Reate Bushido Review
I have had a difficult relationship with my Reate knives. While their knives made on spec have been excellent, in-house designs have been a real struggle. Reate’s ability to make a knife reminds me of the Chinese Room thought experiment first proposed by John Searle in 1980 (proof that great philosophy is still being done today). Searle was arguing against the possibility that if you had the right programming and sufficient computing power, you could make an AI have a mind exactly like the human mind. The thought experiment, which I have referenced on the blog before, goes something like this:
Suppose there is a person in a room that is locked. On the other side of the door are native Chinese speakers. The person in the room and the Chinese speakers wish to communicate, but they cannot yell through the door, nor can they use technology. Instead, both sides have a pen and paper. They communicate by sending slips of paper to each other with Chinese symbols on them under the door. The person in the room, however, is not a native Chinese speaker. The person’s only tool to help communicate is a giant book. The book is not a translation guide, but simply a list of symbols. One list says “if you receive this symbol,” and the other list says: “write this symbol and send it back.” The person dutifully follows the guide’s instructions. A slip of paper from the native Chinese speakers comes in, the person looks it up, and then writes the corresponding symbols back. The guide is perfect in its responses and is large enough to incorporate every possible phrase in Chinese and a corresponding sensible response. Would the native speakers, given the guide’s comprehensive nature and the person’s dutiful application of the rules, believe the person in the room to be a native speaker with an understanding of Chinese? More importantly, does the person in the room speak Chinese? The answer to the second question is “obviously not.”
Searle’s point is that comprehension, in the way that human beings do it, is not simply rote. It involves a more robust sense of understanding. But the Chinese Room thought experiment has applicability outside of philosophy of the mind. I believe it also is a good analogy to show when a craftsman merely copies a form and when a craftsman makes something with true understanding.
Here, Reate has proficiency in all of the knife-related skills. They have robust machining capabilities. They follow trends in the knife world well. They understand what people like about knives in a certain sense, but, from my perspective, their in-house knives are missing something fundamental about what makes a knife a knife. They make virtually perfect facsimiles of knives, but they aren’t great knives. They seem to miss that idea that knives are for use, that they are tool. They render blades with chunky grinds and overly thick blade stock. The grinds are pretty but not necessarily functional. And their choice of materials and finishes seem to be devoid of any use considerations, you know, like grip. This is why, despite their resplendent finishes and their truly superior collabs, I have yet to really love a Reate in-house knife.
The Bushido, aside from a controversial origins story, which I will touch on below, strikes me as an effort to get away from the classic Reate formula—gloss layered on gloss. Has Reate turned a corner? Or is this yet another knife that misses the point of what makes a knife a knife? Read on.
There is no product page. The Reate Bushido costs $242. There are five variants: three with carbon fiber handles, one with a black coated blade, one with a stonewashed blade, and one with a satin finished blade and two with this micarta handle, one with a stonewash blade and another with a satin blade. Here is a forum thread about the Bushido. Here is a video review. Finally, here is my review sample:
Twitter Summary: Still missing the point.
NOTE: There was controversy when this knife was announced. This is my understanding of the issue. Reate made a line of knives on spec for Pohl’s (of Pohl Force) high end production knife line. One was a knife by a European designer named Guy Poggetti. Here is a link to a picture of the Poggetti design. Then, without prior consultation with Poggetti, Reate announced this knife. After Poggetti took to Instagram, Reate announced that they would release a collab with Poggetti and he and Pohl seemed satisfied as there was no more protest on their respective IG accounts. Look at the pictures and decide for yourself.
Design: 1
Trailing point or Persian blades look interesting, but they aren’t great for EDC tasks. Instead of double dipping on this though, I am reserving the loss of points for the blade shape for the blade shape section. Instead, the 1 here is for making a small gentlemen’s knife much stockier than it needs to be. This is unmistakably a gent’s knife with its slick handles and refined, fragile blade shape, so making it basically a billet of a knife makes no sense. Compared to something like the Spyderco Chaparral, which is half the price and more than twice the slicer, the Bushido runs squarely into the Reate problem—beef. The blade won’t even fit into the blade wells of the following knives: the aforementioned Chaparral, the Spyderco Dragonfly, the TRM Neutron, and the TRM Nerd. It is just too thick for a knife with this intended use. In a knife like the Lambert collabs, which are arguably more tactical in their comportment, the beef makes sense. Here, where you want slim slicing, its confounding.
The performance ratios are pretty good. The B:W is 1.16. The B:H is .80. As good as they are, had Reate made the knife slimmer they would have been even better.
Fit and Finish: 2
This is a Reate knife. Of course the fit and finish is good. In fact, other than Chris Reeve, I can’t think of another company that consistently produces such nice knives. The difference maker between Reate and Chris Reeve is that CRK understands what makes a knife a knife. To carry the analogy forward—Chris Reeve Knives is a native speaker, while Reate has access to the “Big Book of IKC Soup De Jour Designs.”
Grip: 1
The micarta is beautiful. It is clean and meticulously made. But man is it slick. I don’t normally care about grip on an EDC knife because basically anything is good enough. I don’t think jimping is necessary either. But that is usually because the handle itself is a shape that is conducive to grip. Here it is a stick with hardly any contour or shape at all. That’s okay if the knife is like the American Knife Company Forest, which has good grip because of the material’s texture. But here the micarta is glassy slick.
Carry: 2
With an excellent clip and a small footprint, the Bushido does well in the pocket. A thinner version would, obviously, be better but this a pretty compact knife to begin with and it carries well as is. Very good, but could be better. And guess what, if it got thinner it would also be a better slicer. Its like there is some objective reason why knives should be thin. I can’t see the complex hidden logos to the universe, but this coincidence has to mean something…
Steel: 2
M390. Its good, you know it, I know it. Nothing more needs to be said.
Blade Shape: 0
Every single time I used this knife I had the same thought: “Where is that thing going?” The tip on Persians is always like this. It is always somewhere else, like a wandering toddler at the mall. Its also impressively fragile. While not quite as silly as the tip on the Kershaw Leek or the ZT0707, it is pretty darn fragile given the unnecessarily thick blade stock. How is it possible that Reate can make a knife with a thick edge but a thin tip and think that is a good idea?
Grind: 1
This is a flat grind, but the problem is the grind line is basically in the middle of the blade. It looks smashing, calling to mind the glamor of a Hattori Hanzo sword. Too bad that in going all in on looks, Reate made a grind that accentuates an already fat blade stock. This is a giant miss—an FFG Bushido would really rock as it would slim down the overly thick blade stock.
Deployment Method: 1
With an absolutely buttery smooth pivot, the Bushido just kills it in terms of action. I take off a point here because this is the ugliest front flipper I have ever seen. The reason I prefer front flippers to regular flippers is that they generally do not impact the silhouette of the knife. The Small Shamwari is a gorgeous blade precisely because the flipper tab has zero impact on the knife’s appearance. The fact that it is also not a “pocket pecker” as Nick would say, is another big benefit. But here, those benefits are gone as this knife has a front flipper tab that looks like some warty growth on the back of the knife.
Retention Method: 2
What a sterling clip here—slim, low profile, totally out of the way. It works and works well. This trend of clipping off the corner of sculpted Titanium pocket clips is really nice, making the entire handle just a bit better than you would think it would be in your hand.
Lock: 1
The lock access is really tight with on the slightest of cutouts offering you access to what is a very wide blade well (remember the beefy blade stock). That works okay, but it is not fantastic. I’d love to see some innovation in lock design that would aid these kwaiken-style knives, such as a button lock, but Reate is not a company known for mechanical innovation (and no the two piece blade doesn’t count—that is more show than innovation).
Other Considerations
Fidget Factor: Very High
With a beautiful blade, snappy pivot, and a ginormous flipper tab (which, again, sort of defeats the purpose of the front flipper design) the Bushido, like all Reate knives, is a fidget fiend’s best friend.
Fett Effect: High
The seemingly hand rubbed satin finish will show use almost instantly and I like that, but some folks, especially those that bought this knife for Instagram purposes might not.
Value: Moderate
This is not the most expensive Reate every and so it comes in as a modest value. I’d still prefer just about any other mainstream brand gent knife over this one so, its not a great value (its hard to compete with the Chaparral in terms of value in the Gent knife space).
Overall Score: 13 of 20
Reate is still trapped in the room, but instead of a comprehensive book of knowledge of knife design, it is using the IKC’s output on Instagram and Youtube to guide its decisions. As you can imagine, such a reference source results in a less than amazing knife. After banging my head against the proverbial wall three times with Reate (the Baby Machine, the 3000, and now this knife) I might be at my limit. Why continue to review these fit and finish masterpieces that cut like Wal-Mart clam shell “KNIFE” knives? It is hard to justify continuing to spend money on a company that doesn’t seem to have the ability to adapt and change, and no, incorporating Moku Ti into prior designs is NOT what I am talking about. In the end, I feel validated in hammering the design choices here because Reate CAN make a great knife as the Pena collabs and the Nadeau collabs prove. For some reason, they choose, instead, to make this stuff.
I recognize that my opinion here is an aberration from the consensus in the IKC. This is not the first time this happened and nor will it be the last time. The reality is, I am not someone that values looks or IG presentation highly. These are tools. Additionally, while I like nice looking knives, and there are some parts of the Bushido that are good looking, this is not a per se looker. The front flipper tab is ugly. REALLY ugly. And so, I acknowledge the departure from consensus, but I think I have done so for defensible reasons.
Competition
The Bushido is not a bomb by any means but it looks terrible when you stack it up against the competition. The Chaparral, another sub-3” blade with a gentlemen’s use case, crushes this knife. As does the Drop Gent. Anything with a TRM logo crushes this knife. The Mnandi dusts this thing. Even other Reate made blades make this seem sad by comparison—the Micro Evo and the Pena X Series stuff all cream the Bushido. The Boos Blade Mini Smoke is a better knife for roughly the same price as is the TRM Nerd. Trailing points are dumb on EDC folders and that makes the Bushido a clearly inferior choice. When you toss in the portly blade stock and steep grind you get a knife that doesn’t cut nearly as well as its competitors. And its more expensive than all of the mentioned knives but for the Nadeau and Pena. Why you would settle on this knife when there are better cheaper options out there is beyond me.
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