Kizer and Bradley Diaz Exhume Gothic EDC for February

Kizer has brought in a new custom collaborator for one of their new 2025 releases, and it’s a creepy one. This is the Tomb, and it is a design from veteran bladesmith Bradley Diaz, channeling the visual style of the coffin-style traditional knife pattern.

We’ll get to that handle in a minute, but we’re going to start – as we usually do – with the blade. Diaz says that everyday carry knives are a new design addiction for him, and it looks like he picked up the genre double-quick. The 3.2-inch blade on the Tomb is a Platonically ideal drop point, with a stout flat grind and a swedge to help reinforce the tip. It’s made from Nitro-V steel, which fits into the EDC role like it’s putting on its favorite pair of blue jeans – solid performance metrics across the board and high stain resistance means that this is a user steel that will get the job done with minimum maintenance necessary.

How about that handle, though? Diaz looked toward the coffin handle pattern, a traditional knife profile that is something of a cult classic: not as famous as something like the dogleg, canoe, or cigar shapes, but with a lot of character and a dedicated base of admirers. It’s not one that we see translated into the modern folder realm very often but, on the Tomb, we can see that the coffin shape provides sound, rock-solid ergonomics even at the larger scale of a mid-sized front flipper.

It’s also a beautifully symmetrical handle shape, with Diaz accentuated by situating the button lock in the center of the handle, right beneath the pivot hardware. Button locks gained a ton of steam in 2024 so it’s not surprising to see them riding that momentum into the new year; in addition to reliable lockup, button locks are a favorite for anybody who likes to fidget with their knives – it compliments the front flipper deployment mechanism here too in that regard.

The Tomb released today!

Knife in Featured Image: Kizer Tomb

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