General Purpose Tools

Seber Racheting Knife

Locks-at-any-angle knife

I have been using a tanto style, honed edge ratchet locking knife by Seber Design Group, and the only way I would ever recommend a knife is if it was extraordinary. And it is. It’s heavy, some people might not like that in a pocketknife, but I hardly care if it makes my pants sag with its weight, because it is the best blade I have ever used. Thanks to its ratchet it locks at any angle, and is seriously sturdy when it locks. I applied every pound of force in my body to it once, and it did not buckle. It does have a slight play in the lock, but that is normal for this kind of rachet, and does not make it any less effective.

Besides having the brute force necessary to lock the blade in place, it has the ability to lock it anywhere above 45 degrees and be unbreakable to ordinary people with ordinary strength. This means you can adapt the Seber knife to any job. Cutting plastic, cutting any sort of tubing weaker than stainless steel? Cutting rope? Cutting branches, slicing fruit, cutting carpet, canvas, nylon, fabric, paper, cutting woody braches and fibrous stems, cutting anything? You need this knife.

Okay, I admit you don’t need the tanto version, the tanto is for stabbing and slashing, adapted from the katana and similar weapons, and I got it for sale on Amazon in the tanto format only, but they make others: a drop point for normal use, in serrated or honed, and both the drop point and the tanto point have 8Cr13MoV steel, similar to 440C stainless steel, hardened up to 58-60 RHC. All that means is they did not cut many corners when it came to sourcing materials. They also make a folding utility knife that features the same ratchet as the other knives, but takes any traditional replaceable utility knife blade, and is (hopefully) as awesome as my knife is.

Seber is, as far as I know, the cheapest, most effective, and most importantly, the only racheting angle locking knife. If I am wrong, and there is something better, I would love to hear about it.

For what you can actually do with the knife, just look around youtube for ‘Seber knife’ if you are skeptical, and watch it unfold for yourself, or go to Seber’s website, and watch them cut everything you can possibly cut with a stainless blade with ease. That’s the point I’m trying to make here. Everything you do with a blade, is easier and safer with the Seber knife, and it is as far as I know, one of a kind.

-- David Douglas 10/25/11

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