These days, collaborative products are fairly commonplace, even in the EDC knife world. Whether it’s two brands, a brand and an artisan, or two artisans working together, the designers and craftspeople usually synergize on every facet of the product.
Bestech’s latest blade release, however, takes a very different approach. Instead of its designers working together throughout the process, the Bestech Excentric is what happens when they split the work right down the middle, literally.
Blade meets handle
The creation of this knife began at this year’s IWA OutdoorClassics exhibition in Germany. There, Grzegorz Grabarski of Kombou Designs and Toni N. Tietzel of TNT Knives met and immediately hit it off.
They knew they wanted to work on a knife together from that moment. However, how they chose to approach their collaborative design was highly unorthodox.
Tietzel, a grind specialist, crafted the blade, giving it an unusual tanto shape and highly stylized compound grind. Then, he passed it off to Grabarski, who championed the handle, blessing it with biomechanical curves reminiscent of H.R. Giger’s artwork.
