My other knives!
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A long time ago I was the student of an ex-Royal Marine who taught me all about Defendo as taught by Colonel Fairbairn, attached to Camp X near Oshawa on Lake Ontario. It was a place spies, infiltrators and special agents learned to defend themselves in a most violent fashion. Being trained by Fairbairn meant they learned all about his F-S Commando knife and how to use it. It is during my time with Sargent-Major Maas that I learned about and fell in love with Fairbairn’s knife and Combat/Tactical Fighters generally. I had a custom Pattern 2 made for me by Peter Parkinson from New Zealand. Although he followed the design closely, the materials he used and the skills he used produced a knife that is the star of all F-S Commando knives. No wartime knife could have matched this blade.
This knife was hand-made…the 7 inch blade from a bar of 440C stainless steel, the handle from a single billet of nickel-plated brass and the guard was also of the plated brass. The handle was knurled/checkered asymmetrically for superior grip and the hardened rat-tail tang was so tightly fitted up into the coke-bottle shaped grip, that to all intents and purposes, the tang and the grip were one piece. The tightening nut at the end of the handle acted in two ways…it locked the tang into place and could also be used to bean the enemy very hard. The knives made during the war had a great weakness, blood and other fluids could get up inside the handle because of poor fit and rust the tang which would eventually bend or break. This could not happen with my model and besides the tang on mine is hardened to 57 Rockwell so it is not likely to bend or break.
Unlike the other three tactical knives shown in the next picture, the point on the F-S knife is meant solely for piercing through clothes and winter apparel of an enemy as if it wasn’t there.
The knives from the top are: Bark River STS-5 (5.5 inch blade of CPM154), the F-S Commando Knife. the Gerber Command II Knife (7 inch blade of S30V) and Fred Perrin’s Spyderco Street Beat knife (3.75 inch blade of VG10). All three are made for cutting first and piercing next, although the Gerber Command II comes close to the Fairbairn knife in the area of dagger work.
I hope that the bloody purpose of these knives did not offend anyone. All that aside they are beautiful knives and worthy of any collection. BTW both the Fred Perrin and STS-5 are quite useful as survival knives and the Street Beat does kitchen duty at my house. A friend of mine uses the STS-5 as a survival knife as he climbs and runs mountain trails in all seasons. He like it and the CMP 154 Stainless Steel in the blade. He has made special grips for mine from Cocobolo wood and a set for his knife too.
I am presenting my collection in parts since there are too many knives to give any kind of coherent look at them. Another installment later. I don’t know how much detail you want about each of these knives so sing out if you have a question.Cheers
Leo
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