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AlMar: Combat Boot Knife / Platoon Dagger ???
- Thread starter Horus
- Start date
Strider's right, the push dagger used in Platoon was made by Cold Steel. If you want one try and get a older one, they look to be better finished, better steel used to.
As for Al Mar, they have alway's been high quality knives, on the order of Spyderco, etc...
As for Al Mar, they have alway's been high quality knives, on the order of Spyderco, etc...
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2000
- Messages
- 1,363
These blades were part of the 1980's cutlery revival. Cold Steel, Al Mar, Chris Reeve were the small time manufacturers, among others, who took custom skills, new steels and techniques to the masses. There was a real leap in quality, inovation and to a certain extent the buying public was educated to pay a little more for higher quality. The whole trade has now moved even further forward and expectations are ever higher.
The knives in question are of this period and generaly of a serious build quality. You would be spitting hairs if you could find better today. I'd even go so far as to say that some of the stuff today isn't quite as good which is praise enough. However, improvements continue as there is a market for higher end pieces with a market that will pay for more exotic steel. This is of course with even higher prices. Best steel is not cheap and inovation in steel remains a gamble and extremely expensive.
All one can really say is that these knives are good.
The knives in question are of this period and generaly of a serious build quality. You would be spitting hairs if you could find better today. I'd even go so far as to say that some of the stuff today isn't quite as good which is praise enough. However, improvements continue as there is a market for higher end pieces with a market that will pay for more exotic steel. This is of course with even higher prices. Best steel is not cheap and inovation in steel remains a gamble and extremely expensive.
All one can really say is that these knives are good.
The FANG I and FANG II were Al's premier duo of boot daggers. These were of the finest steel, brass, and handle materials and were fairly spendy items. Leather was from Tex Shoemaker who did all of Al's original sheathwork for years.
The FANG I was the evolution of the Gerber boot dagger, which Al designed for Gerber when he worked there before starting AMK. For Al, the FANG series possessed all of the +s that the Gerber knife did not have.
Al's design influence - or vice versa - is likewise seen in Peter Bauchop's excellent boot dagger, which has been around for years, and in a model done many years ago by another South African maker whose name escapes me just now.
These guys all talked with eachother, traded knives, and generally had a ball coming up with something better than the last time around.
If you have an original FANG hang onto it. No one is building a better dagger of that catagory today. Equal, but not better.
The push dagger in Platoon was CS model. Nope, they didn't have CS back in those days. But they did have push daggers. Tech/Props did the best they could and both Ernie Franco and Dale Dye were working together on getting good knives into the movies at the time Platoon was filmed. Ernie was very close to CS and Dye relied on Ernie to quite a degree in the early days of his tech/direct company post SOF to lead him to good props for the films he was becoming involved with.
The original name for the push dagger in question was the Urban Skinner. That changed to the more PC name of "Defender", of which there are two models available.
Trust this is helpful.
The FANG I was the evolution of the Gerber boot dagger, which Al designed for Gerber when he worked there before starting AMK. For Al, the FANG series possessed all of the +s that the Gerber knife did not have.
Al's design influence - or vice versa - is likewise seen in Peter Bauchop's excellent boot dagger, which has been around for years, and in a model done many years ago by another South African maker whose name escapes me just now.
These guys all talked with eachother, traded knives, and generally had a ball coming up with something better than the last time around.
If you have an original FANG hang onto it. No one is building a better dagger of that catagory today. Equal, but not better.
The push dagger in Platoon was CS model. Nope, they didn't have CS back in those days. But they did have push daggers. Tech/Props did the best they could and both Ernie Franco and Dale Dye were working together on getting good knives into the movies at the time Platoon was filmed. Ernie was very close to CS and Dye relied on Ernie to quite a degree in the early days of his tech/direct company post SOF to lead him to good props for the films he was becoming involved with.
The original name for the push dagger in question was the Urban Skinner. That changed to the more PC name of "Defender", of which there are two models available.
Trust this is helpful.
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2000
- Messages
- 1,363
The Fang's were fantastic; the kind that would make you look the part playing cards on a River Paddle Steamer. Though I prefered the Shadow daggers which were scarry 
In both cases I liked the longer versions.
In both cases I liked the longer versions.