Overview of the ODKW Lican Pocket Knife.

I finally decided to dip my toes into the custom folding knife world, and chose to pick this wonderful beast of a knife up. This gorgeous knife is called the Lican and was made by the company Old Dominion Knife Works out of Pennsylvania. Casey, the gentleman who made this knife and many others, is a pretty stand up guy and does some solid work in his designs and creations at a very, very fair price for the custom knife market. This model specifically was a prototype for his Lican design, and I was extremely lucky to be able to pick it up after he had it up for sale for a short while. I ended up paying right at $485 with full insured shipping included. I received it fairly quick, and Casey was kind enough to throw in a soft carry pouch as well which was nice. 

The blade on this knife is fairly large coming in right at 4" long, and about 0.15" thick. It's a nice drop point/kwaiken style blade shape with a swedge added on using a V shaped grind. It's made out of A2 steel which is a type of tool steel, and has had a nice dark acid etch (using ferric chloride)/stonewash applied for the finish of the blade. It runs on AKS bearings and it's an absolutely amazing flipper, way better than any production or mid-tech folder that I've handled in the past. I feel that more companies should use this bearing system, as it is very clearly just as good if not better than the IKBS system, but don't for some reason. It came extremely sharp out of it's pouch from Casey and passed all the cutting tests I do with flying colors. 

The custom monster also sports bolsters made from a more exotic material used often in custom knives called Mokume. Mokume is made from three different types of metal which is where it gets it's color from. The types of metal used are nickel silver, copper and brass. There's a few other types of materials that have a similar appearance to mokume, though they tend to be made from titanium as a core which provides bright vibrant colors. Underneath the bolsters are marbled carbon fiber scales which are quite gorgeous as well and match well with the bolsters, at least in my opinion. They've been polished pretty well, but I think they could look even better with further polishing. The knife also uses a liner lock system made from titanium that has good lock up coming in at 60 percent. I do usually prefer it to bet at 30-40 percent, but it's quite manageable and Casey offers an amazing warranty service on his knives. This Lican is also sporting a blackened titanium clip, which I had thought about polishing and anodizing but decided to leave dark to match the rest of the knife. 

So, to sum things up. I am extremely happy with how my first venture went into the custom folding knife world. The price for the quality here is great, and this knife serves as a great EDC piece while also being an excellent dressy style knife. Buying this blade convinced me there really is a huge difference between custom pocket knives and production models. Though that isn't to say I still don't love production knives, because I do. However, I really like the options available and the input you can have when getting a custom knife made. Although some makers really tend to ask ludicrous prizes for what they're making, or act like snobs or asshats with their fanbase, some makers like ODKW offer very fair prices and positive/easy going interactions. I would highly recommend Casey over at ODKW's for any custom knives you'd like to have done. Though as a heads up I believe his wait time is right around 3-4 months at the moment. (Which is still way better than most custom makers.) 

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