Pacific Cutlery - Barry Wood Model 983

[James Mattis]

Here's one that a lot of the younger knife nuts may not have seen. The handle halves swing about, so it's sort of like a butterfly knife, but not the same.

Barry Wood is a custom maker in Colorado who has been making them for a lot of years. This factory version was a Pacific Cutlery project, and this not-quite-finished specimen was "work in progress" when Murphy's Law went into effect and the company became history, to be reincarnated in Oregon as Benchmade.

One fun thing to do with this style knife is to hand it to somebody closed and let them figure out how to open it. I think it was Barry Wood who showed me, at the knife show where I won it in a raffle, how to open it one-handed. He can do it fast. I do it at a gentleman's pace. The instructions that came with the knife show you how to open it two-handed.

I put the knife on the scanner in three stages of opening:

Opening-1

Opening-2

Opening-3

And here it is all the way open. About 3" of 440C, all-stainless construction.

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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001

 

[timdennis]

At one time I had a few of these and sold them off last year to other Forum members. There are some collectors of these but they don't command the greatly inflated prices that PC balisongs sell for.
The ones I owned were very,very well made with exceptional blades and in some ways they are more practical then their balisong cousins-thinner,no sharp edges,good blade to handle ratio,etc.
I never could get the knack of opening these quickly and thats why I lost interest in them.

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Tim

 

[James Mattis]

For me, opening and closing a Barry Wood style folder, with the knife already in my hand, is a 1-2-3 operation, in about as many seconds. It's a design that's in a different sort of spirit from the balisongs which it superficially resembles.


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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001

 

[Pontiaker]

These are great knives, I have owned several over the years, made by PC and also customs made by Barry, exactly like the one pictured called the Mark 10.If anyone has an old PC one with the polishe blade I would be interested.
Thanks