Big I Design Ti Pocket Knife
I have cultivated (read: earned) a reputation as a reviewer of Hipster Knives. I was the first review of a knife from The James Brand. I took Quiet Carry seriously. And now, here I am, reviewing the current Flavor of the Week Hipster Knife. Unfortunately, unlike those two previous Hipster Knives, the Ti Pocket Knife is not just flawed, but pretty darn bad. There are a few highlights here, but for the most part this a tour of design mistakes. Perhaps that is what you get when you prioritize having the same handle as your other tools as opposed to fully designing a purpose-built object. Hey, there is a sauce pan, let me attach the handle from a beer mug to it. That will work, right? Here is the thing though—some of the more difficult parts of knife design—flipper tab geometry and pocket clip design—they nail. This gives me hope that Big I Designs will make a good knife. This just isn’t it.
I really believe that making a truly superior knife is incredibly difficult. The difference between good and great is slight, but reaching that uppermost plateau is really, really hard. So failing to make something great on your first try isn’t a bad portent, its actually the most likely outcome. I love the innovation seen in the C01 Worker, but I don’t think it is a great knife. It is rare that the first effort in any field is great. We got spoiled by Tactile Knife Co. and the Rockwall. That’s not the norm, its the exception. This knife or The James Brand’s first gen Chapter is the norm.
Here is the product page. There is a variant of this knife that eschews the thumb hole. It is marketed by Pete’s Pirate Life and sells for significantly more money on the secondary. I contacted Big I Designs and they confirmed that the knives are, in fact, the same. The Big I Design Ti Pocket Knife costs $220 and has the same materials as PPL’s folder, which sells for, I think $300. On the secondary market Pete’s Midas touch has driven his folder to very high prices on eBay, which is a commentary on just how powerful a brand PPL is. Here is the review sample that I purchased with my own money:
Quick Review Summary: So bad, I am not sure it was designed by humans with hands.
Design: 0
If you read this site you have probably sketched out the outlines of a knife on the back of a page of notes or on a napkin while waiting at a restaurant. If you did, that design was better than this one. The silly looking spear point-ish blade and the squared off for no particular reason handle are not just ugly, they actually don’t work all that well for a knife.
Fit and Finish: 2
I have talked about this before, but fit and finish is not just how well something is made, but a combination of how well something is made and how difficult it is to make it. Here the Ti Pocket Knife is pretty well made, but it is exceedingly simple in its design. Only the lockbar interface is a complex shape. So while this is a very well made knife, its not all that special in that most companies could make a knife this simple this well.
Grip: 0
Carry: 2
Despite its blocky, slabby appearance, the knife is actually an excellent blade in the pocket thanks to some nice treatment on the handle, some chamfering, and a really, really good pocket clip. You won’t complain even with the squared off flipper tab.
Steel: 2
Its S35VN steel, which at this point is still a very good steel, but is clearly a cost savings measure. I’d like to have seen something more impressive, like Magnacut, but really, on a knife this screwed up, who cares about the steel?
Blade Shape: 0
A spear point? Okay. Why? I am not sure. Perhaps it was the best looking blade that would fit in the Big I Designs tool handle. Either way it looks goofy and isn’t all that great at cutting. The very steep grind is a problem for below, but this knife just look like a Pontiac Aztek of a knife.
Grind: 0
Yikes! Who asked for a blade this thick on a 3” knife in 2024? How thick is it? Take a look:
And let’s prove the point—the Ti Pocket Knife blade cannot even fit in the blade well on the TRM N2:
This is both inexplicable and inexcusable in 2024. We are clearly in an era of thinner slicier blades, in part because the steels can take it, but also because we have, thankfully, moved away from the tactical everything trend. And this is clearly not a tactical knife, so why the thick blade stock? I am just not sure. Either way it was a huge mistake. And yes, the steel hollow grind makes things better, but not good enough. This is just Big I Designs not reading trends correctly. And that, ultimately, is the sin of the Hipster Knife—designing based on trends and not good design fundamentals.
Running this through a massive cut test showed that the thick blade stock was not performance friendly. It will slice paper but it got wedged in everything, even some pretty weaksauce cardboard. That’s what happens when you start with extra thick blade stock and have to drop it down quite a bit to get the knife thin behind the edge.
Deployment Method: 2
Let’s run this puppy through a few thousand opening cycles. I did and it was pretty great. This is the best implemented Deitz flipper I have seen on a production knife, even better, by a bit than the Vero Designs Mini Synpase. Its a shame it sits on a pretty bad knife otherwise.
Retention Method: 2
The clip here and its ability to switch sides is an inspired design and proof that Big I Designs can hit home runs. I’d love to see this clip on another handle that is actually purpose-built for the knife. Of the non-milled clip designs out there, this and the Spyderco wire clip are my favorite other than aftermarket clips like the Lynch clip.
Lock: 2
A lot of folks are making knives that flip well, but they are doing so by making knives that lock up poorly. For all its faults, the Ti Pocket Knife is not one of those knives. It flips like a dream and locks up like a bank vault.
Other Considerations
Fidget Factor: Low
While the bearings are nice and the deployment is great, the handle kills this knife’s fidget factor. The weird handle and slick as soap finish on the titanium just make this knife unfun.
Fett Effect: Low
Its stonewashed titanium and stainless steel. Its gonna look like it does out of the box for years. If that is a good thing to you, then there you go.
Value: ???
Its a better value than the PPL version of the knife which inexplicably costs like $80 for what, so far as I can tell, is a thumb oval delete and a blackwash. In that regard it is better. But S35VN, while still a good steel, is a last generation steel. The market has basically standardized to either M390 or Magnacut and not seeing one of those two steels on a $220 knife is strange. Given the existence of the PPL version of this knife, the Ti Pocket Knife is, value wise, like being the better driver on Haas’s F1 team…you aren’t the absolute worst, just really close.
Overall Score: 12 of 20
Designing a folder without being able to change the handle creates a lot of problems. Big I Designs, even with that huge constraint, committed some unforced errors here. The blade stock is stupidly thick, the handle is unnecessarily slippery, and the blade shape is fugly. But the decision to use an old handle design is, itself, an unforced error. The result is a pretty terrible knife, saved a bit by good manufacturing. There wasn’t a single 1 issued in this review—everything was either above average or below average.
But for knives I choose to review, this is one of the worst that has crossed my desk in years. That cavaet explains how a knife that scores a 14 is still bad. Look the Dollica is out there. Frost Cutlery produces blades. Smith and Wesson stocks gas stations. Those are the 1 or 2 out of 20 knives. But for knives that don’t seem objectively horrible from the outset, this knife is pretty wretched. The flipper tab and the clip design tell me Big I Designs can do better, but as for a first offering, the Ti Pocket Knife is pretty bad. Its actually the unforced errors that doom this knife from the reused handle to the too thick blade stock to the positively ugly blade shape.
Competition
Compared to stuff like the TRM N2, Spyderco Dragonfly II, or the Hogue Deka, this knife is laughably bad. Don’t spend cash on this thing, honestly. The CJRB Pyrite, for example, is WAY better and costs like $180 less. Hell, just pick up an Elementum, which is about par for an enthusiast knife these days, and you will see why this knife is a failure. If I was in this price bracket, I could blindfold myself and land on a better knife. The problem with the knife market being as rich in greatness as it is is that knives can’t hope to compete with “just” great fit and finish. You need more, and the Big I Design Ti Pocket Knife has nothing to offer.
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