The classic Flightless Forge bushcraft knife design, just... a tad smaller. Named after the king penguin, Aptenodytes patagonicus, the second largest species. 10-5/8" long overall with some variance from piece to piece due to its handmade nature, and 1/8" thick so it's a tad less likely to yank your pants down with its weight.
The Japanese have an art form called kintsugi, wherein broken items like pottery are meticulously reassembled. This is often using precious metals to fill in the gaps, and the goal is to highlight the cracks rather than the obvious strategy of trying to conceal them. It's an acceptance of a particular form of failure. A celebration, if you will, of the wrinkles and flaws in life that make it what it is.
Wabi-sabi is the related concept of accepting imperfection, and embracing the beauty in the flaws that make something unique: The cracked mug, the twisted tree, the garden that despite all effort doesn't quite manage to fit in the space allotted while remaining symmetrical. Or, more appropriately, the scuffs on your knife.
These two tend to go hand in hand. Kintsugi is a cooler sounding word, though, so we'll go with that.
And so it is with this, my first, latest, and currently only batch of the King design. Every part of my knife making journey is a learning experience, as I'm sure I've touched on before. In this case I ran before I could walk, and took a leap at doing a new(ish) design on new equipment while simultaneously experimenting with a new technique. I encountered a few problems.
Not to put too fine a point in it, I screwed things up a bit.
This is the King "S," the S possibly standing for "slim" or "small" or, if we're feeling especially ironic, "svelte." This design started life as a desire to make a slightly less ridiculously large version of my (obviously) much larger flagship Emperor, for discerning gentlepeople who might perhaps appreciate their knife having a bit less of a Crocodile Dundee quotient. It's 1/8" thick rather than 1/4", about two inches shorter, and a darn sight lighter as well.
King penguins are one size down from Emperors, more or less. So too, then, is this.
It retains the same ergonomics and in fact uses exactly the same 3D printed handle scales as its larger brother. Hey, when you've got something that works why reinvent the wheel? The highly contoured and flared profile of the handle nestles into your hand, while the bird's head on the end provides a secure grip. You can pass cordage through any of the hollow handle bolts to act as a lanyard, but if you're going to do that sort of thing I suggest the rearmost one.
Unlike many fixed blade knives, the handle scales on the King are dismountable, replaceable, and customizable. I made these with layered color changes which result in a faux-woodgrain sort of look available in your choice of flavors. Note that these are indeed 3D printed and are not Micarta, G-10, or wood.
These red, orange, and green variants are what I've already made but these are really just illustrations of what's theoretically possible. If you ask me first I can produce handles in just about any color, within reason (or at least availability of material). These are printed from impact resistant ABS, which should also be heatproof in normal terrestrial conditions. Nevertheless, maybe don't drop these in the camp fire or cook them under your six foot diameter magnifying glass.
Each includes a Kydex sheath with a 4" webbing loop that drops the knife low enough that its center of gravity resides well below your belt. The topmost four rivet holes are Tek-Lok compatible, as usual, if you prefer to carry your knife that way.
But let's put all our cards on the table, here. I encountered quite a few challenges with producing this first batch of Kings. I had rigidity problems with my machine, I had jigs and tooling coming loose, my platen dished itself partway through and I even had things wandering out of square. In short, basically every problem you could encounter when grinding a knife, I did.
The profile on the King is intended to be the same type of radiused Scandi style grind as on my much smaller but much thicker Macaroni, elongated and thinned out. The plan was to retain the same juxtaposition of metal grain on the spine versus the bevel. But as it turns out, the tooling I originally devised to do this was not up to snuff when adapted to much longer, shallower grinds on thinner material.
In short, all of these (I produced three in total) are mildly ruined. Let me tell you, it's not the best feeling in the world to throw away $130 of what was until yesterday nice steel. They're functional, but there's only so much I can fix. The finishes aren't pretty. And thus these are not up to, for a lack of a better description, what we'll call my standards. I can't in good conscience sell them at full price.
So I'm not. While my stock of these lasts, I have them listed at a fire-sale price. This is literally just break even money for me so I can afford more steel to try again, and maybe do a better job next time. This is materials and to a lesser extent electricity only, and I'm considering my time and effort spent learning rather than chalking it up as simply being wasted.
But wabi-sabi, right? If you like, you can look at it this way: My next production run of Kings and Emperors will undoubtedly be better. Or at least it'll certainly be different. Each one of these is screwed up in a slightly unique way, and therefore yours will be truly one of a kind.
