Knife Collecting

• Purchase Price: $7
• Maker: Unknown
• Blade Length: 14 1/8″
• Blade Material: Hardened carbon steel
• Handle: Hand-carved wood
• Handle Design: Dropped at butt
• Collar: Aluminum conduit
• Knife to Know: Blade has a forged distal taper; handle butt flared to enhance purchase
• Weight: 12 ozs.
• Overall Length: 20″
• Sheath: Wood with handcarved details
• Sheath Weight: 3 ozs.

I received a bolo made in the Philippines from my friend, Mike Key, as a gift a couple of years ago. He went on a three-day search for good bolos made from carbon steel in villages, not the souvenir type. He was successful in his quest.

I ran a triangle file down the edge and it skated off, an indication the blade is hardened steel for sure. The forged blade has a smooth distal taper, starting around 3/16-inch thick down to 0 inches at the tip. The knife sports hidden-tang construction. The wood for the sheath and handle are from a local shop in the Philippines. Of course, a blade must cut no matter where it’s made.

Cutting Tests

Up first: the paper slice. Despite a coarse edge, the bolo still managed to give clean slices in 20-pound bond paper. Normally, a bigger blade is cumbersome slicing paper, but the bolo has a perfect balance due to its distal taper.

A pool noodle was next on the test menu. The bolo was very aggressive on the plastic foam. I held the pool noodle suspended in air with one hand and sliced it. The knife is very controllable and the handle is indexed perfectly.

Next up: chopping into a hard cardboard tube with the noodle inserted to prevent wall collapse. It worked on the first two chops, but then I hit too close to the previous pair of chops and the tube crushed under the force of the blows. Still, the blade made it halfway through the tube.

When you have trees encroaching on your property, you have to take steps to keep your yard clear. One such branch had scraped me for the last time while I was mowing the lawn. Its 2.5-inch diameter was a breeze for the bolo. Five whacks and the branch was down.

I dragged it away from the fence to whack it into smaller pieces. This is what the bolo was designed to do. One chop per branch and it was in pieces quickly. Just a wrist snap carried the blade halfway through a 1.5-inch-diameter branch. The bolo is a very fast chopper.

A note on the wooden sheath: It’s flat on one side for resting against your body and slightly rounded on the other. The maker even added some hand-carved detail into the wood. Excellent workmanship!

A big thank you goes out to Mike Key for finding this gem of a bolo for me.

Changes

On a blade this long, I would like to see a pin in the handle for a mechanical connection.

Final Results

The bolo is a very balanced working model. You can use it all day without wearing your hand or arm out. It exhibits great workmanship in the forging and the woodwork!

Blade Counts Count

Custom slip joints are hot again and have been for a while. Why are they so hot and how long will their popularity run this time?

“I have seen a bit of an uptick in pocketknife sales in the last couple of years,” notes custom knifemaker Stan Buzek, whose turnaround time on orders is three to four months. “I think this is due to the fact you can have both multiple- and single-blade slip joints,” as opposed to the single blades of tactical and other locking folders (though lockbacks are experiencing somewhat of a surge in sales, too).

A Bright Future Ahead For Slip Joints

Adds Johnny Stout, who has a backlog of six to eight months, “From what I’m seeing at the shows and online in the past few years, pocketknives are alive and well. I see a bright future for slip joints.”

“I have seen slip-joint groups on Facebook grow by 300 percent in the last three years,” Tracy LaRock states. “I also have a group called ‘Making Slip Joints and Lockbacks’ that has grown a lot recently, with many new slip-joint makers.”

As for his sales, Tracy says, “My books are closed but I intend to open them in early 2020 when I retire from the military. In the meantime I list available pieces in my Facebook group and on Instagram.”

Pocketknife Sales Are Up In General

“I think there’s an upswing in pocketknife sales,” Tom Ploppert agrees. “Plus, a strong economy hasn’t hurt anything.”

Tom says he continues to take orders and has no idea how far behind he is.

“I will write an order down. I do not take deposits. I will call when it’s your turn. If you commit, then we will discuss price and I will start on building it,” he says matter-of-factly.

Turnaround time notwithstanding, the exquisite slip joints by Stout, Buzek, LaRock and Ploppert are well worth the wait—though you might want to get a leg up now. The more demand increases, the longer you’ll have to bide your time until you can get your hands on one of these gems.

See More Knife Trends In KNIVES 2019

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In Japanese sword culture, menuki are handle charms, often tucked under the silk wrappings of stingray skin grips. Like all aspects of Japanese swords, the charms are handmade—fashioned one at a time, sculpted, carved and engraved. They are for decorative purposes only, though one could argue that, if appropriately shaped, they’d add palpability, and perhaps, if lucky charms, good omens for sword wielders.

Knifemakers being knifemakers, whether American, German, Nordic, Australian, Indian or South African, these little handle charms have not gone unnoticed. They’ve been adopted by knifemakers wanting to add more elements of intrigue to their knives.

A knife’s ability to perform the cutting chores for which it was designed is the first priority, but ask any knifemaker, and he or she will tell you that form follows function. And sometimes it’s the aesthetics of a knife that catches the eye of a potential buyer.

So knifemakers pay attention to the details. They add amenities, embellish the pieces and fashion handle charms. And knife collectors are charmed, we’re sure.

See More Unique Knives at BLADE Show West 2018