SOG built its name on producing top-of-the-line knives that excel in extreme situations. The company focused on fixed blades in its early days before jumping into the folding knife genre. The Flash II is the poster child of the company’s goal.
The Flash I became an instant hit among knife nuts everywhere after being called an “outstanding reference EDC” knife. Well, SOG managed to improve upon the highly acclaimed original Flash with a few upgrades.
In 2018, the up-and-coming brand WESN (pronounced wesson and stands for West East South North) won the Best Factory EDC Knife at Blade Show West for its Microblade.
The WESN Microblade initially launched on Kickstarter back in late 2017, and the brand is back for more with its next Kickstarter release called the WESN Allman.
Check it out:
The Allman is a compact EDC knife (not as compact as the tiny Microblade but pretty darn small) with a 2.75-inch S35VN steel blade that opens with a flipper tab. You can get the knife in either titanium handles with a frame lock or G-10 handle scales with a liner lock.
Here are the specs:
The design itself is a bit bland. The blade profile is a sort of drop point design but with a less piercing point and a swedge. The blade also seems a bit stubby and relies on the wider handle to fit the whole thing.
There is something about the sleekness and simplicity that makes this knife appealing though. It removes the bells and whistles and sticks with a stripped-down design. They removed the unnecessary thumb stud for just the flipper.
This post was originally published in September 2014 and updated in February 2019.
An old saying goes something like this: “Stars: they’re just like us.” Except for the whole money and fame thing, it’s largely true.
Celebrities, like us, have their own obsessions and collection habits. While some celebrities collect really strange and impractical items (such as Johnny Depp’s disturbing Barbie collection), some are reasonable people who, like many of you reading this, collect knives.
A surprising number of celebrities are really into knives, including Keith Richards, Steven Seagal, Ziggy Marley, Wayne LaPierre, Kid Rock, and Pamela Anderson, but the following are among the most notorious and well-known knife collectors.
We’re all familiar with John Rambo’s love for awesome knives, but the man who plays Rambo is equally enthusiastic about knives. Sylvester Stallone has been a big collector of knives for a long time and continues to be one to this day.
I’m not sure if it’s Stallone’s influence or just the movies he acts in, but Stallone always manages to get some amazing knives into his movies, such as a Spyderco in Cliffhanger, the unique Herman Schneider knife in Cobra, and, of course, the Lile Rambo knife.
A sage isn’t just someone who possesses wisdom but someone who transcends knowledge and strives for perfection. That’s what makes “sage” such a fitting name for our latest Badass Knife of the Week.
The Spyderco Sage represents a decades-long process of learning what makes the ideal everyday carry pocket knife. Because there is no such thing as a perfect knife (since each person has their own view of perfection), Spyderco set out to create a series of similar designs with different locking mechanisms.
The Sage 1 uses a Michael Walker liner lock, which has become one of the most ubiquitous locking mechanisms out there. The 3-inch blade opens with the patented Spyderco Round Hole and stays engaged with a steel liner you can disengage with your thumb.
Made from premium S30V steel, the leaf-shaped blade has a piercing point and curved belly for easy slicing.
I’ve been worried about Case for a few years.
Many of the iconic and classic knife companies have closed their doors. Imperial Schrade Company went under in 2004 (though it lives on in some form after its name has been bought and sold by a few other companies) and Queen Cutlery called it day in 2018 after nearly 100 years in operation.
While traditional knives have been seeing a resurgence, especially with places like Great Eastern Cutlery committed to keeping the past alive, Case has been around for a long, long time and have been making largely the same knives for more than a century.
That’s why I was encouraged when they made a leap into the 21st century with some new knives and modern designs — a move I likened to the time when Bob Dylan went electric.
2019 is still young, but Case has been active in announcing new projects and even recently released its 2019 catalog.
Interestingly, this year is full of a lot of reworked knives and classics that were brought back to please the audience. Case is still in full blown going electric mode and I love it.
Feel free to skip to the actual knives, but hear me out if you want more Dylan deep dives. 2019 Case is the live at “Royal Albert Hall” bootleg era — completely reworking classics, revisiting old stuff, and continuing with the new.
Let’s dive deeper.
The is the Case Shark Tooth.
It used to be like that.
But now it goes like this.
In case you didn’t catch that (and why would you if you aren’t a Dylan fanatic), that’s a line from this:
Similar to the way Dylan completely transformed that song from its acoustic folksiness, Case strips the old Shark Tooth to its bones and rebuilds it into something modern and sleek.
We’re continuing our trek through the best knives from each brand. This time we take on the formidable butterfly brand.
What’s interesting about Benchmade is that this list is populated by a lot of newer models, which is somewhat surprising from such a storied brand. That’s partly due to the fact that Benchmade has been going on quite a tear recently with some excellent new knives.
As always, these lists are highly subjective, so let us know which models you think are the best in the comments.
We’ll start with a no-brainer: the Griptilian. Despite being around for such a long time, the Grip family remains one of Benchmade’s best offerings — both because it’s an excellent design and because it’s almost become a budget option from the brand.
At this point, the Griptilian has undergone a lot of changes and you can get the knife in different blade steels, blade profiles, handle colors, and handle materials. The standard is now S30V steel and nylon scales.
Because we want to keep this list somewhat clean, we’re including Mini Grips here too. I still carry my Mini Grip frequently.
If I had to pick the best Grip, it would be the 555-1.
The Freek was talked about as a Griptilian killer when it was introduced a few years ago. While the Freek did not kick the Grip to the curb, it did prove itself to be one of Benchmade’s best. In 2019, Benchmade released a premium version of the Freek with M4 steel and G-10 handles.
Kit Carson was a fantastic knife designer and an all-around good guy. Until his untimely death in 2014, the Cutlery Hall of Fame Inductee mentored some of the top knifemakers around, including Ken Onion.
Even though Carson is gone, his legacy still lives on in knives offered by CRKT, including our latest Badass Knife of the Week.
The M21-14SFG Special Forces is a bigger and stronger version of the highly renowned M16 knife family. This version has a long 3.99-inch black titanium nitride-coated blade made of 8Cr14MoV stainless steel.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BtbsW_-h1Zv/
At this point, pretty much everything has been turned into a knife.
There are the obvious found objects that can be turned into knives, such as old files and railroad spikes. In fact, you can watch these items along with 10 others be turned into 12 different knives in an old post.
Then, Kiwami Japan came along and upped the ante by turning unimaginable items into knives, such as gelatin, stone, and even underwear!
Another of our favorite YouTubers is back with some interesting experiments. This time knifemaker Steve Calvert aka Green Beetle attempted to make a knife from nickel wound guitar strings.
The color pink evokes a wave of emotions and feelings, including love, beauty, femininity, and tenderness. You may not think those sentiments match up with the rough-and-tumble world of knives, but you’re sorely mistaken.
Knives are tools for all types of people and personalities, from the stock trader and lumberjack to the fashion designer and plumber.
For all those who enjoy the look and temperament of the color pink, we assembled a list of 10 fetching pink-handled knives.
We’re kicking things off with a highly renowned EDC. The Ontario RAT I was on our list of best EDC knives for those on a budget. With its 3.5-inch satin-finished blade, the knife is known for taking a beating and still performing.
This knife is great for everything, including the outdoors and around the house. The nylon handle is a delectable pink.
The Kershaw Chive is a nice little knife with an alluring shape. From the inventive mind of Ken Onion, this knife features a small 1.9-inch blade made of 420HC stainless steel with a bead-blasted finish.
It bursts to life using the Speedsafe assisted-opening mechanism. The 6061-T6 anodized aluminum handle is finished with a pink that won’t wear off.
With a blade length just under 2 inches, the Spyderco Squeak is another knife that fits nonchalantly in a bag or pocket. The pink handle is FRN.
The word “badass” is open to interpretation. Some people think of badass as aggressive or large. Well, the latest Badass Knife of the Week shows that a knife can be badass based solely on the history, construction, and simplicity of the design.
The pen knife or penknife has been around for more than a century. The origins of the design revolve around the need for maintaining quills for old-fashioned pens.
While Boker’s take on the traditional pen knife can still be used for dip pens, this 2-bladed pen knife with stag handles makes a classy and reliable all-around pocket knife.
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