Fox Knives Radius Reels in Awards at Blade Show with New Lock

Blade Show 2019 is a wrap; the show concluded yesterday afternoon. One of the major events of the show every year are the awards, and this year Fox Knives won big with the Radius, a folder that marks the debut of a new, patent pending locking system.

The Radius is designed by Denis Simonutti, who worked with Fox previously on the Skal folder. The headline feature of the Radius – which helped it take both Overall Knife of the Year and Imported Knife of the Year at Blade – is its deployment and locking mechanism.

The new lock is based around the Radius’s pivot. A stud is set into a cutout that arcs around the top half of the pivot screw; when a user pushes the stud along the path, the blade opens and locks into place, and they can close the Radius by pushing the stud down and then back across the cutout.

Besides its eye-catching and fidget friendly lock, the Radius seems well-spec’d for EDC use, with a versatile modified wharncliffe blade and a simple, arcing handle design with one large finger groove. FOX had titanium versions on display at the show, but the particular Radius that was up for the award sported a marbled carbon fiber frame.

This is the second year in a row that Fox Knives took home the big award at Blade. Last year they won for the Jesper Voxnaes-designed SURU knife. Here are the rest of the production and custom knife award winners:

Production Knife Awards

American Made Knife of the Year: Microtech SOCOM Elite

Most Innovative American Design: Spyderco Para 3 Lightweight

Most Innovative Imported Design: WE Knife Co. 037

Best Buy of the Year: CRKT CEO

Investor/Collector Knife of the Year: Pro-Tech Warenski/Brend Masterpiece

Manufacturing Quality Award: Chris Reeve Knives

Accessory of the Year: Outdoor Edge ParaSpark

Collaboration of the Year: Casström/CAS Iberia Lars Fält Lockback

Kitchen Knife of the Year: Apogee Culinary Designs Dragon Storm

Custom Knife Awards

Best in Show: Harvey Dean

Best Tactical: Sergei Shirogorov

Best Art Knife: Veronique Laurent

Best Folder: Javier Vogt

Best Kitchen Knife: Doberman Forge

Best Fixed Blade: Harvey Dean

Best Damascus: Franco Custom Knives

Best New Maker: Evan Nicolaides

Best Collaboration: David Lisch and Andrew Meers

Best Handle Design: Ben Breda

Best Fighter: Brian Sellers

Best of the Rest: Ron Newton

Most Innovative Design: RJ Martin

Best Utility Hunter: Ben Breda

Best Sword: Vince Evans

Best Mini: Isao Ohbuchi

Individual Awards:

Cutlery Hall of Fame Inductees: Tony Bose, Mel Pardue, Steve Shackleford

Publisher’s Award: Adam Drescher

Industry Achievement Award: Lucas Burnley

Aldo and Edda Lorenzi Award: Bill Ruple

Knife in Feature Image: FOX Knives Radius