You know, sometimes I think I might just know exactly how knife designers feel. Like, the pressure to complete something that not only has to be novel and entertaining, but also functional and appealing. Where I have the advantage, of course, is that whatever bullshit I come up with doesn't exactly have to be marketable. And as the designer of not one but four whole knives, I also get to come over all smug about it as if I'm not just talking out my ass all the time. (Well, okay, maybe more like three and a half.)

Do knife designers ever get the equivalent of writer's block? I'll bet you Tom Hitchcock doesn't.

No, not the footballer. The guy who designed this:

This here is the CRKT Daktyl and it is, without a doubt, slightly bonkers.

I imagine that's because with the best will in the world, by now pocket knives are kind of a solved problem. Just like wristwatches and handguns, we've achieved kind of a core competency in figuring out how such a thing ought to work. Thus in order to anything novel in the field a designer's major recourse is often to fall back on, well, doing it slightly wrong.

Uh, yeah. Kind of like that.

The Daktyl is thus another entry in the series of transverse folders that pivot the wrong way. I'm not sure what it says about the field as a whole that this is apparently a genre that exists now, nor what it says about me that I've now amassed three of the fucking things in various flavors.

At first I was prepared to dismiss the Daktyl as just another piece of hipster bohème nonsense that exists only for the sake of novelty, write something hyperbolic and sardonic about it, and move on. But in this case we really shouldn't do that, not least because Mr. Hitchcock maintains a sparse but fascinating website, and through it we can catch a glimpse of the design process of this knife which is a unique opportunity we don't have the luxury to enjoy with your typical faceless piece of off-the-wall novelty garbage.

Because garbage is what this isn't.

It turns out, for instance, that one prototype of this design incorporated a fully formed iteration of its mechanism in a frame that holds a standard utility knife blade. I've casually stolen a picture of this from Tom's web site and rehosted it here, just in case some day this jewel is lost from the internet forever. So it turns out that great minds think alike; damn if it doesn't feel good to vindicated sometimes. And Tom's a real professional designer of stuff with a career and everything. Much unlike myself, who's just some jackass on the internet. If we're not careful, I'll rub some of his credibility off.

This design seems to have progressed into the Hole In One which got built by CRKT and is now discontinued, thus mocking me forever and becoming yet another of my saved eBay searches, languishing in the vain hope of ever scoring a non-fucked example to complete my perpetual quest to amass a pile of all the damn silly knives I'm never going to use.

The Daktyl is more recent and, importantly, readily available. And cheap, too: Just $45 right now. So for not much outlay you too can be a proud owner of a funky knife with a big ninja finger hole in it and...

Design with a Capital "D"

CRKT's blurb about the Daktyl specifically calls out the "Slide Lock" mechanism, which if you ask me rather buries the lede on how this thing works.

Undoubtedly they're referring to this prominent crenelated dingus on the heel of it which, yes, does indeed slide back and forth. This comprises the sum total of the controls on this knife, and until you slide it outwards it locks the knife totally solid and no amount of mashing it up or down will release the blade. You'll have the devil of a time figuring this out, too, because the cursory instructions leaflet packaged with the thing doesn't explain the slightest bit about how the hell this is supposed to work.

It's not until you work it into this position that the Daktyl will give up the goods. With the thingamadoo correctly positioned, you can press down on it which cams against the springy loop of steel that forms the Daktyl's handle and spreads it apart just enough to release the blade and allow it to swing out sideways. Left or right, it's your choice; if nothing else the Daktyl is thoroughly ambidextrous.

This whole thing puts one rather in mind of the CRKT Van Hoy Snap-Lock, which we very briefly inspected going on for two years ago and holds the distinction of being only the fifth knife I've ever showcased in column. In fact, at a time when I hadn't even made this a column yet and was still taking janky photographs of things on my grubby mousepad with my phone. For fuck's sake, have I been doing this for that long? (Maybe some day we'll revisit that one in some better light.)

Anyway, the Daktyl is a little more confidence inspiring in the hand probably thanks to its generous index finger rest, plus that big old hole right around the pivot. It's also possible with a bit of practice, and if you hold the thing precisely right, to snap it open one handed in such a way that your index finger naturally falls into the ring.

This is immensely satisfying to get right.

And all this works. The Daktyl is impeccably machined such that the blade locks home in both positions perfectly, with nary a wiggle or rattle. Despite a key aspect of its operation relying wholly on the noodle quotient of its handle, it feels remarkably solid. Your grip on it naturally puts one finger through the hole, and the sideways action means that even if you manage to make this fold up on you somehow it won't be the sharp edge you wind up in contact with. If you need even more piece of mind — a concept that every brand loves to sell but nobody can quite seem to point to on the parts diagram — you can slide the lever into its locked position when the knife is open as well as closed, rendering the blade totally immobile.

Unlike the Snap-Lock, the Daktyl's svelte profile completely lacks any kind of clip and there isn't really even anywhere on it to put a lanyard. So you'd think the Daktyl doesn't give you any assistance towards actually carrying it.

But you see, that's where you're wrong. Because there's a carbiner gate built into the finger hole. Its spring motive is also provided by the handles and thus it can eschew the need for any type of tiny fiddly spring. This is clever, but in accordance with the ancient rites of inevitability there is also a notch in the nose of it designed to allow you to use it as a bottle opener, which serves to make it altogether too clever by half.

You can also use this to dangle the knife off of stuff. CRKT suggest that you ought to do this with a belt loop, where it will be plainly visible to all passers by and ought to be a sure fire panty-dropper in any social situation. Virtually guaranteed to not make you look like a colossal nerd in any capacity whatsoever.

The Daktyl has a highly ventilated design. If we were arteurs we would claim it has "a minimalistic aesthetic providing positive reinforcement of form via the exploration of negative spaces, with an implication of a unified whole in silhouette." But we aren't, so we won't.

But there was a time when getting your hands on a skeletonized Spyderco or CRKT was the height of cutlery chic, so here is at least your golden opportunity to reclaim those glory days. Or, more likely, actually get around to achieving them in the first place if you're anything like me.

All This Whiffling And I Still Haven't Talked About The Specs

The Daktyl is precisely 6-11/16" long open, and 4-3/8" closed provided you slide the manipulatory hoojadinger into its locked position. The blade is 3-1/4" long if you measure from the tip to the pivot axis, but the sharp part of it is only 2" long thanks to a significant portion of it being forward of the wasplike narrow waist. Thus it's a matter of interpretation as to whether or not this counts as above or below the mystical 3" figure. Either way, just looking at the thing it's unlikely the law will be able to label you a domestic terrorist for owning one of these and still be taken seriously afterwards.

The blade is a Wharncliffe profile, fully flat ground, and has three jelly bean voids machined into it. There's also a perfunctory round hole which appears to be a holdover from the Hole In One Design. The shape of the cutouts in the blade are the primary differentiators, but there may be other differences. Hell if I know, due to not owning one of the latter.

Despite being constructed entirely of steel of one flavor or another, the Daktyl isn't too heavy owing to a lot of it being just air. Just 67.4 grams or 2.38 ounces, which would make it a much more appealing EDC candidate if only its carry method weren't so damn silly. Even so it's a nice size, and if you can figure out a way to work it into your wardrobe without looking like a dweeb or, preferably, if nobody in your workplace cares this could make a nice light duty EDC piece.

The blade is made of 420J2 which has, let's just say, a high degree of sharpenability. Hey, they make surgical implements out of the stuff, right?

Edge retention notwithstanding, light duty is what the Daktyl is likely to see. What with those holes in the blade it's not bound to do anything but slowly drive you insane if you tried to use it for camp food prep. And thanks to the same it's probably unwise to apply much twisting, prying, or impact force to the blade. Which is a shame because it has an excellent factory grind and a slight upsweep to the edge with a gentle curve that'd otherwise make it highly usable.

The finish is bead blasted all over with a pleasing satiny vibe. This extends to the expertly machined and jimped lock lever, the carbiner gate, and even the cross pins.

The Daktyl's all riveted together and contains no screws, so I didn't brave taking it apart. It seems to consist of a sum total of only four parts, though, not including the pins. So it's not too tough to imagine how it goes together, nor grok how it works just by looking at it from the outside. It's elegant, I'll give it that.

Tom Hitchcock's designer's mark is laser engraved in one side, lest you forget that in your hands you hold an objet d'art from none other than the inventor of Bottle Blocks.

On the reverse is CRKT's logo, an ever-present reminder that sometimes your pure vision runs into the mundane tedium of having to enlist somebody to actually make it. And so it goes.

The Inevitable Conclusion

Did not Nietzsche say, "We have art in order not to die of the truth?"

Do I not say, if I got any more pretentious or used any more gratuitous French in this column I'd have to disembowel myself with a spoon?

The truth is, regardless of whatever else we should celebrate the path the Daktyl took from one designer's vision to a physical thing we can hold and appreciate. While we're quoting, I love the frank assessment on the mechanical design on Tom Hitchcock's web site, which is thus: "I began looking at the trend to knives with finger holes, and I also saw an interesting side-opener. I thought that I could integrate the two ideas, and make a much safer, friendlier utility knife in the process. But it wasn’t as simple or easy as I first thought."

I've been there, Tom.

So I can already hear it:

"Production Rockhopper when, Dorkus?"