Mini Yojimbo Prototype ?

[Tiquito]

I’m very excited to see the mini P’kal. I have been eyeing a Fred Perrin baby Bowie for a while. I’m really excited to see a spyderco subway Bowie. What a wonderful addition to the other Fred Perrin designs in the spyderco lineup.

I dream of a st nicks (red canvas micarta would be even better) 4V street beat.

At present I don’t have much need of a micro jimbo and have been priced out of buying knives just because. I look forward to seeing the design though and imagine it will be a cool little knife. This trio of knives has me as excited as any announcement has.

[max808]

I think they should’ve called it pork man or pork boy instead of microjimbo

Which are you?

[Co Pilot]

Really looking forward to this.

[Buddafucco]

[Mushroom]

I love that! I can already foresee it becoming a favorite of mine.

[twinboysdad]

The hole seems…gaped?

[captnvegtble]

I love the size, blade shape, and overall concept. I'm not loving the large amount of un-used dead space between the index finger and the beginning of the blade edge. The hump above the spydie-hole at the top of the grind line could also use some flattening.

Is this design final or still in development stage?

[DukeBrnz]

If you've owned a Yojimbo 2 then I think you'll see it's quite foolish to assume any part of his design is accidental.

I think it looks great. I'm getting Ronin 1 vibes from it.

[hereiamu1]

[bmstrong]

Been waiting for this a long time! S30v is killing me though. Needs some after-market Titanium scales.

Did anyone get Janich on YT to talk about it? I'm assuming he's at Blade with Spyderco?

[captnvegtble]

If you've owned a Yojimbo 2 then I think you'll see it's quite foolish to assume any part of his design is accidental.

I never said or implied the design features are accidental. I'm sure there very good reasons behind the design. And I still "don't love" the dead space between the index finger and the edge of the blade. I am, however, open to hearing and learning more about the design and once in-hand, maybe it will grow on me.

[Danke]

[bulgingpockets]

I’m definitely interested in the microjimbo. The new pkal sounds interesting too.

[cjk]

I played with the production sample at least a couple of times this past weekend.
Think lil native sized yojimbo 2 with a full flat grind and you’ve got it.

I like it. I’ll buy at least one. It’s my kind of knife.

The opening hole in the picture above looks huge. It didn’t seem that way to me in person.
I didn’t realize it would be full flat ground. I was surprised by that. I think it loses a bit of character by being ffg. IIRC, it’s quite a bit lighter than I expected. I was pleasantly surprised that it has a wire clip.

[Mushroom]

I played with the production sample at least a couple of times this past weekend.
Think lil native sized yojimbo 2 with a full flat grind and you’ve got it.

I like it. I’ll buy at least one. It’s my kind of knife.

The opening hole in the picture above looks huge. It didn’t seem that way to me in person.
I didn’t realize it would be full flat ground. I was surprised by that. I think it loses a bit of character by being ffg. IIRC, it’s quite a bit lighter than I expected. I was pleasantly surprised that it has a wire clip.

Thanks for sharing feedback after handling the sample. Makes me even more excited for this one. I really hope Spyderco shows it off in one of those formal presentation videos they usually do with various retailers at these shows.

I actually really like that the opening hole looks so large. You mention the knife having character and to me the large opening hole is something that gives it its own sense of character. (Off topic but that’s one reason why I like the Squarehead so much)

Though I do agree about the FFG having a different character from the hollow grind of its predecessors. I suspect FFG was chosen for a number of reasons but it still makes me wonder how a hollow grind would have looked.

[cjk]

Thanks for sharing feedback after handling the sample. Makes me even more excited for this one. I really hope Spyderco shows it off in one of those formal presentation videos they usually do with various retailers at these shows.

I actually really like that the opening hole looks so large. You mention the knife having character and to me the large opening hole is something that gives it its own sense of character. (Off topic but that’s one reason why I like the Squarehead so much)

Though I do agree about the FFG having a different character from the hollow grind of its predecessors. I suspect FFG was chosen for a number of reasons but it still makes me wonder how a hollow grind would have looked.

The opening hole on a Yojimbo 2 is actually smaller than the Para Military 2 or Para 3. I’ve gotten accustomed to the opening hole “looking smaller” on a Yojimbo 2 than other models. On the micro jimbo picture above, the hole just looks huge compared to the rest of the knife in the picture. I don’t know if that’s a picture of the same prototype I was fortunate enough to handle or not.

I really didn’t mean that FFG has a different character than hollow ground (even though it does). I mean the character of the whole thing is changed a bit by it being ffg. I do still think it’s cool and would be happy to see Mr Janich design more stuff.

[ZrowsN1s]

For those who have seen it, has the flat grind improved the thickness of the tip at all vs the original?

[bmstrong]

I played with the production sample at least a couple of times this past weekend.
Think lil native sized yojimbo 2 with a full flat grind and you’ve got it.

I like it. I’ll buy at least one. It’s my kind of knife.

The opening hole in the picture above looks huge. It didn’t seem that way to me in person.
I didn’t realize it would be full flat ground. I was surprised by that. I think it loses a bit of character by being ffg. IIRC, it’s quite a bit lighter than I expected. I was pleasantly surprised that it has a wire clip.

Thanks for sharing feedback after handling the sample. Makes me even more excited for this one. I really hope Spyderco shows it off in one of those formal presentation videos they usually do with various retailers at these shows.

I actually really like that the opening hole looks so large. You mention the knife having character and to me the large opening hole is something that gives it its own sense of character. (Off topic but that’s one reason why I like the Squarehead so much)

Though I do agree about the FFG having a different character from the hollow grind of its predecessors. I suspect FFG was chosen for a number of reasons but it still makes me wonder how a hollow grind would have looked.

I deeply hope we get the 45 minute or hour Janich video that takes us through the inception, design and production. I love that kind of minutia.

S30v still irks me. Did anyone get video from Blade on it?

[Michael Janich]

Hey, All:

Thank you very much for your interest in the MicroJimbo.

The prototypes shown at Blade are about 95% final form. When the final version is available and Eric gives me his blessing, I'll gladly do a video on my design process and logic. In the meantime, here's a summary of my approach.

The project began with a request from Spyderco Forumites for a smaller Yo 2-style knife. Sal noticed their interest and asked me to work on a design. My first thought was to design something with a similar spirit, but in a significantly smaller package. My mind immediately went to the Kiwi, which I believe is one of the most potent combinations of style, size, and cutting performance Spyderco ever created. For my needs, however, quick deployment is a priority. The Kiwi design does not lend itself to that.

That approach also reminded me of a story Bob Taylor told me and Sal when we interviewed him for the Spyderco Warrior book. When he was developing the Hobbit Warrior, he initially took a machinist's drawing of the Warrior, put it on a photocopier, and scaled the entire thing down. He then used that drawing to commission a prototype. When he received the prototype, he hated it. In Bob's words, "I designed the perfect fighting knife... for an 11-year-old." He realized you can't scale down everything. Key dimensional relationships must be maintained to make the knife ergonomically sound for normal hand sizes.

Changing gears, I decided to follow the Glock principle. When you look at families of Glock pistols, like the 17/19/26, the key dimensional relationships of the trigger reach, location of the slide stop, etc. are all consistent. Everything around that core is shortened, but the important stuff remains unchanged. My goal was to achieve a 2.5-inch blade--the MBC "worst-case scenario" because it is all you can legally carry in highly restrictive jurisdictions like Chicago, Boston, and US Federal buildings. With that goal in mind, I took one of my personal Yo 2s, fired up the belt grinder, opened a beer, and started grinding. Grind, dip in water to cool, take a sip of beer, repeat. A couple of beers later, I had shortened and narrowed the knife and smoothed out the flow of the handle. Following the lead of the gun industry, I also embraced the naming convention of full-sized models, minis, and micros. This, the name of the design became "MicroJimbo."

With regard to the blade grind, to be very honest, it's frustrating when people who have never handled or carried a Yojimbo 2 get up on the forum and pontificate about its fragile point. As I've explained in other posts and videos about the Yojimbo 2, I chose a hollow grind for the Yo 2 because, at the time I designed it, Spyderco had the machinery to do hollow grinds in-house. Flat grinds, way back then, were done by an outside vendor (that changed soon after the Yo 2 was released). I also like the edge geometry of a hollow grind and the fact that it leaves lots of weight in the spine to facilitate my favorite opening method. Most importantly, I'm smart enough to know the difference between a knife and a screwdriver.

Nevertheless, for all the folks who falsely claim that hollow-ground Wharncliffe blades suffer from weak tips, I changed the grind to a full-flat. I also wanted to challenge myself to free-hand regrind my prototype from a hollow to a flat--and I did.

Similarly, a lot of people insist on deep-pocket carry clips without understanding the synergy involved in hand size, knife size, and clip carry height. For the size of the MicroJimbo, the deep-pocket wire clip creates an in-pocket carry height that allows the knife to be drawn and fluidly opened without repositioning it in the hand. As such, it was the best solution. My dream knife (and my personal Yo 2) has always had a clip with a pants-matching color. That was a desired design specification for the original Yojimbo 20 years ago, but it was not feasible at the time. The wire clip, while not color matching, is much more subtle, doesn't look like a knife clip, and allows the pants material to show through. Again, the best available option.

So there you have it. In simple terms, the MicroJimbo is a Glock 26-ish Yojimbo 2 with a full-flat grind and a deep-pocket carry clip specifically scaled to carry legally in anal-retentive jurisdictions.

As far as the steel choice goes, I have been carrying knives with CPM S30V blades for 20 years. I am also privy to the in-house testing that Spyderco does on cutting performance and corrosion resistance and have discussed steel performance with metallurgists from Crucible and Carpenter, so I know how good S30V is. Truth be told, most knife enthusiasts never use their knives regularly or intensely enough to quantify the performance difference between steels. Often, comments that a knife is "only" S30V are an excuse not to buy something that they weren't planning on buying in the first place. From a functional standpoint, CPM S30V has always performed well for my needs. Spyderco uses it a lot, so it's in ready supply and our heat treating of it is both dialed in and receives the benefit of manufacturing economy of scale. When my S30V blades stop performing at peak sharpness, I sharpen them. Ultimately, that's the process for all knife steels and a big part of the charm of being a knife person...

I hope this helps.

Stay safe,

Mike

[apollo]

I fully agree on s30v it is more then good enough for anything you can trow at it. I have used the Yojimbo 2 as an edc for a week and a half now and i must say it is a good edc. The design is much more then a tactical folder. And the hollowground does not make the tip to thin. It is strong enough for normal use.