Third Knife in Poltergeist Works Phenomena Series is Finished

Jakub Wieczorkiewicz, the custom maker behind Poltergeist Works, has just finished work on the latest knife in his Phenomena series. The Phenomena 3 experiments with weight relieving techniques on a truly huge folder design, and has a unique lock bar interface as well.

Wieczorkiewicz himself describes the Phenomena 3 as his “most extreme” project to date, and on specs alone the knife bears that out. It has a 4.5 inch drop point blade made from S35VN, and a big handle to match. The folde’s overall length when open is a whopping 10.5 inches; to put that in perspective, that’s more than half an inch longer than a Cold Steel 4-MAX.

You might think these imposing proportions make the Phenomena 3 a collectible first and foremost, but the new owner, a friend of Wieczorkiewicz’s, asked for this one to use. “He specifically requested a robust folder with the biggest blade reasonably possible and a strong cutting edge,” Wieczorkiewicz says. “It will cut anything just as any other knife would, only with more style, flair, supply of power, and more reach.”

The “Go big or go home” attitude of the Phenomena 3 doesn’t mean that Wieczorkiewicz wasn’t concerned about weight. He lavished lots of attention on weight saving internal milling. Obviously the Phenomena 3 was never going to achieve a totally reasonable carry weight, but this process did manage to get it under 9 ounces – 8.8 ounces to be precise. A burly sculpted titanium clip keeps this monster in place in the pocket.

The Phenomena 3’s frame lock measures .195″ thick, but the standout feature is the lockbar interface itself. Steel inserts are an extremely common, almost universal sight on titanium frame locks, and usually they attach with a screw. However, Wieczorkiewicz experimented with an entirely different process that actually fuses the steel insert to the titanium lock bar, achieving the same end result without the use of any hardware whatsoever. “My knives are made by hand and that led to the development of this process,” Wieczorkiewicz tells us, and adds that he plans to keep the exact technique under wraps for now.

Wieczorkiewicz’s Phenomena project is a series of one-off, never to be repeated knife designs. This now or never philosophy means Wieczorkiewicz can experiment with all sorts of difficult, unique, and expensive custom processes. It also means, unfortunately, that the availability of each Phenomena knives is limited to a single knife, and the Phenomena 3 is already spoken for. But that doesn’t mean that concepts and ideas won’t make it into Wieczorkiewicz’s other work. “I will try to work on the integral steel insert process some more, hopefully make it a bit less time consuming and repeatable,” he says. “Maybe I can offer it as an option for my future clients and say more about it.”

Knife in Featured Image: Poltergeist Works Phenomena 3