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K-A T
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K-AT, pronounced K-ĂT, (not cat) is an acronym for Knife-All Terrain, designating a category suitable for any and all outdoor conditions as well as concealed carry in an urban environment. Its small size (6” overall with 21⁄2” blade) allows for easy carry, which greatly increases the chances of having it when you need it. Its fixed blade means mechanical malfunction is nearly non-existent. It is quick to deploy and cleaning is easily accomplished. The K-AT comes in two main configurations of a single or double edge grind.
The K-AT design distinguishes itself from all others, not by its basic function, but by the means in which it fulfills that function. Almost all knives intended for outdoor or tactical use are equipped with a hole in the handle for the purpose of attaching a lanyard. This has become standard practice, for good reason. When working over water, deep soft snow, or high above the ground, the extra insurance that a lanyard offers against losing your knife is indispensable. On the other hand, nearly all knives are sold without the lanyard, also for good reason. Everyone knows that a lanyard loop hanging from a sheath knife is an aggravation; the loop seems destined to catch on everything in its path, large and small. This is a basic contradiction inherent in all knife designs where a lanyard is occasionally needed but usually in the way. The K-AT design solves this dilemma in a remarkably simple way; the lanyard is out of the way when you don't need it but easily available when you do. The adjustable lanyard is simply unbuttoned when you need it and buttoned back when you don’t. If it needs tightening, a light tug on the two ends at once is all that is needed. We believe the onboard lanyard stash is an important refinement to fixed blade knife design. This feature is the subject of a pending patent. The pull-pin sheath
All fixed blade knives intended for personal carry require a sheath, both to protect the knife from its surroundings and its surroundings from the knife. Historically, a wide range of materials such as leather, rawhide, wood and bone have been used to fabricate knife sheaths. Leather, the most popular of the natural materials, suffers its biggest disadvantage in wet environments. Mildew, rot and moisture retention are unacceptable side effects of extreme usage. In more recent times new materials such as kydex, nylon webbing and injection-molded plastics have been used in an attempt to overcome the disadvantages of natural materials. Of the modern sheath materials, kydex may be the most common for handmade knives or small production runs because kydex offers good resistance to moisture and is cheap to produce. In factory knives, injection-molded sheaths offer similar advantages over larger production runs. The main disadvantages of kydex and other stiff plastic sheaths is the discomfort of wearing something ridged and hard against your body and the loud snapping noise produced when removing the knife from the sheath. For hunters, just the scratching sound of a dry branch scraping across kydex can ruin the hunt. For personal defense the exact moment that you draw your knife may be information best kept to yourself. Even in casual company, announcing the fact that you are now removing your knife from it’s sheath, by means of a very distinct sound, is probably at the very least in poor taste. The K-AT’s pull-pin sheath answers all these problems of sheath design in several unique ways, the most important of which is the material from which it is made.
Urethane elastomers are widely recognized by engineers to be among the toughest of the soft materials known to exist. Urethane elastomers used as linings in gravel pumps have proven to outlast hard steel; urethane is used in high-end racecar suspension systems as an upgrade from similar parts made of rubber in passenger cars. Skateboard wheels are made of a somewhat harder version of a urethane elastomer, successfully withstanding constant abuse. Urethane can vary in hardness from as soft as a pencil eraser to as hard as a bowling ball (in fact some bowling balls are made of urethane). The material used in the K-AT pull-pin sheath is a urethane elastomer approximately the hardness of an automobile tire (90 shore A).
Hand cast urethane elastomers are not molded by heat (thermo form), which means that the material will not deform or degrade in the presence of elevated temperatures below 350° F. The process of producing urethane is a catalytic transformation from two liquid components, resin and curative, to a solid part, a process that is irreversible (thermo set). Thermo set urethane elastomers do not become brittle until reaching 100° below zero.
Besides the material from which it’s made the K-AT pull-pin sheath is unique in several other important ways. A small button of silicon carbide has been captured within the belt loop part of the sheath. This provides an emergency sharpening stone when working in remote locations. Because the blade itself is symmetrical as well as the sheath, there is no wrong way to put the knife in its sheath. In its belt-carry configuration it can be worn on either the right or the left side without making adjustments. The blade retention system allows for upside-down carry by utilizing the elastic properties of the urethane sheath. The blade is captured securely by its profile within the blade cavity of the sheath until needed. It can be quickly and quietly withdrawn at anytime by gripping the handle and pushing off against the sheath with the thumb. For urban carry, or concealed carry, the sheath can be detached from the belt loop part by removing the pull pin and sliding the sheath up and out of the sheath loop. By threading a neck chain through the pull-pin hole, the sheath can be worn upside down around the neck. Due to the smooth, rounded contours and soft-to-the-touch surface, it can ride comfortably against the skin under a shirt. When wearing a jacket the sheath can be rigged to ride under an arm and out of sight. Another important feature unique to the K-AT is the use of urethane handle slabs. The two main choices are smooth and ribbed. In either case the handles have a soft warm touch, but the ribs add an extra measure of gripping power. Also the handles and sheaths come in colors: violet, blue, red orange, yellow, natural (clear/amber), and black.
Because the urethane handles are too soft to lay flat against the handle without support we have developed a method of permanently bonding the urethane to liners made of titanium. The liners are first coated with a baked-on bonding agent, then the urethane is hand cast against the heated liners in special molds. The titanium is hand sanded to match the profile of the urethane and then anodized to give a bright contrasting color band between handle and tang. In the end, all the features of the K-AT come together to produce a knife/sheath package truly suitable for any and all terrain. From the desert to the jungle to everyday urban carry, the K-AT will withstand any test the user can put it to. |
