This Camping Knife Is NASA-Tested, Engineer-Approved

Ever seen a knife cut a strand of human hair in half? Want to?

September 17, 2018 9:00 am

How to be a savvy Kickstarter backer 101: be wary of any creators who tout their project as the “best on the planet!”

The folks behind the Ultimatedge Knife — a blade featuring an edge made from Liquidiamond, a metal alloy developed by Caltech and tested by NASA — decided to go that route. It’s unfortunate, because once you slice through all the bombast, the knife looks promising.

The patented Liquidiamond material could never be as miraculous as the name suggests, but it has been used to well-reviewed effect in kitchen knives before. And far from being simply repackaged for outdoor enthusiasts, the Ultimatedge Knife boasts an upgraded composition to tackle more extreme conditions (think less fruits and vegetables, more ropes and hardwoods).

Specifically, the campaign notes that the edge is 70% tungsten and 30% Liquidiamond with added Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC), and DLC also coats the edge, blade and tang. On the Rockwell hardness scale, the HRC scores 70 for the edge and 50 for the 3.9-inch steel blade (of a 9.3-inch knife).

As for what that means in practice? In the video below, watch it slice through bottled water, a phone book, rope and a strand of hair off the head of a reality-TV winner.

I want you. I need you. Oh baby, oh baby.

But before we start borrowing lines from 10 Things I Hate About You, there is a complementary video we recommend watching from the, um, eccentrics over at Dutch Bushcraft Knives, who put a prototype through some more rigorous tests.

While we can’t say definitively that this will be “better than anything else you have ever owned or used,” it’s certainly beefier than your standard steel and a worthwhile addition to any survivalist’s toolkit.

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Main photo via Ultimatedge Knives Kickstarter

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