Manly, Bulgarian knives.
I read a bit about these knives on BBF and BF and decided to give them a shot.
Their website has several handle options of the same basic Laquiole style knife (stag, wood, Micarta, bone).
You also get a choice between D2(used by Queen cutlery) and 12C27 steel (used in Mora and Opinel knives).
All come with a similar back scroll.
I went for the Micarta version (one of the cheapest too, greenish-black) as I wanted something that I could use without too many worries. For the same reason I chose the stainless 12C27 (D2 is 5 euro mores o the money difference is minimal, but it will rust).
The knife arrived in a brown box, registered.
The first thing I noticed was how big it was; I was expecting something similar to a 91mm SAK in length but this is a big, though thin, knife. Steel liners that make it feel and look solid.
Here it is dwarfing an Opinel No 8.
It is a backlock locking knife and to release the lock you move a lever up. This enables you to gently close the blade. The lock is strong enough, meaning that I could not defeat it using reasonable force.
Here you see the lever in the raised position.
The blade came sharp with even grinds and nicely centred.
The scrolls look nice, but could do with a clean, and the Micarta and overall knife was nicely finished with no gaps or unpolished parts.
For some reason the rear “backspring” (I am sure there is a word for it, I think it is lock bar or something) does not line with the liners when the blade is closed, though it is reasonably fine when it is open.
I have emailed the lady that handles this problems at Manly to see if it is something that should happen.
Regarding the company, apart from having one of the most Macho names ever, I think it consists of very few people. I do not know how much of the actual work they do there, though based on Youtube videos it seems that most of the knife is actually made by them, rather than just assembled.
They are a bit slow to reply to emails and forgot to put my postal code and city on the parcel, but it did arrive after a short detour.
Website:
http://manly-bg.com/index.php?lang=enTheir prices are good, for what you get, though their shipping seemed a bit expensive (about 15 Euro) I think they have a shop in Sofia, so NNR can get them for us..
Apologies for the phone pictures but I am writing this on the balcony
(looking at the sea) and was too lazy to go and get a proper camera, so I used some pictures I took with the phone earlier.
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