Your Stocking?

Stocking stuffers?  We don’t need no stinkin’ stocking stuffers…

That's not true, is it?  During the Christmas Holidays, there is always a need for little gifts.  This is especially true if you're a knife fancier.  We all need oils, waxes, polishes, sharpening doodads, and whatnots, but we sometimes hesitate to buy for ourselves.

Let me give you two ideas any knife fancier will want.

There are various products like these two, I just happen to have these on hand.

Every pocket knife I’ve owned has screws, nuts, and bolts that all what to back out and get lost.  Every clip has at least one screw that wants to be somewhere else.

The solution: Threadlock.  People have used nail polish, airplane glue, paint, and other solutions to keep screws from backing out.  McBride writes during the Great War, WWI, he and other shooters rusted their screws in place with iodine.  There are better solutions for a pocket knife.

I'd get the blue semi-permanent.  It will keep the gremlins from backing out screws.

The trend today is to use torx screws.  Those are the screws that need a star-shaped driver.  They are the hot fasteners today, and most of your knives will be assembled with these specialty screws.  If you want to replace a clip, disassemble, and clean your knife, you’ll need the correct torx driver.  Husky makes a nice set of four double-ended drives housed in a nice plastic body.  The end cap rotates so you can put finger pressure on it and still turn the driver.  The drives range from the tiny T4 to the smallish T15.

Two easy stocking stuffers for your favorite knife owner, even if you buy these for yourself.

Secrets of the Sorting Hat

 

I've moved, which forced me to confront my knife collection with the certainty that all good things end.  My previous dwelling had plentiful storage, but the new digs, well, not so much.  I’ll add cabinets, shelves, and drawers for storage, but I need to deal with limited storage and the need to put things away.

The move has also prompted a confrontation with my mortality.  Do I want to continue to curate knives I have for no apparent reason?  As much as I wish it, I do not have a Harry Potter sorting hat to make determinations for me.

I realized that all my possessions could be categorized into two distinct classes and a third, more nebulous one.  The first two are obviously "Keep" and "Discard.”  The third is “Maybe.”

Don't let this fool you.  There are only two options.  Maybe is actually a Discard.  If a knife doesn't create enough passion to become a Keep instantly, it's a Discard you're trying to be polite to.  Ditch it.

The original Tigersharp

Here’s a couple of examples.  I picked up a Tigersharp at the SHOT Show.  The company later sold the design to Camillus.  The novelty is the replacement blade eliminating the need to resharpen the knife; just use a new blade.  It's going.

Boot dagger from S&W

Years ago, at the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot, I bought a S&W H.R.T. dagger boot knife.  I am still trying to understand why.  The handle is too small, the blade is sharp on one side but not the other, and I don't typically wear the proper boots.  Bye-bye boot knife.

Boker's Pocket Knife by Mickey Yurco

I bought a knife from Boker, designed by Mickey Yurco, called the Pocket Knife.  Mickey told me he thinks of it as a self-defense tool, but Boker, fearful of public backlash (What!  You mean to tell me you could hurt someone with a knife?) calls it a camping or survival knife.  I wore this on my pack for years.  It's a keeper.

So, there you have it.  When you start thinking about that great collector's meeting in the sky and can't decide what knives need to find a new home, remember, Maybes are just polite Discards.  You really didn't care for them in the first place.

 

Unpack: CRKT's Kith and Razelcliffe

 

Receiving and unpacking knives is one of my favorite activities.

I just got two from Columbia River Knife and Tool and they are both winners.  The first knife is the Razelcliffe, designed by Jon Graham and the other, the Kith, designed by Ken Steigerwalt.

The top is the Razelcliffe and the bottom the Kith.

The Kith is a locking folder with a 3-inch blade ground from 8CR13MoV stainless steel.  It is a good knife steel, especially for a working knife.  Compared to D2 (you'll see why later), D2 tends to have more edge retention and hardness than 8Cr13MoV but is more expensive and less corrosion resistant.

The Kith utilizes a front lock set in the 3.75-inch glass-reinforced nylon handle.  It is relatively lightweight at 2.3 ounces; I get mail heavier than that.  I like the handle, but the contrast in the black handle is not from pigmentation but surface geometry. 

Unfortunately, the gray handle spots are just different reflectivity

It's a good length for many basic jobs at a campsite, fishing, in the office, or preparing the yard for winter.  The Kith has an MSRP of $40.  You can't go wrong at that price for a working knife.

 

Years ago, I had a Razel with a stag handle from CRKT.  I last saw it in the pocket of an Australian heading home to their anti-knife culture.  I hope he made it.  It was a very cool knife.

The Razelcliffe, let me suggest it would make a very icey club knife.

The Razelcliffe is also very cool.  The 2-inch blade is made from D-2 steel (see, I said we'd get back here).  D2 isn't quite stainless, but I never see rust on any D2 knives I own.  A little oil takes care of all my problems.  D2 takes and holds a good edge and can be resharpened with basic stones.  The Razelcliffe utilizes a frame lock and IKBS ball-bearing pivot.  That is very cool!

The G-10 handle is 3.25 inches long, and the knife weighs 3.3 ounces. 

The MSRP is $48, a reasonable price for a step up in cool factors. 

I've always thought CRKT over-engineers their knives.  You get a lot of knife for a reasonable price.  That’s invaluable in a world where you pay for a name.

 

The Future of Knife Making

 This could be the future of knife making.

These beads are the results of 3D printing

Yes, really.

These beads are 3-D printed plastic and can be any color, texture or shape you want by Chroma Scales.  You could customize any sort of knife scales/handle you want.  This is the beginning of the future.

Several years ago I saw a demonstration of 3-D metal printing.  Essentially it was a computer-controlled arc welding system that would deposit a spot of metal and build up a 3-D component.  This has evolved into printing metal engineering components and prototypes using high purity metals and laser beams.  Lincoln Electric is using this technology as is 6K Inc.  Many companies now offer this service.

 Miniaturization is a economical driving factor.  Big things will get smaller and find a way into your home.  Look at computers and microwave ovens 

One video showed a company printing out manifolds out of 316L, a low carbon stainless steel.  Not the best for knife blades, I grant you.  They video demoed a Trumpf TruPrint 3000.

Prices are still high, but you can buy 3-D printers that use plastic on Amazon now at reasonable prices, from under $200 to around $3000.  The polymer used is very affordable.

I was able to find glass fiber reinforced polymer, which gives the finished product high strength.  I believe carbon black reinforced polymer is available.  High strength metal alloys are just a bit farther down the road.

We’ll see the big guys, like Spyderco, Benchmade, Civivi, or Buck use it first to print unique blade shapes and designs.  But what about temper and hardness?  How will they heat treat it and such?  I remember those same questions asked about powdered metal.  Early adopters had problems with porosity, just ask Kimber.  They found answers.

The big change will occur then you no longer buy a knife, but purchase a program to print your own.  I suspect there will be acceptable options built into the software which will come with a license for one or more printings at which point it erases itself.  Code hackers will find a way to tweek the code to make unique knives or print unlicensed copies.  We see that problem with knockoffs.

There will be laws forbidding this and a new class of criminals. 

Remember the Star Trek episode ‘Tomorrow is Yesterday’?  A plot complication  occurs when the ship beams up an Air Forse security officer from the 1960s.  They keep him in the transporter room as to minimize the historic contamination from the future.  Scotty tries to relax him by offering the fellow Scotsman a dish of haggis from the replicator.  What is a replicator but a fast 3D printer?

You’ve seen the future.