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

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 hack 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 reaching 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.

  • Curious CanidEnglish
    1·
    4 days ago

    Actually, that might explain a lot of things about that knife.