Hinderer Knives/EK Commando
Taking the design and legacy of the John Ek Commando dagger and adding Rick Hinderer’s modern design touch brings you the new Rick Hinderer Knives/EK commando dagger. Being a collector of John Ek knives for many years I have come to appreciate the simplistic approach to his designs. Born from the need in WW2 for knives for our servicemen fighting overseas John Ek developed a knife style that was tough and worked but also a means to manufacture them so as many as possible were able to get in our fighting guys hands.
The John Ek Commando knife company is owned by Ka-Bar so I again went to my friend John Stitt CEO of Ka-Bar knives with the idea of making a collaboration with Ek. I took the simplistic Ek model 1 and using it as a canvas I added features that I thought would be well received by the GI’s in WW2. Along the way that one design morphed into two different models!
The first rendition added a lot of features but still stayed true to the conventional double edged dagger. Starting with the handle I kept the sturdy full tang feature just as the originals with the protruding skull crushed at the end. I also kept the very distinctive scalloped handle scales that is very much Ek. The crossguard was added into the full tang construction thereby guaranteeing a rock solid hold. The blade is where things really depart from the original. I decided on a hollow “ground” double edge and instead of grinding those edge bevels I 3-D milled them which allowed me to also incorporate a “armor piercing” tip! With a deep fuller running the length of the blade it gives it the “I beam” toughness. All this making this Traditional Ek a very capable dagger.
For the second model I decided to depart from the traditional dagger and incorporate some very cool features that I feel the commando’s in WW2 would definitely have voted for! While leaving everything about the handle the same as the first model I made all the changes to the blade on this second model I call the “Hollow Ground” Dagger. What do I mean by that? Leaving the facing side the same double edge on the reverse side I scalloped the entire blade into a wide concave surface. It essentially makes this dagger a “chisel” ground type. And again, all bevels are CNC 3-D machined. This cross-sectional shape is very similar to the “tri” blade bayonets of the 18’s. To complete this very unique blade I added a concave “thumb print” similar to the Case V-42 of WW2.
Steel is 0-1 Tool steel which has been parkerized just like the vintage knives of WW2!
Handle material is OD Green Micarta.
For sheaths we again turned to our buddy David Brown of Buy Brown sheaths for a incredibly made kydex sheath with Tech-Lok.
Rick Hinderer
