A Glance on three important types of knives
Knife is a cutting tool which has one or two cutting edge, known as blades. Knives are used in a number of ways and for a lot of purposes. Though knives come in hundreds of different styles, the most common construction types involve two types of knives – the fixed blade type or the folding type. In this write up, we will take a glance at three types of Knives.
1) Butterfly knife
A butterfly knife, which is also known as a Balisong or a fan knife , is a kind of folding pocket knife that has two handles which counter-rotate around the tang. This counter rotating movement is such that when the Butterfly knife is closed, its blade is concealed within the specially made grooves in its handles. Butterfly knife was first invented in Philippines though it is now made all over the world.
Types of Butterfly knives
The Butterfly knife is a pocket utility knife which is mostly used as a self defense weapon. Butterfly Knife has two construction styles – The”sandwich construction style” and the “channel construction style”.
Sandwich style - In Sandwich style the handle layers and the blade are screwed or pinned together and the pivot pin can be adjusted to be tighter without binding. When the Butterfly knife is folded and closed, the blade saddles between the layers.
Channel construction style – In the Channel construction style, each handle of the Butterfly knife is formed from one piece of material and a groove or channel is created into which the blade folds and rests upon closing the knife. This type of Butterfly knife is considered stronger than the Sandwich style Butterfly knife.
Bite handle – That handle which closes on the sharp edge of the Butterfly knife blade.
Latch – It is the locking system of a Butterfly knife, which holds the knife after being closed. Occasionally, magnets may be used in place of latch.
Latch Spring - A spring that triggers a latch to open when the handles are squeezed.
Pivot joint -A pin which pivots or holds together the Tang/Blade/Handle in layers.
Safe Handle -That handle of a Butterfly knife which closes on the non-sharpened edge of the knife’s blade.
Swedge - The spine of the Butterfly knife or Balisong blade. It is usually unsharpened.
Tang – It is the base of the Butterfly knife blade where the two handles are joined with pivot pins.
2) Auto knife
An Auto knife, which is also known by names like switchblade, automatic knife, pushbutton knife, ejector knife, Springer, flick knife, or flick blade is a kind of knife which typically has a folding or sliding blade that is concealed in the handle and it opens automatically by a spring on activating a button, lever, or switch on the handle of the Auto knife.
When an Auto knife is fully opened, it is designed in such a manner that the open blade gets locked in that position unless manually unlocked. The blade of the Auto knife is unlocked with the help of manually operated mechanism built-in in the Auto knife which allows the drawn blade to be folded and locked in closed position.
An Auto knife comes in two main categories where each of the two categories of Auto knife has two subset categories. One category of auto knife is that in which the opening-closing mechanism is spring operated and in the other category the opening-closing mechanism is gravity operated. An Auto knife can be opened either from the front end of the knife or from the sides of the handle.
Types of Auto knife
Side-opening Auto knife – An Auto knife is usually a thin and easily concealable knife. A side opening specimen of Auto knife looks quite similar to a typical folding knife albeit, it has a button on the side. This button is connected to a spring in the Auto knife. When this button is pressed, the internal spring is released and this causes the blade to open from one side of the handle.
Out-of-the-front-opening Auto knife - Out-of-the-front opening Auto knife, which is also known as “OTF” Auto knife, has almost the same spring-based automatic mechanism as the side-opening Auto knife however, in the OTF Auto knife, the blade is forced out with the help of a spring from a slot in the front end of the Auto knife handle. The benefit of having an OTF Auto knife is that it allows both sides of the blade to be sharp.
Side-opening Gravity Auto Knife - A gravity Auto knife is designed to use force of gravity to open. No spring mechanism is used in gravity-based Auto knife. When a button is pressed, the blade drops free from the handle and locks into open position.
OTF Gravity Auto knife – The out-of-the-front Gravity Auto knife is quite similar to the OTF spring Auto Knife but the difference is that in OTF Gravity knife, there is no spring button to force the button out from the top side of the handle. Instead, the blade comes out of the front of the handle with the help of gravity. OTF Gravity Auto knife can also be sharp-edged on both sides
3) Custom Knives
Custom knives are special knives which are made with huge emphasis on originality and uniqueness of design and almost like a piece of art. For this reason, Custom knives are collected by many as a collector’s item. Most Custom knives are usually handmade knives though there also maybe machine-made Custom knives. In any case, the Handmade Custom knives are rated much above then the machine made Custom knives by the connoisseurs of Custom knives. Custom knives may vary hugely in design and usage of material as well as in the blade type however Custom knives are largely fighting knives or utility knives.
Types of Custom knives
Clip Point - The Clip point Custom knives consist of a “cut-out” or a “clip” at the top side of the blade. This Clip point in the Custom knives can be either in concave shape or it can be in straight cut shape. Such “clipping” makes the tip sharper. The belly of clipped Custom knives may be of a curvy shape so that it enhances the blade’s slicing ability. This format of Custom knives is produced as hunter knives, military knives, utility knives and Bowie knives.
Drop Point - A drop-point blade Custom knife has a slow convex-curved drop in the point and the point is made extremely strong. The belly is designed for slicing. Such Custom knives are used as hunting knives, military knives and utility knives.
Tanto – Tanto is the classic Japanese design of Custom knives in which the tip point is in line with the spine of the blade. It is characterized with a graceful and artful belly curve.
Trailing Point – In a trailing point blade Custom knife, the point is higher than the spine and it has a lot of curving belly. Such Custom knives are used as skinning knives as the point doesn’t come in the way and belly helps iun slicing.
Hookblade – Hookblades Custom knives are designed to force the material to be cut towards the sweet spot of the curve in the blade where lies most of the slicing ability of the blade.
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