Cash for Clunkers

(I quickly cropped this photo to protect the "innocent") It is being sold as a custom knife. To be honest, it is one of the $19.95 versions.

There are people who call themselves knifemakers who are basically forging plowshares into knives. They take a piece of barstock, grind a low bevel about 3/8 inch up the blade, slap on some handles, and call it a custom knife. They charge you a custom price to make you feel like you got a custom knife. I could name a few of them who charged exhorbitant prices for their "custom" work but I haven't. Folks these are not custom fighting knives, they are chisels. You might cut open boxes or pry open doors with them but you are paying cash for clunkers. Can a heavy piece of bar or round stock be hammered or ground into a credible fighting knife? You bet it can! But it takes someone with rare talent and an eye for line, proportion, and balance. Can a small knife be used successfully for defense or a big Bowie flow lightly in the hand? Yes, yes is the simple answer. Finding the right people to make them is the difficult part of the equation. There are even production examples that fit our criteria but they are quite rare and maybe we will talk about some of them at a later date. There is an “aliveness” to a properly made fighting knife. I am not sure that a description of that feeling can even be written. Not every knifemaker will be able to duplicate that feeling in every knife he makes. It’s like people. We all know some people who are vibrant with life and others who are as exciting as a dog pile. (Remember our header says “always brutally honest.”) A person might be the most fastidious, detail oriented, knifemaker alive and still not be able to breathe life into a blade. In fact many of the over-polished, perfectly executed knives are dead in the hand. You will know the difference once you pick up a live one. If you want to know what the dead ones feel like, go to your local mall-ninja store and pick up a bunch of the shiny, stamped out stainless steel cadavers lying in their display case. There is a reason they only charge $19.95 for that huge Chinese Rambo-style Bowie. Live blades are going to cost you a lot more.

I just received my third blade from Johnathan Mitchell, this sweet little kwaito. The shipping box weighed more than the knife itself. Now here’s a hint, don’t base your knife selection by weight, its not like buying hamburger. This kwaito is formed from very thin titanium, not a metal commonly associated with traditional Japanese knives. I guarantee that you will not pry open any doors with this kwaito without destroying it. That’s not what it was designed for. If I were stupid enough to press my finger against the blade, with even moderate pressure, it would cut me to the bone. This knife is designed to cut flesh. Interesting that it has a bat menuki on the handle, a blood sucking Vampire bat maybe? On the other end of the size scale is this “working class” Bowie I received from my good buddy Matt Lamey. It is forged from round stock and the spine is nearly a ¼ inch thick. No need to pry open doors with this one either, just chop your way through, and once inside do what you need to do. This knife, like all of Matt’s knives, comes hair shaving sharp but it also comes with the gusto that only a kukri or a Bowie can bring to a fight. Neither one of these knives can be gotten for $19.95. This goes back to the old saying, just what is your life worth?