What's the background of the 360° Pivot knife?

[Spark]

Just curious how you came up with the idea, how long it took to make, the background of the designer, etc... pretty cool concept IMHO..

Spark

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Kevin Jon Schlossberg
SysOp and Administrator for BladeForums.com

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[Strider]

Spark
Rec'd my 360 from you guys the other day that I won for the May giveaway. First off I had a hell of a time cleaning yours and Mikes finger prints off the thing. You guys nust have been playing with it constantly. Seriously though I am impressed with it. It is a precision engineered piece. So where do I start okay first off the presentation box.
Really well made and heavy, tricky to open at first with the two side locks that have to be pushed at the same time but as I said heavy and well made. Now the knife. Mine is silver colored and has #001 serial number. The handles or pen looking part??? are andonized aluminium. The blade is ats-34 and was on a scale of 1 to 10 being highest an 8 in sharpness. It opens kind of like a butterfly yet again it really doesn't(Hows that for doubletalk) One side of the scale has a ridge so it only can close a certain way also once opened there is a titanium locking bar similar to a liner lock mechanisim to close it. Unlike a butterfly you have to be a little careful closing this one till you get used to exactly the correct way or you might end up with a nick on your fingers.Thats what I mean about it not being quite like a butterfly. Once you play with it for 10 minutes you can pretty much open and close it very easily. I did the usual tests such as cutting 15 2 x 4's into kindling, cut a whole acre of bamboo and used it to dig a foundation for my new house and that baby still shaved 23 bearded men at a barbers convention. For those of you with less vigorous needs this is the perfect knife to clip like a pen in your shirt pocket and use for normal every day cutting tasks. This knife is right at home in an office or out in the outback. For a autographed copy of this review pleas send a SASE to the below mentioned address.
Bob

 

[Mark W Douglas]

Good review Bob! Send it to me so I can see it and get even more finger prints on it for you!

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[BarnZ]

I have referred Spark's question to the designer of this knife, J. Patrick Daily (Pat). Better to hear straight from the source! Will post his comments ASAP.

Thanks,

Barnaby

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[J. Patrick Daily]

The history of the 360¡ Pivot is a long story. So I'll give you the Readers Digest version. My oldest friend, and partner in DeltaZ, had a very old knife
that his father got in the Philippines 30 some years ago while covering the Vietnam war for CBS News. It was shaped like a pen and worked like a butterfly, but was made from the cheapest steel. Barney asked me to look into redesigning this for manufacturing.

I didn't like the "butterfly" qualities (they are illegal in my state) so I started working on other concepts. The first 360¡ Pivot we made was of wood (actually tongue depressors) to explain the unique, but hard to describe, opening movement. That design went to paper. It was prototyped by a custom knife maker we knew. The prototype was then reworked to production drawings and finally into production. That is the short version. There were many rejected designs and changes between the first concept, and the production 360¡ Pivot.

By the way, I'm not done yet. There may yet be another version of the knife to come!

As for me, I was found floating down a river as an infant by my mother, the Princess of ... Just kidding. IÕm a motion picture Key Grip with a love and interest in all things engineering. My work credits include "Forrest Gump", "Air Force One", "Wild Wild West" (sorry) and "End Of Days" to name a few. As a Key Grip, I run the Grip Dept. where we do all the camera and lighting engineering. Currently I am finally unemployed (I have been working on back to back movies for 22 months, and needed a break.) So I spend my time working on
DeltaZ matters and new knife designs. Also working on a kit airplane (Lancair 360) with my DeltaZ partner. The airplane's name is Delta Zulu.

All the best!

Patrick

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JPD
Principle Designer

 

[Jeff Clark]

360-degree pivot knives have been around at least 30 years that I have observed. I got my first one around 1969. I forget whether I got it in San Francisco or LA. It was Italian made with around a 4" blade and imitation stag handles.

Barry Wood has made some custom knives on this pattern for a number of years. He made them for Colt for a while.

I really like the 360-degree mechanism more than the butterfly design. I had one of those Phillipine butterfly pens. The body bent with only moderate pressure.