Brad Fairall Model 3: A bittersweet story of a very special custom knife

Many years ago, when I was just an adolescent in my knife collecting career, I had my first cost knife made for me. It was made by Brad Fairall. I had owned plenty of production knives before, from all of the big makers: Benchmade, Spyderco, Kershaw, etc. But this was my first true custom knife. Like a moron though, I sold it to fund other knives.

Fast forward to July 15th. AxCross and I are having lunch, talking about shit, and naturally, the topic of custom knives comes up. I had been saving up for TAD’s production Dauntless for quite some time now, selling of whatever knives I had. The cash was floating around in my PayPal account, and I was borrowing knives from my friends while I waited for this knife that felt like would never drop. So I decided to spend the cash on a different knife instead. I had seriously considered an XM18. But we got to talking about it, and the price on the secondary market was so high that it was near impossible for me to score one.

We began comparing the price of these XM18s to those of full customs, and that got me to thinking about getting a custom knife made instead. I picked Alex’s brain about various custom makers, and I began to think about my first custom knife. At that moment, I decided I wanted to have my knife made by Brad Fairall again, so when Alex went to use the restroom, I shot him an email detailing what I was looking for.

A little while later, I get an email back from Brad. He tells me that he remembers making my knife way back when. He also breaks some bad news to me. His sister had passed away a week and a half back, on the 4th of July, and he was closing his shop down because his sister was the one who owned the house and shop that he was operating out of, and he wasn’t going to be able to afford to keep his shop open. In fact, he only saw my email because he was going to email someone about selling his machining equipment.

I keep reading the email, and at the very bottom he asks me, “What do you want made?” We exchange a few more emails, hammer out the details, detailing a knife that is nearly identical to my original knife, with some modifications, and Brad agrees to make me one more knife. Quite possibly the last knife that he will ever make. I found it very surreal that this man made me my first custom knife ever, and now, he might be making me his last knife ever. In less than two weeks, Brad has the knife at my door step.

This knife will remain in my collection, as a reminder of my first knife, and as a reminder of a great knife maker who can no longer make knives.

The build quality of this knife is amazing. The attention to detail is phenomenal. The knife locks up extremely early, but lock doesn’t slip, and it is SOLID. The action is so smooth, I have had people mistaken it for IKBS. The CF looks beautiful in person, the liners are jeweled, no blade play in any direction.

3.75″ S30v Drop Point blade
8.25″ Overall length
Titanium frame, with carbon fiber overlays
Flipper
Internal Stop Pin
Hidden pivot screw

Keychain Gear

There are a few items that I believe nearly everyone carries. Cellphones, wallets, IDs, and of course, keys. Over the years, I have been enamored by keychain gear. It all started for me with a Victorinox Classic, which was also my first knife ever.

There are so many items today that companies design specifically for your keychain. The most common I see are pill containers, bottle openers, small knives, lanyards, fobs, and other trinkets and deallys. Some items that are more uncommon are multitools and flashlights. Then you move on to the things that only gear junkies know about: the danglers, the glow in the dark lanterns, the one piece multitools, etc. There are so many things to choose from. And because of the large variety of gear for our keys, we end up with these giant bricks of stuff that we call our keys.

The problem with this is that it is more than uncomfortable to carry so much stuff in the pocket. To me, it feels like wadding up a bunch of paper and shoving it into my pocket. I have tried carrying my keys on a neck lanyard for a little while, and while it does eliminate the constraint from the pocket, it was like I had a wrecking ball around my neck hitting me in the chest any time I moved. Plus, the lanyard was a strangulation hazard, and an easy target for someone to grab and control me in a self defense situation. I’ve also tried carrying my gear on a carabiner. While this kind of worked, I sounded like Christmas bells every time I took a step. So what solution have I found works best?

First of all, what I had to do first was to slim down my keys to the bear minimum, for me. Of course, I had to have my house keys, car keys, and car remote (on a side note, I think that the separate key/remote that car companies use is the stupidest thing in the world). I had switched from a Victorinox Classic to a Classic with Alox scales. This made it slimmer, but was still adding bulk to my keys. I also had a Leatherman Style PS. Both of these items, while cool and functional, saw little use. I carry a larger main blade, as well as a fullsize Leatherman Wingman in my backpack (goes with me everywhere) so I ditched those, too.

Now that my keys were squared away, what gear could I add to my setup that did not add too much bulk? The solution that I came up with was to either slim the tools down as much as I could, or have them function for more than one role. What I found was the Munroe Knives Mega Dangler. This item was genius. It allowed me to dangle my keys from my pocket or belt, eliminating the lump of junk in the bottom of my pocket. It also has a cap lifter and a prybar edge, two of the items that I use the most on a multitool.

I also separated my remote from my main keys. I figured if I locked my car keys in my car, I still needed a way to get into the car to get them back. Also, separating them allowed me to separate the bulk, making it much more manageable. I was sold on the dangler for my keys, so I went ahead and bought one of Munroe Knives DTS dangler, which was just a small dangler. No tools on it.

I also happened to come across a thread on a forum about whistles. Yeah, whistles. The story was that one of his buddies was riding bikes when he fell off and hurt his ankle. He was able to call 911 for help, but wasn’t able to pinpoint his exact location. Luckily, he had a whistle with him, and was able to use it to signal for help. It also got me thinking about people in building collapses, or people who drive their car off of the road. A whistle would be a great thing to have to let people know where you are. So I had a whistle made for me.

The last four items on my keys all have some sort of sentimental value to me. 3 of them are Steel Flame Dog Tags, each one gifted to me by someone. The first one I received was a Bushido dog tag, given to me by my girlfriend. The 2nd, is a 1911 dog tag, given to me by a friend on the forums. The last one is a Crusader dog tag. This one is a little different. It is what Steel Flame calls an EBO, Emergency Bottle Opener. This was given to me by another friend on the forums, one of the first people that I spoke to on there.The last item that I have on my keys is a TAD Gear/Rocketworld Keychain. This was given to me by another friend of mine from the forum. The story behind this one was that he was given it by TAD Gear’s CEO, Patrick Ma. Having met and spoken to Patrick, I know he is a great guy, and his company is one of my most favorite for gear and clothing. All of these things are light and slim enough that they are unobtrusive, but also remind me of the generosity and blessings I have in my life. When I see bad things in the world, meet bad people, or am just feeling down, they remind of me of the good that I have in my life, and the people who care about me. These alone make them worth having with me each and every day.

Now, any item that you add to your keys is going to add weight. Weight is a bad thing, not only because it makes carrying these things uncomfortable, but also because excess weights adds unnecessary wear on the tumblers of car ignitions. My solution? Titanium. I love this stuff. Anything that I could get made out of titanium, I did. The danglers are titanium, the whistle is titanium, and even my house keys are titanium. While they are pricier than the same items in steel or brass or other metals, I figured the weight that I save and the wear that I don’t put on my ignition more than makes up for the cost of titanium. Plus, titanium is damn cool!

So what do you carry along with your keys? Do they retain any value to you beyond their usefulness? Do you have a bunch of stuff on their that you can do without? Let me know what you think.

EDC Awareness

I have been carrying pocket knives since, maybe, fourth grade. I started with a Victorinox Classic. I lost that knife a year or do afterwards, and didn’t carry another knife until Sophomore year of high school. Since then, I have not gone a single day without a knife in my pocket, unless I absolutely could not carry.

In this time, I have turned a lot of my friends, including my current girlfriend, Windy, onto EDC. Something I remember Windy telling me was that since she started to carry knives, flashlights, and other gear is that she notices other people carrying gear, too. This gave me a thought.

Before I started carrying knives, I never really paid attention to a person walking down the street, let alone what they had on their person. Nowadays, I noticed every clip that is on a person. What’s more is that I can tell whether a clip belongs to a knife, a pen, or a flashlight. I know that a bulge in the back pocket is most likely a wallet, I know that keys tend to be kept in the front left pocket, and cell phones in the front right. Watches are typically worn on the weak hand, so a watch worn on the right hand means that the person is likely to be left handed, and vice versa.

EDCing my gear has made me more aware as to not only what other people carry, but subtle things about the person. Have you noticed you are now more aware of these things as well since you began EDCing?