Let's get hyped for the Amalgam!

[BrianMcCord]

I just realized that we are conversing with the designer. Thanks for taking the time to chat with us, Gunda. Sweet design, by the way. :spyder:

[Canazes9]

The more I look at this design, the more it's starting to appeal to me.

David

[Canazes9]

I think it looks great but I would be much more interested if it didn't have a choil. Without the choil it would be a must buy for me. With the choil it is a maybe.

Same. I just don't get the "100% blade choil", it's even more a waste of edge space than a 50/50. This would have been another great all around EDC like the Sliverax, possibly even more popular due to the more mainstream design.

The 100% blade choil isn't taking any more edge space than a 50/50 choil, 1/2 the choil is behind the forward edge of the handle. The 100% blade choil (vs a 50/50) is necessitated by the flipper design.

David

[Evil D]

I think it looks great but I would be much more interested if it didn't have a choil. Without the choil it would be a must buy for me. With the choil it is a maybe.

Same. I just don't get the "100% blade choil", it's even more a waste of edge space than a 50/50. This would have been another great all around EDC like the Sliverax, possibly even more popular due to the more mainstream design.

The 100% blade choil isn't taking any more edge space than a 50/50 choil, 1/2 the choil is behind the forward edge of the handle. The 100% blade choil (vs a 50/50) is necessitated by the flipper design.

David

Then why doesn't the Sliverax have one? Or the Mantra?

[Canazes9]

I think it looks great but I would be much more interested if it didn't have a choil. Without the choil it would be a must buy for me. With the choil it is a maybe.

Same. I just don't get the "100% blade choil", it's even more a waste of edge space than a 50/50. This would have been another great all around EDC like the Sliverax, possibly even more popular due to the more mainstream design.

The 100% blade choil isn't taking any more edge space than a 50/50 choil, 1/2 the choil is behind the forward edge of the handle. The 100% blade choil (vs a 50/50) is necessitated by the flipper design.

David

Then why doesn't the Sliverax have one? Or the Mantra?

I think you may have misunderstood my point. I'm not saying a choil is mandatory with the flipper design. I'm saying if you are going to have a choil, it's mandated by the flipper design that it's 100% choil, but the choil occupies the same space other 50/50 Spyderco Choils do.

I don't always like a choil, particularly with shorter blade designs. This choil looks like it would work well for me. I certainly understand not everyone likes choils and not every design is to everyone's tastes.

David

[Evil D]

I think it looks great but I would be much more interested if it didn't have a choil. Without the choil it would be a must buy for me. With the choil it is a maybe.

Same. I just don't get the "100% blade choil", it's even more a waste of edge space than a 50/50. This would have been another great all around EDC like the Sliverax, possibly even more popular due to the more mainstream design.

The 100% blade choil isn't taking any more edge space than a 50/50 choil, 1/2 the choil is behind the forward edge of the handle. The 100% blade choil (vs a 50/50) is necessitated by the flipper design.

David

Then why doesn't the Sliverax have one? Or the Mantra?

I think you may have misunderstood my point. I'm not saying a choil is mandatory with the flipper design. I'm saying if you are going to have a choil, it's mandated by the flipper design that it's 100% choil, but the choil occupies the same space other 50/50 Spyderco Choils do.

I don't always like a choil, particularly with shorter blade designs. This choil looks like it would work well for me. I certainly understand not everyone likes choils and not every design is to everyone's tastes.

David

Ah gotcha. I don't usually dislike a choil but I definitely prefer a handle design that just puts your grip close enough to the edge to not need one. That way you get the most edge possible for a given blade length.

[gundamaniac]

A bit about myself and the design (and an apology in advance for the wall o'text :D):

In college, I spent a lot of time in the student machine shop. We had all kinds of tools, but I could never find a simple cutting instrument like scissors or a knife (not even box cutters!) for things like tape, cardboard, bags, foam, zipties, etc. I always ended up needing to borrow a teammate's pocket knife to cut with, and eventually I got tired of always asking and went out and bought my first knife. And from there, I got sucked into knives as a hobby.

What I really wanted at the time was something similar to a Manix with a drop point, liner lock, and a flipper, so I basically designed something to that extent while daydreaming in class and sent it in to Spyderco. This first design was rejected for being stylistically too close to in-house designs, but Eric had a talk with me which was incredibly encouraging.
I brought the design back to the drawing board, slimmed it down, and worked in a compression lock. I submitted this second design right around the time I graduated. By the time Spyderco told me they were interested, it had been a while and I had been further tweaking the design assuming it might still have been too stylistically Spyderco-like, so I submitted a third evolution of the design. After some refinement from Spyderco, this became the Amalgam.

I watched a SHOT Show video with Joe Flowers from Condor talking about their Amalgam, where he said something to the effect of putting together design elements he liked to make an amalgam of a knife. That's basically what this knife is to me and why I also like this name - it's an amalgam of the different design elements from my favorite knives and designers. I like big-ish pocket knives, drop points which I consider to be a generally versatile profile, thick-ish blade stock for strength combined with full flat grinds for their ability to pass through material with less binding than other grinds, sharpening choils for hitting every bit of the edge with a stone and finger choils for choking up on if need be, Spydie-holes for controlled openings and not getting in the way of cutting and sharpening unlike thumbstuds, flippers for fast opening and their ability to double as a finger guard when stabbing and in the unlikely event of a lock failure, grips with an index finger groove (dunno why, I just like the way they feel in hand), lanyard tubes for when they may be needed, the option to position the pocket clip wherever I want for tip up or tip down on either side depending on what pocket I want to carry in, Spyderco's nested liners in composite handles so my hands don't freeze on giant metal framelock slabs in the winter or burn on them in the summer, skeletonized liners for weight savings and balance, and Spyderco's compression lock for added strength over liner locks and the ability to close the knife without my fingers crossing the path of the closing blade. I might have missed a couple things there but I think you get the idea :p

[BravoTango]

Of all the SHOT 2018 debuts, this is my faborite.

[Mako109]

A bit about myself and the design (and an apology in advance for the wall o'text :D): :p

Hi gundamaniac - congratulations on your design. I always enjoy learning a little about the designer and the story behind their knife designs. It makes the knife that much more meaningful. You can be sure that I will be buying one!

By the way, what state or country are you from?

[Omlin]

Love the finger choil on the blade

[emjay4248]

I am very much looking forward to it's arrival. I am also looking forward to the Spyderco/Smock collaboration and the new Peter Rassenti project.

[Canazes9]

A bit about myself and the design (and an apology in advance for the wall o'text :D):

In college, I spent a lot of time in the student machine shop. We had all kinds of tools, but I could never find a simple cutting instrument like scissors or a knife (not even box cutters!) for things like tape, cardboard, bags, foam, zipties, etc. I always ended up needing to borrow a teammate's pocket knife to cut with, and eventually I got tired of always asking and went out and bought my first knife. And from there, I got sucked into knives as a hobby.

What I really wanted at the time was something similar to a Manix with a drop point, liner lock, and a flipper, so I basically designed something to that extent while daydreaming in class and sent it in to Spyderco. This first design was rejected for being stylistically too close to in-house designs, but Eric had a talk with me which was incredibly encouraging.
I brought the design back to the drawing board, slimmed it down, and worked in a compression lock. I submitted this second design right around the time I graduated. By the time Spyderco told me they were interested, it had been a while and I had been further tweaking the design assuming it might still have been too stylistically Spyderco-like, so I submitted a third evolution of the design. After some refinement from Spyderco, this became the Amalgam.

I watched a SHOT Show video with Joe Flowers from Condor talking about their Amalgam, where he said something to the effect of putting together design elements he liked to make an amalgam of a knife. That's basically what this knife is to me and why I also like this name - it's an amalgam of the different design elements from my favorite knives and designers. I like big-ish pocket knives, drop points which I consider to be a generally versatile profile, thick-ish blade stock for strength combined with full flat grinds for their ability to pass through material with less binding than other grinds, sharpening choils for hitting every bit of the edge with a stone and finger choils for choking up on if need be, Spydie-holes for controlled openings and not getting in the way of cutting and sharpening unlike thumbstuds, flippers for fast opening and their ability to double as a finger guard when stabbing and in the unlikely event of a lock failure, grips with an index finger groove (dunno why, I just like the way they feel in hand), lanyard tubes for when they may be needed, the option to position the pocket clip wherever I want for tip up or tip down on either side depending on what pocket I want to carry in, Spyderco's nested liners in composite handles so my hands don't freeze on giant metal framelock slabs in the winter or burn on them in the summer, skeletonized liners for weight savings and balance, and Spyderco's compression lock for added strength over liner locks and the ability to close the knife without my fingers crossing the path of the closing blade. I might have missed a couple things there but I think you get the idea :p

Very cool! Thanks for sharing!

I'm really staring to like this design, definitely plan on buying one when they are released. Now you need to talk to Eric about pimping your blade steel a little bit ! S30V is certainly a solid choice - would love to see this with some M4...

David

[curlyhairedboy]

GundaManiac, the more I hear the more I like! Thanks for the writeup!

Hopefully this one hits soon!

[gundamaniac]

I'm lobbying for CPM20CV/M390/CTS-204P myself, but I totally understand the choice of S30V. It's a perfectly good steel; if it was good enough for the likes of Chris Reeve it's definitely good enough for me.

I also initially requested peel ply carbon fiber as the handle material, but that's probably pricey to implement with the milling needed for nested liners; from the SHOT Show videos it appears it had laminate G10 with peel ply carbon fiber, which is still a very nice material (the key IMO is the peel ply texture, with the subtle bit of CF flair underneath) that should lower the cost of entry.

But I'm just a guy who likes knives and not a manufacturer. I'm sure Spyderco has good reason for their choices. :)

[emjay4248]

I like the size and I also like the choil because it has 2 uses finger and sharpening. I you like it without or very minimum choil there is always the GB2.
I am really looking forward to it. The last knives that I was impatiently were the Sliverax and the Shaman, the Shaman was a big hit but the Sliverax
didn't do it for me so I sold it. I actually sold it after the price hikes and got all my money out of it.

[vernonremington]

This is a must buy for me, very cool story about the design process. Gunda, how did you get your design to Spyderco and what was it like working with them?

[gundamaniac]

I contacted them via email and asked what the process for submitting a design was, and they walked me through it. It's been a fun ride so far, though to be honest I haven't been very active since submitting the design initially. Spyderco has been doing all the heavy lifting in the background; I assume they've been doing things like making and testing their own prototypes and working with their suppliers and the facility in Taichung to set things up for production. I basically just carry on with my life until I see a message from Spyderco haha.

Speaking of which, I'm pretty hyped right now, because midweek I should be receiving a prototype to play with :D

[curlyhairedboy]

Oh snap!

We will require MANY pictures.... :D

[Canazes9]

Oh snap!

We will require MANY pictures.... :D

Agreed!

David

[gundamaniac]

Whoo! I got a very special delivery from Spyderco today. Much thanks to the team at Spyderco, this totally met and in many ways exceeded my expectations!

Pictures (I apologize for the quality of the pictures or lack thereof; it's indoors at night and I'm using a cellphone):

First impressions:
It's a very close adaptation of my submission with the exception of the blade shape and compression lock cutout and placement. I'm glad Spyderco went ahead and made it a drop point, as I was already working on a revision of the design without the reverse tanto.
With all the talk of CQI on the flippers and bearing pivots, I checked out the action of the pivot. I think of smoothness of the pivot in two ways- smooth in terms of roughness and grit (like the kind caused by friction from a rough detent track or the washers/bearings themselves), and smoothness in terms of bumpiness (like the kind caused by dents in washers or the bearing interface that have been talked so much about). I can confirm that the action here is very smooth in both respects. Yes, the detent is a bit softer than dedicated flippers. But it's a very good compromise between being too stiff thereby making the opening hole unpleasant to use, and being too soft thereby making the flipper fail easily. If you hit the flipper with any kind of authority at all, that blade is going to fly open.
The knife feels lighter than I had anticipated (likely because I'm used to titanium framelocks), and the balance is right on the index finger groove. Spyderco worked some kind of magic with the handle, rounding the edges; the handle just melts into my hand (but then again, I am a little biased).
As for materials, the blade is S30V, and I can confirm the handles are a laminate of G10 and carbon fiber, with a peel ply texture on the carbon fiber.

All in all, I'm quite pleased with Spyderco's execution of the production sample :D

*edited for grammar and more thoughts*