Home / Knives / Justin Lundquist Offers Up Two 2020 We Knife Designs

Justin Lundquist Offers Up Two 2020 We Knife Designs

January 16, 2020

Maker Justin Lundquist is clearly on a roll this year. Less than a week after the reveal of the Kizer Contrail, he is debuting two new We Knife Co. collaborations: the OSS Dagger and the Black Void Opus. The Opus is Lundquist’s latest riff on the front flipper, and the OSS Dagger is his first production fixed blade design.

Black Void Opus

The Black Void Opus magnifies two recurring elements of Lundquist’s design work: a front flipper opening mechanism, and a concern for aesthetic cohesion down to the smallest detail. The knife’s name comes from Lundquist’s emphasis on negative space and the ways it can be manipulated on a visual level. The interior of the Black Void Opus’s scales have been milled to create dimensionality in a place many designers often ignore. “The idea was to play with the flow of everything including the inside portions, which could affect the look and feel on the outside,” Lundquist explains. “I was playing with the positive and negative space – or the voids, so to speak.”

A glimpse of the internal milling on the Black Void Opus

The “void” theme continues onto the 2.8-inch modified wharncliffe blade. Made from CPM-20CV steel, it rides on ball bearings and is chisel ground. This unconventional choice is made even more singular by the fact that the edge bevel is on the off side of the knife. Lundquist tells us that the grind and its facing were key choices that play into the central concept of the Black Void Opus. “The chisel grind was almost like creating a void space as well, because there is no grind on the front,” he says. The handle is comprised of a titanium frame with either a G-10 or carbon fiber inlay running through the center. A lack of visible hardware on the show side completes the knife’s void-inspired minimalist look.

OSS Dagger

Lundquist’s other 2020 We release finds inspiration from a very different place: the lapel daggers of World War II. “These are fun little cutters that can be carried in the pocket or small sheath or as a neck knife,” Lundquist says. While the overall size and lines hew closely to the classic lapel dagger style, the materials and construction are much more modern. “I wanted to try a integral type of construction with these and WE did an awesome job,” Lundquist notes. The full tang, dagger-ground, 2.13-inch blade is made from CPM-20CV, with a single-piece G-10 handle insert attached to the back side. As with the Black Void Opus, the OSS Dagger comes chisel-ground.

No prices or release dates have been given for either the Black Void Opus or the OSS Dagger. However, both knives will be on display at SHOT Show next week.

Knife in Featured Image: We Knife Co. Black Void Opus

Related Items