Carry 2020 Q4
It has been a while since I did a summary of my carry for over a three month period. I really enjoy writing these articles and they seem to do well in terms of readership data. This article covers the last quarter of 2020, one of the most competitive quarters ever for EDC gear.
(Lead Picture) Giant Mouse Riv and Reylight Mini Pineapple
The Riv is an amazing knife, with great egros, excellent materials, and a very confident appearance. It is like a Pilar and a Dragonfly had a baby. That combination should tell you how good this knife is. I also love the wire clip. I know that wire clips are passe, but they really do work and here, the stiffness and size are just right. Not much complain about on the Riv, which can make for a boring review. I will try to find some spicy introduction. See below for more on the Mini Pineapple.
American Blade Works Model 1, v.5 and Reylight Mini Pineapple
These are both items still in the review hopper and both are really good. The question is whether they are great or really good. That thin line is difficult to surmount and only more time will tell me if either of these pieces of kit do that. The American Blade Works knife is a MASSIVE knife for a 3.25 inch blade. Its weird, like a reverse Tardis or something—its bigger than its dimensions. The thing I am still figuring out with the Mini Pineapple is the switch and the texture. Both are different than I would prefer, but I am not sure that is a bad thing. Still working on these two. Either way, they are good pair and the flipping action on the ABW Model 1 is exceptional.
MaxMadCo Bolt Action Pen, Spyderco Native in Spy27, and FourSevens Mini Turbo Mk. III
Well, the MaxMadCo is still really great. Its just not available anymore. That doesn’t mean that I have retired mine, as it is still an amazing pen. The only new item here is the Native 5 in Spy27 and it is amazing. We all know the bones of the Native 5 design are very solid. Its nice to see it serve as a platform for steel experimentation and Spy27 is one of my favorite steels right now, making this a very easy “great knife.” We are truly living in a Second Golden Age of Knives (the first being in the early 20th Century) and the fact that the Spy27 Native 5 is just “another knife” is proof of that.
Spoke Designs Roady, Laulima Hoku, and the Theseus Edition Emerson Mini A-100
Obviously, there is not “Theseus Edition.” That is a joke and an allusion to a classic thought experiment from Ancient Greece. The knife, as it is currently, is absolutely amazing. There was a lot of work done to the Mini A-100 to take a very good knife and make it a truly superior blade. First, Spade Knife Works reprofiled the blade, giving it a full v-bevel and he crowned the spine. I then had a well-known Emerson modder, IG user fastlt1nos, make me a set of gray scales. I love the Mini A-100. With these changes, it becomes one of my very favorite knives ever. This is truly a classy knife that can do anything. It looks good and performs exceptionally well. It does bear a striking similarity to the PDW special edition, but I had this one in the works years before the PDW version was released. The similarity, I will assume, is evidence of the correctness of my choices.
FourSevens Mini Turbo Mk. III, A Purvis Progeny MR, and the Spoke Design Roady
I never do “out of the box” reviews. I find them sort of vapid, one step above the useless worship of materialism that is an “unboxing.” I always try to use stuff before I review it. Unfortunately, AFTER the review, my Progeny MR developed some serious problems with its lock. Even the lightest contact with the spine of the blade disengaged the lock. I have sent it back to Adam for repair or replacement. I will attach a note to the review either way. I feel it is likely to be an issue with that particular knife and not a flaw endemic to the design, given how it developed and what was causing it (or what I think was causing it). Once I have my replaced or repaired MR, I will have more info and post an addendum to the review.
Spoke Designs Roady, Pena X Series Zulu Spear, and Prometheus Beta Mag
The Beta Mag is the anti-venom for Anduril, a light of stunning simplicity with a focus on ease of use, color rendering, and runtime. Lots of companies have dropped out of the entirely useless lumens arms race, but the Beta Mag is the first light I have seen that is specifically designed to reject all of that bullshit. It is a better piece of gear for it.
IPhone 12, Casio Oceanus, Terrain 365 Otter, Laulima Hoku, Spoke Design Roady
This is the prototype of what I hope to refine into a working MagSafe charging station. The wood is, of course, Walnut. I found a small hunk of 8/4 or 9/4 at a local lumber yard and bought it with the express notion that I would make this tray out of it. I also built a hole cutting jig a while back, again in prep for this project. I am living with this design for a while (I have three other major projects in a holding pattern before I get back to this one). Once I have a sense of what works, I am probably going to make a routing template and then make a finished version of this. The actual cutting didn’t take long (I have a massive P-C router with a 1/2” collet—I need a plunge base though), but laying everything out did. The hole cutting jig worked brilliantly, but it is one of those slow down, easy does it kind of things.
As I prepped this post I noticed just how much I carried the Spoke Design Roady. Not only is a great EDC pen, it photographs like Marilyn Monroe. Its a striking piece of kit to behold and to hold. Good combination. I noticed a similar pattern with the LauLima Hoku. With both these items released in Q4 of 2020, it was really a question of what knife I was going to carry in the late fall/early winter. There was a lot of variety there.
Gerber Reserve Sedulo and the FourSevens Mini Turbo Mk. 3
Gerber Reserve’s second release, the Sedulo, is far more staid than the Terracraft. It bears more than a passing resemblance to the Benchmade Griptillian, but hosts a lot of small details that remind of the Fastball. This new general of Gerber knives abounds with creative, out of the box touches. One nice thing is that the thumb stud is carefully removed from the cutting path. It is a small thing, but you’d be surprised how often that is not the case. The Sedulo is beefier than a Griptillian, thanks to a thicker handle and full liners, but it is just below the “boat anchor” threshold.
Spoke Design Roady, Surefire Titan Plus, Spyderco Dragonfly II in ZDP-189
If I had to sell everything else, this would probably be what I was left with in the end. This particular Surefire has two mods. First, I took the light to a local machine shop and had them lathe off the stupid lanyard attachment so that the light can tail stand. I also bought a Prometheus clip to replace to thin and pokey stock clip. Together this makes for a really compelling EDC torch—slim, easy to use, readily available battery. The Dragonfly is similarly modded with lintless natural micarta scales. Swapping out the stock scales for these has made a light knife even lighter (though only slightly). What a functional, fun, and now unique pairing. And then there is the Roady. Love it.
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Reylight Pineapple (the Mini is Out of Stock)