Rosecarry Hand Forged Damascus Folding Pocket Knife with Rosewood Handle and Stag Bolster & Cowhide Leather Sheath | Everyday Carry Gift for Him | RK-372

Take the Rosecarry out of the box and the weight tells you what it is. The blade is fire pattern Damascus with brass file work along the spine, 2.75 inches long, folding into a rosewood handle with a stag bolster. Open it measures 6.5 inches with a 3.75 inch handle, and it weighs 6 oz. It comes with a cowhide leather sheath. How this compares with the rest of the folding range is covered in the folding knives compared.

Folding knives are far older than most people assume. Roman examples survive from the first century, some of them with bone or bronze handles and a simple pivot pin, and for well over a thousand years after that the standard was the friction folder: no spring, no lock, the blade held open by nothing more than the pressure of your grip on a tang that projected past the pivot. The spring backed folding knife, where a bar of steel bears on the tang and holds the blade under tension both open and closed, is a comparatively recent idea that spread out of the English and continental cutlery trades a few hundred years ago. Everything about a modern pocket knife is a refinement of the problem those makers were solving: how to carry a real edge safely against your body.

This knife is forged, ground, handled and sheathed in the Czech Republic, and it ships free within the United States, sharp and ready to carry.

Specifications

What a folding knife gives you and what it costs

Every folding knife is one trade repeated. You give up strength at the joint in exchange for a knife you will actually have on you, and understanding where that trade sits stops people misusing them.

The strength question is simple. On a fixed blade the steel is continuous from tip to butt, so a load anywhere on the blade is carried by the whole knife. On a folder the load passes through a pivot pin and whatever holds the blade open, and that joint is the limit of the tool. It is entirely strong enough for what a pocket knife is for, which is cutting: cord, tape, packaging, food, cable ties, a stubborn blister pack, string on a parcel. It is not strong enough for prying, twisting, batoning or using the tip as a screwdriver, and those four are what kill folding knives. Nothing else comes close.

The second consequence is proportion. The blade has to fit inside the handle, so on a knife with a 3.75 inch handle the blade is going to be around 2.75 inches. That is not a limitation in practice, it is the reason this size has been the standard pocket knife for two centuries. Almost everything a person cuts in a day is cut within an inch of the tip, and a blade this length is easy to control, easy to sharpen and legal to carry in far more places than a longer one.

The brass file work along the spine is not only decoration. The filed section gives your thumb a positive place to sit when you are pushing a cut, which on a short blade is where most of the control comes from.

The single habit that keeps a folder working for decades is keeping the pivot clean. Grit and pocket lint pack into the joint and grind the bearing surfaces. Rinse it out occasionally, dry it thoroughly, and put one drop of light oil on the pivot. That is the whole of it.

Why Damascus and not stainless

The billet is built from alternating layers of 1095 high carbon and 15N20 nickel steel, forge welded, folded and drawn down before the blade is cut from it. That is why the pattern follows the grind instead of running flat across the surface, and why it will still be there after twenty years of sharpening.

Hardened to 58 to 60 HRC it takes a fine edge and holds it through more work than the soft stainless in most inexpensive folders. On a pocket knife that matters because you sharpen a carry knife far less often than you should, and a harder edge means it is still usable when you finally get round to it. The cost is real and worth stating: this is carbon steel under the pattern, and a knife carried in a pocket meets sweat, which is salty and will spot a blade if you never wipe it. Wipe it and oil it occasionally and it will be fine. If you want a knife you can carry for years with no attention at all, stainless is the honest answer and the comparison is in Damascus versus stainless. Whether the steel earns its reputation is argued out in is Damascus steel good.

The rosewood handle and stag bolster

Rosewood is dense, close grained and naturally oily. On a folder that density puts weight in the hand rather than out in the blade, which is why this knife feels solid at only 6.5 inches open, and the natural oil content means it takes a hand rubbed finish that deepens with pocket carry instead of a film finish that wears through at the corners.

The stag bolster at the pivot end does two jobs. It protects the end of the handle where the knife takes most of its knocks, and it gives the grip a hard textured section right where your fingers close, which helps when your hands are wet. Antler is a natural material, so its colour and pearling are individual to the piece it was cut from.

Care is a light coat of mineral or tung oil on the rosewood once or twice a year, worked in with a cloth and buffed back, plus the same treatment on the stag to stop it drying. Keep the whole knife out of a dishwasher. The routine is in wooden handle care, and the sheath has its own in leather sheath care.

Engraving, runes and your own design

Use the rune converter on this page to turn a name, a date or a short phrase into Elder Futhark and we will cut it into the steel or the handle. If you would rather have a Viking pattern than a rune line, choose your own design in the engraving option above the add to cart button and tell us whether it goes on the blade or the handle. Where a piece already carries an engraved design, your chosen engraving replaces it rather than sitting alongside it. On a folder the space is genuinely limited, so initials, a short date or a few runes work and a long phrase does not. This is one of the most common pieces we engrave, because a pocket knife is carried daily and a name on one gets seen every day. Sizes and placement are on the engraving page.

Care and sharpening

Left wet this blade will spot. Dried and lightly oiled it will look the same in twenty years. Wipe it down after you have cut anything acidic, keep a drop of oil on the pivot, and rinse and dry the joint when grit gets into it. Do not store the knife long term inside the leather sheath, because leather holds moisture against steel.

Sharpening a short blade is straightforward on any stone. Set the edge on a medium stone at a consistent angle with light pressure, refine on a fine stone, and strop if you want the last of it. Support the handle so the blade cannot close on your fingers while you work. Pull through sharpeners are the one thing to avoid, since they grind a rough shoulder onto a thin edge. Method in sharpening with a whetstone, and rust, oils and patina in steel care.

Made in the Czech Republic

The work behind this piece happens in a Czech Republic workshop that has kept to the old methods. Steel is forged and heat treated by hand, the grind is taken down by eye rather than by machine, and the handle, fittings and sheath are cut and finished one at a time. Because of that, every piece carries small marks of the hand that made it.

Ransack Viking is a United States company. We import direct, check each piece when it reaches us, and ship from our Memphis, Tennessee warehouse. Engraving is added here in the United States after arrival, so the piece you receive is finished to your order.

A note on handmade variation

This knife is hand forged. It is not machine made and it is not bulk produced, so the knife that arrives will not be a pixel for pixel copy of the photograph on this page. The fire pattern belongs to the individual billet, and on a 2.75 inch blade you are seeing one small section of it, so the swirl on yours can look noticeably different from the one photographed. Rosewood varies enormously between boards, from a warm mid brown to something close to purple black, with figure that is never repeated. The stag bolster is cut from an individual antler and carries its own colour and pearling. The brass file work is cut by hand, so the notch spacing is close rather than identical.

The dimensions, the steel and the build are the same on every one. Only the character changes, and on a knife you will carry every day that is usually the part people end up attached to.

Frequently asked questions

Is it sharp out of the box?

Yes. It is sharpened on a stone before boxing and it will cut the day it arrives.

Does it lock open?

This is a traditional folding pattern rather than a modern tactical liner lock design. If you need to know exactly how the variant you are ordering opens and holds, message us before you buy and we will tell you rather than let you guess.

What is the difference between this and a fixed blade hunting knife?

Strength against carryability. A fixed blade is continuous steel and will take prying and heavy work. A folder passes every load through a pivot, so it is a cutting tool only, and in exchange it goes in a pocket instead of on a belt.

Is it legal to carry every day?

A 2.75 inch folding blade is within the limit in a great many places, but knife law varies by state and by city and some rules cover opening mechanism as well as length. Check your local rules before carrying it.

How do I keep the pivot working smoothly?

Keep it clean. Rinse grit and lint out of the joint occasionally, dry it thoroughly and put one drop of light oil on the pivot. Grit in the joint is what wears a folding knife out.

How much can be engraved on a blade this size?

Initials, a short date or a few runes. A full phrase will not read clearly at 2.75 inches and we will say so before cutting it.

What is in the box

• One Rosecarry Damascus folding pocket knife, 6.5 inches open
• Cowhide leather sheath
• Protective packaging
• Forged and finished in the Czech Republic

Explore the range

Related knives sit in folding pocket knives, Damascus skinner knives, hunting knives and Viking knives. The steel, the file work and the handle care are covered in the guides.