Thanks to the advent of YouTube, there’s no shortage of amateur scientists doing crazy things at their house.
We’ve seen the unparalleled Joerg Sprave create the knife chainsaw and some dude heat up a knife to 1000 degrees to cut things. Now, the Backyard Scientist is taking things to the next level with his latest experiment: the 1000 Degree Red-Hot Rocket Knife.
Normally, these videos only elicit a shrug in me, but some are just really captivating. In the latest video, the Backyard Scientist created a rail to act as a track for a knife to be shot 150 miles per hour at an object. To add to the insanity, he also heated the knife up to a temperature of about 1000 degrees before it’s propelled.
The vast forests of Finland are home to an estimated 1,500 brown bears — creatures that can go from docile and majestic to fierce and intimidating in a moments notice.
Cold Steel combines elements of the popular Finnish puukko knife with the spirit of the bear in the Finn Bear.
If you’ve never carried a fixed blade as your everyday carry, this is the perfect knife to get you started. It all begins with the 4-inch blade made of German 4116 stainless steel, which is known for its corrosion resistance and ability to be resharpened easily. The hollow grind edge coupled with the blade’s shape makes this a practical knife that people have been using in some iteration for centuries.
This knife is robust enough to skin a moose and delicate enough to slice an apple, making it a master of the outdoors.
This year is already shaping up to be a great one for knife lovers. We’ve got a ton of new innovations coming out of the knife community, and some interesting new designs.
As always, Kershaw is releasing more than 30 knives that’ll sure to appeal to the masses. While there tends to be an overreliance on 8Cr13MoV steel and the SpeedSafe mechanism, the diversity of designs is encouraging.
You can find the full list of new knives on the Kershaw website, but here are the 10 we’re most excited to get in the coming months.
10. Kershaw Reverb
The first knife we’re looking forward to is the Reverb. This lightweight knife weighs 1.6 ounces and is billed as a knife for outdoor activities. With a 2.5-inch blade made from 8Cr13MoV steel, the Reverb features a multifaceted handle. The front is G-10 with carbon fiber overlays and the back is steel.
And another appealing aspect is the carabiner clip. I wrote an article a while back about the best knives with carabiners and this will surely make the list.
9. Kershaw Fraxion
I’m a fan of Jens Anso, so I was pretty excited to see the Anso-designed Fraxion. This is a sleek and slim knife with an all-black profile. It also has G-10 handles with carbon fiber overlays. It’s a manual knife with a flipper and uses 8CR13MoV stainless steel.
Kershaw is famous for making affordable folders with outstanding craftsmanship and top-notch technology. And our latest Badass Knife of the Week is the perfect example of this.
The Kershaw Oso Sweet is an exceptional everyday carry that proves you can get a well-made knife by one of the top-rated knife brands around without selling a kidney. That’s why it’s no surprise this oh so sweet (get it?) pocket knife from Kershaw is among the brand’s best-selling.
Its qualification as an EDC starts with the knife’s speed. With a gentle pull of the ambidextrous flipper mechanism, the blade shoots to life using Kershaw’s patented SpeedSafe assisted opening.
When the first modern multitool was introduced in the late 1800s, it was truly revolutionary and groundbreaking. While the idea of combining a few tools into a single gadget dates back hundreds of years, this design was so well-conceived it remains in production to this day. Yes, I’m talking about the Swiss Army knife.
If you take a look at the design of the Modell 1890, one of the first iterations of the SAK, you’ll notice how surprisingly similar it looks to current Swiss Army knives. It just means that the design was near perfection.
Swiss Army Modell 1890
The design of multitools stayed relatively unchanged for decades until a young man spent time traveling abroad after graduating from Oregon State University with a degree in mechanical engineering. During his travels, he realized that the one thing multitools was missing were functional pliers.
That man was named Tim Leatherman.
In 1983, Tim completely changed the multitool landscape with his first design called the Pocket Survival Tool (PST). Now retired, the knife set the standard for what a multitool with pliers should look like — tools coming out of the two handles and the ability to fold into a rectangle.
Unfortunately, the way things work is that one company makes something revolutionary and the others just try to copy it and add small changes. It’s no coincidence that most multitools these days look like the Leatherman Skeletool (a very good design).
More than 30 years after that last true innovation in the multitool world, we’ve been waiting for the next big thing.
SOG may have found it.
SOG Baton Series Rethinks the Multitool
Most multitools fold up into thick bricks that take up way too much space in your pocket. That includes both SAKs and Leatherman types.
So SOG decided to do something a little different.
In conjunction with global design and consulting firm IDEO, which is responsible for such innovations as Apple’s first mouse and the convenient Swiffer, SOG created a new line of multitools called the Baton series.
Here is a quick look from GearSight:
When the tools are in the open position with the pliers (or scissors) engaged, it looks like any other pliers multitool. The difference is that the tool folds up into a relatively thin vertical design that’s more in line with a marker than a brick.
The minds behind ESEE Knives and Randall’s Adventure & Training know a thing or two about making a darn good knife. Jeff Randall and Mike Perrin became frustrated with the bloated and unnecessary offerings of survival gear and made their own line of field grade knives called ESEE Knives.
The ESEE-6 is the perfect representation of what Randall and Perrin were hoping to achieve with their line of knives.
Boasting an overall blade length of 6.5 inches, the ESEE-6 is a no-holds-barred knife that will do everything from batoning logs to chopping carrots.
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: Knives make poor self-defense weapons.
Not only do you have to get extremely close to your assailant but the knife can quickly be turned against you — not to mention the psychological ramifications of having to stab someone (sometimes repeatedly) less than a foot away from your face.
But Delhi Metro — the rail system serving the expansive and highly populated city in India — will now allow women to carry knives up to four inches for self-defense purposes.
This may not seem like a big deal here, but Delhi Metro officials apparently search people pretty frequently and have confiscated tons of items.
CRKT recently revealed its new offerings, and I’m pumped.
The company is releasing a fair amount of models that boast the CRKT charm, innovation, and splendor. While I (like many diehard knife enthusiasts) would like to see CRKT use more high-quality materials in its knives, its designs are always something to behold.
Unfortunately, there are far too many to put here, so I’m highlighting the 10 I’m most excited for. You can see more here.
1. Homefront EDC
Innovation is hard to come by these days, but Ken Onion took the knife world by storm last year with the reveal of his “Field Strip” technology. The original Homefront was the first knife to enjoy the technology, which allows you to disassemble a knife without the need for tools.
The knife was well-made and the tech was superb. CRKT is expanding the Homefront line with a few more models, including the Homefront Hunter and Homefront Tactical. My pick here is the Homefront EDC. It has a lot of the same features as the original, except for a slightly longer blade (without the fuller) and GRN handles instead of aluminum.
I’m excited to see what else they do with Field Strip in the future.
2. Bombastic
Another Ken Onion design, the Bombastic reminds me of his Hootenanny. It has a flipper opening mechanism, frame lock, and spear point blade profile (with a false edge). The blade is 3.3 inches and made of 8Cr13MoV steel. The handles are 2Cr13 stainless steel with glass reinforced fiber polyamide inlays. I enjoy the switchblade-inspired design with stylings from WWII.
The Smith & Wesson Border Guard 2 can take some serious abuse, without even a chance of a complaint. This badass knife is proof you can get a reliable knife for about $20.
Let’s take a deeper look.
The modified tanto blade is 4.4 inches and made of functional 7Cr17 high carbon stainless steel. Ambidextrous thumb studs adorn each side of the blade, and two blood grooves on one side help reduce the overall weight of the knife.
Made for first-response police forces in such demanding fields as highway patrol and environmental disaster recovery, the Border Guard comes with a feature-packed handle. The black aluminum handle boasts Trac-Tec inserts for a reliable grip in all types of conditions as well as an integrated seat belt cutter and window breaker.
It’s been a long time in the making, but 2017 may be the year the increasingly irrelevant 1958 Federal Switchblade Act finally gets repealed.
We’re getting a bit ahead of ourselves, though.
The Knife Owners’ Protection Act of 2017 — originally conceived and authored by the great Knife Rights in 2010 — has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Rep. Andy Biggs. The act, known by its acronym KOPA, now includes language that repeals the federal switchblade ban.
“The Federal Switchblade Act was an asinine idea when it was passed in 1958 in a wave of Hollywood-inspired politically motivated hysteria and has only become more irrelevant as time has passed,” said Knife Rights Chairman Doug Ritter in a statement. “The majority of states have always allowed switchblade possession and with Knife Rights’ repeal of switchblade bans in 11 states in the past seven years, fully four-fifths of the states now allow switchblade possession to one degree or another.”
James Dean wielding a switchblade in “Rebel Without a Cause.” The film was part of the inspiration for the original switchblade ban.
I’ve written on this very blog countless times why it’s time for the switchblade ban to be repealed. Not only has it affected the business of companies like Knife Depot (which can’t sell automatic knives except to government, law enforcement, or military personnel) but it makes traveling from state to state with different regulations extremely complicated.
