The Realm of the Dark Blade

Today I’m going to talk about a knife that is both simple, beautiful and yet highly functional… In a traditionally Japanese kind of way. When we talk about bowie knives, a Japanese knife might be the very last thing that might spring to mind, but believe me, as knives go, I would swap a bowie for this beaut any day. The “beaut” to which I refer is the Akatsuki Bowie, made by Kanetsune of Seki, Japan. Here… Have a gander:

Akatsuki Bowie

This ostensibly simple looking knife is unique in several different ways. The makers, Kanetsune, are old Japanese knife makers who make traditionally designed knives that are both aesthetically pleasing as well as fully functional. The Akatsuki is just one of many unique and beautiful knife designs they make. I plan to talk about some of their other knives in the future.

Now if anyone is familiar with the old Jim Bowie knife design, you may well be thinking that this design is not actually very Bowie like. At least not in any traditional sense. And you would be right. It is more of a hunting knife design than a bowie, but me personally, I still love it to death. Let’s take a look…

Akatsuki Bowie - Sheath

As you can see, Kinetsune uses a very traditional wooden scabbard design, with a cool set of buckles attached that support a few different carry positions. A wooden sheath certainly cannot compete with Kydex or similar synthetic sheaths in the durability department, but they certainly have a whole lot more character!

Akatsuki Bowie - Hilt

The knife itself is an interesting combination of design features, starting with the oak handle, double pinned to what I’d presume to be a half tang blade. Transitioning from grip to blade, we have a combination collar and guard, in black, pressure fit onto the grip, and providing support at the blade grip transition, much reminiscent of the metal collar used by many traditional Frost Mora knives with wooden grips.

Akatsuki Bowie - Grip

Except better, since this collar is much thicker, stronger and has a built in guard. I really like this design.

Akatsuki Bowie - Edge

Last, but certainly not least, we get to the beautiful blade. The Akatsuki sports a traditional hunting knife profile, with a mild belly and severely de-emphasized clip point. This results in a very smooth taper to the point. I really like the blade profile it ends up with.

Akatsuki Bowiel - Spine & Grip

But here we have a little bit of a departure from the norm. Unlike most other knife makers, Kanetsune leaves the flat of the blade unfinished. In fact it looks as though they actually pit it intentionally, in order to accentuate the effect.

Kanetsune Akatsuki Bowie High Carbon White Steel

Now personally, I have reservations about this particular design feature. Kinetsune uses white steel in their knives, a special kind of high carbon steel, and it’s been my experience that most high carbon steels tend to rust a lot faster than others if not taken care of. I think those pits may be a little harder to clean than a polished blade, and this may cause it  to retain moisture and allow pitting and rust to migrate to the polished area. However with diligent cleaning and oiling this should not be an issue, and I can’t really argue with the beautiful aesthetic it adds to the blade. For all of it’s simplicity, the knife is a work of art.

All in all, a beautiful knife, even if it’s not a true bowie knife, it certainly has all the qualities of a great all around hunting and bushcraft knife, with some character to boot. It gets a fiery thumbs up from yours truly!

Kanetsune Akatsuki Bowie Knife – [Kanetsune.com]

Kanetsune Akatsuki Bowie Knife – [BladeHQ]

In a previous post, I wrote briefly about a very interesting weapon design. One that utilized a forward sweeping blade, as opposed to the traditional blade belly that curved outwards. In that post, I pointed out that there are good reasons why we generally do not generally use out ward curving blades. For one thing, a cut using an outward curving blade, would be difficult to achieve on a flat surface.

For whittling wood, it might be helpful, but because the shape of the edge would cause all of your cutting strokes would tend to want to pull the knife out of your hand, I think it would be a rather fatiguing design. However there is a specific knife style that utilizes just such a design, but in a way that makes it perfect for it’s intended use. And a wicked little knife it is. Ladies and germs, allow me to introduce you to: The Karambit.

Filipino Karambit

Ain’t it a beaut? The Karambit (sometimes also called a Kerambit or Korambit) is of southeast Asian origin. Much like the Japanese kunai, it started off as a simple utility knife, used for household tasks, the southeast Asian equivalent of the American pocket knife, or hawkbill utility knife, and eventually ended up being used for self defense, and martial arts. However unlike these knives, the Karambit possesses a number of very interesting and unique design features.

The most noticeable feature is the large ring on the pommel of the knife, much like how many Kunai are depicted today. However that is where the similarities end. Karambits have a very pronounced reverse curve to the blade, and depending on the design, may have any number of other unique features as shown below:

Parts of a Karambit

Now that’s just a mean looking little knife. My kind of pocket knife. It would probably make your average pocket knife run screaming in terror. But that’s a plus in my book. Modern day Karambits come in a variety of shapes and sizes, some features are removed to meet the restrictions of local laws, and others simply a matter of tradition. Some are double edged, others are single. Some have rippers on the spine, others don’t.

Karambit Designs - Strider Knives

However the things that are common to all karambits, is that characteristically curved blade, with an sharp inside edge, a grip, and the ring. And therein lies the beauty of this design. Remember before how I said that a concave blade design actually placed more drag on the knife in use? Well this design actually allows you to use that drag to your advantage.

That ring in the pommel gives the wielder a very solid purchase on the knife, allowing very strong cutting strokes, and even low pressure draw cuts, simply by laying the edge on a target and pulling the knife across by the ring. It is really quite an effective design. And, unlike like most over knives, you get a very secure forward and reverse grip.

Undercover Karambit (Black)

Incidentally, I am not particularly impressed with those little mini blades on the spine, (aka rippers). At least the way I often seem them implemented. They are a very cool (and sinister looking) design feature, but most of them do not appear to be designed for maximum efficiency. But a properly designed set of rippers, shaped more like small sharp gut hooks, than flat chisels, could really do some damage. Kinda like this:

Dawson Large Karambit Field & Tactical Knife

Nowadays, the Karambit is a fixture in several southeastern Asian martial arts, where it is used, with great effect, to inflict large numbers of superficial cuts, deep major artery cuts, joint or limb control, weapon defence, or any combination thereof. About the only weakness of the Karambit is that you have to learn a whole new set of techniques for fighting with it, because it does not work the same way a traditional straight bladed knife does. And there are so many more things you can do with a Karambit that you could not easily replicate with a regular knife, that you really need training in order to use it to it’s fullest potential.

Traditional Karambit With Wood Sheath

However it is definitely a very cool tool. My kind of tool. In fact, I could see someone like… Riddick… using a karambit. It’s totally his style. I bet if we upsized the karambit to large knife proportions, this would probably be a much more effective weapon than the saber claws Riddick uses. Hmmm…

Dragon Claw Toenail Set

I think I’ve got an idea for this piece of steel I just so happen to have lying around. I’m off to the workshop. I have a karambit theory to test!

• Tactical Karambits – [Strider Knives]
• Undercover Karambit – [True Swords]
• Dragons Claw Toenail – [Amazon.com]
• Filipino Karambit – [Traditional Filipino Weapons]
• Large Field and Tactical Karambit – [Dawson Knives]

Why? Because I have some unique darts I’d like to try out…

Cold Steel Urban Dart

This is the Cold Steel Urban Dart. Now to be honest, the name is a bit of a mystery to me. Why call it a dart? And why an urban dart? I dunno. But it is certainly one cool looking dart. And it’s design has a lot of merit as a concealed tactical bladed weapon.

Sporting a 5.75″ Aus8 blade, attached to a 2.25″ kraton handle with a small lanyard hole, all put together in a trim, slim form factor, this dart has all the makings of an easy to conceal little knife. Could easily be used as a neck knife, though I would not recommend you rely on this for something like outdoor use, since that I think 2.25 grip is waaaaay to small for a good wilderness knife. No, this looks like it would really be best used for things like an easily concealed defensive tool. Perhaps that is where the “Urban” part of it’s name comes from.

The design does have some interesting characteristics. About an inch or so above the kraton grip, on the ricasso of the blade, we see a grroved depression, clearly intended to be used as a thumb grip area. This would suggest the blade would be best held in a form of full handed pinch grip, with the ricasso held between thumb and folded forefinger.

The swell of the kraton base should fit in the closed palm of the hand, giving it a decent grip. And the flat kraton pommel should also allow it to be used as an impromptu punch dagger, with the blade held between the fingers, presuming Cold Steel has put enough Kraton down on that pommel to prevent the steel from pushing through.

And, of course, it is also very nicely shaped for throwing. perhaps where the “dart” part of the name came from, though I wouldn’t necessarily recommend you get one of these and start throwing it like you would throw a dart. Certainly not at another human. Unless, of course they started it first.    But either way, it ought to be a rather nimble little defensive blade.

And, funnily enough, I think I have just solved the riddle of why they decided to call it an ‘Urban Dart”.

Very cool idea. I like it.

Urban Dart by Cold Steel – [True Swords]

I have always been a big fan of butterfly knives, aka balisongs or batangas. They are beautiful knives, both in construction and also in the aesthetics of how they are often used. Just the simple act of flipping a balisong open is a thing of beauty. It is one of the very few knives for which the simple act of opening it is an art in and of itself.

Sure, there are martial arts related to drawing and cutting with a sword, like Iaidō, but even the fast flashy draw, or the finishing flourish of the blade before re-sheathing, in Iaidō pales in comparison to the nimble flash of a balisong. Soooo… What do you think the topic of todays’ post is going to be? Yeah, go ahead, guess. You can do it, I’ve given you a rather big hint, so you can’t go wrong! Go for it!

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BZZZZZZT!!!

WRONG AGAIN!!

ROFLMAO… SUCKERS!!!!

You guys… You make it too easy… LOL..

Ok, ok, so I’m being a jerk. You’re not entirely wrong. I’m just messin’ with ya. Sometimes I just gotta. Cause you all are such good sports n all…

Technically the blade I’m going to be talking about today is, in fact, distantly related to butterfly knives, however it is lacking one of the things that make a butterfly knife a butterfly knife. I’ll let you in on what that is a little later in the post. For now, suffice it to say, this blade is sweeet!

Butterfly Commando With Knuckle Guard

This here is the Butterfly Commando. With knuckle guard. Essentially what we have here is a fairly cool looking folding blade, designed so that it’s split grip can fold around the blade. And it is also designed with a unique feature: one of the handles has an extended knuckle guard, which wraps around both the other handle as well as the blade. Pretty nifty.

I generally don’t find such shiny blades anything special, but I really like this one. The ergonomics of the grip are actually quite well thought out, at least from a fixed blade perspective. The side of the handle that goes into your palm has a nice swell, to help fill the hand, while the side with the knuckle guard, features a set of shallow choils where the fingers will rest.

Both should provide a secure grip during use. And the cleverly placed knuckle guard could, in addition to protecting the knuckles, actually also be used like brass knuckles. And everything all folds into a nice compact form factor. Even the contours of the strong clip point blade are fairly impressive. All in all quite a cool tool. For the most part.

I do have some points of concern. First off, there appears to be a slot in the blade. Yeah, I wish people would stop doing that. I’m really getting tired of seeing perfectly good blades defaced in that way…  Really people. You want to shave weight? Use a fuller. In my opinion, a fuller is better in every way. I guess it’s just cheaper and easier to slot the blade than to forge or grind a fuller… Cheap/lazy bastiges… Bah!

And then there’s the whole “butterfly” thing. Honestly, I can’t classify this knife as a true butterfly knife. Why? Because, in spite of the coolness of that “D” shaped handle knuckle guard thingy, it prevents you from doing what Balisongs are made to do. Which is, of course, to flip and spin those suckers open and closed like there was no tomorrow.

No, if you’ve ever used a balisong, it should be clear just from looking at the pic above, how that gul darned knuckle guard will get in the way of everything. Which is a shame really, because this design is really quite cool. Now don’t get me wrong, this is really not a bad knife design. Well… Actually, that slot does grind my gears, but besides that, I love it. It is a great folding design, and a great knife design (apart from that blasted slot, of course).

It’s just that, well… It’s just not a real Balisong. But that could just be me being a persnickety knife snob…

In all honesty, it’s really a great blade, so long as your expectations are not as unreasonable as mine…

Butterfly Commando – [Fortune Sales]

Ok, So I will readily admit that the title of todays post was highly influenced by thoughts of thanksgiving turkey…Light meat or dark meat… It’s all good… But I digress.

You may recall a few posts I’ve done in the past on weapons made of wood. Some of them have been about reproduction, prop or cosplay weapons, weapons you could give to your little rascals, or for cosplay (costume play), designed primarily to be a safe alternative to the real thing.

Macahuitl

However, I’ve also posted about weapon designs that, while made primarily of wood, were still quite lethal as edged weapons. The Macahuitl was one such weapon, using flint or obsidian blades, embedded in a wood frame shaped like a club, or a large broadsword. And then there was the Leiomano, which accomplished the same thing, using shark teeth, but packaged in a small axe form factor.

Leiomano

But I recently ran across an even more beautiful design, yet another based on the small axe form factor, but without any kind of hard blade material whatsoever… Just wood. Really hard wood… Have a gander at this:

Samoan War Axe

Now chances are, the edge would be nowhere as keen as that of a macahuitl, so this would be more likely used freehand as a club, or to break or dislocate bones than an actual cleaving device,  (unless you had a hard surface to chop against and were willing to keep whacking away until the job was done :/ )  However,  it is just a beautiful piece of work.

I just love this thing. Between the smooth and highly polished finish on the weapon, the Samoan patterns on the blade, and the absolutely evil lines on this axe, I just love it to death. Ok, maybe not to death, since I kind of like being alive, but you get the point.

The points on this thing are amazing. The deep bevel of the edge is accentuated by the light colored patterning of the blade area, making it look almost like a thick slab of dark steel. The patterning runs all the way down the shaft, stopping just short of the light colored jute or twine wrapped grip. The combination is just sweet.

Truth be told, I think this wooden axe looks more both more beautiful  and sinister than most of the other evil steel axes I’ve posted on this site so far…

And that’s no small feat for a weapon made entirely of wood.

Samoan War Axe – [My Armory]

So I like multitools as much as anyone else, but I think there is a common sense limit to what they should be able to do. I have a SAK (Swiss Army Knife)  that I bought oh, about 15 or so odd years ago, and in spite of being one of my regular use EDCs for the vast majority of that time, it works today pretty much like it did the day I bought it. I’ve misplaced the pen from the SAK, and signal mirror that used to be stored in the leather case, but besides that, it’s a gem.

Now my SAK has about 17 or 18 different tools on it, not counting what’s in the sheath that it came with, and I have used each and every tool on that thing at one point or another so I can’t really complain about it having too many, however I’ve always wondered if there was such a thing as too much… Like too many tools… or maybe a tool that just makes no sense.

Wenger Giant Swiss Army Knife

Well, I’ve seen the humongous, gazillion tool Swiss Army Knife, so that first question has been answered.

However the answer to the second question came in the form of a rather unique multitool I found a while back… I’ll let you judge for yourself:

Utility Knife & Tool

Now this is certainly an interesting multitool. In addition to having very few tools, at least compared to most other multitools out there, it has a rather… eclectic… selection of tools. By my count I see 6 tools. Which, in an of itself, isn’t bad, if all you need are 6 tools, I’m a fan of economy of tools, and getting only what you need, but, in this case… well, lets go through the list.

First, the staples of any multitool, we have a simple knife. Good to go. Then moving on, we have a can opener. No complaints. Then a set of heavy wire cutters. Cool. The wire cutters are part of a set of pliers. Can’t go wrong there. And what looks like maybe a spring for the handle of the pliers. I dunno. BUT, Then we have, integrated with the head of the pliers… A claw hammer.

Yeah… A claw hammer. Really? A CLAW HAMMER? on a MULTITOOL?!? Now don’t get me wrong, I think the claw part is actually a good idea. You could use that to pull nails, open crates, etc. But the hammer head… This thing would have to be built like a tank in order to handle use as a hammer.

Now I must cede that there may actually be people out there that would find something like this incredibly useful. But even so, that whole claw hammer thing just really kills the portability of this tool. Yes, it comes with a sheath, which I’m guessing would b rather large. And I don’t know how much it weighs, but it would probably feel like a brick hanging from your belt.

And even if it didn’t wouldn’t the hammer just be a pain to use being attached to the swiveling part of the pliers? Keep swinging open on you and stuff? I’m all about innovation and invention, but this thing… I don’t know.

I really don’t know…

Utility Knife and Tool – [True Swords]

Now I could have sworn I had already put together a post for this blade, however my (admittedly hasty) searches seems to turn up nothing. So I thought I’d go ahead and post about this interesting little knife, duplicate post or not!!! Allow me to introduce the Widow Queen.

Widow Queen

It should be fairly obvious where the name of this blade came from, but for the entomological neophytes among you, the spider whose front legs are oh, so possessively surrounding the hilt of this dagger is, in fact, meant to be a female Black Widow Spider, most easily identified by the red hourglass shape on it’s abdomen.

The Black Widows is a highly venomous spider, and envenomation by female black widows has been known to kill humans. I’d be willing to bet that whoever designed this knife probably had a rather personal experience with one… Now in in real life, of course, black widows tend to be black in color, however in this case, I think we can afford to make an exception. Especially since this particular variety of black widow would probably be a heckuvalot lot more deadly in the right hands.

Either way, I certainly like the black widow motif of this blade, even though I think it goes too far in several ways. For instance, do we really need to have a full double sided hand guard (the widows front legs) and a cross guard on the same blade? I would rather have just had the cross guard, and even that is a little overly ornate for my taste.

The same goes for the pommel. You have the little spider limb thing going on, *and* a spike. What’s up with that? In fact, now that i look at it, this dagger would have been just fine entirely without the spider. A simple spiked pommel, the cool black ridged grip, a simpler, not so spikey cross guard, and that absolutly beautiful blade…

Yes… The blade on this thing is the main reason why I really like it. Now don’t get me wrong, the Black Widow was excellently done, and i could see them making replicas of that all by itself, sans the dagger. But for me, the blade is where it’s at on this knife. The swell of the ricasso, the smooth sweep into that almost straight blade, narrowing smoothly down into an absolutely evil point… I just love that profile.

Sometimes I wonder whether the people who design things like this actually realize how beautiful the blades are, all by themselves. No need for themes, motifs, spiders scorpions and whatnot, even though they can sometimes be cool. Because even if this had been a simple dagger, just this blade, a simple cross guard, black smooth grip, maybe with a simpler point on the pommel, it would still have ended up on this page.

Or maybe marketing has no clue… Who knows.

Either way, it’s a real pity…

Widow Queen – [The Collectors Edge]

Every once in a while I come across a knife that, while interesting by itself, is made even more interesting by the creative integration of strategically incorporated props…

Ivory Art Folder by Herbst

Here is an interesting blade, or set of blades. Or whatever. It in fact looks like an ivory scaled, damascus bladed folder, mounted atop a custom designed blade display, strategically designed to make it look like the head of a… Pterodactyl? A cockatiel maybe… I dunno.

Ivory Art Folder - Open

Either way, from the site of Herbst Knife Making Academy we have the quite appropriately named “Ivory Art Folder”. ‘Cause that’s exactly what it is. A work of art. In ivory and damascus steel. Even half closed it looks cool…

Ivory Art Folder - Folding

Quite an interesting piece, incorporating a very unique serration design on the blade, as well as an amazing level of detail on what I’d call the “eye” of the great damascus cockatiel…

Ivory Art Folder - Scales and Eye

Great stuff eh? The back of the grip was also treated to some equally unique styling cues…

Ivory Art Folder - Back

All in all, some really great work here… Though the mounting itself seems evil enough on it’s own to be used as a weapon… A punch dagger or something…

Ivory Art Folder - Head

Gotta love how blade art can be so evil looking and cool at the same time!

Ivory Art Folder – [Herbst Knifemaking Academy]

A while back, there was an interesting discussion on the Exotic Automatic Forums (http://exoticautomatic.com) about a rather cool weapon, or set of weapons, called Emeici or Emei Piercers (aka Emei Daggers). they are basically a set of steel rods, with sharp broadhead-like points on each end and a finger ring on a pivot attached at the center. Looky here:

Emei Piercers

Emeici are a traditional Chinese martial arts weapon, most notably practiced in Wu-Shu. The primary purpose of these weapons is obviously to speedily inflict deep puncture wounds, and in that regard, they are excellently designed.  The rods are of an extremely efficient design, in my opinion, very strong, but still extremely light and quick. I cannot fault that aspects of the design.

I’ve known of these weapons for a long time, and between the mechanical aspects of it’s design, and the rather visually impressive techniques typically used when wielding them, I cannot, argue they aren’t really, really cool. However in typical DarkBlader fashion, I cannot help but ask myself… What percentage of this kind of this “second kind” of cool is actually useful?

I have a lot of respect of traditional martial arts, the vast majority of my experience has been in TMAs, and so I see value in many of the traditional ways of doing things. *However* I have always found TMAs to have a rather unfortunate tendency towards the retention of outdated techniques and ideologies, and this weapon seems to be no exception.

Besides the obvious snafu of having an overenthusiastic martial artist pretty much admitting, on a nationally syndicated television series, that he is prone to the colloquial *bloodrage*,   my point of contention is this: Does allowing the weapon to spin actually add any useful value to the use of the weapon besides the cool or intimidation factor? Or is it just for show?

If you ask a TMA what the practical benefits of being able to spin emeici around are, they will tell you it is helpful for confusing your opponent. They will argue that it allows quick switch ups, changes in direction, etc. And to some degree, this is true of most knives. The grip, the position of the edge or edges, the orientation of the point, etc. tell you things about how and where your opponent might strike.

But while the quick change-up explanation has merit, there are really only two grips that you can use with a set of emeici, between which you can perform any strike, to any target. So while this all sounds good in theory, I wouldn’t be looking predominantly at the position of the weapon to try and figure out where the next attack was going.

For spinning, double-ended stabbing weapons, since the spinning, by itself, does not really change any of those factors, methinks it would not matter so much. I don’t think I would be any more confused by the spinning than if it were being held still. I have yet to spar an Emeici wielding opponent, so my analysis may turn out to be entirely wrong, but…

What do you think? Anyone feel like weighing in on this one? Spinning Emeici: Mostly Show? Or Absolutely Go?

Emeici – [Chinatown Shop]

I like boot knives. I think they’re cool. They are small, fast, fairly sturdy (usually)  and best of all, easier to carry than most others. All great reasons to love boot knives. Especially if you actually wear boots. Though it is by no means a showstopper if you don’t. Lots of different leg, arm, chest, small of back, and belt carry solutions for these cool little knives.

But here’s something I don’t like; gimmicks. Like unnecessarily compromising a perfectly good blade for the sake of making it look “cool”. Dunno what I’m talking about? Here, let me show you:

Double Edged Combat Boot Knife

Yes, this, ladies and germs is a so called “double edged” combat boot knife. I dunno. Lots of boot knives are double edged. This is more like double pointed. Double the pain? I doubt it. More like double the amount of effort to use this as a thrusting weapon. Ok, so that is a gross exaggeration, but when it comes to dagger points, two are generally *not* better than one.

And then there’s the issue of mechanical strength. Two smaller points, imho, are just two weaker points that will break faster than one larger, thicker point. But that could just be my tenuous understanding of physics/metallurgy at work. Who knows. All I’m sayin’ is, one mans cool is another mans DOH!

Me personally, I thought the design would have looked great without that split point. The all metal grip looks good, and the blade, had it been a single blade, would have had some awesome lines to it. The fork just kinda messes it all up for me.

But then again I don’t design knives for aesthetics over function…

Double Edged Combat Boot knife – [True Swords]