Hey everyone, David C. Andersen here coming at you from the
KnifeCenter and welcome to KniFAQ Episode 103, the knife
series where I answer all your questions, whether they're sharp
or dull. And this week amongst our questions, we're going to be
finding out that despite all the latest innovations in the knife
world, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Let's get into it (KniFAQ) Alright, if you're new to this
series, the deal is you folks get to leave your questions,
please. In the comments section below. We go through and pick
out a few to answer in future episodes. First question this
week comes from Houston R lamb. He says, Uh, why do you think
that the seax has fallen out of favor as a utility knife, given
its long history as both a utility and fighting knife from
the dark ages through the Crusades? Well, I would say
actually, that, I don't think it has fallen fallen out of favor,
it just looks a little bit different nowadays. First of
all, think about the word seax. It's an old English word
s-e-a-x, sometimes spelled a little bit differently. It's
just the word for knife. But just like the Finnish puukko,
puukko is the Finnish word for knife, just like that, we kind
of have this idea in our heads of what specific blade type
we're talking about when we mentioned Seax. And we have an
image right here that will kind of show that kind of broken
back. Seax is the kind of like the full terminology of the
style we think of nowadays. Essentially, back in the day,
metal was expensive. And if you had a sword that broke, you
could still use it as a smaller blade, hence the broken back,
quote, unquote, nature of it. And nowadays, since we're not
actually making swords, and then cutting them down into our
pocket knives, we can kind of make them look like whatever
they want. So they don't often look like a broken back design.
Because why they're not broken, they're not broken, we can make
them look however we want while still maintaining kind of the
qualities of what made that style of Seax useful. One
example, it does look kind of like a broken back to design,
the ArtisanCutlery pro... Proponent. KnifeCenter exclusive
here with M 390. Steel has that straight off, like sheared off
look to the blade. And that maintains it even though we're
you know, we're gonna call this a wharncliffe nowadays, or
sometimes the modified wharncliffe something like the
Kershaw Leek, if you think about it is kind of seax-y. So it's
fun word to say. But you mentioned your why is it fallen
out of favor as a utility knife? I think that blade style is even
today the most widely used blade shape across the world as a
utility knife. What is in fact, what is this but not a double
ended sacks blade, this common hexagonal utility knife blade
easily broken to? There you go, you have the breakaway ones
behind that, indeed. So that's what I mean when I say I don't
think they actually have fallen out of favor. Like I said, they
just look a little bit different, but it's more of the
same. And that's what I mean by the intro there like the more
things change, the more they say stay the same, the same shapes
that work had been working for a long, long time, such as this,
the paring knife actually is another perfect example, that
shape that small kitchen knife. Even before we call it a paring
knife has been useful for nearly as long as man has been shaping
tools and cutting things that shape just plain works. As does
the seax. So that's my my dissertation for today. Perhaps.
There's a long way of saying you don't want to say reverse tanto.
You just had to do it. Why can't we lose that to the annals of
history? Like get rid of that?
Anyway, next question comes from see Whoo, eat you. I love my
KnifeCenter exclusive ArtisanCutlery proponent. Hey,
and I'm just infatuated with the style of big old titanium for a
lot framelock with an upgraded blade. Are there any other
knives like it that I could add to my collection? Bonus
Question. My wife is looking for an elegant flipper tab assistant
slash automatic fingers safe locking everyday carry any
recommendations? Well, let's start with your first thing and
if you You love the overbuilt, tanky nature of this proponent
and you want something more? Well, we gotta go straight to
the top. Let me tell you, my friend about rich made knives
that do it for you. I mean, this makes this proponent look
positively tame, wouldn't you say? There you go. Definitely
more of a handmade nature and put a sort of a intentional
crudeness a little bit to the finishing on these Richmades.
This one right here is the large zombie killer flipper. 925 for
it. And this is one where it is dropped. Shut like it'll go on
its own. But I want to be careful every time I close one
of these because the dropship gate team, if you if you miss
judge that a little bit, you're losing a finger tip for sure.
But how cool is that, huh? Check out Richmade, we have a few of a
few other things in stock right now. And they are highly, highly
cool. Now, as to your bonus question, I have some thoughts.
First, you say flipper tab and assisted or automatic, we're not
going to find a flipper tab auto because they kind of preclude
one another. If you hadn't said finger safe, I would have
mentioned one of the Santa Fe stoneworks versions of the
Kershaw Leek because they are elegant, they've got the flipper
tab, they are assisted. And we just happened to focus on the
week earlier this week. So it's kind of at the top of my mind,
so immediately, bam, but it has a framework, so doesn't have
that finger safe nature that lets you keep your hand your
fingers out of the blade path, when closing thought of perhaps
the Benchmade arcane, will put a picture up here because I don't
have one in front of me. Maybe not quite super elegant. But
you've got a flipper tab, you've got the axis assist, so it's a
finger safe. And elegance, the question mark, do you think this
is an elegant look, I kind of do. But I could also see where
it might be a little too aggressive looking. So I went
with I had one more. It doesn't have a flipper tab, but it is an
auto, the pro tech sprint, we've got a few customized versions.
And right now, they're a little pricey. This one right here is
about 640 S35 blade two inches long. But check out the inlay
there it is abalone, we've got a bronze titanium handle, milled
pocket clip on the back, which is also deep carry not a common
combination right there. Very, very sweet little knife. And
despite the small size, you've still got pro tech action right
there. Very cool. Check those out, perhaps. Hope that helps.
Any other suggestions from the comments section? I'd say throw
those below. It's kind of Slim pickins list right there. So
hope that helps. All right, next up, Chris J, what's a swedge
for? Is it just decorative? Or is there a point, quote unquote,
see what you did there? Yes, there is a point. And the
I
there's kind of two things to talk about when we're talking
about swedges. But they both revolve around reducing
friction. So if you're unfamiliar with what a swedge
is, you can find it right here on something like this Ka-bar D2
Extreme fixed blade. And that's this ground section of the spine
of the knife. And the first friction reducing elements is
when done right, it can thin out the metal behind the point. So
there's less when using it on a knife like this this type of
military knife that might be used for piercing, more
efficient at that means less effort exerted to Pierce. Here's
where things take a little bit of a caveat when we're talking
about production knives. We see this kind of all over the place.
You know, there many companies wind up doing this. This way,
you can see the swedge on this knife doesn't actually come all
the way to the tip. So while Yeah, it's removing a bit of
thickness of the spine here. It's not actually making the
point or the tip itself. Any more acute or any more piercing
ready, just removing some of the friction behind that. Like I
said, we see that all over the place and example actual This
protest is perfect. When it's done. I don't want to say when
it's done right, because the way the Ka-bar is doing is not
technically wrong. But you can see the line of that swedge on
that protest coming right to the tip. So you're really Angular
rising the point of that blade even more, making it that much
more efficient at zip piercing tasks. The other thing a swedge
can be useful for is removing drag removing friction along the
spine, not in a Pierce but in other types of cuts. Think of it
like, like a like an airplane wing, you've got this edge here
that as you're moving around moving through some things,
there's less drag and even more readily apparent is when you
look at a knife like this Civivi Badlands vagabond, with a full
spine length swedge. Essentially, you've got a lot of
reduction of friction right there. And it works even in a
straight push cut, because the forced thickness of the blade
itself only happens kind of along one point, as opposed to a
whole kind of flat bevel. You might see on something like that
Kershaw Leek, which has a switch out here near the tip, but you
take my meaning, and yeah, a little bit more efficient,
they're definitely more efficient. If you're needing to
make any kind of curved cut around something that's going to
come into play much more readily. So that is the point of
a switch. All right, now we come to our lightning round for
today, which all are kind of in response to this knife right
here. This, if you hadn't seen last week's FAQ, go check it
out, we dyed the white FRN scales of this knife to look
like a piece of candy corn was a lot of fun to do. And it
generated a lot of comments. So we're gonna go through a couple
of them unfold as far as scale dyeing goes, could you not mask
off sections using tape and then apply the dye using a sponge or
brush if you're trying to get a multicolored end result, or does
the dye only take if submerged for a period. As for the tape, I
haven't tested this, but I was a little worried about two things
about the dye soaking through to what was underneath. But also,
when you're dealing with a knife with texture, you're not
probably going to be able to get a good seal anyway, as for
dipping and brushing or brushing on the die to work on this sort
of thing has to be kept at a pretty high temperature. And by
the time you dip come out and start to brush, it's honestly
not going to be hot enough. Even if it was you're not going to
get an even coverage because you're going to be going over
the lines and the more dye you put on, the darker it gets. So
you're going to have a lot of overlap. And you're not going to
get a clean result such as this. Unless you actually dip. That's
what you're looking for. If that's what you're looking for
cool, but it's not going to work anyway, so it's not gonna be hot
enough to keep the room hot. It's gonna be really hot.
Anthony Maselli are my chili not sure. Protip don't use hot glue
for your masking material, which is what we use to use nail
polish. It works very well even in the hottest parts of Rit dye.
cool tip. Plus, it's very easy to remove with acetone or nail
polish remover. So I've used acetone on G 10. Before when I
make my own knives and no problem. However, if you're
starting with any kind of plastic, such as the FRN,
fiberglass reinforced nylon here, acetone can do some pretty
nasty things to plastic like materials, eat it up for bid
stay away. If you're doing that I would I would say for sure.
that sort of thing. So
The other thing I wouldn't want to use nail polish on would be
micarta especially if it's not a high polished finish because
it'd be a bear to clean up I think even with acetone, but
I've used acetone on micarta too. It doesn't doesn't hurt
things for me. So cool tip though. Veni Vidi vide. Then
even the best as for another Halloween themed knife, maybe
the CRKT crossbones. Cool knife, but Crossbones seems a little
more pirate themed to me. But several, I saw some pirates.
Well, sure. But that's Halloween theme this few people through
the Crossbones six suggestion out there, so I figured I'd
bring it up. Now we come to our last question of the day, which
is, of course our Most Serious question of the day, which comes
from scuba diver. I wear a suit and tie every once in a while.
Do you have any suggestions for a knife that could be used as a
tie clip, and be worn as an accessory for this form of
clothing? Although I am a knife, nut and enjoy more high end
materials and do not mind spending money on quality of
life should not be more expensive than Thomas's truck.
We'll get to that in a minute. So my first thought was CEO
compact from CRKT. It's got this nice, clean, deep carry clip.
That would work pretty well. Maybe can be a little longer
maybe. But you said maybe you want to spend a little more
money. Thomas how much is your truck 1500 Oh, perfect. This
knife is not more expensive than Thomas this truck. Is $5 cheaper
than Thomas's trucking bargain. wearing a tie Why not something
from Brian tie himself. Which led me to thinking Oh, there's
the CRKT the tight Pack. Perfect. They don't make the
Titanic anymore. Also, it's not a higher end knife. So how about
this twist tie? OTF $1,495 right now. And how cool would that
clip right there look poking out next to or on top of your fancy
necktie. You got a dama steel or something milled down the steel
clip with what looks like a synthetic Ruby as a ball bearing
there. I'm not sure what the material is actually, you're
gonna have a little bit of handle sticking out because it's
not a deep carry clip. But there you go. Hope that helps. You
just looking at that and thinking of the collateral next
year truck probably has better mileage. Yeah, probably. That's
all we've got for today, folks, make sure to leave your
questions down in the comments. We'll keep this series going. If
you want to get your hands on any of these knives, check out
the links in the description. Those will take you to
KnifeCenter.com and while you're there, don't forget about our
knife rewards program because you got to buy a knife right?
Might as well earn some free money to spend on your next one
while you're at it. I'm David C. Andersen from the KnifeCenter
That's Thomas behind the camera. We're signing out. See you next
time.