Okay, I was not super happy with My Pocket Carry Kiridashi. It was a bit too chunky and irritated my thigh when wearing the business casual attire that is my daily dress. I liked the idea of the knife, though, so I took another stab at it. This is Pocket Kiridashi 2.0.

The first thing I wanted was a much more rakish outline to the blade. I backed the angle down on the chisel grind to make it pointier. Again, I used a scrap piece of Alabama Damascus.

Kiridashi 2.0 on the left, Original on the right

I still wanted the high tech look of circuit board to contrast the old school Damascus steel and Japanese flavor. This time around, I did not add the Moonglow laminate. Only the circuit board and a white liner made it to the epoxy phase of the project. The lanyard tube seemed to be nonessential, so that got the boot, too.

The circuit board I used in this knife came from some old police radios that we were scrapping at work. I took a soldering iron and pliers and stripped off the components to reveal the artwork underneath. A fair amount of time and energy was spent lining up and drilling the four stainless steel pins on the handle.

Again, the most difficult part of the build was keeping the epoxy off of the circuit board to prevent marring the scales. This was my second time to this rodeo and I learned a couple tricks in masking up the green handles and warding off the overflow.

For a pocket sheath, I used some Knifekits HOLSTEX™ Raptor/Tactical – (Armor Black) – (.060″). I had made the SWAT Knife sheath from this and found the material to have a nice texture that held up the thermoforming without deformation. As in the last pocket knife, I made the sheath about the dimensions of a business card to ride in the bottom of my pocket so it would not rotate.

All in all, I am thrilled with the upgrades to my fixed blade EDC pocket kiridashi. It definitely weighs less because I drilled additional lightening holes in the handle and because I deleted the glow-in-the-dark liners. The new scales are actual police radio circuit boards and not the commercial ones I bought online. Will there be a 3.0? Time will tell.

by Wilson