Hightron/Hot Knives Sharplyn: Hot Knives On The Loose
Sometimes you buy knives. Sometimes you have knives thrust upon you. But not, preferably, in the coming-from-a-dark-alley sense. So it was with this, which somebody gave to me a while ago and I've been putting off writing about it ever since.
This is the Hot Knives HKO1, which is very much a Chinese knife and thus in the tried and true Chinese tradition is also known as the Hightron Sharplyn, and possibly many other monikers besides. To tell you the truth I was originally just going to put this thing on the knife rack and skip telling you about it entirely, because there is nothing interesting to say about it. Except, as it turns out, there is.
Some say, he has a tattoo of his face... on his face.
All we know is, never before has an ostensibly commodity Chinese product included such a concise depiction of itself on the box. The rear also goes on to state...
...That it is *"proudly"* made in China. Among the words that have ever been printed in history, these are certainly some of them.
You have already heard my spiel on the general state of Chinese knives many times before. Despite their incredible manufacturing prowess and expertise, by and large it still seems that the only time the Chinese can be bothered to turn out a decent knife is if they're making it for someone else or, increasingly often these days, they're cranking out counterfeits or knockoffs of a stolen design. We're already familiar with the results of when the Chinese try to go it alone in all those wobbly and awful examples festooned with eagles and skulls and pot leaves on display at your friendly local truck stop, flea market, or bong shop. What inroads they could make, I have oft conjectured, if somebody in China could finally see their way clear to manufacturing a bespoke design but, critically, actually doing so with the same care and attention they already apply to ripping others off.
Well, in the case of the Sharplyn insofar as I can tell they have.
Of course you can never leap to conclusions about such a thing so easily. Any time you're handling what you thought was an original Chinese design it's often only because you haven't looked hard enough to discover what the pattern was actually stolen from. And so in what's now becoming tradition around here I went and plumbed the dusty, petrochemical smelling depths of the Internet once again to try to determine the exact origin of this thing and along the way found a few interesting tidbits.
"Hot Knives" appears to be a sub-brand of [Hightron](https://www.hightronknives.com/) knives, the latter of which being a moniker only slightly less unfortunate than the former, because it gives the impression that rather than cutlery these guys ought to be selling cheap transistor radios and southeast Asian VCRs. Hot Knives seems to be the marquee intended for selling budget stuff on platforms like Amazon, which alas mostly just has the net effect of diverting prospective buyers away from their products and into [something else entirely](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=hot+knives), even if you search for it verbatim.
You know how we usually only get those meaningless robotic search optimized word-salad tiles on these sorts of things? This is like the opposite of that. It's a bold strategy, maybe. Let's see if it pays off.
For some reason the Sharplyn is explicitly sold under both the Hightron and Hot Knives brands, with insofar as I can tell no actual difference between them other than how they're marked and, at least in their OD green incarnations, the shade of green being slightly different. They're both listed practically adjacent to each other on Hightron's website, and they're both even the same list price. But the Hightron version specifically is billed from some sellers as "the lite [sic] version of the Dark Feather by NOC Knives." That raised my eyebrow.
...The what from the *who,* now?
[NOC Knives](https://nocknives.com/) is another company that is very, very Chinese. If you hadn't gathered that from the type of things they sell, their mission statement at the bottom of their home page ought to be a clue:
>FOUNDED IN 2017, NOCKNIVES IS A VERY POPULAR KNIFE SUPPLIES COMPANY. The company's mission is to integrate the design concept of "beyond oneself" into the life of every player. NOCKNIVES is mainly engaged in the design, research and development, manufacturing and sales of high-quality tactical folding knives, and has formed a perfect product layout such as the top mass production series S, the high-end mass production series MT, and the entry-level DG series over the years. At the same time, we also provide OEM services to other top brands in the industry.
Beyond oneself. Uh-huh.
Anyway, I can't find any hard evidence that NOC and Hightron are the same entity but it sure makes me suspicious. Several of their knives are rather similar to each other, only being significantly less fancy on the Hightron side. It's likely that Hightron are using NOC as their OEM at minimum, and the Sharplyn is allegedly — if you believe various sellers' blurbs about it at face value, anyway — a direct collaboration between the two having been designed by NOC in the first place. It even uses their homegrown crossbar lock design which they go so far as to name drop it as an "Axis" lock.
I wonder how Benchmade feels these days now that their innovation has been, ahem, finally fully Xeroxed.
NOC, for their part, display an interesting array of screwball models with a strong predilection for what I can only describe as [purple cyberpunk regalia.](https://nocknives.com/collections/all) I dig it. Quite a lot of them are also alarmingly expensive, tempting though they may be. We'll leave that for later, possibly after I've been made rich and famous.
Why anyone should care about this, winding our way circuitously all the way back to the Sharplyn, is because at the moment it's rather a good deal... provided if and only if you buy two of them.
At the time of writing the OD green version of the Sharplyn is $37.99 which is only a middling deal for an EDC knife from an unproven brand that doesn't do anything exceptionally novel or strange. But it's also apparently perpetually the subject of one of Amazon's buy two, get them 50% off schemes which means it'll cost you exactly as much for two of them as it'll cost you for one. So you really may as well. At $19 a pop these are well on their way to being an impulse purchase provided you can find a suitable use for the second one.
I'll give you three guesses why I wound up with mine, then.
This has evidently been the case for at least three or four months, because that's how long this thing has been gathering dust on my shelf and that was the deal back then, too. None of that is the real headline about the Sharplyn, though.
The lede I've buried is that it's got a blade made of Sandvik 14C28N, which is a rather good steel for the price. For this kind of money that very easily could have been pokey old 420-something, or 5cr or even 3cr, or AUS-6, or insert-the-name-of-your-least-favorite-steel here. And it isn't, which is very nearly astonishing. (It would be, if it weren't also for the existence of things like [this.](https://lemmy.world/post/39641384)) Among all of the various other ghastly options we could have received, 14C28N is one of the steels *specifically* formulated to be used for knives, and also holds the distinction of being [Larrin Thomas'](https://knifesteelnerds.com/) self-professed favorite budget knife steel. Already this is shaping up to be a winner.
It's also got ceramic ball bearing pivots which you'll see in a moment, the aforementioned Axis-alike lock, and possesses a curiously good build quality. All of this also comes with only minimal obligatory Chinese design deficiencies attached.
This is, then, something that ought to give a lot of traditional knife makers some pause.
The crossbar or Axis lock is of course unmissable. The Sharplyn also has a pivot screw with a stylish driverless head on one side.
The back reveals the only major concession to ineptitude, which is the lack of reversibility on the deep carry pocket clip. Myself, I share the one thing in common with what everyone knows about Inigo Montoya so I don't particularly care. If you're a southpaw, however, you will. Everything else about the Sharplyn is ambidextrous including the thumb studs and of course the lock. Just, as usual we're two screw holes short of nirvana.
Two things stand out about the Sharplyn on the performance side. It's not that it's particularly thin'n'light overall, even though Hightron make a bunch of noise about how it ought to be. It's 80.4 grams or 2.84 ounces, constructed largely of G-10 and in a typically Benchmade-eque tradition lacking full length liners. It's curiously exactly 7/16" of an inch in thickness across the scales, or 11.12mm, not including the clip or any of the screw heads or anything. The upswept triangular blade is 3-5/8" or 92.08mm long and the sharp part measures up at 3-3/8" or 87.73mm.
None of that is particularly interesting. The blade's geometry is, though, starting with it being a very thin 1.6mm thick at the spine or about 1/16", and tapering down with a true full flat grind to an unexpectedly sharp cutting edge that certainly helps the thing live up to its name. It's very reminiscent of the thought process behind quite a few Spyderco models in that regard, only at a small fraction of the price. The spine is also pleasingly rounded off, but they took the time to integrate a thickened portion up near the tip for reinforcement.
We haven't seen our good friend the sharpness cutting force chart in a while, but here it is. As usual the gold line is my hand sharpened Benchmade Bugout, which serves as a decent enough control as any. The green line is the grams-force sharpness data from the Sharplyn's *factory* edge, which glides through paper even more effortlessly. Doubtless this is in some part due to the slender flat ground blade geometry, which provides excellent cutting ability with the tradeoff that you probably oughn't to twist the blade too much nor try to chop at any excessively sturdy objects with it.
A bushcraft knife this is not, but for the types of package opening, box flattening, rope cutting, fruit slicing tasks you're more likely to find outside of the woods it's going to be a stellar contender.
The second thing is the somewhat unique way in which the Sharplyn's edge hangs down below the lowermost edge of the handle noticeably. If you use just the right grip, this allows you to get the full length of the edge onto a flat surface like this fancy cutting board, here. That sounds humdrum, but it's actually a remarkably rare property and a difficult thing to do with the majority of pocketknives, which you'll probably find if you take out the one you've got in your pocket right now and try it.
All of this might just make the Sharplyn one of the better options for a field food prep knife if it weren't for that giant thumb hole in it, which turns out to be superfluous anyway because it's also got dual thumb studs right behind it.
The Sharplyn looks like it started off with your typical factory-ground edge, but close examination reveals that it seems to have been polished on top of this somehow right down at the very apex, which might explain why it's so damn sharp out of the box.
The edge is, alas, out of true noticeably in keeping with its ultra budget price point. 14C28N isn't terribly difficult to sharpen so this shouldn't be hard to fix, when the time comes. But fix it you shall, at least if you ever want to regain its original scalpel-like sharpness.
I also really could have done without the blade being black PVD coated. 14C28N also ought to be more than corrosion-proof enough for most people, as even Hightron themselves mention in their various blurbs. So it's undoubtedly there to hide the cheapness of the polishing job on the flat underneath rather than for any protective purpose. It'll inevitably get scuffed and gouged and get dirt ground into it over time and, as usual, all of that will be categorically impossible to repair or polish out. So cherish yours as it comes out of the box because that's as pretty as it'll ever be.
The Sharplyn's machined G-10 scales are quite nice, though. They're thick enough to provide plenty of rigidity for everyday use, and are attractive, grippy, and all the other adjectives us reviewers are supposed to use. The shape certainly doesn't do anything ergonomically special and everything's a bit angular, which if we're feeling unusually charitable we might say gives it a bit of a 1980s future punk sort of vibe. There's a finger notch there wide enough to get two fingers into, and really the only major wart on it is the rather dopey Hot Knives marquee carved into the side opposite the clip. If I were going to be completely cynical I might conjecture that the reason the clip isn't reversible is only because it would then cover the logo, and the manufacturer certainly couldn't have *that*, could they?
If you spring for the Hightron rather than the Hot Knives branded version this is absent and instead the logo is silkscreened onto the clip itself. It's still not reversible on that one, though. So there goes that theory.
The clip is not especially wide or fancy or even shiny, but it does have the right amount of retention and snap and it allows the Sharplyn to come off of your pocket cleanly and easily. Its mounted down far enough that about 3/8" of the tail of the knife is left sticking out from your pocket, either ruining your concealment or providing you something to grab depending on how you want to look at it. There is no lanyard hole. The mounting end of the clip isn't recessed, either, but the metal is thin enough that it doesn't seem to cause any hangup issues. The screws, at least, are countersunk and flush fitting with the clip.
Of all the nitpicks you could fault this thing for, the action is not one of them. Of wiggles, rattles, and creaks there are none. The Sharplyn is ceramic bearing equipped and glides open effortlessly, veritably leaping up as if you've just insulted its mother on a daytime talk show. This is regardless of whether you hold the Axis lock back and flip it, or just open with the thumb studs like a normal person.
You can just about see the ball bearings peeking out at you if you look down at the pivot from the end. These are the real deal, in brass carriers and recesses cut out for them and everything.
Inside there are a few things that will appeal to very select types of nerds which are... odd.
The Sharplyn's Axis/crossbar lock, for instance, is a three piece design which doesn't screw together but rather consists of a center bar that just sits in there loose and is retained by a shoulder in the hole of each of the nubbins on the sides. The springs hook up to said nubbins and not the crossbar itself.
There aren't liner plates for the Axis lock per se, but instead this assembly which I think can only be described as a cartridge. It puts one in mind of, say, one of those fancypants drop in trigger assemblies for an AR-15 or something.
The endstop pin is a very tight friction fit which, despite not being shouldered in any way, resolutely holds the entire assembly together such that you can just leave half of it hovering in midair like this. You can swivel it around on the pin and it stays there. I question the wisdom of trying to take it apart further, because it might be a hassle to get it back together again. Because I'm chicken I didn't try.
All of the screws came out of mine without incident save for two, which were two of the ones that go through the scales into the backspacer and thankfully both of them were on the same side. So I was still able to get the thing apart, but beware. The main pivot screw is very nice, but also curiously lacks an anti-rotation flat despite there being no driver head in the opposite side. Surprisingly it was not so gunked with threadlocker that nuclear weapons were required to undo it.
So the build quality is actually very good for what is at the end of the day a sub-$20 knife. There are a few quirks and foibles, but no showstoppers. And that's rare.
# The Inevitable Conclusion
Axis lock with bearings inside
Sandvik blade, performance implied
Two for one with discounts applied
Hot knives on the loose
[Hot knives on the loose](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVYki-HrJxE)
This is the Hot Knives HKO1, which is very much a Chinese knife and thus in the tried and true Chinese tradition is also known as the Hightron Sharplyn, and possibly many other monikers besides. To tell you the truth I was originally just going to put this thing on the knife rack and skip telling you about it entirely, because there is nothing interesting to say about it. Except, as it turns out, there is.
Some say, he has a tattoo of his face... on his face.
All we know is, never before has an ostensibly commodity Chinese product included such a concise depiction of itself on the box. The rear also goes on to state...
...That it is *"proudly"* made in China. Among the words that have ever been printed in history, these are certainly some of them.
You have already heard my spiel on the general state of Chinese knives many times before. Despite their incredible manufacturing prowess and expertise, by and large it still seems that the only time the Chinese can be bothered to turn out a decent knife is if they're making it for someone else or, increasingly often these days, they're cranking out counterfeits or knockoffs of a stolen design. We're already familiar with the results of when the Chinese try to go it alone in all those wobbly and awful examples festooned with eagles and skulls and pot leaves on display at your friendly local truck stop, flea market, or bong shop. What inroads they could make, I have oft conjectured, if somebody in China could finally see their way clear to manufacturing a bespoke design but, critically, actually doing so with the same care and attention they already apply to ripping others off.
Well, in the case of the Sharplyn insofar as I can tell they have.
Of course you can never leap to conclusions about such a thing so easily. Any time you're handling what you thought was an original Chinese design it's often only because you haven't looked hard enough to discover what the pattern was actually stolen from. And so in what's now becoming tradition around here I went and plumbed the dusty, petrochemical smelling depths of the Internet once again to try to determine the exact origin of this thing and along the way found a few interesting tidbits.
"Hot Knives" appears to be a sub-brand of [Hightron](https://www.hightronknives.com/) knives, the latter of which being a moniker only slightly less unfortunate than the former, because it gives the impression that rather than cutlery these guys ought to be selling cheap transistor radios and southeast Asian VCRs. Hot Knives seems to be the marquee intended for selling budget stuff on platforms like Amazon, which alas mostly just has the net effect of diverting prospective buyers away from their products and into [something else entirely](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=hot+knives), even if you search for it verbatim.
You know how we usually only get those meaningless robotic search optimized word-salad tiles on these sorts of things? This is like the opposite of that. It's a bold strategy, maybe. Let's see if it pays off.
For some reason the Sharplyn is explicitly sold under both the Hightron and Hot Knives brands, with insofar as I can tell no actual difference between them other than how they're marked and, at least in their OD green incarnations, the shade of green being slightly different. They're both listed practically adjacent to each other on Hightron's website, and they're both even the same list price. But the Hightron version specifically is billed from some sellers as "the lite [sic] version of the Dark Feather by NOC Knives." That raised my eyebrow.
...The what from the *who,* now?
[NOC Knives](https://nocknives.com/) is another company that is very, very Chinese. If you hadn't gathered that from the type of things they sell, their mission statement at the bottom of their home page ought to be a clue:
>FOUNDED IN 2017, NOCKNIVES IS A VERY POPULAR KNIFE SUPPLIES COMPANY. The company's mission is to integrate the design concept of "beyond oneself" into the life of every player. NOCKNIVES is mainly engaged in the design, research and development, manufacturing and sales of high-quality tactical folding knives, and has formed a perfect product layout such as the top mass production series S, the high-end mass production series MT, and the entry-level DG series over the years. At the same time, we also provide OEM services to other top brands in the industry.
Beyond oneself. Uh-huh.
Anyway, I can't find any hard evidence that NOC and Hightron are the same entity but it sure makes me suspicious. Several of their knives are rather similar to each other, only being significantly less fancy on the Hightron side. It's likely that Hightron are using NOC as their OEM at minimum, and the Sharplyn is allegedly — if you believe various sellers' blurbs about it at face value, anyway — a direct collaboration between the two having been designed by NOC in the first place. It even uses their homegrown crossbar lock design which they go so far as to name drop it as an "Axis" lock.
I wonder how Benchmade feels these days now that their innovation has been, ahem, finally fully Xeroxed.
NOC, for their part, display an interesting array of screwball models with a strong predilection for what I can only describe as [purple cyberpunk regalia.](https://nocknives.com/collections/all) I dig it. Quite a lot of them are also alarmingly expensive, tempting though they may be. We'll leave that for later, possibly after I've been made rich and famous.
Why anyone should care about this, winding our way circuitously all the way back to the Sharplyn, is because at the moment it's rather a good deal... provided if and only if you buy two of them.
At the time of writing the OD green version of the Sharplyn is $37.99 which is only a middling deal for an EDC knife from an unproven brand that doesn't do anything exceptionally novel or strange. But it's also apparently perpetually the subject of one of Amazon's buy two, get them 50% off schemes which means it'll cost you exactly as much for two of them as it'll cost you for one. So you really may as well. At $19 a pop these are well on their way to being an impulse purchase provided you can find a suitable use for the second one.
I'll give you three guesses why I wound up with mine, then.
This has evidently been the case for at least three or four months, because that's how long this thing has been gathering dust on my shelf and that was the deal back then, too. None of that is the real headline about the Sharplyn, though.
The lede I've buried is that it's got a blade made of Sandvik 14C28N, which is a rather good steel for the price. For this kind of money that very easily could have been pokey old 420-something, or 5cr or even 3cr, or AUS-6, or insert-the-name-of-your-least-favorite-steel here. And it isn't, which is very nearly astonishing. (It would be, if it weren't also for the existence of things like [this.](https://lemmy.world/post/39641384)) Among all of the various other ghastly options we could have received, 14C28N is one of the steels *specifically* formulated to be used for knives, and also holds the distinction of being [Larrin Thomas'](https://knifesteelnerds.com/) self-professed favorite budget knife steel. Already this is shaping up to be a winner.
It's also got ceramic ball bearing pivots which you'll see in a moment, the aforementioned Axis-alike lock, and possesses a curiously good build quality. All of this also comes with only minimal obligatory Chinese design deficiencies attached.
This is, then, something that ought to give a lot of traditional knife makers some pause.
The crossbar or Axis lock is of course unmissable. The Sharplyn also has a pivot screw with a stylish driverless head on one side.
The back reveals the only major concession to ineptitude, which is the lack of reversibility on the deep carry pocket clip. Myself, I share the one thing in common with what everyone knows about Inigo Montoya so I don't particularly care. If you're a southpaw, however, you will. Everything else about the Sharplyn is ambidextrous including the thumb studs and of course the lock. Just, as usual we're two screw holes short of nirvana.
Two things stand out about the Sharplyn on the performance side. It's not that it's particularly thin'n'light overall, even though Hightron make a bunch of noise about how it ought to be. It's 80.4 grams or 2.84 ounces, constructed largely of G-10 and in a typically Benchmade-eque tradition lacking full length liners. It's curiously exactly 7/16" of an inch in thickness across the scales, or 11.12mm, not including the clip or any of the screw heads or anything. The upswept triangular blade is 3-5/8" or 92.08mm long and the sharp part measures up at 3-3/8" or 87.73mm.
None of that is particularly interesting. The blade's geometry is, though, starting with it being a very thin 1.6mm thick at the spine or about 1/16", and tapering down with a true full flat grind to an unexpectedly sharp cutting edge that certainly helps the thing live up to its name. It's very reminiscent of the thought process behind quite a few Spyderco models in that regard, only at a small fraction of the price. The spine is also pleasingly rounded off, but they took the time to integrate a thickened portion up near the tip for reinforcement.
We haven't seen our good friend the sharpness cutting force chart in a while, but here it is. As usual the gold line is my hand sharpened Benchmade Bugout, which serves as a decent enough control as any. The green line is the grams-force sharpness data from the Sharplyn's *factory* edge, which glides through paper even more effortlessly. Doubtless this is in some part due to the slender flat ground blade geometry, which provides excellent cutting ability with the tradeoff that you probably oughn't to twist the blade too much nor try to chop at any excessively sturdy objects with it.
A bushcraft knife this is not, but for the types of package opening, box flattening, rope cutting, fruit slicing tasks you're more likely to find outside of the woods it's going to be a stellar contender.
The second thing is the somewhat unique way in which the Sharplyn's edge hangs down below the lowermost edge of the handle noticeably. If you use just the right grip, this allows you to get the full length of the edge onto a flat surface like this fancy cutting board, here. That sounds humdrum, but it's actually a remarkably rare property and a difficult thing to do with the majority of pocketknives, which you'll probably find if you take out the one you've got in your pocket right now and try it.
All of this might just make the Sharplyn one of the better options for a field food prep knife if it weren't for that giant thumb hole in it, which turns out to be superfluous anyway because it's also got dual thumb studs right behind it.
The Sharplyn looks like it started off with your typical factory-ground edge, but close examination reveals that it seems to have been polished on top of this somehow right down at the very apex, which might explain why it's so damn sharp out of the box.
The edge is, alas, out of true noticeably in keeping with its ultra budget price point. 14C28N isn't terribly difficult to sharpen so this shouldn't be hard to fix, when the time comes. But fix it you shall, at least if you ever want to regain its original scalpel-like sharpness.
I also really could have done without the blade being black PVD coated. 14C28N also ought to be more than corrosion-proof enough for most people, as even Hightron themselves mention in their various blurbs. So it's undoubtedly there to hide the cheapness of the polishing job on the flat underneath rather than for any protective purpose. It'll inevitably get scuffed and gouged and get dirt ground into it over time and, as usual, all of that will be categorically impossible to repair or polish out. So cherish yours as it comes out of the box because that's as pretty as it'll ever be.
The Sharplyn's machined G-10 scales are quite nice, though. They're thick enough to provide plenty of rigidity for everyday use, and are attractive, grippy, and all the other adjectives us reviewers are supposed to use. The shape certainly doesn't do anything ergonomically special and everything's a bit angular, which if we're feeling unusually charitable we might say gives it a bit of a 1980s future punk sort of vibe. There's a finger notch there wide enough to get two fingers into, and really the only major wart on it is the rather dopey Hot Knives marquee carved into the side opposite the clip. If I were going to be completely cynical I might conjecture that the reason the clip isn't reversible is only because it would then cover the logo, and the manufacturer certainly couldn't have *that*, could they?
If you spring for the Hightron rather than the Hot Knives branded version this is absent and instead the logo is silkscreened onto the clip itself. It's still not reversible on that one, though. So there goes that theory.
The clip is not especially wide or fancy or even shiny, but it does have the right amount of retention and snap and it allows the Sharplyn to come off of your pocket cleanly and easily. Its mounted down far enough that about 3/8" of the tail of the knife is left sticking out from your pocket, either ruining your concealment or providing you something to grab depending on how you want to look at it. There is no lanyard hole. The mounting end of the clip isn't recessed, either, but the metal is thin enough that it doesn't seem to cause any hangup issues. The screws, at least, are countersunk and flush fitting with the clip.
Of all the nitpicks you could fault this thing for, the action is not one of them. Of wiggles, rattles, and creaks there are none. The Sharplyn is ceramic bearing equipped and glides open effortlessly, veritably leaping up as if you've just insulted its mother on a daytime talk show. This is regardless of whether you hold the Axis lock back and flip it, or just open with the thumb studs like a normal person.
You can just about see the ball bearings peeking out at you if you look down at the pivot from the end. These are the real deal, in brass carriers and recesses cut out for them and everything.
Inside there are a few things that will appeal to very select types of nerds which are... odd.
The Sharplyn's Axis/crossbar lock, for instance, is a three piece design which doesn't screw together but rather consists of a center bar that just sits in there loose and is retained by a shoulder in the hole of each of the nubbins on the sides. The springs hook up to said nubbins and not the crossbar itself.
There aren't liner plates for the Axis lock per se, but instead this assembly which I think can only be described as a cartridge. It puts one in mind of, say, one of those fancypants drop in trigger assemblies for an AR-15 or something.
The endstop pin is a very tight friction fit which, despite not being shouldered in any way, resolutely holds the entire assembly together such that you can just leave half of it hovering in midair like this. You can swivel it around on the pin and it stays there. I question the wisdom of trying to take it apart further, because it might be a hassle to get it back together again. Because I'm chicken I didn't try.
All of the screws came out of mine without incident save for two, which were two of the ones that go through the scales into the backspacer and thankfully both of them were on the same side. So I was still able to get the thing apart, but beware. The main pivot screw is very nice, but also curiously lacks an anti-rotation flat despite there being no driver head in the opposite side. Surprisingly it was not so gunked with threadlocker that nuclear weapons were required to undo it.
So the build quality is actually very good for what is at the end of the day a sub-$20 knife. There are a few quirks and foibles, but no showstoppers. And that's rare.
# The Inevitable Conclusion
Axis lock with bearings inside
Sandvik blade, performance implied
Two for one with discounts applied
Hot knives on the loose
[Hot knives on the loose](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVYki-HrJxE)