Your favorite Spearo knife?

Nice collection sling shaft. Hey, hat's the Gerber knife I mentioned seeing on ebay in one of the knife threads! Is it any good? I was thinking of getting one and taking the handle plates off so it would be a flat knife that I could continue to use my limpet sheath. I would prefer a full cross-bar though, to stop my hand slipping forward onto the blad (while wearing gloves). One of the knife collectors on YouTube mentioned liking a thumb stop - a dip in the end of the hand with lines cut in for grip but I don't think that'd be good enough in the water, when wearing gloves.

Cubapnea, I don't normally get too excited by Titanium. I know it's very good - strong like steel, doesn't rust like stainless & light like aluminium - but it seems massively over-hyped (e.g. Titanium ski jackets/gloves, titanium credit cards) but for an arm or wrist mounted knife I think it would be a distinct advantage, as it would be less likely to fall out of the sheath (unlike my little but thick & heavy Effesub).

I love the Omer laser & mini laser / Wenoka /jbl blade shape- same as the old Omer Hunter. I think that triangular dagger shape would penetrate much better than my Union spearo dagger with is rather broad (but getting narrower with some deliberately aggressive sharpening). However, I don't like the idea of moving parts on the knife, or sheath. It seems like an unnecessary encumberance (Occam's razor?) & potential source of problems. With the Omer's double catch, I wonder if unsheathing it could be a problem if your hand is injured or very cold (unlikely I suppose but for some reason it makes me uneasy) - not an issue if you carry a second knife I suppose. If they made them with a simple flat metal handle & a small but full cross-bar, I'd buy two (small for arm & medium/large for leg).

I'm also keeping a look out for a small stainless steel iki spike/awl/ice pick as an alternative to small dispatch knife. Haven't found anything suitable yet. The proper RA iki spike still looks like the best thing available, got to love the quality but it's more expensive that most knives, with its stainless steel sheath en' all (about £45 I think & that was when the pound was riding much higher than now). The Pelaj iki spike is more affordable & utilitarian (looks like a screwdriver in a plastic sheath) - priced about the same as a decent spearo knife - but rather bulky & not particularly sharp looking (a flatter handle & sheath would be better). Most of the awls (& ice picks) are not stainless steel and have wooden handles. I've seen quite a few very small shiney awls with plastic handles which are also quite cheap (99p-ish) that would be unobtrusive but they might not be strong enough to be safe or big enough to kill instantly. Perhaps somebody will come out with a nice quality but smaller, flatter, less expensive iki spike for UK/Europe?

KWM how do you fix your knife to your thigh - straps or glued into your wetsuit?

slingshaft said:

Gerber doesen't make just baby food :t

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roflApparently so! It is thicker than I imagined but a guy selling them on ebay from the USA already told me the measurements (too thick for my limpet sheath) but suggested I could just unscrew the handle plates, which would probably work fine judging by your pic.

Nice collection. I like the look of that last Buck knife - can you tell us more about it? Also like the classic Bowies. A while back I read a couple of stories about the original [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowie_knife"]Bowie knife[/ame], apparently nobody knows where it is (or perhaps where they are), so they're not real sure of all the original details. In one story a group of men attacked Col. Bowie & he killed them all with his knife.

...the quintessence of the Bowie Knife: "It must be long enough to use as a sword, sharp enough to use as a razor, wide enough to use as a paddle, and heavy enough to use as a hatchet."

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Pipe knife daggers

Came across an interesting idea today. There is already a very good DeeperBlue.com how-to thread on making a pen-size iki-spike (I haven't managed to make one that good yet tho'). The spike in that thread used hollow pipe only because that was what was available to the maker at the time. However, some folk (inc. "the designer, Arlan D. Lothe", presumably of Madison Wisconsin - lovely place) have developed pipe knife daggers based on the ceremonial bone knives used by "cannabilistic headhunters". I think a smaller version of this might make an interesting homemade alternative to an iki jimi spike. (An unusual use for that hole prodder that came with the garden/rose arch last year!)

Here are a few that I stumbled across:
CONDOR 3011B PIPE KNIFE DAGGER [Interesting article to read too]





[ame=http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CTK3010B-CONDOR-BOOT-PIPE-KNIFE_W0QQitemZ380096309212QQihZ025QQcategoryZ43335QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem]CTK3010B CONDOR BOOT PIPE KNIFE on eBay, also Modern 1970 - Now, Folding Knives, Knives, Swords Blades, Collectables (end time 11-Feb-09 01:22:57 GMT)[/ame]

Boot knives for spearing?

BTW I found searching for "boot knife" Worldwide on ebay turns up some interesting small, flat daggers, several of which look suitable for spearing dispatching knives.

DIY iki spike

I finally got round to making an iki spike that I am fairly happy with. Will post an image here eventually. It is based on the DIY iki spike thread on the forum - but slightly simpler. I took a spike I made last year from a piece of metal rod. One end was cut diagonally at an accute angle & filed to form the spike, and the other end already had a small flat section to help hold in a handle (I hammered the flat it a little to make it bigger & flatter).

I finally found a handle I liked this week, a 99p medium size plastic file handle, fairly flat and somewhat reminisent of that used on the Rob Allen iki spike handle - perfect! I held the metal spike with pliers and heated the flat end over a small container of burning meths (should have used the blow torch) & just pushed it into the handle, which I'd previously used a hand-drill to enlarge the small hole.

For the sheath I selected the closest sized section from an old car aerial (USA: antenna). Cut it, slid out the unwanted sections, flattened the end & drilled a small hole in the flat end. I overhand-knotted a short piece of 3mm marine bungee through the hole & tied the other end to the hole in the file handle under a light tension. The elastic bungee holds the spike in the stainless-steel tube sheath!

Re. attachment, still under consideration but I'm thinking of foregoing the usual lanyard & just using the bungee described above, wrapped around my weight belt. So unsheathing the iki releases the sheath too (if the sheath sticks in the belt, no big deal the elastic will allow it to be used anyway). Re-sheathing will required the sheath tube to be threaded up back up behind the weight belt -- should be easy but we'll see.

Total cost: around £1.10 + old antenna (around $200-300 when new & working!)