Cypher-Liontribe Designs

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liontribe

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hope everyone is having a great Memorial Day. i took some pics of my latest prototype before the grill gets hot. it is a 6" design from 1095 with a deep hollow grind. rounded spine and bead blasted edges along with thumb serrations on the spine make for a sure grip. nice and flat, should disappear with a good clip sheath whether in a pants pocket or jacket.

liontribe

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well, a good customer of mine has already snatched it up. guess i will have to make a small run of these little guys.

liontribe
 
What media do you practice using your knives against? Filled water bottles, rolled newspapers (wet or dry), cardboard, meat? Did you test this model just with gloves or with bare hands?

I ask because your knives always look very striking and dramatic, but frankly, most look like they'd be painful to use. If you have extensively tested them, and this is not the case, please correct me. Alternatively, send me a "beater" that you've already used, and I will give it a fair test, report my results here, and send it back.
 
Liontribe, sick as always man! Love it.

Alternatively, send me a "beater" that you've already used, and I will give it a fair test, report my results here, and send it back.
Click to expand...

Please let John test one!
 
i generally test my designs with cardboard and/or paper. wet and dry depending. bigger designs i will trim brush and so forth. basically whatever it is meant to be used for. i make all my knives to be comfortable in the hand. i pay more attention to the bigger knives that would be used for chopping and whatnot, as these would be the most likely to develop a hot spot with repeated use. most of my customers report back that even though some might look a bit wild, they just feel right and comfortable in hand. i take great pains to remove any sharp angles or high spots that might cause trouble. smaller EDC knives i don't worry about AS much, because you don't really cut firewood or skin deer with a neck knife. more than half of my orders pending right now are from repeat customers, so they must be pretty happy with the product. i started making knives because so many people make basically the same knife with a different name on the blade. i wanted to make something that looks different and performs just as well or better than many of the sought after designs. i could go for days about the "American tanto" design. just a waste of steel in my opinion. now, i do make some designs just for fun, but it is pretty obvious those models are not for chopping down trees or playing Rambo in the backyard. if i have a scrap knife that pops up, i will send it your way. right now, i am seriously backlogged for the rest of this year. i have a writer who is still waiting for a design to use for an article. he is probably getting impatient with me. as for gloved use, i just go by my bare hand. it is a pretty big paw, so if it is comfy, most others wearing gloves should have no trouble. most of my designs are easy to make in a variety of sizes, so i work that out with the customer in advance. you seem to be more of a traditional style guy, JShirley. i doubt i will ever see your name on a build order. there are plenty of guys building the same old traditional style blades out there. just don't expect me to be one of them, at least not any time soon. i like many traditional designs, but i see no reason to do the same thing as everybody else. that is basically how i have always approached things in every aspect of life. thanks for all the great comments everyone, i will most likely have some new pics of some other little monster soon enough. the mrs. is my photographer, i like to show off her work. she is a great little leather seamstress as well. :D

liontribe
 
Okay.

While I prefer certain styles to others, I'm a big believer in things that work well. I do appreciate and tend to agree that hot spots are more of an issue for big working knives than for small ones.

I'm pretty sure something like the ARK isn't a very traditional knife, but I do certainly love some blade shapes that could be described as classic. :) OTOH, I think the TOPS Tom Brown Tracker is ugly as sin, but well balanced for its tasking, so "pretty is as pretty does".

John
 
I have been making most of my EDC knives around 7" long and the dedicated neck knives around 6" overall or smaller. What size do you guys prefer in a neck knife? I am planning a small run of the Cypher design soon. I want to make it as small as possible and still provide plenty to get a hold on.

Liontribe
 
Well, there are probably two main schools of thought there.

One would be "as small as possible to do the job". Knives like the Minimalist come to mind. (The ARK and Daily Kiri fall into this category.)

The other would be "the biggest I can conveniently carry". The Becker Eskabar would be an example.

John
 
yeah, that has been my observation as well. i want the neck knives to be small but still fill the hand comfortably if it has to be pressed into work that would otherwise be reserved for a bigger blade. you never know what you might need it for. maybe i will do a few in different lengths and go from there. working on a special custom order right now, so i may have to shelf that idea for the moment. playing with my take on a subhilt design for a good customer, big mother cutter.

liontribe
 
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