Damned Design Djinn Review
On the verge of being put to death, brought to court by a desparate Vizer (who happened to be her father), Sheherazade tells a tale to stall the king from having sex with her and then executing her. So enraptured was the king that the following night he asked for another story instead of putting her to death. And so it went for 1,001 nights until Sheherazade told her audience of one she had no more stories to tell. The king, now utterly besotted by the brilliant woman, spared her life, made her his queen, and she lived for many years as a beloved figure in the kingdom. Many of her tales involved powerful magic spirits called djinns (or genies). They were famous for appearing from small spaces and solving problems, as if by magic. The Damned Designs Djinn is similar—it too appears from small spaces and solves problems. The story of this review, like many of Sheherazade’s tales has a twist.
I like small knives. I really do. But there is a limit to the efficacy of small knives. The Spyderco Ladybug is good boxcutter, but I couldn’t EDC it forever. The lower limit to what I like to carry is probably the Dragonfly or the TRM Nerd. So when Damned Designed reached out and asked if I would like to review the Djinn, a knife that debuted on Kickstarter, I was interested as it is in that Dragonfly/Nerd size range. Part of me was worried that the size did not match with the deployment method—small front flippers are insanely hard to pull off. The twist in the story here is that deployment is quick and kinetic. Instead, my least favorite part of the Djinn is something you wouldn’t expect on a small knife. But this is more of a deviation from preference instead of a design flaw. Either way, this in an interesting knife from a new company, so venture on dear reader.
Here is the product page. The Damned Designs Djinn comes in two models—this one with S35VN steel and titanium handles and a budget model with D2 steel and G10 scales on a liner lock. There are different handle colors in both the high end model and the budget model. I was sent a review sample of both and they are very slightly different, which I will note in the review. Here is the original Kickstarter page. The Djinn got funded. Damned Designs is working on a larger Djinn with something like a 3 inch handle. Here is my review sample (provided by Damned Designs along with a D2 entry level model, a pry tool, and a lanyard bead):
Twitter Review Summary: A chubby little beast.
Design: 2
Front flippers are pretty polarizing. One notably satirical IG account HATES them. They take some getting used to as the motion is fundamentally different than any other motion used to open a knife. But the advantages—snappy deployment and less impact on the silhouette of the knife—are big. Front flippers also work well on lighter and smaller knifes because deployment depends on leverage detent as opposed to detent strength alone. But designing a front flipper on a small knife is really challenging. The front flipper on my Small Shamwari is very unforgiving—you either learn the exact motion to open it (at which point it is flawless) or the knife doesn’t open. For people that gathered the muscle memory of a flipper on a traditional design, this unforgiving nature is a drawback (fortunately for me I liked traditional flippers but didn’t love them, so the Shamwari motion didn’t have to overwrite that muscle memory).
The Djinn’s achievement is making a front flipper design as easy and as fidget friendly as any other deployment method. They did it by making the flipper tab longer, but they made the handle a different shape to make the tab more inconspicuous. In the end, the design is a cohesive visual unit AND an excellent flipper. This is by far the best small front flipper I have ever used and if you have been holding off on front flippers for a while, this is a good place to start. This is also a really brilliant design solution to a problem that seemed to have no real workaround. Huge hat’s off to the Damned Design folks.
Fit and Finish: 2
Like with most stuff made overseas today the Djinn is pretty flawless. The centering is great, lockup is solid, the ano is nice and even, the satin on both version is beautiful. Nothing to complain about at all here. That said there is still an echelon above this knife in terms of fit and finish. Think of this as living in the WE Knives tier—well above average, but not quite in that Reate/CRK/Tactile Knives tier.
Grip: 1
Its a three finger knife. Not a huge fan of three finger knives. Making a knife this small is an exercise is compromise and while I like the fact that there is something to hang on to here, I would have preferred the knife to be 25% larger to allow for a full four finger grip. There are knives that manage to sneak four fingers on the handle in this size range—the Dragonfly II (of course) and the new Civivi Baby Banter—but those are stand out small blades in terms of grip.
Carry: 1
The Djinn is a design masterclass thanks to the clever front flipper, but here is the place where the knife’s flaw—way too much thickness—becomes apparent. Put simply this knife carries like a D battery—its thick, clunky, and tends to be a pocket pendulum. It is too thick to fit some of my jeans coin pockets comfortably. This thickness doesn’t really help with the grip and it is silly to imagine that this would somehow make this a “hard use” folder (no 2” folder can be a hard use…sorry).
Steel: 2 for the Ti version and 1 for the G10 Version (it uses D2)
Its S35VN. Its good. Slowly but surely S35VN will be a 1 steel not because it is an average performer but because of how ubiquitous it is. We haven’t reached that point yet, what with Benchmade issuing evergreen knives in S30V and Spyderco still using a ton of VG10. Once that ends, then I will have to reevaluate.
Blade Shape: 2
Harpoons are thing. Harpoon blade shapes…mmm…not so much. I guess they look cool. I guess they sell well. I guess they are trendy. The problem is they don’t add utility and when done poorly they make the folder uncomfortable to carry. Here, the harpoon is very, very low key and doesn’t impact carry, but there is no reason to go down this road, at all. In a different design, I would absolutely take off points for a decorative flourish that impacts performance, but here, I am going to leave it alone. The rest of the blade shape is quite good—a solid tip without being obnoxious.
Grind: 0
I like my beers and my trucks stout. Pretty much everything else should be no thicker than it needs to be. Here, given the intended use for this knife there is no objective reason for the stock to be this thick or the grind to start where it does (and finish so thick behind the edge). I am not a huge fan of thick grinds on any knives—my favorite fixed blades (the BK16, the Bravo 1 LT) even have thinner, slicier blades. You should note that the autocorrect of “slicier” is “spicier.” This is a hint from the universe. All knives should be thinly ground. Small knives should be laser beams. This is more baseball bat than laser beam. Heck it is more ironing board than baseball bat. Of all the flaws on the Djinn, this is the only one I can’t see my way around ignoring.
Retention: 2
The clip here is pretty solid—rounded off on the back end, staying out of the way during use, aiding in deployment, and with just the right amount of tension. I wouldn’t change a lot about the clip. This is a sign of just how far sculpted clips have come. They are, in my estimation, only a bit behind stamped clips in terms of functionality.
Deployment: 2
Ah…the true beating heart of this design—the flipping action here. While not as smooth as something like the Otter Flipper and not as convincing as the Micro Evo 2.0, the snap here is absolutely addicting. Over and over and over again, I couldn’t help but pop this thing open. It is just too fun. As a fidget toy, this thing is very good. The fact that it also works as a knife, well, that’s why I am reviewing it.
Lock: 2
The lock here is solid, unremarkable, and never an issue. In other words, exactly what you’d want the lock to be.
Other Considerations
Fidget Factor: Very High
It is hard to explain just how fun this knife is to open. I hate fidget toys, but fidget toys that actually do things…that is a different story.
Fett Effect: Moderate
Neither version of this knife is particularly good at picking up character.
Value: Moderate
The D2 version is a pretty good value. The Ti version is about twice as much and it is not a bad value given the materials upgrade.
Overall Score: 16 out of 20; 15 out of 20 for D2 version
The Djinn is a clever design in that solved an intractable problem for smaller knives that use front flippers—instead of ramping up the skin grabbing jimping, it smartly made the flipper tab longer, thus providing more leverage and requiring less torque to open. But in solving this problem it forgot the single advantage of small knives—you make ‘em really thin. The handle is chunky, the grind is too stout, and the overall package is as thick as an Emerson Mini A-100 but significantly smaller. The end result is that the knife feels like a nugget in your pocket instead of slim slicer. The reason is simple—it IS a nugget. Some folks like this approach to knife design, but I am not one of them. If you are, then obviously, you can add back in the points for carry and grip. Those are more like preferences than flaws. The grind however is objectively wrong. I like all of my knives slicey, up to and including the insane Busse Forsake Steel Heart. Given the durability of modern powder steels there is simply no reason other than aesthetics to keep a grind this thick on a knife this small. Interestingly the solution to the flipper problem can still work on a slimmer knife. If Damned Designs gave this knife the Al Mar treatment and thinned it out considerably, it would be a stellar small knife. As it is, it is merely a good one.
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