The Hottest Grind of All

Reprinted with permission of BLADE Magazine

Excerpt from The Hottest Grind of All

Other Japanese fighting knives, like the utility blades carried by ninja spies or the yoroi-toshi used by warriors for grappling in armor (yoroi-kumi-uchi), had varying shapes. Some yoroi-toshi were even double edged, though all were heavy duty for punching through lacquered leather armor, which was more resistant than modern Kevlar. Phill Hartsfield, pioneer of the U.S. chisel point, views his knife as a modern interpretation of the yoroi-toshi.

For 16 years Hartsfield has been perfecting a chisel-grind yoroi-toshi that looks half finished to the conventional eye but which has trimmed the combat knife to its barest essentials: a very sharp point and edge with an integral, braided handle. His blade, once past the second angle of the point, practically penetrates by itself (Phill showed this in graphic fashion during his seminar at the California Custom Knife Show) in contrast to the conventional Fairbairn-style dagger, which has eight points of drag. In spite of this, the Hartsfield knife does not fit the definition of a dirk or dagger, except perhaps in the parallel universe of California jurisprudence, where a dagger is whatever a policeman, prosecutor, judge, jury or Diane Feinstein says it is.

Hartsfield's A-2 tool-steel knives also have less drag in conventional cutting. One studio prop master working on the ropes high in sound-stage sets carries a single Hartsfield knife rather than the box of blades he used to carry. An advisor working in El Salvador not only found his Hartsfield an excellent jungle knife but, while sheathed in his pack, it stopped a guerrilla's .308 rifle slug!

Navy SEAL team "shooters" like the Hartsfield but they also wanted a folder. Some asked Ernest Emerson, a Hughes Aircraft design engineer, martial artist and knifemaker, if he could make one. After six sets of prototypes, he produced the #6 Close Quarter Combat or CQC6.

While Emerson has also produced banana- (CQC8), claw- (CQC9, the cover knife of the January Blade) and kukri-shaped blades at SEAL member requests, he's best known for the chisel-point tanto CQC6. He maintains that the chisel grind provides the best strength-to-weight ratio and strongest cross-sectional mass, while the tanto point cuts and shears simultaneously. SEALs also liked the "see-through" handle construction during their Persian Gulf operations, since it did not fill with sand and easily washed clean of dirt and debris.

Hardened to a Rockwell of 5S-60, Emerson's ATS-34 blades cut better than (970S, 975S) or have a Black-T finish, which not only provides superior corrosion resistance but a smoother contact between blade and liner lock. The handle has a black clothing clip for easy carry. The Benchmade CQC7 costs about a quarter of a handmade Emerson. It's for

the man who wants the blade design without the wait or higher price.