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Damned Designs Prepares Quartet of Budget Folders

July 9, 2021

Damned Designs is focusing its attention on the budget knife genre this year with a series of four incoming releases, all aimed at a sub-$50 price point. All four are designed by company founder Adrian D’souza and are made from the same materials: stainless steel frames, G-10 scales, and 14C28N blade steel.

When Damned Designs first came on the scene, D’souza had his eyes set on the high-end side of the market. “For my first 3 models, I went top of the line M390 with ti/ carbon fiber but struggled to sell,” he says. “I felt that people maybe don’t give a new brand a chance at that price point.” He found that budget-friendly models were more amenable to consumer experimentation and impulse purchases. “When I released the Oni, especially in D2/G10, I found that a lot more people started trying them out.” The discovery led to a totally new direction for Damned Designs. “My strategy is to make my new designs as accessible as possible to get them out to people, and once I get a bit of a reputation, I will offer more premium versions.”

Banshee

The Banshee’s centerpiece is its American tanto blade, spiced up with unusual cuts and curves: the primary edge bellies out, there’s a concave finger groove on the spine, and an angular cutout in the blade itself. With a blade length of 3.6 inches and that burly tanto shape, the Banshee is a useful, if unconventional, work knife. The handle design, as simple as the blade is complex, is borrowed wholesale from the Invictus, a previous Damned Designs release.

Basilisk

The Basilisk is even bigger than the Banshee; its drop point blade measures 3.8 inches long. It bears a very close relation to the Cerberus, but both its blade length and handle have been bumped up compared to its predecessor, and the blade steel here is 14C28N instead of the Cerberus’ D2.

Wendigo

Another model based off the Invictus handle, the Wendigo has a more subdued tanto than its stablemates, with no no cutout or spinal concavity. But it still falls into the same use category with a 3.6-inch tanto blade.

Yokai

The Yokai has the tanto-iest of all the tantos on display here. And at 3.85 inches long, it just edges out the Basilisk to become the biggest of the bunch too. The Yokai is purely a flipper knife, but it does have the spinal dip like the Banshee.

D’souza says that more premium models are in the works. A series of XL models will be releasing in both budget and premium configurations, the latter to be made from S35VN blade steel and titanium. “I’ll eventually do titanium frame locks of all my value models but will be a while,” D’souza adds. “Knife production is very expensive and minimums are too high for me as a single person.”

Knife in Featured Image: Damned Designs Yokai

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