All aboard! This train bound for another episode of Sino-silliness, Chinese chicanery, Oriental oddity, and points Eastward.

Insomuch as it has a name, this is the "Originality Pendulum," third of three by our friends from YESISOK. But that, of course, is only the first tidbit of its name, which makes it sound like it ought to be a Lancrastian resident. As usual its full name is longer and rather less melodious: It's the "Originality Pendulum Folding Knife Mini Sharp Stainless Steel Fruit Knife Carry Key Chain Pendant Portable Open Express Knife." If you expect to actually use this for fruit, I'll just say there is a definite upperbound limit of fruit to which it'll be applicable.

Rarely can we judge a book so readily from its cover. The Originality Pendulum is a breath of fresh air in that respect, since it's easy to see precisely what it has to offer.

Originality is right. Yes, this is a small slip joint folder that's long on the joint but a bit short on the slip. This is because it has what can only be described as a real live and functional locomotive drive arm on it. The arm is spring loaded and is what serves as a detent to keep the blade positively, albeit gently, held in its open or closed positions. For this its maker consistently refers to it by using the word "pendulum." I don't think that quite means what they think it means. I would have said "piston," personally, but what do I know? We'll roll with it anyway.

That's because this is pretty rad, it must be said. I'm just chuffed to bits over it.

The Originality Pendulum is definitely angling for the keychain knife or possibly urban micro-EDC category. It's quite small, but not unusably so: 4-3/16" long when open with a pseudo-sheepsfoot 1-1/2" blade. It's 2-11/16" long when closed and just 0.280" thick across the flat of its handles. The piston mechanism actually sits proud of the handle slightly and bulks the whole thing out to about 0.322". The blade has a section of sharpened edge just a hair under 1-5/16" with a genuine choil behind it, so that all of the short length is at least usable. Of course, exactly what that blade is made out of is a bit of a mystery, per usual. The specifications claim it's 7cr which is certainly within the realm of plausibility but it's likely we'll never know for sure. Still, for a novelty miniature knife that's likely to be used only for non-demanding tasks, that's probably fine.

It's 42 grams precisely or 1.48 ounces, being made entirely of steel of one description or another, except for the piston which is prominently made of brass. So it's small and arguably light enough that you genuinely could dangle it alongside your keys. Or, perhaps, from your pocketwatch chain. Here it is with a quarter for scale.

There's no thumb stud or anything but there is what amounts to a fingernail nick on the form of a triangular hole through the spine of the blade. You might think this is for use as a thumb hole like a Spyderco knife, but not much of it is left exposed sticking out of the handle and it's really too small to access with your thumb. A fingernail really is the best way to get at it. There are some ridges around the spine and a small heel on the back of the blade, though, so you can just barely and with a fair bit of practice open this as if it were a rear flipper. It's not easy, though, because the piston is indeed spring loaded and it will want to snap the blade back shut if you don't manage to rotate it far enough. Fair dues, though, once you get it tipped past the halfway point it'll snap the blade open for you instead.

If you're used to a traditional small slip joint folder the Originality Pendulum is actually a bit easier and, if you ask me, a lot nicer to use. It's not as tightly sprung, and its spring action is longer and more progressive. It feels like it's working with you rather than against you. It feels more modern and refined, despite basically just being the same thing arrived at via a silly avenue.

There's no clip or anything but there is a hole on the tail you can use for a lanyard or keyring. And this time you actually can use it, without interfering with the function of the knife... The maker (or possibly seller) demonstrates such in this picture, which I've gleefully stolen because it means I don't need to bother to put forth the effort to find a keyring and then take my own. Hey, this must be efficiency. (While we're at it, get a load of those fake keys!)

Surprisingly, the Originality Pendulum's product photos are 100% accurate, which for fly-by-night Chinese cutlery may actually be a first. For instance, no polishing job whatsoever has been done on the taper grind on the blade. It's left with machining ridges on it so pronounced they'll stop your fingernail if you rake it across. But that's exactly as it's depicted in all of its photos, so you can't say you've been misled. Also, that grind may in fact actually be flat. Or if it's not, it's a hollow grind that's so subtle it's impossible to detect as such. The flats, meanwhile, are very shiny. Nearly mirror polished. The net effect is kind of attractive, but if you know what you're looking at it does broadcast "cheap."

What's carefully not depicted is the back side of the knife, probably because it's boring and just flat:

It's got a satin bead blasted finish which doesn't look too bad, though. I would have liked to maybe see a small clip here as well, but given that this retails for $10.27 at the moment -- tariffs and all -- at that price you probably can't have everything. It didn't come with its own keyring, either. Nor a box; it just shows up in a plastic baggie.

Obviously I was drawn to this purely for its mechanism and I was far less concerned about the rest of its qualities. It's a bonus, then, that this thing manages not to be complete crap in the bargain.

The Originality Pendulum is definitely built on a budget, but it's still surprisingly competently put together. Mine, for instance, barely had any lash in the pivot.

The cost saving features include making all three of its assembly screws identical: The two at the tail and the one through the pivot are the same. The pivot is spaced out with some small brass washers, which is a damn sight better than what I was expecting, which was nothing. That explains the solidity of the blade on its pivot, and its lack of rubbing against the handle plates.

Here's the piston, which we all know is what we really came here to see. It's two pieces, a hollow tube that comprises the rear half and a rod that goes to the front. There's a tiny coil spring inside which provides the, well, springiness. This is what keeps the blade held in either of its two positions. There is also a fantastically tiny spacer that goes between the end of the piston arm (which is threaded!) and the blade, keeping the former from rubbing against the latter. If you ever one of these apart, do not drop that part on the carpet lest you never see it again.

The end of the piston attaches to this screw, which is sunk into a machined pocket on the back face of the blade. The screw spins freely in its hole here and machining this pocket into the blade must have contributed a nontrivial amount to this thing's production cost.

The hardware. None of the screws have anti-rotation flats on them and they are threadlocked from the factory, so you will need a T6 driver in each side to disengage these, should the urge ever strike you. The pin there is the endstop for the blade which lands in the choil when it's closed and the heel of it rests against when it's open.

The edge grind is not exceptionally fine, but mine arrived sharp enough to be serviceable for light package-openeing duty, at least.

It appears that a slight secondary apex has been put on the edge which is presumably what actually manages to make it sharp, or at least as sharp as it is. At the angle the primary edge is ground at, the two sides wouldn't have actually met at the apex.

The tip is not especially pokey because it's been rounded off slightly in this process, as you can see. I imagine the final sharpening was probably done by hand. (The backdrop here is a random piece of mail I had on my desk, which the microscope reveals to actually be printed on security paper. Hence the rather festive 1990s confetti pattern, there. They say you'll discover a whole new world under a microscope, and it turns out they were right.)

You can see here how different the edge angle is on either side. In all honesty I've seen worse in terms of factory trueness even on much more expensive cutlery, and 7cr isn't exactly a difficult steel to sharpen. Given this knife's short edge length to begin with, fixing this up if it annoys you should easy for anyone equipped with pretty much any stone, and a modicum more care and skill than was possessed by whoever-it-was at the factory. I don't think either of those will be an especially tough bar to clear. So making this little tacker unwisely sharp should be the work a mere moment.

The Inevitable Conclusion

There's just something about the way the Originality Pendulum works that inherently makes any man or boy grin. It's probably the locomotive-adjacency to its mechanism. It ought to come with its own miniature conductor.

It's steampunkishness is there, for sure, but it's restrained. More subtle. Refined.

Less in your face. It's much more New Atlantis than New Atlanta. A gentleman's (or woman's) knife, then.

If this were sold by The Sharper Image I'll bet it would cost sixty bucks. But it's not, so you can have one for not much more than a single Hamilton. You could absolutely use this in polite company and if you did, the comments you'll receive would probably all be positive.

In case you couldn't tell, I really like the Originality Pendulum. Even despite its cheapness and its stupid name. Every once in a while that happens, with what you thought for sure was going to be a piece of junk worth it only for the memes turning out to be a genuine diamond in the rough.

The problem is, that'll embolden you, tempting you to buy the next one. And then... Well. You know how it usually goes.

Pure, unadulterated cool. The cat's pajamas. That je ne sais quoi, distilled.

Style, folks.

Everyone wants it. This knife's got it.

This is the CobraTec Gideon, in its silver and abalone incarnation. Which is, of course, not only absolute swankiest but also the shiniest version. Hey, if you're going to ride into battle against the Midianites you may as well do it while looking fabulous.

CobtraTec is an American knife company based in Texas, but for most of you they're probably not one of the household names. But based on some internet sleuthing, I have a pretty good hunch that they're actually the force behind the Böker balisong knives we like so much. That drew them to my attention initially, but their catalog of fairly samey out-the-front switchblades thoroughly fails to captivate me.

But then, there's this.

The Gideon is a side opener. But you'll note the utter lack of thumb stud, button, switch, toggle, latch, or plunger. It's profile is svelte and nearly completely smooth.

You'll never guess how it opens. Go on, just try.

This is part of CobraTec's "Hidden Release" series. And not even, you'll be surprised to learn, the weirdest of the bunch.

This is its opener.

To set it off you slide the diamond textured bolster to the side. Its spring action is quite firm, and you need sharp eyes to notice the hairline gap between this and the handle which'd clue you in that it is in fact a moving component. It's pretty damn unlikely that anyone would figure out how to open this if you didn't tell them or they didn't already know.

The Gideon is precisely 7-1/2" long when open, with a 3-3/8" long drop pointed blade made of 154CM. CobraTec call the blade "3 inches." To be fair, that's roughly the length of the usable portion of the edge. It's subtly hollow ground with a thin, stiletto-like profile. It's 4-1/8" long closed, and 0.481" thick across its sleek aluminum body not including the clip. It has a pleasing density at 76.4 grams or 2.68 ounces, but thanks again to its aluminum handle it's not especially heavy overall.

All of this makes it uniquely suited to EDC duty for sufficiently stylin' people. With no crossguard, protrusions, or other greebles on its surface it rides superbly in or on your pocket. (What? All of the sudden my CQC 6K is silver again? No, silly, I have two of them.)

It's got a traditional pocket clip with a single position only, tip up carry for right handed people. The clip is not very tightly sprung and since the Gideon's abalone handle insert is completely smooth this means it draws supremely easily. There's just enough retention that it won't fall off of its own accord if it's dangled upside down while clipped to normal-ish fabric (i.e. my shirttails, which I just tested this with) but if you're the sort to be habitually rolling around in the mud upside down while Solid Snaking it in the bush, I think it goes without saying that the Gideon is just maybe not the knife for you.

There is a lanyard hole on the tail of the knife which is left exposed even when the knife is clipped.

There are indeed ambidextrous knives in the world, with thoughtfully symmetrical controls suitable for both righties and lefties.

The Gideon is absolutely not one of them.

Never mind the irreversible clip. The opening mechanism is accessible from one side, and one side only. This one, shown here with its textured bolster. Left handed users will probably find this uniquely difficult to use. CobraTec invite you instead to go whistle. That, or buy one of their myriad of out-the-front models with a spine mounted switch instead.

You've all watched me spend a lot more on pure nonsense, but at a list price of $130 the Gideon is still not exactly cheap. To make up for it, it's packing a deceptively intense amount of precision machine work. It starts with this snake's head embossed in the bolster opposite the one you use to open it.

Come to think of it, CobraTec's logo looks distinctly viperid. I wonder if anyone ought to tell them that, uh, cobras aren't vipers.

You get it again on the blade, along with the Gideon's steel descriptor. There are no other markings.

It's also assembled very, very competently. Every part of it feels incredibly solid. There is no wiggle in the blade, and it doesn't touch either side of the handle despite the minuscule clearances around it in its channel.

It's also got a fully concealed pivot. When CobraTec were constructing this monument to elegance they absolutely weren't fucking around. The Gideon reveals none of its secrets about how it's constructed from the outside. The only visible screws are the three holding on the clip, and a single lone one in the tail immediately behind these.

Undoing this doesn't lead to much, either. The Gideon's pivot must be press fit; the two halves of the handle can be separated minutely with the tail screw out but the pivot remains resolutely locked together regardless of any amount of wiggling, twisting, or trying to slide a spudger up the gap. Beyond this I'm disinclined to fool with it -- It's a side opening automatic which means that the blade is under spring tension all the time, which means even if I did get it apart it'd go "sproing," and then be annoying to reassemble.

CobraTec backs this with a lifetime warranty. But I'll bet you that won't cover breaking it trying to get it apart.

From the outside we can see that the Gideon is actually a lockback mechanism. The sliding bolster is attached to a hook on the backstrap, and this seesaws on a cross pin in the usual way with spring motive provided by a leaf spring underneath. This is separate from the one for the blade itself, which is presumably a torsion spring. Unusually for a lockback, of course, the lock engages in both the open and closed positions so that the thing won't spring open in your pocket. You can't open the blade manually, despite appearances.

The Inevitable Conclusion

This may be sacrilege, but despite its show-off looks and price tag I actually bought my Gideon to be a knife to use -- not just for looking at.

Sure, at $130 it's not cheap in an objective sense. But that's only before you start comparing it with other American made automatics. The Covetousness Tax ensures that switchblades remain expensive these days, but if you ask me you can spend a whole lot more on one than this and get rather less for your money.

The Gideon's got a lot going for it in that respect. Its textured anodized handle does a great job at hiding fingerprints, it's extremely solid, and 154CM is still a quite competent alloy. All in all, this may just be the ultimate gentleman's knife.

And for fuck's sake, it's still $50 cheaper than a Benchmade Bugout. Come on. You can't tell me this isn't at least 300% cooler than a Bugout.

I am not a Spyderco guy, which is an notion I've opined several times before.

This goes a long way towards explaining why I have five of the damn things. But to be fair, one of them is a pen, one of them is a balisong, and one of them is made out of freakin' wood. The fourth one is boring, and we won't talk about it here. Yet.

I will at least say one thing about Spyderco, which is that they're darn consistent. It's got to be a hard day's work over there making all those models that are the same damn knife. Triangular blade, flat grind, big hole instead of a thumb stud. It's like the bagpipe song. Sometimes they play it fast and sometimes they play it slow, and sometimes they play it backwards. But you can't fool me, guys. You can call it whatever you want but it's still always the same song.

It's no wonder, then, that every once in a blue moon one of their designers probably goes a little stir-crazy and gives us something like this.

This knife probably holds the crown for shortest time between my learning about how it worked and there being one on the way to me in the mail. This kind of thing isn't a fetish, I tell you, it's a romantic abnormality.

Anyway, this is the Spyderco JaniSong. Designed by Michael Janich, hence the name, Spyderco's marketing department goes on to describe it as, "a one-of-a-kind folding knife that elevates the spirit of the traditional Filipino balisong to a practical yet dramatic modern cutting tool."

Although it very clearly isn't a balisong knife, you say.

Except it is. But it isn't. Except it kind of is.

The What?

Look, this is going to take some explaining.

The JaniSong takes the idea found in the last two stupid knives we looked at and carries it all the way through to its logical conclusion. This is thus another one of them there balisongs-with-one-pivot arrangements. With the key distinction of, this one's not dollhouse sized and it actually works.

It's much, much larger: About 8-1/4" long, 4-15/16" closed, with a 3-1/4" flat ground S30V blade in a drop pointed profile with, yes, a hole in it.

Here it is with a short list of, if not its peers exactly, at least a couple of knives in its EDC size class. You genuinely could carry this around and use it for stuff.

Its core conceit is that it has an inner handle inside its outer handle, and the blade inside of that. All of this shares one pivot.

And rather than a traditional tail latch, it sports this sliding switch that locks everything in either the open or closed position.

The inner handle/blade carrier thing swings out freely along with the blade itself, the latter of which hits an endstop at the 180 degree mark while the inner handle can swing all the way around to a full 360. Then you can flip the inner handle freely back and forth, ultimately slotting it back into the outer handle but leaving the blade out. It has its own separate 180 degree interface with the blade so grasping it along with the main outer handle keeps the blade solidly deployed. Or if you prefer, you can slide the switch back up and totally lock everything solid.

The jury's still out on just how practical and/or dramatic this may be.

The How

Thus the JaniSong is trapped somewhere in the space between a traditional pocketknife, a gravity knife, and a balisong.

It can be opened via a subset -- but certainly not the entire litany -- of balisong-esque maneuvers.

Partly that's down to being short an entire pivot point, but mostly it's down to the unequal distribution of weight between all of its parts.

With its steel liners and G-10 scales, the JaniSong weighs a not inconsiderable 153.3 grams or 5.41 ounces altogether. But while its inner handle is made of steel plates the same thickness as the outer liners, it's lightened with speed holes and has neither the scales nor the lock attached to it, so it weighs noticeably less than the outer handles. The blade is likely somewhere in between, and that puts the point of balance just about a half of an inch rearward of the pivot screw... when both the blade and the inner handle are fully swung out. The inner handles on their lonesome thus carry considerably less inertia without the blade than with it. Just a smidge too little inertia, in fact, if you ask me. This means an unequal and much more concerted flick of the wrist is needed to bring the inner handle back than it was to send the combo of inner and blade away.

Spyderco claim in their literature than the JaniSong is "safer" than a traditional balisong because the only handle you can grasp is the safe handle. That's so, but consider that a fair few of the more advanced opening tricks require starting with the bite handle, in particular the various finger rolls e.g. the Y2K, precisely because doing the inverse would put the edge in contact with your fingers. So maybe don't try to pull any of those with the JaniSong unless you're either very brave or your knife is very dull.

The ol' reliable double windmill works well enough, though.

The JaniSong has two more wrinkles related to its action. The first is that where and how hard you grab its main outer handle has a slight but noticeable impact on how free the pivot action is. And the second is that it exhibits a distinctive and pronounced bounce off of its endstops, which you can see in this slow-mo:

The latter is only something to get used to, but the former requires constant care and attention lest you set yourself up for looking like a bit of a berk.

The Details

Considering that the JaniSong has an MSRP of $314 and retails for the thick end of $235, it goes without saying that Spyderco put an awful lot into it. And let's face facts, even with the best will in the world nobody is going to be picking this up from a hang card at their local sporting goods store.

It's a sandwich consisting of no less than seven layers, including all four liners, the blade, and both G-10 scales. It's very square with no protrusions to snag, but it's still a chunky number at 0.605" across its scales and 0.762" thick including the clip. That's over three quarters of an inch, which is a lot.

The blade is ostensibly a drop point but has a pronounced belly, with a distinct out-and-back recurve to it. It's nearly symmetrical, so you can decide whether not this is enough to count as a leaf point or a spear point.

The clip is indeed a deep carry design, and it's picked out with the Spyderco logo laser etched into it. In typical Spyderco fashion it is reversible and repositionable with a total of four locations for both tip up and tip down carry, or in this case whatever you prefer to actually be able to bust this thing out. You'd better remember how you set up the clip and which side is which afterwards, because otherwise the JaniSong has absolutely no tactile indication whatsoever as to which side the blade comes out of, and from the outside it appears 100% symmetrical.

You'd think this jimping would help you identify which side is which, but it doesn't. That'd be too easy, you see. It's exactly the same on both sides.

One side of this particular mushroom bears the Spyderco logo again and steel descriptor.

The other has the Michael Janich designer's mark rune, and manufacturing origin listed as Taichung, Taiwan. Neither side indicates which makes you larger or smaller.

I don't have a little .gif of me wiggling the blade around on this like the last two, because the blade doesn't wiggle. Some how, some way, Spyderco has managed to make this rock solid. It doesn't rattle either around its axis or laterally, which I guess is what you get for $235 rather than $3.

The Parts

Needless to say, I absolutely had to see how this thing works on the inside. But that said I really don't recommend you try to take your JaniSong part unless you absolutely have to. Content yourselves with these pictures, secure in the knowledge that I am a highly trained moron; this knife is designed by nerds, for nerds, and is absolutely stuffed full of pitfalls and booby traps vis-a-vis tiny easily lost parts that absolutely will fall out and disappear the moment you crack the sucker open.

For instance:

Here's what's underneath one of the scales. It seems simple enough, with the lock bar extending down the sides and its little toggle switch that rests on top.

...Which is detented with a tiny ball bearing that is just in there loose, completely unrestrained in any way.

Ripe to just fall out, and it absolutely will unless you're ready for it. Preferably with a small but powerful magnet. There's also a minuscule spring inside each of the lock switches which is very nearly but not quite captive, and prone to falling out precisely at the most inopportune moment.

Each half of the lock bar also includes a drop-fit guide pin which can leap out and roll away.

Here you can see that it bears phosphor bronze pivot washers. I would have liked to see ball bearings which surely would have cured the inconsistent pivot feel problem but also probably made it even thicker. Oh well. Also in evidence is the semicircular track for the end stop pin which is pressed into the blade. There's one each on the inner handle and outer liner plates and, yes, it is absolutely possible to install the former backwards because of course it is. Greasy fingerprint and stray hair optional -- I was too lazy to edit these out.

And I will be stuffed if I'm taking this whole damn thing apart again just to retake that one photo.

Because the JaniSong otherwise breaks down into a frankly absurd number of components, as befits and justifies its status as an enthusiast's knife. This includes a bevy of no less than six diabolo spacers, four of them threaded and two of them not; a scad of screws, 12 in all; two springs, two ball bearings, two guide pins, all easily lost; four phosphor bronze washers and their attendant pivots; four plates, comprising both the inner and outer layers; one blade, two scales. And the lock bar. And a partridge. And a pear tree.

And reassembling it is quite tricky.

Here are two thirds of the spacers, as they ride in the tail of the inner handle. The bite you see taken out of it is for the lock, which slides to the rear when disengaged:

And slides forward into that notch when engaged, holding everything in place:

You can also click it into its locked position while the inner handle is swung out in between someplace, which accomplishes nothing but can allow it to bash into the lock's barrel spacer, probably dinging both it and the edges of the inner handle plates depending how much gusto with which you go about it, and detracting from your collector's value in the process. So maybe resist the urge to do that.

Here's most of the hardware. Note that the main pivot screw has an anti-rotation flat, and be mindful of this before you start reefing on either screw head. This lineup is also short two screws from the scales, because I forgot I left them in their holes which you can see in the main disassembly photo above, and didn't realize it until it was too late. Look, I'm just chuffed that I was able to get all of this lined up without anything rolling away, all right?

The Why

That's the big question, isn't it?

Well, why not? We climb the mountain because it's there. We collect the weird knives because they're weird. I think that's really the JaniSong's real purpose for being, despite any post-hoc mumbling Spyderco may do about making a balisong design that's "safer," or whatever. Because not only is that the definition of a fool's errand, but we wouldn't have it any other way, would we?

So it's weird. And I know that's what you all paid your tickets to see. So there you go. Nobody can say you didn't get your money's worth.

You know, I like to think of what I do here as a public service sometimes. I am honored to make it my duty to find these inevitable types of blogspam EDC gadgets and be the one to belly up to that checkout page and say, yes, I will take one of the team and put down my $7.46 to determine once and for all of said item is utter crap. Because someone has to. For science; for the betterment of mankind.

Here is the "D2 Blade Titanium Alloy MINI" from, which I did not twig to at the time, our good friends YESISOK. Its full moniker is the "D2 Blade Titanium Alloy MINI Gear Folding Knife Multifunctional Outdoor EDC Self-defens Tool Outdoor Portable Utility Keychain." (The E fell off, presumably in some manner of industrial accident. Perhaps similar to last time.)

It's another one of those twin handle/single pivot jobs. Except this one's got fuckin' magnets.

This knife makes a fabulous fidget toy because its entire deal is its retention mechanism, which is solely comprised of four small neodymium button magnets flush mounted in the tips of the handles. They're oriented so that the handles elegantly snick into their open and closed positions with basically zero effort, and no other mechanical consideration required. Which is just as well, really, because as we determined last time such mechanical bits are at this price point very likely to go slightly wrong.

Rather like unto a balisong knife and quite a bit unlike most other pocketknives (those not appearing in this column, anyway) the D2 Mini's two handle halves swing in opposite directions meeting up with each other again at the 180 degree mark, leaving the blade exposed. And since the retention is magnetic you can even with a bit of practice do this with one hand. If you just manage to shove the handles vaguely near enough to either of their home positions the magnets take over and snap them home for you.

You can also of course just fidget with it incessantly by sliding the magnets across each other, without actually deploying the blade. It's even unlikely anyone watching would notice that the thing is even a knife, unless you were dumb enough fully deploy it in their presence. Rather, it's not unreasonable to assume that it's akin to one of those magnetic sliding playing card fidget thingies, which is not too far off the mark in any case.

But rather than a playing card motif, the D2 Mini is very minimalist chic, just a rectangular lozenge with twin faceted handle plates and otherwise eschewing any other decoration. It still excels for this kind of use case since it can be actuated reasonably quietly (and with practice, can be done in near silence), doesn't require any open space around it so it can be manipulated in a hoodie pocket or under your desk where nobody can see, and if you ask me it provides a rather satisfactory tactile experience.

Somewhat disappointingly the spec chart for this one is a little bit less amusing than last time...

...But it's probably close to accurate. The handle slabs claim to be made out of titanium and it's possible that they genuinely are. A magnet does not stick to them, and they're once again in that category of too dense to be aluminum and too light to be zinc. The blade might even genuinely be D2 as well. Damned if I can tell, but for the price it's unlikely to matter. If you're expecting an exhaustive edge retention testing regimen on this, well, prepare to walk away disappointed.

There are really only two problems with this, if you even want to call the first one a problem. Like its predecessor, they don't have "MINI" in the name all in caps for nothing. This is quite small: Just 2-13/32" long when closed and 3-3/8" long open, with a titchy little 1-7/16" long drop pointed blade. The blade is 0.98" thick, so far from robust, but with its stubby shortness this is unlikely to be an issue. The handles are dead rectangular with rounded corners and edges, 0.688" across, and the entire ensemble is 0.380" thick from peak to peak across its handle slabs. It weighs 39.2 grams or 1.38 ounces, another clue that a large portion of it may indeed be genuine titanium.

Look how weensy. Isn't it cute.

Edginess

I did not initially expect to write anything about the D2 Mini's cutting capability. It's a $7 fidget toy from China, and it'd take three of them just to comfortably fill out the Zippo pocket on your jeans. You're not really expecting anything groundbreaking, are you?

Hawk-eyed readers of course noticed the chip in the edge in the blade photo above, however, which is precisely as it was delivered from the factory. If you missed it, here it is under high magnification:

This isn't the end of the world but beats me how it happened, because the D2 Mini has absolutely no spacer pins, pegs, screws, or indeed anything at all that the edge could have contacted in any part of its operation.

The blade rests neatly in a machined pocket in one half of the handle, and its travel is restrained by a pin that rides in a little semicircular groove cut into one of the slabs. You'll see more of that later.

All that aside, I was floored to discover that its blade geometry is precisely 20° per side, or a 40° combined edge angle. So dressing that chip out of the blade took all of about four seconds on my Spyderco sharpener at one of its stock blade angles, with no effort.

The grind is also even and consistent all the way to the point which is a rare breath of fresh air with cheapies like this. All in it could have been a lot worse, and while I could have done without the chip in it right off of the starting block, at least it was trivially easy to make it possibly unwisely sharp.

Gubbins

The D2 mini is only held together with one screw. It's only lightly threadlockered and required no gymnastics to remove other than sticking a plain T8 Torx driver in either side.

Contrary to all logic, reason, or expectation it's got ceramic ball bearing pivots. At its current price point it may be literally cheaper to buy one of these, throw 95% of it away, and just keep the bearings to stick in your next custom knife. At the moment a pair of 6mm inner bore ceramic thrust bearings retails for about $10, bought in non-bulk quantities.

This is all the hardware you get. Or need, for that matter. This is industrial design simplification taken all the way to its maximum extent.

The handle slabs are pocketed to accept the bearing races and here you can also see the track for the endstop pin to ride in. The machine work is impeccable. Say what you like about the Chinese, but they have this sort of thing down.

Well, except for one thing.

The endstop pin isn't 100% accurate in its track so there is a bit of rotational rattle in the blade. If you're holding the handles it's not going anywhere beyond that, mind you -- having it fold up on your knuckle is out of the question. There's no lateral play, either, thanks to the bearings. And when it's in the closed position you can't rattle the blade by shaking the knife, either, probably due in no small part to it being restrained magnetically due to its proximity to the magnets.

That's not the annoying part, though.

The Annoying Part

This is billed as a "keychain" knife. There's a hole all the way through the tail end of it, perfect for installation of said keyring. In fact, my example even came with one in the package.

Except.

You've figured it out already, haven't you?

The keyring hole has to separate when you pivot the handles. With a ring installed you can't open the knife.

That really renders the entire exercise pointless. They may as well just not have drilled that damn hole in it, for all the good it does you.

The little zipper-tab knife we looked at previously solved this by relegating its loop to only one of the handle halves. Whoever designed this was altogether too clever by half, but not quite clever enough.

The Inevitable Conclusion

In that race to have one more bullet point on the spec sheet, sometimes it's possible to go one step too far.

So it is with the D2 Mini, which would be tough to call anything but perfect -- especially considering that it's so cheap that it's near as well free -- except that some dipstick somewhere decided that it must have one more feature, and absolutely insisted that somebody drill that fucking keyring hole in it. This simple inclusion moves the D2 Mini's slider quite firmly from "neat" and sets it to "dumb." Because everyone's going to be annoyed by that, and that stench of ineptitude will follow it around forever. Now it's a joke. Can you believe these morons? R&D doesn't talk to the guys in product testing, am I right? With those kind of skills, these guys ought to be designing cars. Har-de-har, et cetera.

What a drag.

IS OK? YES?

IS ARE SURE?

Yes, today is more faceless made-in-China garbage. Straight from Aliexpress again this time. This one drew my eye because it explicitly bills itself as "mechanical" in its product description which is, in full: "Stainless Steel Mechanical Folding Knife EDC Mini Paring Knife Keychain Portable Emergency Self-Defense Knife Express Cutter Too." (Presumably the L fell off, unless in Lionel Hutz tradition it's actually, "Cutter, too!")

"Um, actually, surely all folding knives are inherently mechanical, by their very definition," comes the inevitable comment from some clever individual. Yes, Melvin, we are aware. But plugging that into your search query is often an shortcut to finding the weird stuff.

And the other reason I clicked on this is because its "brand," insofar as any of these types of things may actually have one, is listed as "YESISOK." Perhaps ironically.

I am not making this up.

Behold such tremendous features as:

• Sharp Blade: Yes
• Blade Material: Stainless Steel Trowel
• is_customized: No

Truly, we are living in the future.

The Yesisok is also fantastically small. If you had a bit of creativity you could probably just about employ it as the tab on a zipper pull on your bag or jacket, and you'd probably get away with it unnoticed in a number of places.

Maybe forget I said that last part.

It's just 2-3/8" long when closed and the slightest hair under 3-5/8" long open with a teensy little 1-3/8" blade. That's 6.0325, 9.2075, and 3.4925 centimeters en metrique, so at least we can say one thing on the spec sheet is actually accurate.

In its blurb it claims to be made of 4Cr13 steel which is feasible, given that this alloy is both very cheap and very Chinese. It's straight backed with an upswept tip, and at 0.079" thick but only 0.288" across it must be said that its bevel is very steep.

Steep enough that if you are habitual jig sharpener it may actually give you some trouble, since the primary bevel is close to 35 degrees. The actual apex is even steeper still, as close as I can figure to a full 40 degrees per side, coming out to a combined 80 which is very nearly square.

So this will never be a chopper or surgical slicer, but despite all expectations it does come out of the box reasonably sharp enough to serve as a dinky little package opener, envelope cutter, and fingernail picker. The little blighter only weighs 0.6 ounces or 17 grams precisely (also accurate on its spec sheet) so you could just stash it around your desk or just about anywhere else, really.

Of course I wouldn't have been drawn to the Yesisok at all if its mechanism weren't weird.

There's actually a whole litany of these types of little knives on the Chinese wholesale market, all with the same action which could basically be described as, "Like a balisong, but with only one pivot."

I also have to imagine having only the one significantly reduces the cost.

Both halves of the Yesiok's handle swing out 180 degrees, in opposite directions, and come back around to meet up on the other end leaving the knife open in the process.

There is no latch, but there is a detent ball on the little spacer on the tail end which clicks in both the open and closed positions. There is no mechanism other than this; The sheer flexibility in the presumably laser or waterjet cut handle plates plus the inherent lash in the pivot is the only thing that allows the detent ball to clear its pocket at all.

The pivot is plain, equipped only with a brass washer beneath and even then, curiously only on one side. This is the side with it. You can see the opposite side further up the page, there, which reveals the conspicuous absence of its twin. I have no idea if it's supposed to be this way, or what. Maybe it's to provide more spacing for the detent ball to clear, who knows. Omitting one washer likely removed a whole two or three cents from the total bill of materials cost.

Two pins are pressed through holes in the blade opposite each other, and these are what serve as the endstops for the mechanism's travel.

As you would expect these are none too precise nor is the track they ride in, so the blade can rock and roll noticeably even when it's ostensibly locked open.

The whole process works like this:

It's also worth mentioning that you can only open the knife one way, so if you try to shove from the wrong side not much will happen. There's just enough imprecision in everything that you can push one of the handles a couple of degrees past the closed position, but that's it. Of course there's no tactile indication of which way you ought to try to push, though, so you'd better just get used to how the thing works. From closed, the handle without the spacer screwed to it swings away from the edge, i.e. push it towards you if you're looking at the spine of the blade. It can also be assembled such that the opposite is true, and given that there is no mechanical impetus to choose one versus the other I would not be at all surprised to learn that half of these left the factory with the blade facing in one direction and the other half facing the other.

All this adds up to making the Yesisok maddeningly fiddly to use. Part of its description implies "self defense" as one of its applications, but needless to say you can forget that. Opening it is tricky and ideally requires both hands, is tough to do quickly, and even once done the end result is unlikely to impress ruffians of any stripe.

It's well and truly comically tiny. But not, it must be said, the smallest folding knife I currently own.

It's got a loop on the tail that's built into the spacer which you can use to turn this into a keyring knife, or possibly attempt the aforementioned zipper pull strategy. You're on your own figuring out how, though. For nearly five bucks, the manufacturer didn't even bother to include a dinky split keyring. Nor even a box. Mine just came in a plastic baggie with a sticker on it, the truly traditional harbinger of top flight Chinese cutlery.

There's not much inside to look at. Note, however, the lonely and singular brass washer. The spacer screw is a T6 head and I think the pivot screws are meant to be T8, but I found a T9 driver actually fit better. You'll need a driver in each side if you care enough to disassemble this, because...

...While the pivot screw does indeed have an anti-rotation flat on it...

...The holes in both handle plates are just round.

This makes me wonder if all the pieces of hardware in this are commodity parts.

The tail spacer is the most interesting part of the entire knife, if you ask me. It's got the detent ball mounted there, and is also prevented from rotating by having yet another pin pressed into it. Based on the texture around the edges plus the lack of telltale machine marks, I think it's actually a casting. It is steel though. The entire knife is, actually, sans the washer. A magnet sticks to all of its components.

I took a picture of the blade separately, but I already said most of what needs to be said about it so I'm not sure what's to illustrate. I'm going to show it to you anyway, though, because I went through the effort to take the snap and process it, so you're going to look at it at least once.

Unsurprisingly it's had no polish or finishing work done to it at all after grinding, but the flat is pretty smooth and shiny. I imagine that's because the raw bar stock it was made out of was pre-polished.

The Inevitable Conclusion

There's very nearly something resembling a valid use case for the Yesisok and others of its ilk, but only barely. If you're in an environment where a big traditional and dare I say "real" pocket knife clipped to your pants is frowned upon, this could stand in as a very cheap and at least reasonably serviceable substitute. Moreso if you are in a locale with insane blade length requirements, or one of those places where one handed opening knives are forbidden. Since you'd have to be a damn wizard to get this thing open with one hand.

But otherwise its main appeal is as a fidget toy, since its mechanical design is deeply silly.

It's OK.

I guess.

All aboard, and Welcome to the Wondrous Weird Knife Wednesday Weaboo Wagon.

I am fully aware it's Thursday in most time zones. Never mind that. Get a load of this thing.

For anyone in your life with a custom body pillowcase, a hatchback covered with ahegao stickers, and an imposing DVD collection, here's the perfect accessory.

This is the "New Animation Game Genshin Impact Butterfly Knife Toy Unsharped Metal Weapon Wolf's Last Road Stick Cyno Weapon Model Gift," which I received for a whole 99 US cents from Aliexpress as an "introductory offer" item. Yeah, it's one of those kinds of things. I am positive that even though I knew exactly what I was getting into when I ordered it I still got ripped off. But the grist mill of Content hungers evermore; I've got to feed something into the damn thing or else I won't have anything to write about. And hey, it was still only a buck.

This is... Look, we have to go down a whole damn rabbit hole for me to explain it to you. Obviously the moniker tipped you off that this is ostensibly a piece of cynical tie-in merchandise for the exasperatingly popular video game, Genshin Impact. There were a whole range of these things apparently replicating a variety of "signature weapons" from the game, but for some inexplicable reason they're all balisong shaped which is of course right in my tree. But also hard to make much heads or tails of, since they're all without exception described with inscrutable titles in transliterated Chinese.

I picked the absolute silliest looking one of the bunch, which is named "Tian Kon."

The fact that its frilly and overwrought decorative trappings have a distinctly Zelda-eque vibe probably also contributed.

I have to admit I don't know a whole heck of a lot about Genshin nor do I really care to, although that's not to say I have no experience with it. I did try it out very briefly back in its early days, when the consensus about it on the internet was still in its initial phase of howling about how it was superficially a Breath of the Wild ripoff, just to see what all the hubbub was about. I concluded that while it had a veneer of this, it was overlaid on a bedrock core of Gacha Waifu Slot Machine Harem Simulator For Whales, a genre in which I have no interest.

I slept on this writeup for a few weeks longer than I should have, as well, since this specific product and all of the others in its range have vanished from the face of the Internet entirely in the meantime. It's useless for me to link you to the item anymore even if you did want one of these yourself for whatever reason. It's just gone, although the Chinese knockoff sphere is still absolutely packed to the gills with junk in a broadly similar vein. The top search result if I try to look for what I've got verbatim is now this, which I'm pretty sure is made in the same factory that used to be making the thing I've got. (In case interested future historians click on this eight, maybe nine minutes into the future when this page has likewise inevitably disappeared, I also saved a screenshot.) This contains such hits as "Fo Nu Huo Lang," and "Mo Dao Zhu Shi," and "Qi Sha." So you see what I mean.

I think my "Tian Kon" is supposed to be a hack representation of Genshin's Skyward Pride. (Not the Skyward Blade, which was my initial thought based on the translation.) "Tian Kon" is likely actually a bastardization of "Tiānkōng", which is broadly speaking "sky." No points for guessing (or looking it up on the wiki) that the Skyward Pride's Chinese name is Tiānkōng zhī Ào. (And the Blade, Tiānkōng zhī Rèn.)

Case closed. That was entirely more research into this 99 cent piece of junk than should be undertaken by anyone, and now if you'll excuse me I think I'm going to go wash my hands.

One thing I sure didn't expect was for this to show up on a full color hang card. I was predicting the usual nondescript plastic baggie in a bubble mailer with a smudged and barely legible sticker on it printed in Chinese. If you found this hanging on a peg in FYE or Hot Topic it'd probably run you twenty bucks.

Let it not be said that I've completely slandered Genshin Impact by calling it a mere Waifu simulator. To its credit, it contains a couple of token himbos as well. The bloke depicted here is Diluc, a fire elemental guy who you can obtain fairly early on. He has absolutely nothing to do with the Skyward Pride, so it beats me why he's on the packaging. Maybe he's on the packaging for all of these. Maybe he's not, and it's random. I'll probably never know.

In case anyone cares, the back of the card is thus. I am particularly fond of "wyth," and "under 12 vrars old." Not that I'm any better at Chinese, mind you. I butcher their language, they butcher mine. That's how the cultural exchange works around here.

The Chinese on the rear at least reveals that this is (allegedly) manufactured by Jinjiang Animation Hardware Factory, of Fujian Province. So now we know who to blame.

Because this is crap.

No, I did not put 99 cents down on this with high expectations. But as usual for Chinese knockoff goods, much effort has been spent meticulously touching up the photos of the product in its online listing to make it look more attractive than it actually is, and very little on the actual manufacture of the thing itself.

Obviously this isn't a "real" knife in that it's not sharp. But calling it a balisong trainer is really a bit of a stretch. It's entirely made of cast zinc, sans the screws, at least if the packaging is to be believed. That seems plausible to me since zinc (or its myriad alloys) is cheap and braindead simple to cast in a die. A magnet doesn't stick to any of it, it's clearly not aluminum, nor dense enough to be lead.

The finish is airbrushed on.

And, it must be said, not very well. The base color is some kind of metal flake enamel in a color that is precisely that of the Oldsmobile Allero your great aunt bought in 2002. The blue details are sprayed overtop presumably with the aid of some kind of mask, but as you can see on the blade especially the factory, er... missed.

It's also all a façade anyway because it's only finished and fully detailed on one side. The reverse side of the handles are flat with none of the bass relief and no spraypaint job. Here you can see the commodity Phillips (or possibly knockoff JIS) screws holding it together. Don't cry that you've been misled -- You got exactly what was offered, since the product photos religiously depict the knife from only one side. Remember: 能骗就骗.

Mine also showed up slightly bent. It was worse right out of the package, to the extent that the inner face of one of the handles would rub on the blade. I suspect it got crushed in transit somehow, and since it's only made of potmetal in any case it's not especially rigid. No big deal, though. I just took it apart and bent it back before I took my pictures.

The blade has a hole in it and also a split, running all the way down to its tip, which puts one in mind of a fountain pen nib. This makes it look cool, though once again it's probably a good thing that this can't hold an edge. You could try dipping it in ink and writing with it, but I'll bet you that wouldn't work too well, either.

It's not tough to take apart, which is especially beneficial if you find yourself having to smash any of its parts back into being flat. Just to throw a pure hypothetical out there.

The "blade" itself is quite a detailed casting, and it is so on both sides unlike the handles. I have no doubt that the majority of the pennies that were spent on producing this were spent here. What I don't have any idea of is what the runes down the fuller are supposed to mean. Initially I thought they may have been an outright fabrication, or possibly lifted (or mutated) from some other script, but apparently they do indeed appear on the original digital blade if you peer closely enough. So there's dedication to detail. If you're the type of turbo-nerd who can read Genshin runes, do let us know.

No doubt as part of its ruthlessly cost-cut industrial design, the Tian Kon's pivots are cast into the back sides of the handles. There are no female screws at all, just these escutcheons which have a hole drilled and tapped into them. On the bright side that means there are no screw heads on the decorative side of the knife.

Conversely, though, this means that the pivot clearances are hilariously awful. There's probably a full millimeter of rattle in the pivots, and they are by necessity tapered. Otherwise the part wouldn't come out of its mold, but that probably doesn't help matters from a precision standpoint.

So don't expect any of that and you won't be disappointed. The Wiggle Test with the handles in the closed position reveals the Tian Kon's continued proud tradition of cheating, looking better than it is at first blush only because the raised portions of the blade hit the inner surfaces of the handles down around the pivot area where it's tough to see and prevent the handles from wiggling further.

With the handles in the open position you can see just how dire matters really are. The Tian Kon wins the coveted Ching Chow Award, being one of two (2) balisongs I now own that are so awful that you can cause the latch to miss the opposite handle entirely. It's fabulously awful.

In spite of all expectations, the Tian Kon is actually functional. For suitably small values of "functional," anyway. The pivots work, and you can swing the handles and blade around.

But because all of the contact surfaces are zinc-on-zinc, it squeaks incessantly while in operation. Because of this it is in at least one sense also now the loudest balisong I own. I'm not sure that's a compliment, exactly, but it is damned hilarious. It's also guaranteed to annoy the hell out of anyone else in the room with you.

The Inevitable Conclusion

This is still probably cheaper in a real world sense than a round of gacha pulls and at the end of the day, probably leaves you holding exactly as much value.

That's got to count for something, but I'll be damned if I know what.

I've seen things, I've seen them with my eyes. I've seen things, they're often in disguise. Like:

• Carrots
• Ninjas
• Cheese
• Mermaids
• Russians
• Slingshots
• Spinners
• Choppers
• Sine Waves
• Antiques
• Chinese Knockoffs
• Monsters
• Warlocks
• Chinese Knockoffs

I realize that lately I've let this column get a little too long winded and boring and, dare I say, practical. Sorry about that.

Let's get this crazy train back on the tracks.

This snaggletoothed monstrosity is the Model CH0107 Tanto Blade Tactical Folding Pocket Knife W/ Belt Clip, sold by -- and I promise I am not making this up -- "CozyLiving Furniture Store." It is yours for really not much money at all from China. They have this to say about it:

Made from 440 stainless steel with a black anodized finish, this Killer is a much needed companion on your next hunt. Sporting a partially serrated tanto style sawback blade and a thumb stud to assist with opening, the knife has an extremely strong reinforced point that is very good for piercing and stabbing. The handle is made of a heavy duty green ABS that is textured for a firm grip and has a lock back release on top. Included on the handle is a belt clip so you can take your Tanto Blade Killer Pocket Knife with you when you are on the go.

"Killer?"

Oh, yeah. It says this on the other side of the blade:

I, meanwhile, have this to say about it: You think your knife is serrated? Your knife isn't even barely serrated. My knife is serrated.

This knife is so serrated, it passes beyond mere serration and emerges out the other side, into the brightly sunlit valley of pure cold insanity where the air is clear and still, so silent there isn't even birdsong.

The CH0107 is ostensibly a fairly normal lockback folder with a single piece injection molded plastic handle, and just so happens to have a blade profile with a rather... particular... aesthetic design. Perfectly normal in a maintaining-unwavering-eye-contact-through-its-greasy-forelocks sort of way, anyhow.

It is also very, extremely, flagrantly, unquestionably, eye-searingly green.

And covered in Chinese axle grease, so much so that every time you open and close it more gets on the blade and you have to vainly try to wipe it off before taking another picture.

It's 7-13/16" long when open and 4-1/2" long with a 3-1/4" long tanto pointed blade that is, yes, serrated. And has a bunch of holes in, just because. The description also calls it "sawbacked" but this is not so, or at least not in the functional sense. While the spine of the blade does indeed have quite a mohawk on it, the points are not sharp enough to actually be useful for anything. Which is really just as well, because otherwise the main thing they'd be useful for is shredding your pants fabric if you actually carried this anyplace. If anybody cares it's 84.8 grams or 2.99 ounces. The blade alleges to be made of 440 series stainless, but which flavor is left unspecified.

Its entire construction is also a retro throwback, in case you needed a nostalgia trip back to those good old days of low-budget Chinese cutlery, only without the good and just rather long on the old. Revel in how good we have it with cheap knives now, because trust me -- it used to be a whole lot worse. There was a time when they were all like this.

Like how? Well, for one it's not screwed but rather riveted together, which makes taking it apart completely impossible. As to be expected there's a large amount of wiggle in the blade when it's locked open, and thanks to this low tech construction strategy there's precisely fuck all you can do about it.

The action is otherwise begrudgingly serviceable and it pivots open without much fuss, although as a cheap lockback you have to fight the rather stiff lock spring the entire time. You're aided in this with a thumb stud, but curiously only on one side. Left handed users get to dodge a bullet, here.

You may have also spotted that it has a pocket clip.

It does, for sure, and this is the only thing that's actually screwed together on the entire knife. Even so it's noticeably wiggly, and no amount of messing with the tension on all three (!) of the wood screws chunked into the plastic through it has any effect on that. Otherwise it's reasonably serviceable and quite springy, although mounted a bit far from the tail of the knife.

It's also extremely dull.

I've opined before that I don't care much about the factory sharpness on a knife provided the final grind is reasonably even, because any owner worth their salt is going to have to sharpen the thing eventually and thus the degree of sharpness out of the box is really only a temporary concern to begin with. But this thing is in a special category all on its own, because from new it is outright blunt.

Here's what its point looks like. This isn't a case of damage from packaging or shipping. The grind doesn't even go all the way out to the tip.

The tanto point portion is quite literally butter knife grade. It's physically impossible to cut anything with it, because the factory didn't actually manage to grind it far enough to create an edge. Here's what that looks like:

Its entire length is flat-spotted. The left side and the right side, nary in the middle do they meet.

The rest of it is not much better, but the primary edge could at least charitably saw through something as high grade as cardboard if, and only if, you sawed at it diligently enough.

The serrations aren't left out of this, either. Although surprisingly, they're not chisel ground; the edge (such as it is) is double sided for its entire length. But the points are rounded off and while they come closer to achieving sharpness than the portion near the tip does, they still don't actually manage to actually achieve it.

From the tail you can see that this is a one piece injection molding. Producing these in bulk for the manufacturer has got to be nearly free.

I'm not providing the usual disassembly photo because this would require drilling out the pivots, and I'm not doing that for no other reason than I can't be bothered.

The Inevitable Conclusion

There's really not much to conclude, here. Never mind zombies, the CH0107 is barely capable of opening your mail.

A knife like this really only has two functions: Looking mean, and getting confiscated from teenagers by the cops for the same reason. While we're at it, I'm sure the marquee on the side will look great on you in court.

Oh, and it has a third function, too: Appearing here, giving us a sterling opportunity to speculate just what, exactly, its designers were smoking.

Once you reach a certain age, you find yourself prone to dreaming about all the could-have-beens you've had between then and now. What would have happened if you moved to the other town instead? What if you went to the other school, married the other girl, bought the other car, took the other job? All those decisions, compromises made in the name of circumstances or convenience or, more usually, your finances.

In these long nights of quiet retrospection: Did you miss out? Did you make the right choice? Or did you just settle? Just what, exactly, did you compromise?

This is an easy trap to fall into in our hobby. Part of the reason knife nerds have so many knives is because we're forever trying to find whatever the perfect knife is, and that always engenders some kind of compromise. Price is the usual one, of course. Even if you do it in nickels and dimes, which is the way most of us try, you can spend any amount of money chasing the damn unicorn and still never catch it.

And then, if you're a balisong dork it's even worse. All the household names are extremely collectible, and they're without exception limited production items that start off shockingly expensive and only get ludicrously more so over time. The venerable Benchmade Model 42. The BRS Replicant. The HOM Basilisk. The Flytanium Zenith. And if you want anyone to take you seriously in this gig, if you want to have the right experience, you just have to get your hands on one of those, don't you? Because otherwise you're going to have to compromise.

Well.

What if I said you don't?

This is the Böker Tactical 06EX229. We can excuse the completely unmemorable name plus the fact that yet again Böker has forced me to remember how to type an umlaut over the O, for one simple reason, which is this:

The 06EX229 is at present hands down one of the best values in a balisong knife at the moment. It may just be the best value, period.

Unicorn: Slain.

You may recall that I kinda-sorta reviewed this knife already, in the form of its smaller sibling the 06EX227. That is the "tactical small" variant of Böker's design, in a more pocket friendly size that's rather akin to the rather spectacular (in my opinion) but now very collectible Benchmade Mini-Morpho Model 32. This, however, is the "tactical big" version. Exactly as you would expect, it's... bigger. Precisely like Benchmade's Morpho Model 51 is unto the 32.

There is of course a critical difference, since we were talking about compromises just a few paragraphs ago: The Model 51, just like the 32, is now purest unobtanium. It's discontinued, no longer available anywhere, a valuable antique, and even when it was new it last listed for damn near $400. Nowadays you are unlikely to get your hands on one for less than $500.

I already posted a deal alert on the various Böker balisongs a few weeks ago, and imagine my surprise when I just clicked and learned that these are still (at the time of writing) on sale for $40. This despite several weeks of procrastination and staring at my proverbial typewriter with no output. All that's still relevant.

Not $400 -- $40. Drop that zero right off the end.

Yes, you can certainly buy a clone of the Model 51 (although curiously not the 32, at least so far as I can find) for a lot less dough than the real thing, and I am and have been keen on that sort of thing in the past as well.

One of those can be a competent poor man's stand-in for a Benchmade, sure. But the Böker tacticals share the distinction of actually being better in at least one critical aspect than not only the clones, but the genuine Benchmade models you may be tempted to substitute with them.

Which is astounding.

Physicals

The 06EX229 is a full sized balisong knife constructed of steel and G-10, similar in proportion to the Benchmade Model 51 and quite a few other traditionally sized flippers ostensibly in its class.

It's the spitting image of its smaller sibling, as you can see here. It sports the same type of harpoon profiled blade made of D2, understated black G-10 scales with the same double-X embellishment carved into them...

...And the tail end shows off precisely the same type of spring loaded squeeze-to-release latch, which is of a similar design and intent to the latch found on the Benchmade Morphos.

The incessant comparison to the aforementioned Benchmades is impossible to escape. I'll be bringing it up a lot because there are incredible design similarities between those and this. Not only the spring latch and the very way in which it works, but also the big knife/little knife dichotomies in both brands' lineups. The blade steel is the same across both brands as well, D2 on each, and they're all kickerless designs with concealed Zen pins in the handles for the rebound instead.

It's easy to see that the smaller 06EX227 is roughly Mini-Morpho sized and this 06EX229 is the proportional twin to the full sized Morpho 51. I don't actually own one of those, but I do have the TheOne clone of it, because I'm poor. So that's what I'm showing off above all the way on the right, there.

The 06EX229 is 9-3/8" long from tip to tail when opened, with a 4-1/4" blade, 0.119" thick, which has a roughly 3-3/4" usable edge. And indeed, a usable edge is what it has, exhibiting ruthless sharpness right out of the box which for most people won't require any going over before being put into service.

It's clear that putting this knife into service is precisely what Böker expect you to do with it, since it also includes a reversible steel pocket clip. I can respect this even, if as usual, it comes out of the box on the wrong side of the handle which is where it appears in most of these photos. I fixed that when I took the knife all apart for my usual disassembly photo, which we'll get to later.

The presence of the clip, oft omitted on collectors' or competition balisongs, plus the immensely satisfying spring loaded latch put the 06EX229 once again in the same camp as the Benchmade Morpho, or at least the camp the latter was in 15 years ago: Namely that of an EDC capable balisong that's designed to be carried and actually used rather than just locked in a cabinet and gazed at wistfully, lest you scuff its collectors value.

One critical difference is the weight, since due to its all steel construction rather than the titanium of the Morpho it is heavier: 149.6 grams or 5.28 ounces. That's 1.98 ounces more, or about 37.5%. Weight is one of those things that balisong nerds get super hot and bothered about, so that's sure to ruffle somebody's feathers somewhere. Since the 06EX229's liners are steel for their entire length and are completely solid, not ventilated in any way whatsoever, that makes it a slightly slower spinner than lighter knives and also moves the point of balance a touch further towards the tips of the handles. Latched shut, that point is 1.693" by my measure which is 3/8" or so further back versus just for sake of example my BM51 clone, since the blades are roughly the same density as each other. Probably by no accident, this is directly on the crosshatched portion of the handles.

But enough about the Morpho. Where the 06EX229 shines is all the differences, all the places it's allowed to stand on its own.

For instance, it has concealed pivot screws that live underneath the scales, and make it appear to function by magic.

And rather than plain utilitarian round cutouts for the Zen pins, it has elongated stylized ones that form and merge with the choil, making the entire length of the edge usable.

The pins themselves are visible peeking through the handles.

Ephemerals

It should be obvious to anyone that the 06EX229 must be a budget knife even at its full list price of $126, at least compared to its contemporaries.

So how much play has it got in the pivots, and how much blade tap against the inside of the handles?

Would you believe none?

Like its sister 06EX227 but completely unlike the vast majority of balisongs not only in its class but even considerably above, the 06EX229 is a ball bearing equipped knife. Both pivots ride on a pair of thrust bearing assemblies each, which ensure not only impeccable low resistance action but also a completely wiggle-free pivot assembly. The key is that traditional balisongs are highly sensitive to pivot screw tension and the tighter you make them the less they wiggle, but also the more resistance you encounter up until the point that they won't pivot freely at all. Bushing equipped knives typically aren't, but they have an inbuilt amount of lash that can't be adjusted out, because their bushings are always a hair longer than the blades are thick by deliberate design, which ensures a free action but a guaranteed minimum amount of rattle.

Bering knives are constrained by none of the above. You can crank the ever living fuck out of the pivot screws to the point that any lash whatsoever is not only squeezed out of the mechanism but also driven by horsewhip clear into the next country, but the handles will still pivot freely.

Achieving no play and no tap is the holy grail of balisong knife design and it's always the sort of thing manufacturers try to put at the top of their bullet point lists, even if they have not in fact actually technically managed it. An excess of either is the first thing that makes a knife feel cheap, and this one doesn't have any.

And thanks to, rather than despite, its full length steel liners and especially the thick G-10 scales, the handles are incredibly rigid and resist flexing to a large degree. This even though it is a sandwich construction, consisting of two separate steel liners and scales per handle, rather than each handle being channel milled out of a single slab of material.

The 06EX229 is pure functionality. Unlike most of its peers its styling is very understated, with just these two lacelike crosses milled into its scales.

It has few other embellishments. It has no speed holes or channels, nothing on it is anodized, nor engraved. Nothing's neon or holographic or glows. But it doesn't need any of that. Other knives may be a flamboyant Ferarri Daytona, but the Böker is a BMW M3.

The balance and heft of any particular balisong knife is highly subjective, of course. People have preferences -- lighter, longer, shorter, whatever -- So it's certain that someone out there will be displeased by the 06EX229's action for some reason or another.

But in some ineffable way, the action feels right. I find the 06EX229 to be extremely controllable, moreso even than knives which the hive mind of the internet assures us to be perfect. I don't know why this is. Maybe it's the bearings. Or the weight distribution. Maybe I'm just predisposed to like it.

All of its attributes taken together make this preeminently qualified for use as an EDC knife, despite the typical drawbacks inherent in being a balisong. The clip is small, but in this case small enough to be unobtrusive -- It's the same part as the one on the smaller 06EX227, but with the longer handles on this it's much less in your way when manipulating the knife -- it draws cleanly and easily, and the spring latch allows you to put the knife into action right away. The ability to reposition the clip to either side of the handle also ensures you can draw your knife with it in your preferred orientation which is a big help.

The only oddity is the 06EX229's only concession to flamboyance, as it happens, which is that weird harpoon profile on the blade. The horn of the back of it is fairly pronounced and is just pointy enough to be distinctly uncomfortable if you windmill it right into your finger. Typically it's far enough away that you don't, but for specific types of finger roll tricks it's possible to get hung up on the hook. If you're really going to be Captain TikTok Flipper Showoff Bro, you might want to grab your grinder and round the point off on it slightly.

The Bits

The 06EX229 is dead easy to take apart.

This is good news for habitual balisong twiddlers, which I suspect is a neat cross-section of basically all balisong owners to begin with. There's no recalcitrance nor screws that refuse to come undone. Nor do you have to employ any tricks. This puts the 06EX229 head and shoulders above quite a few Chinese clones, while still cheekily occupying the same price bracket.

Every screw head on the knife takes the same T6 Torx driver, even the pivot screws.

The pivot screw heads as well as the Zen pin holes are hidden beneath the scales. The heads recess into pockets on the back side of the scales. The only knock against this is that you need to remove the scales to tune your pivot tension, but conversely since this is a ball bearing knife you realistically should never have to do that anyway, provided you remember to re-threadlock the screws if you ever have occasion to take it apart.

You only need to dismount one side anyway, because the female sides of the pivot screws don't have any driver heads.

You'll find those on the other side. Not also the ball bearing assemblies, two each on each pivot. The pivot screws have anti-rotation flats so undoing them is no trouble, even without screw heads on the other side. The Zen pins also live here and are captive, with shoulders preventing them from falling out.

The spring latch assembly is dead simple, and Böker lifted this directly from the Benchmade Morpho. (I did, too, with my Rockhopper printable knife.) The pin here isn't captive and can fall out when you dismount either of the scales on that side, so watch out.

The cammed heel on the latch pushes on that pin, which is sprung by the natural tension in the steel liner. Note that this would be absolutely impossible with a one piece channel milled handle design. But due to this, not only can you easily kick the latch out by simply squeezing the handles together, but it's also handily stopped from hitting the blade and, by and large, even from contacting either handle when you're swinging the thing around.

Treachery

As part of Böker's "Plus" line, this is not actually technically manufactured by Böker themselves and is rather actually subcontracted to any of a potential number of outfits worldwide.

I can't quite come up with a definitive origin for this knife. At least one source claims it's made by CobraTec which, if true, adds another interesting layer to things. At the very least there is a prominent "Made In USA" legend printed on the label on the end of its box, which lends some credence to this theory. Score one more, then, against the Chinese knockoff brigade.

The rub is that this is heavily discounted and seems to be so everywhere, by and large. Not just on Böker's site but at other retailers as well. When I see that sort of thing on a particular model or another that indicates to me that it's poised to get the chop, which in this case is highly disappointing. Some day soon this too will go away, and the world will be left slightly worse off because of it.

The Inevitable Conclusion

Because you see, the Böker 06EX229 is exactly the knife the world needs. A competent and highly usable, potentially US made, well built, and extremely featureful balisong that can wrest or hopefully at least steer the whole damn hobby away from insanity, even if just by a little bit.

Because the balisong market is famously insane, and probably many of its participants no less so.

As it is, it's also a spectacular entry point for non-insane people looking to get into the swing of things. To get more people included, rather than excluded. And, without shelling out for a cynical knockoff or ghastly non-brand piece of junk. And don't get me wrong, I like a good non-brand piece of junk sometimes. But there's a lot of room for something in between limited edition collector's pieces that are never meant to be used, and flea market card table crap.

The 06EX229 is the unicorn after all. Just, nobody noticed because it wasn't shaped like one in silhouette.

So maybe you never bought that Ferrari. But the insurance on the Subaru is a whole lot less, it's taken you way more places over all those years, and you don't have to have a heart attack if it gets bird shit on it.

Maybe you didn't marry a supermodel. But the girl next door's been here the whole time, and she's a hell of a lot more fun to be around. And she's down for a whole lot more.

Don't get caught up in being sold a dream, and don't get wrapped around the axle if you think you've missed out, or you can't afford it. In the end, all of that's just marketing. It turns out you really can have it all, even without getting lucky -- provided you're looking at it the right way.

Y u no put the paper towels in the fucking dispenser rather than leaving the half torn open pack on the countertop?

Getting the new brick of towels out of the supply room and dragging it all the way to the bathroom is like 99% of the effort already. Just stuff them in the damn box.

(This is right up there with the old classic, getting out a new bog roll and leaving it delicately balanced on top of the old empty cardboard tube rather than just installing it on the damn spindle.)

You'd think I work in a building full of toddlers.

That's right, negative one sentinel units in play.

Yes, this did have the predictable result of not allowing any additional Sentinels to spawn in and also locked me in the Sentinel "combat" state forever until I left the planet. Whereupon I was immediately jumped by a Sentinel capital ship which I summarily blew up.

I'm with the Vy'keen on this one, these guys need to go to hell already.

Or, day 34: The Gek have still not realized I am not one of them...