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Pocket Clips?

12th Jun 2021

When Spyderco founder Sal Glesser put a pocket clip on his first folding knife design nearly 40 years ago, the world changed. What knife enthusiasts now take for granted was, at the time, a revolutionary innovation. Rather than carrying a knife in the bottom of your pocket or in a bulky belt pouch, it could now ride comfortably at the top of your pocket where it is instantly accessible yet separate from the other pocket contents.

Although the original stainless steel pocket clip became one of the defining features of Spyderco’s CLIPIT family of knives, their innovation didn’t stop there. They continued to expand upon the concept and, over the years, have developed and offered many different clip styles on their knives. Indisputably the first, Spyderco are also arguably still the best when it comes to understanding the finer points of pocket clip design.

Like most things in life, pocket clip design involves compromises between competing objectives. Understanding the factors that affect those objectives and prioritizing them based on your personal preferences is therefore the key to choosing a clip (and knife) style that works best for you.

Accessibility versus Discreetness

The primary advantage of a pocket clip is that it keeps a knife more accessible than if it were carried loosely at the bottom of the pocket. If you need it, you can get to it quickly and easily. The trade-off is that the clip, and typically a portion of the knife itself, becomes visible to others. For some people, that’s a concern.

Most Spyderco clips are designed to carry knives in such a way that they can be easily accessed, drawn, and opened fluidly with one hand. To do that, the height of the knife’s carry in the pocket must be adequate for users with average-sized hands to achieve a full, secure grip as they draw it. For example, with a knife configured for tip-up carry, the clip position should allow the knife to ride high enough that the grip achieved on the draw positions the hand close to the blade’s Trademark Round Hole. This allows enough range of motion of the thumb for a traditional thumb opening without the need for grip adjustment.

If discretion is more important to you than ready access, you may prefer a deep-pocket clip. This style of clip is attached close to the top or bottom edge of the handle and shaped to allow the knife to ride as deeply as possible within the pocket. Spyderco’s deep-pocket carry clips also tend to be wire clips, which allow the pants material to show through and are less recognizable as knife clips than solid stainless steel or titanium clips. Collectively, these design qualities allow the knife to be carried more discreetly but do make it more challenging to draw.

Size Does Matter?

Another factor that has a significant impact on the style and placement of a pocket clip is the size of the knife itself. Again, let’s consider a CLIPIT configured for tip-up carry. No matter how large the knife is, your hand can only grip so much “real estate” on the handle during the draw. That’s because your thumb reaches inside your pocket as you draw while the rest of your hand remains outside. As soon as the web of your thumb stops against the top of the pocket, that’s as deep as your hand will go. The depth of the grip you have on the knife at that point is “what you get” when you draw.

If you have a shorter knife, the depth of your grip should give you enough range of motion of your thumb to flow immediately to a thumb opening. However, with a longer knife configured for tip-up carry, you may find the grip you achieve when you draw leaves your hand too far toward the butt end of the handle to perform a thumb opening. To open the knife one handed, you must reposition it in your hand to give your thumb enough range of motion to deploy the blade fully. Obviously, if the clip was mounted farther from the butt end of the handle, it would ride higher and make it easier for you to achieve a deeper grip on the draw; however, the knife would also be more visible. As always, there are trade-offs to everything.

At this point, many savvy readers are probably thinking, “No problem. Just mount the clip for tip-down carry.” That’s certainly one way to solve the problem. In fact, all of Spyderco’s early CLIPIT models were actually configured for tip-down carry only. This style of carry presents the pivot-pin end of the handle at the top of the pocket, so your hand naturally grasps it closer to the Round Hole. Gripping that end of the handle positions your hand so your thumb has a full range of motion when opening the blade. The drawstroke for tip-down-carry knives also remains pretty consistent regardless of model, including larger, longer knives. So, what’s the downside? With tip-down carry, you must either adjust your grip on the handle before you can initiate the opening or draw the knife by pinching the top of the handle between your thumb and index finger. Both of these are fine motor skills that require more practice and are more tenuous in high-stress situations.

Other Factors

In addition to the factors we’ve already explored, there are a number of other things that influence our decisions when it comes to putting specific clips on specific knives. Some are purely functional. For example, if we’re designing a knife with an Emerson Opening Feature, it has to be configurable for tip-up carry. Otherwise, that feature is useless.

Other factors may be purely aesthetic. When we take the designs of custom knifemakers and express them as factory-made collaborations, we try to replicate them as faithfully as possible. Often, that means accurately recreating their custom clip patterns and mounting locations to maintain the spirit of their signature designs.