From texts:
“Hey James, how are you doing? I know you consider yourself like Kryptonite [1]. But have you ever thought about designing your own knife?
“We will see what happens. I was curious if you ever wrote about your ideal fighting knife?
“I like James Keating's Crossada for a fighting knife. But they're too expensive for me."
-Electric Dan, 7/20/21
Hey, Dan, I'm getting along down the writing road and will email this answer to you, since it won't post for a couple months.
Never, not once, not for an instant, and not even while watching Forged in Fire with The Colonel, have I ever thought about designing a knife.
The venture with your friend sounds very cool.
I am also curious as to whether or not I ever wrote about my ideal fighting knife. I'm sure to be inconsistent on this point.
I like the Bowie knife as the best all around tool-weapon.
Keating's Crossada is certainly the best Bowie dueling knife I have seen.
I have never even shopped for a knife since I bought my Western Bowie for $40 at Ace Auto in Washington, PA when I was sixteen with my second paycheck, the first going for boots and the third going for a sword.
The knives I have used since then were either given to me, like the Othelo Solingen gravity blade, or the three knives I still own, given to me by readers.
I have these detailed for three uses:
-sleeping knife, the 4-inch sheath knife
-carry knife, the 3-inch neck knife
-pack knife, the 3-inch sheath knife
If I were a viable American, with a home and all that, I would prefer the following knife designs:
-sleeping knife, a 12-inch Bowie
-home defense knife [with Bowie ideally in the offhand] a 16-inch falchion or clip-pointed cleaver
-carry knife, a clip pocket razor knife for opening packages at work and cutting out of a clinch or stomping attack
-a dedicated class breaker in the car, all stainless steel with a ruber-coated center grip, a diamond-shape glass breaker pummel on the thumb-side and a mace-style glass breaker on the pinkie-side
I suppose, my ideal knife would have a para-chord grip, with a flat, naked pummel that hooked like a cane head around the forefinger [with a half-inch clear above and in front of the forefinger] to the middle finger for retention and chin checking on the draw and a wide bellied, single-edge 3 ½ -inch blade, with a blade back that would butt against the pinkie if it slid in my grip.
This would be for an ice-pick draw and defensive work and I'd want the blade to be entirely dull so it could be carried loose in the pocket. You see, it would be like a trainer and would still knock holes in heads and punch holes in oil well cages. Because, instead of a rounded point I'd like a saw-cut point, like an orkish ice-pick.
I would not call this a trainer, but a combination tent-spike and climbing spike. Maybe you could call it a devil claw, me being a woke devil after all.
I'd carry it in the leg pocket of my cargo jeans.
Thanks so much for thinking about me, Dan.
Hope you have that gravel dune in your front yard before the next round of purges.
…
Notes
-1. Men who like good knives were very offended by The Logic of Steel book I wrote for Paladin Press for a 2001 release, in which I focused on the actual junk people usually get butchered with.
This and an angle grinder should get everyone started.
youtu.be/O4dArj6__OA?t=446