Help finalize the "Dixie Zipper" (Mini CBK) for a group buy

Don’t want to hijack Dixie’s thread at all but here’s my take on the 3” belt knife. Got a lot of orders for these.

I’d probably be in for one of Dixie’s as well. It would be fun to have a collection of a lot of different maker’s belt knives.


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Not hijacking me, you were part of the inspiration on the design. I'm just helping with a commercial version. Nice work as always!
 
As long as it’s not too late I’d love to be in on the preorder. I’d been thinking about trying out a belt knife and this thread pushed me over the edge. Love the thought going into this.
 
As long as it’s not too late I’d love to be in on the preorder. I’d been thinking about trying out a belt knife and this thread pushed me over the edge. Love the thought going into this.
We are still weeks out from a preorder. Keep watching.

It’s a blast, cause the ideas here are very cool. And, it’s fun to talk about it.

Thanks
 
Handle colour options are all sounding pretty good.

I love a brown/tan coloured handle but I have left many of those on the sides of hills and had to walk back in to grab them, often in pretty gnarly tahr bluff country haha.

Orange has become my new go to for that reason, with an orange Kydex sheath.

Neon Green is pretty stunning to look at!
 
I got a chance to check out the pass around knives over the weekend. I’ve got a few critiques, but overall liked all four knives. Any would be an upgrade from a typical drop point knife. Also worth noting that these thoughts are without “real” use and based on some kitchen work and one turkey (cool that my window aligned with a turkey tag). For those planning to give me crap about skinning a turkey, you do you. I’ve plucked a few and there’s little to no juice in that squeeze. I think skinning the legs isn’t a perfect representation, but as close as I could get without a deer/elk.
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Length:

Out of the box I liked the orange and lime handled knives best. The black and dark green blades seemed a bit short when placing my index finger along the spine. I could choke down on the handles of the shorter ones, but that made the grip less comfortable as I was further back on the undercut portion of the grip. Cutting the turkey I didn’t index the spine and none stood out from a length perspective.

Grip:

As soon as I tried a pinch or spine index grip I noticed the sharp edge where the handle meets the blade. I’d like to see some ramping or modification here. Otherwise, I liked the shape and never felt uncomfortable cutting in the kitchen or processing the turkey. Cutting the legs off I held the knife in a strange upside-down contorted position so I could hold the leg, body, and knife at the same time. It speaks to the functionality of the handle design that this felt natural. Like, “of course, this is how you hold three things at the same time with no difficulty”. Kinda wish I had a picture of it, but didn’t have a fourth hand available…

Shape:

I’m not sure what I like best between the blade shapes. I liked the longer lengths of the lime and orange knives, but I’m still on the fence with shape. I felt like the lime blade’s more radiused shape allowed me to use more of the blade and would be better for skinning motions. My only concern there was that it seemed to have more trailing point and had me worried about it digging into the meat during the hide zipping duties. The orange blade seems to address this with a lower drop, but that seemed to come at the expense of sweep and reduction in usable blade for skinning activities. Definitely nitpicking here and could make either work and work well, but really need to do a deer with each to declare a winner.
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Balance:

Something else I noticed and not sure I’ve formed an opinion on is the balance between the blade and handle. Immediately after opening the package I noticed that they were all handle heavy. I felt strange at first, but in use I never noticed it. I’d be curious to get some more informed voices on the topic. My current uninformed opinion is that I’d want the balance point around my index finger when in a hammer grip. These knives seem to be a bit rearward of that point.

I’m struggling to pick a winner between the lime and orange knife. If I had to choose one for the rest of time I’d pick the orange and know I wouldn’t have issues zipping a hide, but might be giving up some skinning ability. If I had to use it for a year and could modify if needed I’d get the green and do a few animals and see if that “problem” actually exists.

Thanks again to Hereinaz for getting this together. I’ll be in for whatever the result is and worst case have some informed thoughts for gen 2.
 
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Index grip
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I had the pass around knives for the past few days. Didn’t have any animals to work on this time of year, but used them extensively for edc farm chores and in the kitchen as well. I’ve carried Canadian belt knives pretty exclusively for a number of years for edc and for hunting. I tossed a cold steel, MKC, and ESEE in the photos for comparisons. I love most belt knives but they all have seemed a touch too long in my opinion. All 4 of the pass around knives feel awesome in hand, my only addition would be some jimping on the back of the blade where your thumb could go and also some near the point for choking up with your index finger, wouldn’t be a bad addition either. I like the idea of keeping some of the spine of the blade at the hard 90 degree angle for an option of using it to strike a ferro rod if need be. My overall favorite would probably have to be the black handled knife. Super compact, but still enough handle and blade to feel comfortable and functional as an edc and hunting knife. Between the black and olive knives the black seemed to match the traditional handle and blade shape of belt knives. The olive handled knife was pretty similar to the black with a bit more belly so it would definitely shine in skinning. The orange handled knife seemed like a big brother to the black knife, but still a touch smaller than most of the 8-8.5” belt knives companies make. Finally the lime green handled knife was the biggest variation from the original belt knife. The handle angle is different, but it feels really good. The blade has the most belly and it would shine for sure in the skinning and slicing department. I think the lime green knife would be my overall pick for a hunting only knife.

Most of the knives I own are all “super steels” and they all hold an edge pretty well. I really liked the steel on these blades. I used them extensively trying to dull them down and never felt like they lost much of an edge. When it comes to sharpening I always use the work sharp guided field sharpeners. Some of the super steel knives once dulled are a little more time consuming to get that great edge back on. Even after a lot of use, a few strokes on the ceramic stick and leather strop had these knives all shaving sharp. This steel was super easy to touch up like a 51200 or 1095 steel but held an edge far better.

I definitely preferred any of these prototypes to any of the previous knives I’d had. Blade retention, handles, and blade thickness all seem really good. Very excited to get my hands on a few of the final products. If you are on the fence, don’t hesitate to snag one of these when they are available, I think they knock the socks off of MKC, EESE, cold steel, and grohmann’s.


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