Warborn Blades
Take it up to the light
House code LW-0331
Red Pickbone Locking Copperhead
In hand · Ships from the US · Carriage $16
Is this lawful where you stand? Read the law for this piece →
Forged with carbon steel that darkens with the passage of time, this red-boned pocket knife tells a story of constant use. Every stain upon its blade is a memory of a chore completed, a rope cut, or an apple shared. It is a relic of simple lives well-lived in the valley.
About this piece
Red Pickbone Locking Copperhead is a folding knife carried by Warborn Blades, a licensed United States dealer of folding pocket knives. It measures 5.8in overall by the house's own reckoning, the forge having stated no measure, and it ships from the house's own walls rather than a drop-shipper's warehouse.
The blade is Carbon Steel. Carbon and tool steels take a finer edge and take it faster, and they will rust if left wet. Wipe the blade dry and keep a film of oil on it and it will outlast you.
Fittings and furniture: Bone (Red Picked). The fittings are where a piece is honest or is not — a guard, a pommel and a grip that are fitted tight will not shift under work.
Ownership and carry are two different questions. Most provinces permit possession of what they forbid on the street, and blade-length ceilings apply to carry rather than to what may be shipped to your door.
Knife laws by state — free, all fifty and the District.
“Small steel, kept a lifetime, handed down at the end.”— the Lady, quietly
- Overall
- 5.8 inches (our reckoning)
- Form
- folder
- Steel
- Carbon Steel
- Fittings
- Bone (Red Picked)
$48.99
The Muster — swear $251.01 more and the house bears the carriage. Otherwise it is $16.00 flat, however much steel rides. Walk the halls
Proof of age is required before any steel leaves these walls — always, for every soul, without exception. Read why this gate stands.
Muster a war-ready kit around this pieceTrade old steel toward itNothing is charged. The oath is held until you set your seal to it.
The house will hold it in mind for two days. Come back inside that window and a tenth of the reckoning is forgiven.
The Trial of the Blade
Swing it before you own it. This exact piece — its reach, its weight, its steel — is put in a fitting hand and set against a living foe for three exchanges. What you feel is what you would carry.
The Tale of the Blade
What it is built for
This piece is built for the pocket — carried every day, opened a thousand times, kept a lifetime.
The lineage of its steel — Carbon Steel
High-carbon steel. The old, honest choice. It takes a keener edge than stainless and holds it under work, but it will rust if it is left wet. Oil it, and it will outlive you.
Read the chapter on this steel →This blade belongs in the hand of
The everyday carrier
One who wants steel at hand without a belt sheath: rope, tape, cord, packaging, and the small work of a whole life.
Keeping it alive
Dry it, oil it, store it out of the sheath for the long keep, and sharpen it before it is blunt rather than after. The house gives the whole method away for nothing.
The Upkeep Writ — free →The road it walked to this wall
1. Forged at the maker's fire
The piece is made by the forge that makes it — we do not pretend to have hammered it.
2. Received and looked over by the house
It comes into our walls and is checked before it is ever offered.
3. Sealed with the Seal of Provenance
The house records what it knows about the piece — and refuses to claim what it cannot prove.
4. Sent out from the house's own walls
It ships from us, with the record travelling beside it.
These four stations are the house’s standing doctrine for every piece it carries, not a tracking record of this one blade. Where the house cannot prove a claim, it strikes the claim rather than dressing it up.
The voice of the steel
Every piece in this house has one true note, and it is not a recording. Red Pickbone Locking Copperhead is 5.8″ of carbon steel, and a bar of that length and that temper rings at about 736 hertz — keen and short, dark. Strike it and hear the piece itself.
Written before it was ever sold
The Blood Ledger
01The Pattern
A folding knife is a compromise struck between a man and the town he has to walk through. The blade goes into the pocket, the hinge accepts the risk, and everyone pretends the thing is merely useful.
02The Making
Carbon steel — Carbon Steel. It will take an edge finer than any stainless and hold it through work that would roll a lesser blade. It will also rust if you look at it wrong. Carbon is a bargain: the house gives you the better edge and you give it your attention. Oil it, dry it, and it will outlive you.
03The Carry
At 5.8 inches this disappears. It rides in a pocket and is forgotten until the moment it is not. Small steel is the most-used steel in the world.
04The Reckoning
The house makes no claim about what this piece will do in your hand. It only records what its pattern has already done in others'.
Warborn Blades · the chronicle of Red Pickbone Locking Copperhead
What it leaves open
Swung honestly, it keeps you close. No piece covers every yard of ground — that is why no one ever carried only one. Beside it the house would hang something that reaches past the guard before he closes.
The Armorer’s Bench
What it leaves wantingNo one ever carried one blade. The armorer sets down what this piece cannot answer for, and names the steel that can.
The press
Stag Bone Resin Nylon SheathSame fittings, other work. It answers for a working length for the close work, when the line has already broken.
$57.99the pair — $106.98
The line
Synthetic Messer Guard BlackReach the piece in thy hand does not have. Meet him before he closes.
$29.00the pair — $77.99
Kindred Steel
All of The Small Folders →Steel keeps company with its own. These hang near it on the wall.
The house has written on this
- Carbon or Stainless: Which Steel Should You Actually BuyThe oldest quarrel in the trade, settled plainly.
- Keeping an Edge: Sharpening, Stropping and StorageHow to keep steel keen without ruining it — the whole discipline in one reading.
- The Law of Carry: What You Must Know Before Buying Edged ArmsThe house sells steel. It does not sell exemptions from your local law.
Learn this steel — free, from the house
Forge Wisdom is the house's whole craft, given away. No coin, no seat, no gate.
- What sharpness actually isAngle, apex and burr — why an edge cuts and why it stops.
- Stones, files and machinesWhat to sharpen this edge on, and what will ruin it.
- Rust, patina and oilKeeping carbon steel alive, and the difference between stain and rot.
- Geometry, balance and harmonicsWhy two blades of the same weight feel nothing alike in the hand.
Red Pickbone Locking Copperhead
$48.99