Kansept Higonokami Liner Lock Knife Review

The Kansept Higonokami liner lock knife is a modern interpretation by Goran Mihajlovic of the most famous small knife in Japan. Read on to see the differences!

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Official Specs

Here’s a link to the Kansept Higonokami liner lock knife.

Versions

I believe there are only two versions of the Kansept Higonokami liner lock knife – this black version and a copper version.

Price

Both versions of the Kansept Higonokami liner lock knife sell for $129.89 and are available now.

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Package and Manual

This is a new package style from Kansept!

There is no manual.

What’s Included

• Kansept Higonokami liner lock knife
• Cleaning cloth
• Warranty card, etc.

Look

The Kansept Higonokami liner lock knife looks quite like a traditional Higonokami-style knife. There are obvious changes, though.

This version uses shred carbon fiber. All the appointments are gold-colored, too, which makes for a very nice contrast.

The blade shape is traditional Higonokami, though.

A Damascus blade rounds out the look.

Even open, the Kansept version looks very traditional!

Open / Close / Lock

The Kansept Higonokami liner lock knife is a flipper. That’s a sort of update to the traditional. The original uses more of a lever or “swing” open style, but mechanically is essentially a flipper too.

Flipping with your thumb is going to be the best way to open the Kansept Higonokami liner lock knife, but I just am not that guy. To open this knife, I have to very deliberately take it in both hands and flip the blade with the middle section of my index finger (not shown below). There’s no “pinch to open” option on this knife. The action is pretty good though, so if you’re usually competent with thumb flippers, you’ll likely have no trouble.

There is minimal jimping, but what’s there is crucial, and works well.

Here’s probably the major difference between this version and traditional versions. This version has a lock! It’s a liner lock.

The scale has a cutout so you can swipe across the scales to unlock the knife. It works well. I’m a fan of liner locks!

Build and Feel

The build quality here is excellent. I love the shred carbon fiber – as a comparison to FatCarbon, I never got any carbon fiber splinters with this knife!

The blade is perfectly centered.

The pivot is a “ceramic ball-bearing pivot.”

Below you can see the metal liners. There’s no solid backspacer piece, but the standoffs do match the other screws by being a bronze/gold color.

Those metal liners go the full length of the handle and are skeletonized.

Both sides of the pivot have TORX for adjustment purposes.

And finally, regarding build quality, the blade has enough edge that you could strike a flint. I might not call these “sharp,” but the edge is less broken on this spine than any knife in recent memory.

Size

Overall Length: 6.94”/176.4mm
Blade Length: 3.01”/76.6mm
Blade Thickness: 0.118″ / 3.0mm
Weight: 3.42oz/97g

Above, you can see the Kansept Higonokami liner lock knife with the Civivi Elementum in orange G10. I use that knife so much! I haven’t talked about it much yet, but that Spyderco Lil Native is going to be my “nicer” knife size standard (in the same way that I use a Convoy S2+ and Hanko Machine Works Trident as flashlight size references).

Here’s the knife in hand:

Below you can see the Kansept Higonokami liner lock knife with the venerable Convoy S2+. The version below is a brass Convoy S2+.

In the photo above, you may note that the SRM (standard reference material) flashlight for comparison has changed! I used a TorchLAB BOSS 35 for ages. Now, what you can see as the 18350 SRM is the Hanko Machine Works Trident. While I have not reviewed or tested the Gunner Grip version seen here, I have tested a Hanko Machine Works Trident Total Tesseract in brass. I love the Trident, and it’s a striking contrast next to the inexpensive Convoy S2+, which also makes a great standard reference material.

Steel / Cut / Oats

This is Damascus steel.

Officially, the blade shape is “cleaver,” but I think most people would easily recognize this as “Higonokami blade.

Retention

The Kansept Higonokami liner lock knife has a deep carry pocket clip that allows tip-up carry. Most Higonokami knives don’t have pocket clips, either.

The clip doesn’t screw into the scales, but sits atop the scales. Note the matching screws! Very nice.

The clip may not be positioned anywhere else on the knife.

The Kansept Higonokami liner lock knife does not come with a pouch. That suits me because I never (ever) carry my knives in a pouch, so I’m happy to save the cost and have one fewer thing to keep up with.

Summary and Conclusion

The Kansept Higonokami liner lock knife is a very nice take on a ubiquitous traditional Japanese knife. I like that it has a locking mechanism, and I like the locking mechanism. The shred carbon is fantastic (shred Copper carbon is probably also incredible!). I love that the accent screws contrast the black carbon fiber very nicely (and that they all match – there are no sneaky random differently-colored screws.) I would love for this knife to be a little easier to open, as for me thumb flipping is quite hard. With carbon fiber and Damascus, the knife as a whole seems to represent a pretty good value!

Notes

• This knife was provided by Kansept for review. I was not paid to write this review.
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