Home / Design Minds / Poltergeist Works Phenomena 4 is a Giant Take on the Phasma

Poltergeist Works Phenomena 4 is a Giant Take on the Phasma

August 31, 2021

Jakub Wieczorkiewicz of Poltergeist Works is back with his fourth Phenomena series project. This one is a wild interpretation of Wieczorkiewicz’s Phasma design, and although it’s a one-off like all Phenomena models, it does have a key design implication for the Phasma going forward.

Wieczorkiewicz does lots of design work for Real Steel Knives, and we’ve seen the Phasma in both production and custom versions. Obviously, the Phenomena 4 builds off the custom original, but is much bigger: whereas the standard Phasma has a blade length of 3.31 inches, the Phenomena 4 boosts things all the way up to 4 inches. This isn’t quite the biggest folder Wieczorkiewicz has made, as the Phenomena 3 was a 4.5-inch bladed monster, but it is still more than long enough for any folding knife chore.

The blade shape, as it is on the Phasma customs, is an tanto with a shallow, elongated secondary edge that tapers to an extremely acute tip. But whereas the Phasma used a thumb stud to open, the Phenomena 4 is equipped with a flipper and a thumb disk; the pivot, of course, runs on caged ball bearings.

A simple handle profile takes advantage of the ample real estate, creating something accommodating and hand-filling. The scales are made of bead blasted titanium, with a pair of aesthetic fullers on the show side scale, and on the lock side, we see the titanium frame lock itself and the slender, sculpted, titanium clip. Also present and accounted for is Wieczorkiewicz’s signature visual element, the two oversized bird’s-eye handle screws. The backspacer includes a lanyard bar and decorative perforations along its whole length.

We won’t ever see the Phenomena 4 again, but Wieczorkiewicz has said that one notable element of its design is likely to make its way back to his main custom catalog; we’ll probably see a flipper version of the Phasma sometime in the future.

Knife in Featured Image: Poltergeist Works Phenomena 4

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