BLADE Magazine

Whether it’s because of knife restrictions, portability or preference, these little blades aren’t too cute to cut.

• CRKT Snicker
• Camillus Heater
• KA-BAR Last Ditch
• Hogue A01 MicroSwitch

CRKT Snicker

The CRKT Snicker debuted at BLADE Show 2017 and exemplifies the growing trend of blades measuring less than 2 inches.

“It serves a niche for those looking for a small blade that will tackle a variety of tasks and is a solid performer for CRKT,” explained company spokesperson Mike May. “Ease of use and ‘approachability’ are two key factors that make blades of this size popular. In areas with strict knife laws, the sub-2-inch blade can also help alleviate any concerns. In the case of the Snicker, its style and ergonomics make it an attractive small knife for consumer pockets as well.”

• Blade Length: 1.846″ (46.89 mm)
• Blade Edge: Plain
• Blade Steel: 420J2, HRC 50-52
• Blade Finish: Stonewash
• Blade Thickness: 0.106″ (2.69 mm)
• Closed Length: 2.938″ (74.63 mm)
• Weight: 2.3 oz
• Handle: Injection Molded Glass Reinforced Nylon
• Style: Folding Knife w/Locking Liner
• Overall Length: 4.688″ (119.08 mm)

Camillus Heater

When Camillus launched the Heater in 2015, the idea was much the same.

“It has and continues to be an extremely popular model since it debuted,” noted Sam Dodge, Camillus senior brand manager. “We can attribute this to two factors: function and convenience. We find that people are purchasing a knife for different jobs or tasks. The fact that the knife comes in a slightly smaller package makes it more convenient to [store].

“There are still purists that will have ‘one knife to rule them all,’ but more and more we see that people want a knife for each activity.”

• Blade Treatment: Carbonitride Titanium
• Blade Color: Black
• Blade Edge: Smooth
• Blade Grind: Hollow
• Blade Style: Spear
• Fixed Blade
• Handle Color: Black
• Hand Orientation: Left and Right
• Includes: Chain, Molded Sheath, Clip
• Handle material: Stainless Steel + Paracord
• Main Blade Material: 440
• Rockwell Hardness: HRC54
• Lifetime Warranty

KA-BAR Last Ditch

The KA-BAR Last Ditch, commonly worn as a neck knife or laced into a boot, hit the shelves in 2008 and has been a top seller ever since.

“I think two of the biggest reasons why knives with blades under 2 inches are popular is due to concealability and ease of carry,” said Joe Bradley, KA-BAR sales and digital content manager. “Many folks don’t like to draw attention, and sometimes even an exposed pocket clips will do that. Small blades offer a tremendous blend of being lightweight with a small footprint.”

• Overall Length: 3.625″
• Blade Length: 1.625″
• Blade Material: 9Cr18MoV
• Hardness: 58-59 RC
• Blade Style: Wharncliffe
• Blade Grind: Flat
• Finish: Black
• Edge Type: Plain
• Handle Length: 2.00″
• Handle Material: Stainless Steel
• Color: Black
• Weight: 2.40 oz.
• Sheath: Molded Polymer
• Knife Type: Fixed Blade

Hogue A01 MicroSwitch

The A01 MicroSwitch has been a hit since it was widely distributed in autumn 2017.

“It has been difficult to keep it in stock since its release,” he said. “It is the smallest knife in the Hogue Knives line, and there has been tremendous interest in it. It moves briskly at trade shows, through dealers and over our retail website.”

Crook considers many factors that weigh in on the wave of popularity in small knives. Among these is the company’s location in California, where he says anything larger in an automatic is illegal.

• Blade Length: 1.95″
• Overall Length: 5.8”
• Closed Length: 3.85”
• Weight: 2.7oz
• Mechanism: Automatic Button Deployment with Manual Safety
• Handle Material (Frame): 6061-T6 Anodized Aluminum
• Pocket Clip: Stainless Steel Ambidextrous Tip Up Carry
• Blade Style: Drop Point
• Blade Thickness: 0.12”
• Blade Material: CPM154 Stainless Steel
• Blade Hardness: RC 57-59
• Blade Treatment: Cryogenically Treated
• Blade Finish: Tumbled Finish

The World’s Greatest Knife Book

The KNIVES annual book is back and better than ever. Here’s what you can expect:

• 320 pages
• Beautiful, full-color photos of knives and accessories
• Comprehensive directory of custom knifemakers
• In-depth features about knife collecting and making knives
• Examples of the latest trends in knife designs and knifemaking materials
• Edited by Joe Kertzman

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What do professional chefs look for in a chef’s knife? We asked two pro chefs, both fans of knifemaker Don Nguyen. Their answers are instructive not only on Nguyen’s work but chef’s knives in general.

“Thin Behind the Edge to Win”

Kolter Livengood is a chef at Brightwok Kitchen, “a veggie-focused, Asian inspired restaurant” in Chicago. Detail and aesthetics, with an equal emphasis on testing, are some of Livengood’s requirements in a chef ’s knife.

“A great deal of consideration is given to the ‘knife life’ or how the blade will be sharpened away over time,” he observed. “How the knife tapers both from handle to tip and spine to edge give the ability to maintain that geometry for 20 to 30 years depending on use and original blade size, making the appropriately high-priced tool seem very affordable over time.

“Don’s knives tend to be thicker at the spine, yet taper to being extremely thin behind the edge. This seems simple but it’s the subtle convexity from spine to edge that gives the knife its incredible feel when cutting. The thick spine gives the knife weight, a weight that by no means makes the knife heavy, and assists with downward momentum, which makes a huge impact on how the knife feels when cutting. The spine is also perfectly rounded, which, when combined with its thickness, makes it extremely comfortable and less damaging to the hand. The convexity aids in separating the food that’s being cut from the bulk, and since the blade is not flat, foods like potatoes and cucumbers don’t annoyingly suction or stick to the side of the knife when chopping.

“‘Thin to win’ should be amended to ‘thin behind the edge to win,’ as I much prefer a knife with heft and zero spine flex to the chef’s knives with 1-to-2-millimeter spine thicknesses popular from 2009 to 2012.”

Single-Beveled Knives for the Win

Taro Kobayashi, a chef at Mame, a sushi restaurant in Eugene, Oregon, uses Nguyen chef’s knives.

“The short gyuto I have at home for everyday tasks from poultry and fish butchering to dicing vegetables,” Kobayashi noted. “It is just a good, all-around bruiser. It is a bit thicker for a Don knife but I really enjoy it since I can just ‘go ham’ with it. Ha-ha! That almost sounded like a kitchen pun. Sorry.”

Kitchen standup comedy notwithstanding, Kobayashi’s favorite Nguyen chef’s knife is a 240-millimeter model of W2 tool steel and a lightning-strike carbon fiber handle.

“I use it to slice fish and other proteins while making sushi,” the chef noted. “Even though I am a bit old school when it comes to knife use and love single-beveled knives for fish slicing and sushi preparation, I can’t help but use this one sometimes. It’s easy on the hands, easy to sharpen and takes a keen edge. I was a bit worried about the handle shape until I used it. It’s one of the best designs aesthetically, but you would not know how good it feels until you get it in hand and abuse it.”

Learn More About Popular Knives

You’ll find the latest custom chef’s knives and more in KNIVES 2019, the world’s greatest knife book.

Editor’s note: This article originally ran in the May/June 1991 issue of BLADE magazine. With the death of President George H.W. Bush on Nov. 30, 2018, it seemed appropriate to look back at an impressive custom knife presented to the 41st president in the early ’90s.

by Nathan Burdette

Daryl Meier wasn’t in the best of moods on a gloomy January day. His knife forge/shop had recently been burglarized and his son was about to begin Army boot camp at the outset of Operation Desert Storm.

“Maybe this interview will cheer me up,” one of the standard bearers of pattern-welded (or damascus) steel sighed. “Nothing else has gone well lately.”

He had to be kidding. Barely a month before he’d presented his revolutionary American Flag blade, a blade with American flags on it so true to the original that each will stand up to microscopic inspection, to President George Bush at the White House.

But then Meier is not your typical 9-to-5 working stiff. A case in point: He said the more meaningful part of the White House trip wasn’t so much meeting the president as was the two-hour plane trip sitting next to and conversing with Illinois Gov. Jim Thompson, who had arranged the knife presentation after seeing Meier’s work featured in a local newspaper.

The fact that Meier rejects the American dream of two cars in every garage and a boat in every driveway is not news to those who follow the knife scene. He’ll be the first to tell you that his mother raised him to be independent, and that independence is reflected in a lifestyle lacking in creature comforts. He resides in a log house of his own construction and makes a living selling his pattern-welded steel to knifemakers and manufacturers. He also teaches workshops and gives symposiums on the fine art of pattern welding. “I teach workshops from time to time, but I don’t do it for the money, though even that doesn’t amount to much,” he notes.

Instead of acquiring money, Meier is more interested in amassing knowledge, specifically, knowledge of how the ancients made pattern-welded steel and how he can improve on their time-tested methods. He traces the earliest pattern welds to as early as the 4th or 5th centuries B.C., and by the 4th or 5th centuries A.D. he says blacksmiths were able to control the patterns in the steel to a certain degree.

Meier says letters or words first began to appear on pattern welds between the 5th and 8th centuries, though the letters or words were forge welded on the surface of the finished blades. It wasn’t until the 18th century when a French smith named Coluet devised a method to make the word “Liberty” appear on a sword blade that letters or words were forged throughout the steel rather that on it, Meier notes. Between 1875-1925, he continues, gunsmiths refined the technique of words in the steel of pattern comforts. welded gun barrels.

Able to figure out how to forge words into the steel simply by looking at pictures of such works, Meier forged his name in a blade in 1978. But it wasn’t until the American Flag blade that he was sufficiently inspired to make what he calls “to date the most intricate thing done” in the genre.

“The tolerances (in the American Flag blade) are much tighter than in my name blade,” he begins. “The flag (there are actually 13 flags in all on the blade) that appears on the blade has 50 stars in it, each of which has five points, and which are arranged in five rows of six and four rows of five stars like on the standard flag.”

Talking about the work that went into the American Flag blade got Meier started and he wasn’t about to stop.

“I sweated blood to make that blade right. I could’ve made something that looked suggestive of what I made but then it all has to do with the philosophy of how you do a thing. That’s what’s prevalent in our society. We’re too cost conscious and few of us are willing to pay the full price for a good product,” he exclaims. “You’ve either got to say, ‘I’m going to make something I’m proud of or you’ve got to get out of the business.”

With that kind of attitude, let’s hope Daryl Meier stays in the blademaking business for a long time.