Man - this is just downright amazing. To think that this started as nothing more than a quick drawing in response to a thread about the Rambo 4 knife. I had zero expectation of it progressing past some fun discussion with my fellow forumites - when seemingly out of nowhere, Aunty had it turned into an actual product! Considering that the sketch literally took 5 minutes and I put zero thought into the proportions, it's surprising how the kamis took the design, stayed true to it, but filled in the blanks and modified it to be ergonomic and practical. Those guys are just geniuses - plain and simple.
For funsies, I superimposed the original drawing onto the two of these that have been sold thus far (doing nothing more than proportional scaling and rotating). I sort of wanted to see how the actual things related to the design.
Here's the original drawing:
And here's it superimposed onto this DotD and the past one:
The blade and edge geometry were practically spot on - I was starting to wonder if these guys had CAD/CNC machines or something! Seeing as though I had no consideration for proportions in the drawing, the handle turned out too fat and short in the sketch. The kamis picked up on this right away and adjusted it while still keeping all the same ideas - wooden scales, 3 pins, pointer finger groove, forward curved handle, and an exposed end with lanyard hole. Without a specified blade thickness, they also nailed it with 3/8" : it's thin enough to slice given the edge geometry, thick enough to give the necessary weigh for chopping, and not so thick as to be overbearing. I just can't believe how they produced something like this just from looking at a disproportionate and unscaled drawing!
I know this should probably be in my eventual review and not cluttering up this thread, but I just couldn't contain my enthusiasm. I have one ready for me, but I've asked Auntie to hold off on sending it to me as I want to pick up a DotD or two to ship with it and save some hassle :thumbup:
