Gravity knives are legal in New York due to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signing a bill in late May repealing the state’s gravity knife ban, but the win comes with several label warnings.
For instance, gravity knives—or any knife, for that matter—with blades 4 inches or longer remain illegal in New York City. Also, a recent state case has redefined switchblade to include assisted openers. Meanwhile, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who strongly opposed the repeal of the gravity knife ban, reportedly said he would not stop the arrests and prosecutions of people who carry what are basically common folding knives.
Despite the ban’s repeal and the efforts of such common-sense knife organizations as Knife Rights and AKTI, the current New York state of mind remains as it has been for quite some time: one big anti-knife muddle.
After Nine Years, It’s Still Not Over
“After nine years of fighting, it is a relief to close the book on this extraordinary abuse of authority by a corrupt system that has terrorized over 70,000 honest, law-abiding people, disproportionately minorities, for simply carrying a common tool used daily in their lives,” Knife Rights Chairman Doug Ritter said.
As cited in Cuomo’s signing statement, it didn’t hurt that in another recent case a New York federal judge issued a very narrow ruling saying that NYC’s “wrist flick” test was unconstitutional, though in limited circumstances that did not substantially impact the ability of the city and DA to continue their arrests and prosecutions. Before the federal judge’s ruling, the wrist flick test had been used by the courts to determine whether a knife was a gravity knife.
If You Live In or Travel to New York…
Despite the repeal of the gravity knife ban, New York remains a minefield of knife restrictions. As a result, Knife Rights suggests that you never carry a knife in New York City with a blade 4 inches or longer, nor carry your knife clipped to your pocket.
If you plan to carry a pocket-clip folder there, Knife Rights suggests you remove the clip so you don’t inadvertently attach the knife to your pocket after use. Always ensure your knife is completely concealed at all times, including not “printing” on the outside of your clothing.
In addition, be extremely cautious about using a knife for any purpose in a public setting.
The Latest: “Undetectable Knives” Now Illegal In New York
As Knife Rights reported, Gov. Cuomo recently signed into law a ban on “undetectable knives.” What counts as “undetectable?”
From Knife Rights:
The definition of an “undetectable knife” is: “any knife or other instrument, which does not utilize materials that are detectable by a metal detector…that is capable of ready use as a stabbing or cutting weapon and was commercially manufactured to be used as a weapon” (emphasis ours).
This leaves plenty of room for the same kind of overreach that made the “gravity knife” ban such a disaster:
The new law is unlikely to accomplish anything worthwhile, but rather will give law enforcement and prosecutors another way to harass what will almost always be innocent victims of another poorly conceived and unnecessary knife ban.
A question often asked is, “How in the world do I sharpen seat belt cutters?” It’s not really as difficult as you might think. All you need is the correct sharpener.
The Best Sharpener for Seat Belt Cutters
The DMT FSKC serrated sharpener is a great choice for tuning up seat belt cutters. (DMT image)
Because you’re sharpening a cutting tool that has limited access to the actual cutting edge, I recommend something like the DMT FSKC serrated sharpener. It is a coarse-grit, diamond-coated, tapered rod commonly known as a rattail file.
Sharpening Seat Belt Cutters
Working the cutting edge from the ground side only, carefully work the file with light pressure, ensuring you run it over all of the exposed cutting edge.
On the reverse side of the blade, which is flat, feel very carefully for the burr that will form. Once you feel the burr, you know you have done it right. On the flat side, take the rattail file and, holding it as flat to the blade as you can, lightly “wipe off ” the burr. You might have to return to the ground side to wipe it back to the flat side.
Stropping Seat Belt Cutters
Another thing that helps is stropping the inside of the hook with a leather shoelace. Have someone hold the unsheathed/opened blade by the handle for you, then firmly grasp both ends of the shoelace and lightly “floss” the inside of the cutting hook. Move the leather string only in one direction—down the cutting edge. If you move into the edge, it will cut the shoelace in two.
Repeat the correct motion a few times to strop the ground side. It is basically the same principle as stropping a straight razor.
Sharpening Tips
Provided you don’t use the cutting hook for anything outrageous, such as cardboard, and you use it sparingly, you won’t need to sharpen or strop often. However, in the event you do need to restore the edge, this is how it’s done.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of many major battles that turned the tide for the Allies in World War II. D-Day, Bastogne, Anzio, Monte Cassino, the Leyte Gulf and more are forever etched in the minds of many millions of people. Yes sir, 1944 was a very bad year for the Axis.
For those who fought in those titanic struggles for freedom, 2019 designates the last of the major anniversaries they will see. Most of whom are at least 90 and older today, they obviously won’t be around for the centennial celebrations in 2044. Of course, many of the rest of us won’t as well, but then we didn’t serve in “The Big One,” as Dad liked to call it, either.
In a world that seems bent on forgetting its past, the Greatest Generation members who won that war, both at the front and the loved ones on the home front—including my parents—are unforgettable. No matter race, gender, creed or nationality, the Greatest Generation represents most of what’s good, wise, brave and kind about humanity.
Memories of them are indelible because their deeds are manifest in the subsequent accomplishments and successes apparent everywhere on the globe, including from the bounty of the USA to the remarkable recoveries of two of the Axis powers most devastated by the conflict: Germany and Japan.
Custom Knives & World War II
Bo Randall’s Model 1 journeyed to all theaters of World War II alongside U.S. forces. (Randall Made Knives photo)
The argument can be made that the custom knife industry can trace its roots to World War II. It was during the war that such knifemakers as BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Fame® members Bo Randall, Rudy Ruana, William Scagel, M.H. Cole and Dan Dennehy made knives for the troops. Dennehy, in fact, both made knives for the troops during the war and also served in it, joining the Navy in 1940 and seeing action in the Saipan, Philippines and other campaigns.
Other well-known makers to fashion knives for the troops during the war included Floyd Nichols, Hoyt Buck, David Murphy, John Ek, Donald W. Moore, Frank Richtig, E.W. Stone, John Nelson Cooper and no doubt more. Each played a role in inspiring what today is the modern custom knife industry.
World War II: Special Tasks Required Special Knives
The Case V-42 opened up new possibilities in knife design, proven on the battlefields of World War II. (Case photo)
And then there were those who used knives in the war, people such as U.S. Army Corporal Eugene “Gene” Gutierrez of the First Special Service Force (FSSF). It was the FSSF that carried the legendary Case V-42 dagger and was comprised of specialists in mountain climbing, skiing, demolition and airborne ops.
Gene Gutierrez
Wounded eight times in combat, Gene was with the FSSF when it scaled the 10,000-foot-high Monte la Difensa in the Italian campaign and dislodged the occupying Germans.
The climb was “pretty much straight up,” he said of the monumental effort. It took all night under one of the heaviest artillery barrages of the war, but the Forcemen made it up the mountain and routed the enemy. Later the FSSF was inserted at Anzio, where they pushed the Germans back again.
According to Gene, the Forcemen also were specialists in psychological warfare. While on night patrol they would paint their faces black and, after dispatching Germans, leave notes on the vanquished enemy bodies that read, “The worst is yet to come.” The Germans who found the notes nicknamed the Forcemen the Black Devils, aka the famous Devil’s Brigade.
Ninety-eight now, Gene is one of the last of a rapidly vanishing breed. The surviving Forcemen get together for reunions when possible, and Gene has served as the president of their association twice. They are among the leading members of the only generation that is truly unforgettable.
In the knife world, titanium has been at the forefront of space-age metals for well over two decades, due in great part to the boom in the tactical knife genre borne out of the first Gulf War in the early 1990s. Titanium was originally used in the U.S. space program for its weight savings and toughness, and from there bled into military programs for the very same characteristics.
Titanium is also nonmagnetic, proving useful in certain applications. While tough, titanium is softer than steel, and although some knifemakers have used it as blade material, it never quite caught fire like the new exotic stainless steels that dominate the upper end of the market today.
Aluminum is also nonmagnetic and anodizes quite well, but it gets little respect in the knife industry because as an extremely soft metal it’s considered an inexpensive alternative to titanium.
Titanium is a reactive metal—its characteristics can be changed by outside influences. Heat-treating knife handles or dipping them into an electrolyte solution that has been both positively and negatively charged color enhances the metallic surface. The amount of heat or electric charging can be varied by the amount of direct heat or voltage applied, and this determines the color hue that the metal takes.
Learn More About Knifemaking in the World’s Greatest Knife Book
Nitinol, also referred to as “Ni-Ti-Nol,” was first discovered back in 1959 by scientists William Buehler and Frederic Wang at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory. The Ni-Ti-Nol acronym stands for “Nickel-Titanium-Naval Ordnance Laboratory.”
Beuhler and Wang were searching for a super-elastic alloy for missile nose cones that would be pliable at extreme heat, yet return to its original shape after cooling. Their efforts were a success, but because the incredibly tough alloy was so difficult to process and machine, it wasn’t used until much later.
Knifemaking Discovers Nitinol a Half-Century Later
Duane Dwyer of Strider Knives was the main force behind SM-100 (HIPTiNite), and his signed custom Strider MT2 showcases a brilliantly heat-treated SM-100 blade mated to machined carbon fiber handle scales. (Brady Miller image)
Custom knifemaker Duane Dwyer of Strider Knives became interested in Nitinol back in 2005 while searching for a super hard metal alloy that would not rust. He approached metallurgist and friend Scott Devanna, vice president of technology at SB Specialty Metals, and inquired about the possibility of producing Nitinol using the particle metallurgy process, which had never been done.
Shortly afterwards Devanna introduced Dwyer to Eric Bono, a metallurgist and knifemaker who also had an interest in the alloy, and the three men began to explore the possibilities of incorporating the alloy into knives.
Nitinol Becomes SM-100 (HIPTiNite)
Duane Dwyer of Strider Knives was the main force behind SM-100 (HIPTiNite), and his signed custom Strider MT2 showcases a brilliantly heat-treated SM-100 blade mated to machined carbon fiber handle scales. (Brady Miller image)
With his metallurgical knowledge and experience, Bono developed a working, powdered metal version of the alloy in 2006, which the partners dubbed “SM-100.” It took several more years to refine the alloy and processes, and in 2009, Bono and business partner Fred Yolton formed a company, Summit Metals LLC, to produce SM-100.
Since that time, SM-100 (60 percent nickel and 40 percent titanium), which the company markets under the name “HIPTiNite,” has garnered interest not only in the knife industry, but also by NASA and the Formula 1 racing industry.
Properties of SM-100
The SM-100 brand of Nitinol, like its forerunner, is extremely tough. While a typical sanding belt can be used to grind several typical, mono-steel knife blades, it requires several belts, in many cases six or more, for the same process using the SM-100 alloy.
Made and sold in small quantities, the cost of SM-100 isn’t cheap. Add to that the cost of belts and additional time to shape and grind the material, and the cost per knife skyrockets.
On the positive side, SM-100 is noncorrosive, and while stainless steel will rust, Devanna says you can throw an SM-100 knife into saltwater for 50 years without the material corroding.
An Explosion of Coloring
Bono discovered during his development of SM-100 that it can be heat colored into an exquisite rainbow of colors. Due to the titanium content, SM-100 oxidizes into a blaze of bright hues just like other alloys incorporating titanium, but the process of achieving the color effects is quite different.
Bono confides that the magic happens during the heat-treating process, in which he allows small pockets of air to leak onto the surface of the knife. Prior to heat treating, the blades are wrapped in foil and small holes are punched into the wrapping.
When heat treated, different colors occur depending on the oxygen content of certain areas of the blade material as the surface oxidizes. The end result is the explosion of color on the SM-100 blades.
The price for bright, eye-popping colors doesn’t come cheap, but then new innovations rarely do.
Editor’s note: The below is an excerpt from an article originally published in the KNIVES 2018 book, but it still rings true today. Hardly anyone is talking about dive knives, but they come with the kind of history and innovation that is ripe for collectors. They truly are the sleepers of knife collecting.
Shown here are the author’s piles of dive knives purchased for bargain prices at gun shows and flea markets.
Dive knives present an opportunity for collectors to get in on the “ocean floor” of an industry segment. Other than modern, imported low-end knives, vintage dive knives are often the lowest priced blades at a gun show or flea market. The overwhelming majority of dive knives are easily acquired for between $5 and $40 apiece, similar to how U.S. military knives and theater-made knives were priced years ago, before folks woke up and recognized their true value.
They say the sea, not space, is the last true final frontier. Dive knives have been the personal tools of undersea explorers for as long as there have been divers. What the bowie knife was to the West, the dive knife is to the sea.
Before You Buy, Know the Pricing Ceiling
Dive knives are currently the “sleepers” of the knife world, and investment opportunities abound for the collector who has an interest in such pieces. Before we look at inexpensive dive knives, one should be aware of the pricey ones available today.
There are some expensive, desirable dive knives out there now, many coming from high-end makers. The expensive pieces are often associated with military and sporting uses, and include, but aren’t limited to, Randall, Gerber, Puma, Benchmade and Mission Knives & Tools, or those made specifically for the military.
Becoming familiar with expensive dive knives may help one find a bargain and to recognize certain qualities that make a dive knife valuable. Additionally, the expensive dive knives lay the foundation for price appreciation of the vintage sleepers waiting out there for savvy collectors to scoop them up.
Bargain Buys
When it comes to bargain dive knives, one sees names such as U.S. Divers, Healthways, Wenoka, AMF Swim Master, AMF Voit, Sportways, Dacor, Scubapro, Scubaskin, P.I.C., Eternal, etc.
The general pattern of the knife is a stainless steel blade with a plastic or rubber handle and sheath. There are models that can be picked up for incredibly low prices, and for what one is paying, “it’s worth it just as a knife.” It’s those kinds of investments that seem to be can’t-lose propositions, although nothing is ever guaranteed in life.
The sturdy Wenoka dive knife was designed by Blackie Collins.
Wenoka knives are some of my favorites. They were very well made in Japan. There is a wide variety of models. The larger Wenoka dive knives have a great, sturdy feel and are nicely designed for the task at hand.
Note the heavy brass guard and butt of the high-quality, U.S.-made AMF Swimaster dive knife.
The AMF Swimaster is a beautiful, well-made knife, very high quality, serial numbered, with a heavy brass butt and guard, and made in the U.S.A.
Healthways offered the “Skin Diver,” a double-edged blade made in Solingen, Germany, with a large, red cork handle.
The nickel-plated P.I.C. dive knife boasts a 1918 trench knife-style handle that protects the user’s knuckles underwater.
The P.I.C. Model 728 “Sea Hunter,” made in Japan, is also of high quality. It is easily recognized by its handle, which is a nickel-plated replica of the 1918 World War I trench knuckle knife. Many such dive knives were made in Japan, and even a dive hatchet, which was a hatchet, pry bar and hammer combination set that came in a vinyl sheath was available.
Buy Low Now, Sell High Later
There are so many variations of dive knives, and they appear to be limited only by the imaginations of various makers. The collector now has a chance to reasonably acquire these fascinating knives that were once strapped to divers exploring the underworld of the earth.
This article was excerpted from KNIVES 2018. Click the cover to order the book directly from the publisher at a great price.
Editor’s note: Ken Warner, the visionary behind and original editor of the acclaimed KNIVES annual book series, recently passed away. In tribute, BLADE is featuring this article from the August 2009 magazine issue about this titan of knives.
The turn of a phrase, the flow of the narrative, and simply getting the story straight are hallmarks of the writing craft. BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer® Ken Warner brought the ability to perform each of these, along with an unmatched eloquence, to the knife industry.
Universally, knife authorities acknowledge him as the individual who lifted custom knives out of the shadows. He helped to accomplish this with a straightforward, crisp, and clean writing style that captured the imagination of readers for nearly half a century.
A “True Poet” of the Knife Community
Warner edited and wrote much of the first Knives annual in 1981. The series went on to transform the knife industry. He continued editing the annuals until 2000. BLADE managing editor Joe Kertzman assumed the reins beginning with the 2001 edition.
“Ken Warner is the true poet of the knife community,” related BLADE field editor Ed Fowler. “While he did not write the most knife articles, what he did write was worth reading and serves as an eloquent inspiration for all who have thoughts to share. He had no axe to grind other than to share knowledge. As a fledgling knifemaker, I used to read his comments and soon learned that he knew well his subject matter.”
Though he is not currently writing—he instead stays busy offering a wide range of fixed blades and folders through his Ken Warner Knives knife company—there is always the possibility that Warner will return to print. Meanwhile, he says he is becoming computer savvy enough to run a knife forum on the internet and to continue his online blog (kenwarnerknives.blogspot.com). He also stays busy designing knives.
“I’m 80 years old,” he reflected, “and I have some things I want to say and there are some stories I can do that nobody else can do because I was there. I will get to that when I get to it.”
Forging a Path
Blade Magazine Cutlery Hall-Of-Famers Bill Moran (left) and Ken Warner were good friends. According to Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer B.R. Hughes, Warner was the first to write about Moran and his knives in a national magazine. Here Moran and Warner visit and talk knives at an early 1980s Knifemakers’ Guild Show. (photo courtesy of B.R. Hughes)
Literally, when custom knives began to gain national and international attention, Warner was there. In fact, he was the prime mover in publicizing the work of the knifemakers. As a writer for the popular annual Gun Digest, he started writing about knives in 1964. That first article, titled The Best Knives Made, has been reprinted numerous times.
Back then, though, it was a challenge just to get enough material to put a story together.
“I could hardly find any knifemakers,” Warner commented. “I found [Bill] Moran and [Bo] Randall, and Buck was small then and I wrote about them. However, a number of knifemakers and collectors have told me that the article got them started. Bob Loveless, for example, has told me that he was about to give up making knives because it wasn’t going any place. Then, he read the article and decided that somebody would understand. There was a time that I was actually giving away Loveless knives just to see what people thought of them. Butch and Rita Winter were pre-eminent collectors of handmade knives, and they told me I got them started.”
A Calling
Educating the general public about knives evolved into something of a mission for Warner. In 1976, he wrote The Practical Book Of Knives, a primer of information on the mechanics, components, function and terminology associated with knives. Through editorial contributions to a number of publications, he has managed to spread the word.
Along the way, he has gained a multitude of friends and admirers. One of the closest was with the legendary Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer, Bill Moran. BLADE field editor and Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer B.R. Hughes, co-author of the Moran biography, Master Of The Forge, credits Warner with his introduction to the great bladesmith.
A Man of Many Firsts
Ken Warner’s The Best Knives Made article in the Gun Digest 1966 book was a game-changing moment for what is now the modern knife industry.
“Ken was one of the first to write knowledgeably about handmade knives, and he’s important to me personally because he’s how I heard about Bill Moran,” Hughes remarked. “Ken used to live close to Moran’s shop and visited there often. He was the first to write about Moran in a national magazine. He mentioned Moran in the Gun Digest article in 1964, and that article did more to publicize handmade knives than everything written about them up to that time.”
Of course, Moran, Hughes, Don Hastings and Bill Bagwell went on to found the American Bladesmith Society in 1976 and the rest, as they say, is history.
Hughes said he remembers working at a magazine called Gunsport in the mid-1960s and Warner was the editor. Even then, Hughes knew Warner was something special.
“Ken’s writing was a cut above what I was used to seeing in a gun magazine,” Hughes continued. “I soon became shotgun editor of Gunsport, and no gun magazine of that day was going to publish a lot of knife articles, but Ken got a knife article in there from time to time.”
When Warner left Gunsport to publish his own magazine, Gunfacts, the idea of writing about knives had caught on.
Hughes said he recalls a memo circulating to ask if anyone else at Gunsport had an interest in or knowledge of handmade knives. Hughes raised his hand, contacted Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer A.G. Russell for a crash course in handmades, and took up writing about knives himself.
The Knives (KNIVES) Books
The cover of the knife book that started it all.
For many, Warner’s greatest single contribution to the knife industry was not that first article in Gun Digest, nor his continuing effort to publish knife stories in popular magazines. Rather, it was the publishing of the first Knives annual in 1981 that sparked what became an explosion of interest in handmade knives.
“The big thing with Ken is that he mainstreamed knife interest, and everybody credits him with that,” assessed Cutlery Hall-Of-Famer Bruce Voyles, with whom Warner co-authored the book Knives Digest in 1999. “That, in my opinion, was not his greatest contribution. That came when he got the Knives series started. For the first time you had a listing of not just a particular organization’s members but all knife people. You also had pictures. It was a snapshot of the state of the knife industry at the time, particularly handmades—and the industry was pretty disorganized at the time unless you were a member of the Knifemakers’ Guild.
“I think he gave tremendous publicity to people that had not gotten publicity,” Voyles continued. “Plus, there’s something that most people will not notice about him unless he has edited something they’ve written. He’s one of the most gifted editors I have ever known in any genre. He takes average stuff and makes it sound good, and makes good stuff sound fabulous while making it flow easily. The different thing about Ken’s writing and editing is that Ken made it readable. Most of the stuff before Ken was clumsy, and he made it interesting. He could make the phone book interesting. One of my favorite quotes was when his former wife said some years ago, ‘Ken has the most annoying habit of being right most of the time.’”
Recognition
Ken Warner inducts Bruce Voyles into the BLADE Magazine Cutlery Hall Of Fame at the 1993 BLADE Show Awards Banquet in Stone Mountain, Georgia. From left: George Herron, A.G. Russell, Buster Warenski, the inductee, Paul Tausig, Joe Mangiaracina, Warner, Houston Price and B.R. Hughes. All but Tausig and Mangiaracina are in the Cutlery Hall Of Fame. Along with Col. Rex Applegate, Hughes joined Voyles as an inductee that year.
Among the many happenings during his association with Warner, Voyles will never forget that it was Warner who organized Voyles’ induction into the Cutlery Hall of Fame at the awards banquet of the 1993 BLADE Show. It was Voyles’ 40th birthday, and Warner took the stage to announce—to Voyles’ surprise—that he was being inducted by acclamation of all living members of the hall at the time.
When Warner and A.G. Russell were inducted into the hall at the 1988 BLADE Show, each was invited to the banquet to provide the introduction speech for the other’s induction. Neither Russell nor Warner knew they were being honored themselves.
“Ken said at the time that as long as there was a BLADE Show, he would eat the BLADE Show’s rubber chicken,” Voyles grinned. “Then, the next year we presented Ken with a rubber chicken and taped a knife that he liked inside the chicken’s mouth.”
Warner is also a member of the ABS Hall Of Fame and counts the society’s prestigious Don Hastings Award among his many honors.
A Lasting Legacy
The most recent KNIVES annual book on shelves is KNIVES 2019.
Fowler said Warner was the right man for the successful development and promotion of what has become a virtually indispensable part of the knife industry, a book which will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2020.
“Thanks to his knowledge, editorial ability, choice of writers and relevant topics, Ken started a legacy to the knife community that continues to this day,” Fowler noted. “Ken knew the difference between a hunter and an art knife, as well as the pretenders, and described each knife eloquently. Many of his one-sentence comments were worth hundreds of words. He inspired many makers through his comments on design, steels, handle materials, leatherwork and scrimshaw. Reading back through my collection of his books, I find many of his comments that I once glanced over were far from simple but offered great understanding and predictions of the future and well being of our community.”
A Renaissance Man
The Warner SGG is a knife of all work, with lots of belly and a good bit of sharp. The blade is 5 inches of 10CR17 and, of course, is convex ground all the way. The drop of the grip puts the edge where it is needed. (Warner photo and caption)
Warner, it turns out, is something of a renaissance man as well. Fowler related sharing a huge bowl of crab legs following the BLADE Show a few years back.
“We debated the styles of Steinbeck and Hemingway, as well as other great authors, what makes poetry great, and the responsibilities of authors,” Fowler recalled. “I learned that everything we write is an echo of our total experience. The more we read and the greater our personal experience, then the better we will be able to express our thoughts. There is no question in my mind that Ken Warner has been, is and continues to be one of the great, if not the finest, of icons of the community of knives.”
Perhaps the greatest test of a true “living legend” is that he has contributed to his lifelong interest, building something where little or nothing existed before, and assuring that his influence will last long after he and his contemporaries are gone.
In the case of Ken Warner and the knife industry, there is no better definition.
