Guest Review by Chris Abraham
After four years, I finally received my bespoke, hand-made, Randall Model 1 "All-Purpose Fighting Knife." Unstead of tearing right into the box, I paused and filmed a nine-minute unboxing video and took some photos of the knife — knife porn.
There are two iconic fighting knives known the world over for their service in World War II. The British Sykes-Fairbairn dagger and the American style of fighting knife, inspired both by the Bowie and the American hunting knife. There was one knife, above all other, that I coveted… coveted not just because it was considered "the best" by all of the knife magazines I bought but also because it was associated with doing hard service during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. That knife was the Randall Model #1.
Because I wanted a Randall that was as authentic to the knives that have served our military since WWII, I ordered the Randall with a carbon blade, since it predates stainless steel. There are some challenges associated with owning and using a carbon steel knife, be it in the kitchen or in the field.
First, they can — and do — rust. Since rust is normal with daily use out in the field, don’t freak out if it happens to you. A little sandpaper should do the trick if the rusting isn’t too bad.
Second, even if you spend the time and attention required to make sure your knife remains dry and sealed under a light coating of oil, there is still the issue of discoloration. Unlike stainless, carbon steel reacts with the things it touches. The acids and oils of the leather sheath could discolor the blade. Cutting meat will discolor the blade, too.
The instructions also suggest that cutting meat with the carbon blade results in discoloration, so you’re pretty much screwed unless you don’t use your Randall at all. Luckily, that’s not true. Go ahead and use it, if you’re not a strict collector — it was meant to be man-handled. Like I said above, all of the discoloration can be easily polished out of your knife. Working carbon knives always end up looking a little like they were made of silver because of the way silver tarnishes.
When I received the knife, the blade was coated with a light oil. The instructions recommend keeping the blade dry and lubricated with WD-40. After I posted the unboxing video on YouTube, someone commented that I should be really careful with the carbon steel blade and not store the knife in the leather scabbard but rather keep the blade (but not the handle) wrapped in an oil cloth.
And how does it feel? Perfectly-balanced. It’s right where it’s supposed to be: the shiny brass hilt rests the handle right on your forefinger, as it should.
There is an after-market for Randall knives if you’re unwilling to wait for 4-years for one like I did. I checked out A.G. Russell, a popular knife store, and I found the Randall Model 1 for $600. Instant gratification for Randalls generally starts at $600 for a brand new knife of someone else’s design, usually with a micarta or stag handle, and quickly tops out at thousands for a specialty, rare, or vintage knife. If you want a knife made by Bo Randall himself, it will cost: older Randall knives are worth five to fifteen times their value.
These are collectors knives, that’s for sure. If you explore the catalog, you’ll get a feel how extensively you can pimp your knife. I ordered mine plain vanilla "traditional" with the pressed-leather handle, 7" blade, and Duralumin butt cap. Some options I could have requested were a longer or shorter blade in stainless steel. There’s an assortment of brass hilt shapes and sizes along with a myriad of handle types, including bone, tusk, horn, micarta (a mixture of layered linen and resin), or just about anything else that could be shoehorned onto the full tang.
I don’t know if I like the big and bulky sharpening stone pocket on the front of the sheath since I don’t plan on being far enough in the wilderness to not be able to come home to sharpen the knife. I did a little research and you can get just about anything you want from Randall, including getting the sheath without the stone pouch, although a replacement sheath from Randall costs almost two-hundred dollars, nearly the cost of the knife itself. If my Google searches are true, you can even get sheaths in other leathers and colors, including ostrich, alligator, and zebra. All I need to know is the length of the blade, which is a very standard and popular 7" (8" is also very popular).
The man behind Randall Made Knives, W.D. Bo Randall, started making hand-forged knives as a hobby back in 1937 and started selling them in the years leading up to World War II. A reporter wrote a story about Bo during the early years of the war and there was so much demand for his fighting knife, now known as the Model 1, that Bo became a full-time knife-maker. According the website, Bo Randall hand-crafted each knife no matter how much demand or the temptation to mass-produce. Throughout WWII, the knives became legendary. Ronald Reagan carried a Randall Model 1 knife.
And, if you ever have a chance to buy a used Randall on the cheap, don’t reject a knife just because it’s rusted or the sheath is rotted. Some oil, a fine grit emery cloth or steel wool, a little polish, and you’re good to go. These knives were made for duty so there isn’t a lot you can do to "kill" the knife. And, if the knife looks a little far gone, don’t worry, you can probably find a knife-maker in your area who can fix it up by reshaping the blade and restoring the bits and pieces. If you want to restore your Randall in style, to this day you can buy replacement sheaths from the company, made to order. Additionally, you can send your Randall home to Orlando, Florida, where it was born, they can do a lovely job restoring it.
Why did I buy a knife like this? Well, that’s an odd thing, and the reason dates back over 24 years to when I was a strapping teen. When I was in high school, during the mid- to late-80s, I was a teenage commando. I went to an all-boys Catholic school in Hawaii called Saint Louis School and we had an JROTC program that I joined because it was either that, PE, or band (shudder). After joining JROTC I joined the Ranger club. On the surface the Rangers were a bunch of boys who did calisthenics and ran around campus and were entitled to wear black berets and bloused jump boots on the days every member of JROTC was required to skulk around school in Class-A Army uniforms. Still, that wasn’t all the Rangers did. We also spent weekends playing the part of Opposition Forces (OPFOR) for Hawaii’s National Guard and Army Reserve. As part of all that, we were issued camouflaged fatigues (BDUs), ALICE packs, web gear, and M-16s. Yes, real M-16s with real banana clips and real brass casings filled with real smokeless gunpowder, but without bullets with a blank-firing adaptor.
I was motivated and dedicated. I became obsessed with everything military. I bought copies of SOF and shopped at Army surplus stores. We all prized authentic gear and many of us bought Vietnam-era slash-pocket OD fatigues and Ka-Bar knives. I was obsessed with knives and started a collection.
That was 1984. I didn’t end up ordering my own Randall until twenty-years later while I was supposed to be working for Pete Snyder at New Media Strategies during the Summer of 2004. I put down $50 as a down payment, clicked "order" and then obsessed about it for nearly five years! I paid off the balance of $264.00 about a year ago. It was supposed to be delivered in June but I received a letter letting me know that delivery had been delayed until October.
Why does a knife take four-years? One of the reasons my order, #57224, order date September 2004, took so long is because I ordered my knife in a time of war. Randall Made Knives is a purveyor of hunting knives during peacetime; however, during a time of war, most of their capacity is spent on providing for our troops. According to their FAQ, "spare time and space is devoted to filling military knife orders for our active military customers. I think that’s fair, since the Model 1 was a military knife from the very beginning.
It was finally ready for delivery while I was in Berlin so I had the knife FedExed to my mom’s house in Arlington, Virginia, and counted the days until I returned home for Christmas. I arrived on Christmas eve but kept it in my pants until Christmas day, when I took this unboxing video and these photos.
After four years, the knife more than lives up to my expectations, especially since there were a couple of cool surprises that I didn’t know about, including red, white, and blue patriotic spacers between the hilt and the pressed-leather handle and between the handle and the Duralumin butt cap — I’ll photograph it with my Nokia N95 camera phone. To be frank, I have been waiting for this Randall Model #1 for twenty-four-years, since I fell in love with this perfect thing back when I was a Freshman in high school.
Worth the wait? Yes! Any hype associated with the entire experience? No, I don’t think so at all. It couldn’t be better-crafted or more beautiful. I am no longer a knife collector — or an anything collector — so the only two remaining knives in my collection is a Cold Steel Tanto I got back in 1983 and this Randall Model 1.
Randall Made Knife Unboxing Porn
Randall Knife Unboxing Pics [Flickr]
When not waiting four years for a knife to be hand crafted for him, drunkenly stumbling away with me from a disreputable Berlin pub, or being one of the sweetest and smartest guys it is my pleasure to know, Chris Abraham runs a crackerjack conversational marketing firm, Abraham Harrison. This technically makes him a scumbag, but I love him anyway.
The Fairbairn is more elegant, but requires vastly more skill. It breaks relatively easily.
I like the stacked leather handle of your Randall #1 (although I recommend scratching it up a bit with rough sandpaper to accomodate the sweaty hand) but I find the overall balance and “feel” of these kind of knives does not suit me. In a lightweight knife I prefer a simple straight-bladed Green River type with brass-riveted unfinished wooden scales; if I’m going to use a drop-point slasher give me a heavy scramaseax any day.
Glad you’re enjoying it, though; it’s good to know that people are still keeping the old crafts alive.
–Charlie
While not a military man myself, I come from a military family, and have several good friends who are Iraq-War vets. I’m no collector, but the M16-14SFA I got from my buddy as a groomsman gift is a much-loved possession. The Randall knife is the subject of one of my favorite Guy Clark songs, titled (appropriately enough) Randall Knife. There’s a pretty good live performance here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY5MOUO464Q
Approved by Brock Samson.
“…finally received my bespoke, hand-made…”
Do you work for the Department of Redundancy Department?
@nerdler “Bespoke” does not necessarily imply “hand-made”. It implies “tailored” or “custom-made”. You could order a bespoke computer that was built to your specifications by machines, for instance.
Lovers of fine, hand-made tools might want to check out the home of my favorite knife: Himalayan Imports (I’ve got a 16.5″ WWII model khukuri)
Yeah, the website’s pretty funky, but it’s full of fascinating info. And these are the genuine article – not cheap, “Tourist” models.
There are *Knife* magazines. Plural. I forget that sometimes.
Interesting. Here we have a posted review of a Fighting Knife, but I read the entire review and it appears that your contributor failed to actually fight anyone. When I read a review of a laptop, the writer usually uses it; a review of a cell phone would involve making a call or using the features. Yet for this piece the author clearly did not stab anyone. Please go kill someone with this Fighting Knife and report back. Does it penetrate the ribcage without jamming? Does it sever arteries cleanly, allowing rapid bleedout? Does it stab good? Consumers of Fighting Knives want to know.
This is just lazy journalism and frankly I expected better from BBG.
Also, as an aside, I find it curious that cutting meat with this blade is discouraged. Aren’t people mostly made of meat?
If I am mistaken and the author did actually immediately initiate a knife fight to ensure that his Fighting Knife works properly, please accept my apologies. (Though additional video of this would have been useful for your readers as well.)
I had a similar longing for the Fairbairn-Sykes as a teen.
As an adult, I finally invested in a real one, but since I can’t carry it around regularly like either the my permanently attached Leatherman Micra or my peace-loving carry of choice the Gerber Hinderer, I still wonder how it would feel just to have it around as a go-to knife. I does look good on the shelf, I guess.
Isn’t there some sort of old saw about getting exactly what you want and finding that it wasn’t exactly what you wanted. Probably.
I have many carbon steel blades, and I suggest 3M Scotch Brite scrub pads with a bit of oil instead of sandpaper to remove rust.
And yes, storing a carbon steel blade in a leather sheath will encourage rust.
If you haven’t heard Guy Clark’s classic song “Randall Knife”, check out in this live vid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY5MOUO464Q
*glee*
While not what I would normally expect to see on BBG, I was very pleased to see this in my feed today. Beautiful knife…makes me want to spend money…and as such very much well suited to BBG!
Thanks for the lovely article!
For someone with absolutely no need for a knife like this (esp now that they’re $345) and no big draw to weapons (outside of video games), I found this oddly compelling. After thinking about it, I think that it was the fact that you had to wait several years to get the completed product that made it seem so interesting. In a world of instant movie downloads and next-day delivery, having to or being willing to wait so long for a purchase gives it its own special quality.
That’s a beautiful knife. I used to know some men who made knives. Their work was amazing. http://www.pattonknives.com/1mainframe.htm I really love hand-made things.
Nice.
My favorite knife is pretty much just a variation of the Model 1. It’s the SOG Recon Bowie.
Thanks, John, and thanks gang for accepting my handmade knife as a boing boing Gadget … getting a guest post on boing boing is a dream come true.
Frogmarch, the Randall is currently a fetish object, to be sure. I am sort of like its gimp and the knife is my mistress. So, no penetration.
If you check out the comments over on the YouTube, you’ll see that the knife routinely turns black upon constant contact with meat and flesh, which, I think, has its tactical advantages — a darkened blade surely helps when it comes to sneaking around.
So, once the Randall knows it needs to be more than a fetish object, it darkens its own blade in the flesh of its enemies, and then gets down to business.
How generous.