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Vintage Artus Flex knife

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kwakster

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Recently i obtained several unused Artus Flex knives, and i'm currently experimenting a bit with one of them.
All knives came complete with original box, leaflet, spare belt loops & mini-tool (to exchange them)
The Rockwell hardness sticker is still on the blade.











Specs:

Overall length: 24,6 cm
Blade length: 12,7 cm
Blade thickness: 0,96 mm (!)
Handle materials: steel guard & molded rubber grip
Sheath: plastic with spring steel inserts
Weight (knife only): 119,3 grams
Weight (knife + sheath): 260 grams
 
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The factory edge on this knife was a bit blunt due to one of the black plastic inserts in the sheath, which is made from some form of glass filled nylon.
Not exactly a good choice for a part of the sheath that contacts the edge often.
Will see if i can do something about that.

With the sheath partly disassembled showing both black plastic inserts, as well as the one-piece flat stainless spring:

 
I think i may have found a solution for the edge blunting from the black glass filled nylon insert.
First step was to grind some material from the insert with only a coarse diamond file, thus also leaving a coarse surface.
After cleaning/degreasing that surface with some isopropyl alcohol on a piece of microfiber cloth i applied 2 layers of waterproof PVA wood glue on the surface of the insert. (allowed each layer to dry overnight)
PVA stands for polyvinyl acetate, which is the same or close to the same material that expensive Hi-Soft cutting boards are made from, and these are known to be very edge friendly on knives.
When everything had thorougly dried I tested the new PVA surface by slicing it several times with a freshly sharpened cheap peeling knife (picture 4), and this did not noticeably seem to blunt it's apex.
Next step will be to resharpen the edge of the Flex knife and see how things go from there.





 
Thanks, :)

According to the brochure the blade is made from a saltwater proof stainless steel with a hardness between 57-59 HRC, and capable of a highly durable cutting edge.
Now i have exactly zero proof as it isn't mentioned anywhere specifically, but based on this info plus sharpening/deburring/polishing the edge on one of the Flex knives my educated guess would be that the steel might be Becut, as this would fit the properties described almost perfectly.
Wet-grinding completely new bevels on the Tormek SB-250 stone (black silicon carbide) is comparatively slow, and both deburring/polishing with high quality diamond compounds tells me that there are quite a lot of wear-resistant carbides in the steel.
 
we ordered one or two of these knives for customers back then, and I remember that I had very mixed feelings about the knife.
Every time I bent it I could see a gap between the blade and the handles where the rubber starts, that was suspicious...
but somehow I liked the idea! :hehe:
 
I know what you mean about the mixed feelings, but at least at this moment i still think there might be a few cases where a knife like this would come in handy.
For instance yesterday i showed the Flex knives to a local pro-Chef who also likes to fish at sea (and serves the catch in his restaurant), and he seemed to like them quite a bit as possible filleting knives, praising their thin flexible blades, presumed saltwaterproof steel, very grippy artificial rubber handles with trustworthy guards, and probably good edge holding as well.
Other possible uses that i can think of atm would be (camp-) kitchen use, and maybe even diving knives.

Indeed, the gap between the metal guard and the rubber handle which becomes visible when the knife is bent is not something i like to see on expensive knives like these, and personally i would have designed the handles more like for instance Mora does it, with cast on (but rather thin & flat) polypropylene handles with (contoured) rubber overmolds on top of that.
These materials would most likely also allow the handles to bend (a bit), while at the same time prohibiting any gaps.
While i don't know if this technology already existed back then, it would also have made the knives look, well, like Mora's.
 
Now that I am a martial arts friend, I naturally thought in other directions as well. But that was a long time ago and today I almost always see knives as tools and of course that's a good idea to use them as seaworthy tools. :super:
 
The factory edge on this Flex knife measured ~30 degrees inclusive and was reprofiled to ~22,5 degrees inclusive on the Tormek SB-250 Blackstone fitted with the homemade jig you can see in the last picture, then deburred on the Tormek leather wheel coated with 1.0 micron diamond paste.
This provides for just a tiny bit of micro-convexity of the apex which strengthens it, and the resulting edge is now stable & reverse chesthair-whittling sharp.
This was actually the third time i had to redo the sharpening, as the first two times the edge collapsed from a few firm slices into a polyethylene cutting board.
My guess is that the factory edge may have been overheated during sharpening.





 
Currently busy sharpening two other Flex knives on the Tormek; a second yellow one and a pink one.
From top to bottom: the second yellow knife (with taped blade) which has just been sharpened on the Tormek to ~22,5 degrees inclusive and with the burr still attached to the edge, the pink knife (with taped blade) still with it's ~30 degrees inclusive blunt factory edge, and the first yellow knife.





 
In this case because i wanted the new edges to look like they could have been done at the factory, but ground wet on a SiC stone to achieve a better edge quality.

This is how the edge of yellow Flex knife #2 currently looks after deburring:



And this is the pink Flex knife, also after deburring:

 
This is how the second yellow Flex knife came out:







Blade thickness: 1,0 mm
Thickness behind the edge: 0,30 mm
Edge angle: ~22,5 degrees inclusive
Microbevel: ~30 degrees inclusive

And the pink version:







Blade thickness: 0,98 mm
Thickness behind the edge: 0,27 mm
Edge angle: ~22,5 degrees inclusive
Microbevel: ~30 degrees inclusive
 
This afternoon i carried the first yellow Flex knife on my belt, with the T-shirt tucked in and the fleece jacket covering the sheated knife, which concealed it completely.
Even under just a loose hanging dark blue T-shirt there's not much printing.

Impression so far is that the sheated knife wears very comfortably and i don't even notice it when tying my shoelaces, walking around, driving a car, or having a snack at a table.
You could basically carry this knife all day and forget that it's there at all, and yet it's still very accessible.
What also seems to work well (so far anyway) is the PVA glue mod i did inside the sheath, as the self-blunting effect on the edge is gone and it stays sharp.







 
And because of the thin stainless blade & very grippy handle the Flex knife also does quite well as a tactical petty knife, :)
Tonights dinner was a sauerkraut oven dish with bacon, sausage, onions, and garlic.





 
Article about the Artus Flex knife in American Tactical Knives magazine.
The picture can be clicked 2 x then enlarged further to read the text.



Two pictures with German text:

 
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All the knives now have the "anti-selfblunting mod" done, and have their edges carefully resharpened on the Tormek.
I will probably keep 2 of these for my own collection, one is already on it's way to a US forum member, and the remaining 5 will also go up for sale.

 
Personally i knew about the Flex knives only through an old German knife magazine, and i never even saw or handled one in real life before i bought these.
So far and from actual hands-on experience i learned that the sheathed knife carries very comfortably as well as inconspicuously on a belt, and accessibility of the knife is also great (although not super fast)
After a while i actually tend to forget that something is strapped to my belt, an aspect that could make it more likely that you have it on you when you need it.

While the thin blade indeed has a certain amount of flexibility it has no distal taper and is also relatively wide, both of which lessen that flexibility quite a bit.
The knife is definitely stiff enough to stab with, aided by the very secure steel guard & the grippy rubber handle.
Regarding actual use i really like it for allround kitchen jobs, and it's definitely coming with me on our next camping trip.
It also excels in cutting cardboard, and i use it quite a lot for that.
 
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