Category: Knife Stuff (page 8 of 13)

What is going on?!

Just a few months after Canada joined the rest of the world (except the United States, of course) in allowing small knives on planes, it announced a sweeping change that essentially bans nearly every type of folding knife in existence from being imported into the country.

On January 5, here’s what the Canada Border Services Agency wrote on its website:

In accordance with subsection 84(1) of the Criminal Code and the CITT’s recent decision in T. LaPlante, the CBSA resolves that centrifugal knives will be classified as prohibited weapons if the following conditions are met:

a. a knife has a blade that opens by centrifugal force, when the blade is released from the handle into the fully ejected and locked position with a simple and brisk outwardly flick of the wrist; and

b. it includes knives that require some preliminary or simultaneous minimal manipulation of either a flipper or other non-edged parts of the blade.

Knives that can be opened with the flick of your wrist are prohibited. This could include those knives that also use a flipper or other non-edged parts like a thumb stud.

If applied broadly, that pretty much covers the vast majority of folding knives — whether it has an assisted-opening mechanism or not. While slipjoints are safe in theory, you could probably open most of them with centrifugal force if you tried because this includes non-edged parts of the blade. (Hold the spine of a blade on your Swiss Army Knife and it’s not hard to see how you could do it.)

The ZT0350 was the subject of other CBSA disputes.

If you think I’m being a bit flippant, just take a look at how a similar law was implemented in New York City. The laws there are very vague and police have taken advantage of the vagary to classify pretty much any folding knife they want as an illegal gravity knife.

Needless to say, the takes have been brutal.

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Anyone who carries a knife will tell you just how to put a knife with a clip in your pocket. You slip it into your pocket so that the clip is facing outward and the knife itself is tucked into your pocket.

That’s the conventional way… but not everyone likes to follow convention.

Some carry it like this:

That’s not how this works. from knifeclub

In this method of carrying, the carrier will clip the knife outside the pocket — leaving it exposed and very visible. I haven’t reached out to Sal Glesser from Spyderco (who pioneered the pocket clip on the knife in the original Spyderco Worker), but I don’t think this was the original intent.

And if you think this is a very uncommon method of carrying, think again. A fair amount of people have reported seeing others carrying knives this why.

So, why would someone carry a knife this way? Let’s take a look.

They’re new to knives.

I would argue this is one of the biggest reasons why people carry a knife this way. They are gifted a knife for the first time and clip it to their pocket on the outside, assuming that’s the accepted way.

For most, a simple whisper of “Hey, it’s better if you clip it inside the pocket” is a good way to inform them.

Their pockets are too small.

As a man, I have large, deep pockets that can carry a Cold Steel Recon 1 XL without much problem. Unfortunately, for women or those men who prefer tighter clothes (no judgment), pockets tend to be significantly smaller or simply for show.

If a knife doesn’t fit inside the pocket, the only way to carry it is clipped to the outside.

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Think knife laws in the United States are a little too strict — I mean why aren’t switchblades legal federally? Then I recommend avoiding the Xinjiang Province in China at all costs.

Not only is the region devolving into a police state but it is also requiring your name, ID number, ethnicity, and more to be lasered right onto the blade of every knife you own.

So how did this happen?

The province, which is an autonomous region in the northwest portion of China, has been experiencing a rash of knife attacks (and attacks in general).

In September, five police officers were stabbed by separatists in a knife attack. Earlier this year, eight people were killed and 10 were injured by three assailants with knives.

The reason for some of these attacks are somewhat unclear, but rights groups report that the violence may be caused by the government’s oppression of a religious group called Muslim Uighur.

The Xinjiang Province of China is in red.

I’m probably getting too deep into the woods here, but the use of knives have given the government the bright idea of tracking people in every way they can, including tracking their knives with QR codes.

Here’s how the knife tracking works, according to The Wall Street Journal:

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“I’ll never be able to afford a Sebenza.”

“I want to try out a SOG Tomcat before a get a real one.”

“I wasn’t going to buy a real one anyway — might as well get a fake.”

“It’s not hurting anyone.”

These are common arguments from people trying to justify buying knockoff and counterfeit knives.

To those people, all I say is NO. Counterfeit knives are not only harmful to the designers and makers but can also be harmful to you.

If you’re not dissuaded from buying clones or knockoffs, this post will hopefully open your eyes to the dangers and pitfalls of buying fakes. Here’s why you should only buy a real and legitimate knife.

A Note on Terminology

Clones, knockoffs, counterfeits, homages. What’s the difference? All of these terms are typically used to mean one of two things.

A knife passed off as the real thing.

A counterfeit knife is one that looks exactly like the real thing — with branding, all the design elements, and even packaging information — but is not from the actual company.

A knife that steals designs from another model.

If it looks like a Spyderco, functions like a Spyderco, but is called an Arachnidco, it’s a stolen design. It may not have the branding of the original but it may be a heavily borrowed design. This is not necessarily a counterfeit knife, but the effects are the same.

1) Counterfeit knives cause loss in sales.

This one is the most obvious reason not to buy a counterfeit knife: you’re taking away money from those who made the original. Multinational brands typically lose around 10 percent of their annual revenue to counterfeiters, according to the Secretary General of the International Chamber of Commerce.

The American Knife & Tool Institute has some knife stats for you.

“Based on the latest ‘AKTI State of the Sporting Knife and Tool Industry Report,’ we conservatively estimate that the annual financial impact on the sporting knife and tool industry is around $80 million,” said AKTI Executive Director Jan Billeb back in 2013.

Imagine spending all this time, money, and resources on making the best product possible only to have everyone copy the product and sell it as their own. Not only does all your hard work go unpaid but it has to feel just awful and could possibly discourage people from making new things.

Millions of dollars each year are going away from those who deserve it to criminals trying to make a buck off of others.

2) Knife companies incur unforeseen costs.

Aside from the loss of revenue from sales, counterfeiting puts a big financial burden on knife companies you may not have considered.

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Similar to the carbon steel versus stainless steel debate (which is actually way more complicated), knife owners are divided over whether a knife should or should not have a lanyard.

The thing about the lanyard debate is that people aren’t usually lukewarm about the topic. It gets people riled up more than the sit versus stand debate during the National Anthem.

But is there ever a time and purpose for lanyards on pocket knives? Yes, there is.

Lanyard vs. Fob

Before the wolves come out to correct me, let me clarify something: Lanyards and fobs are different.

Although used interchangeably, lanyards and fobs look and function differently. A lanyard is a longer piece of twine like paracord that ties to the end of a knife and wraps around the wrist for more security when wielding the knife.

A fob, on the other hand, is typically a shorter piece of twine that’s tied at the end so there is no opening to fit your hand in. A fob is there to keep your knife from falling in your pocket and other things (as you’ll soon learn).

There’s also a thong, which is essentially a leather string, that serves a similar function as the fob.

Now onto the reasons to add one of these to your folder.

1. Extra Security

I won’t go into the history and origins of the lanyard, but I believe the original purpose of a lanyard was to keep an item securely tethered to yourself. For example, some in the French military even carried a pistol tethered to their arm so they wouldn’t lose it. You can see Eli Wallach from “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” attached to a pistol with a lanyard below.

Since then, people have adopted the lanyard on knives.

The lanyard is especially useful on larger knives that may fall out of your hands during use — though keeping a knife stuck to your wrist when your grip fails you may not always be the wisest idea.

It’s not as necessary on smaller pocket knives unless you’re using it in or around water, but the sentiment and reasoning still stands if you use your folders for hard-core tasks.

2. Personalization

Knife people don’t care too much about looks… OK, so maybe a few of us do and lanyards/fobs add an extra item to accessorize your knives. This is the manly equivalent of bejeweling your smartphone case or matching your nail polish to your socks. And there’s nothing wrong with it.

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