If you have followed my content here in SharperApex.com, you know that I am a knife nerd. Heck, I’ve repeatedly said as much in my posts! I’m interested in the steel metallurgy properties of the blades, the various materials used in modern knife handles (as opposed to the broken off pieces of wooden broomsticks used on Opinels), and, of course, the blade locking technologies used (watch for big news coming on this later this year).
I was introduced to the very special NUMB Knives brand (technically its N.U.M.B. Knifeworks, but NUMB Knives is their domain name, not to mention quicker to type, so I’m going with that) by one of the countless KnifeTubers out there on the InterToobs (it was probably that self-identified “sweaty guy” with “sausage fingers”. Yup). In the video, I saw the most interesting and innovative new lock design that, aside from those engineered by Bryan Winters of Winterblade, has come onto the market in a very long time. Salivating like a lustful, knife nerdy dog, this brand immediately went onto my Grail Knives list. Unfortunately, neither my timing for the limited run releases nor my threadbare wallet allowed me to immediately pursue my goal of seeing and handling this new-kid-in-school slicer.
Well, that changed when, in pursuit of developing that aforementioned, blockbuster-to-be knife lock post, I was given the opportunity to take a look at the newest iteration of the NUMB Knives vendibles by Nick Palizzi, the head designer, lead engineer, and company co-owner. He generously shipped to me the N7 “The Cantilever” (from this point forward, I’ll be calling it the N7 because, as above, I am too lazy to type that full name every time – forgive me, Nick!) knife for me to photograph, study, and understand the lock’s unique functionality.
So what do I think? Well, that’s what this review is all about! Keep on reading if you want the deets.
TL;DR
The NUMB Knives N7 The Cantilever is a beautiful knife. It starts with the deep hollow-ground, big-bellied, modified sheepsfoot blade shape made from satin-finished NSM 90PM stainless steel (you may remember it by its old name from the Crucible pre-bankruptcy days as CPM-S90V). This blade offers thumb studs, a tall top flipper, and grooved fullers for opening fun, and sometimes challenging, hijinks. It’s mounted in a handle sporting titanium liners that, at the front, also serve as textured bolsters, that lie in front of 2 chunks of “molten” carbon fiber. The edge of the handle is beveled 360° around the perimeter and is very comfortable in hand. The knife carries a slender, oddly-long, milled titanium, popsicle stick-style, ambi pocket clip. The knife is manufactured by the lauded Reate Knives. This is enough to make the knife very appealing in aesthetics, materials, and quality manufacturing. But there is 1 more thing.
Nick of NUMB Knives invented the PinchLOK. So what’s that you ask? Good thing you did! (I was going to tell you, anyway.) The PinchLOK is a dual button, dual lever, dual blade tang contact and dual detent ball locking system whose button-actuated levers act similarly to the way liner locks engage with the blade tang – times 2. The PinchLOK is robust enough to pass real world whack tests, and cool enough that your fun fidget factor feelings will be fast fulfilled.
Pros
- Gorgeous, big-bellied, hollow-ground, modified sheepsfoot CPM-S90V blade
- Handle sports handsome, textured titanium bolsters (extensions of the Ti liners) and smooth, carbon fiber scales
- The handle has significant beveling around the entire perimeter
- The innovative, dual-button-activated PinchLOK
- Excellent thumb stud access providing highly satisfying blade opening action
- Keyed, anti-rotation, D-style pivot barrel
- Caged ceramic bearings
- Dual detent balls
- Reate manufacturing quality
- Comfortable choke-up finger choil
- Generous quantities of titanium and CF used in the handle
- Top-rate jimping applied in 2 zones of the blade spine
- Titanium backspacer
- Titanium ambi milled pocket clip
- Titanium fasteners
Cons
- The unicorn horn, tall top flipper has no jimping and is positioned too close to the handle/pivot centerline, thus is not great to use
- As an opening mechanism, the semicircular groove of the fuller is even harder to use than the top flipper
- Thumb studs should really have domes rather than the skin-scraping, 90° flats at the tips
- The knife is chonky (I personally really like that, but some delicate folks just can’t handle girthy objects in their hand like me.)
- The handle is not contoured (I like handling curvy objects.)
- Pocket clip is about a mile too long
- The knife requires removing T10, T8, and T6 fasteners for disassembly! Dig up your entire Wiha bit set!
- The closing blade bounces off the stop pin like a superball
Tech Specs
The NUMB Knifeworks Story
The NUMB Knives story is a pretty cool one. It starts with a young Nick Palizzi, who was, according to several eyewitness reports, a very clever and creative boy. Consistently excelling in his studies, he graduated with a degree in architecture, and his career accordingly took off.
In 2005, he found his lifetime partner, Lindsay (where had she been for all that time before?!). They together pursued their mutual entrepreneurial dreams and opened a local bar & grill in Brighton, MI, through which they saw great success. This new business provided Nick with an opportunity to exercise his innate creativity via his graphic design skills. This work led him to open a small graphic design firm. Lindsay & Nick’s life together was rolling along smoothly (as smoothly as the entrepreneurial life can be, of course), and up through that point in their lives, pocketknife design was NOT in Nick’s purview.
Then came 2023, right in the middle of COVID. As Nick has revealed publicly many times, his beloved Lindsay was diagnosed with the brutal beast, cancer. As Lindsay pushed back and told cancer to F*** OFF, they both took the needed time to take on that battle.
As Nick spent much time in caretaker mode supporting Lindsay through her many surgical recoveries, he recalled his childhood interest in pocketknives. He began watching the same KnifeToobers we all do, which struck a chord in him. With the same creativity, graphic and architectural design work that had filled his life experiences, he had an idea.
He looked at how pocketknives worked, especially their blade locking mechanisms. He saw repeated, derivative riffs on old ideas, and he wanted to see if he could do something different and new. So he did.
He created the new idea for securing an open blade, which he dubbed the PinchLOK (you have to pinch the knife, as you might guess, to unlock it). And as Lindsay earned her hard-fought victory with a full recovery over that damned menace, cancer, NUMB Knives was born!
Nick built a few prototypes on his handy dandy 3D printer, and right away it was clear that he was onto something special. He connected with a few of those YT knife dudes, who graciously helped him make more industry contacts, which eventually led him to the inimitable Reate Knives, possibly the most premier knife manufacturer in China (well, everywhere, truth be told). One thing led to another, and it wasn’t long before Nick had an actual Reate-built prototype of his original design in hand. What a thrill that must be (I’ll never know).
Nick then took the bold initiative to reach out to the big dogs in the KnifeToob universe, and every one of them ended up fawning over his creative, technical, new knife lock design. At that point, NUMB Knives was on the map! He also began showing up at big Knife Show events to continue developing his contact list, brand discovery, and marketing presence. He’s clearly done very well, considering the N1 was only released in 2025!
As the knife company both Lindsay and Nick founded together continues to grow (and, boy, is it!), Nick still holds down his day job(s), dabbling in graphic design, and (now) aquatic architecture, but NUMB Knives is his passion project (just like SharperApex is for this old Knife Karen). If you want to see some of his architectural and graphic designs, check out the NUMB Knives About page. It’s cool stuff, to be sure. And if you become a fan of his knife lock designs, his knife releases (there’s a lot still to come in 2026 and beyond), and even go as far as to want to follow his work, Nick will consider you to be a NUMBSkull (most affectionately, of course).
Lastly, technically speaking, the actual name of the company Lindsay and Nick built is N.U.M.B. Knifeworks (I’m too lazy to add all those periods and extra letters – sorry). Sure diddley do, that’s an acronym. For what you ask? (Good question! You’re paying attention to the story!). Officially, it stands for “Nick’s Unhinged Mechanical Brain”. Yep, the dude has a great, dry sense of humor as well (we get along just fine!).
With Lindsay and Nick being the “It” power couple of the pocketknife world, given their mutual strength, creativity, entrepreneurial spirit, diversity of life experience, supportive nature, and incredible resilience against the odds, I foresee NUMB Knives having an ever-growing prominence and public success as knifemakers in the pocketknife community. I, for one, can’t wait to see what they do next (and then after that, too).
Comfortably N.U.M.B.
And just because I had to do it, here it is, from the dual perspectives of Lindsay to Nick and Nick to himself, just as Roger Waters would have wanted. Lindsay and Nick, what do you think? Does this resonate?
Hello? Is there any spark left in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Do your dreams still have a home?
Come on now, our months of struggle wore you down.
My healthcare eased your pain,
You got me on my feet again.
Relax. You’ve learned so many knife locks are cursed.
You’ve studied so many knives, you know which ones are worst.
There’s no more doubt. It is receding,
A cantilever knife on the horizon.
This lock design is coming through in waves.
The buttons move; I can’t stop with the playing.
When I was a child, I stole my mama’s cleaver.
I chopped down her flowering tree.
I was grounded in my room for a long year.
I studied pocketknives, and blades and locks.
This is how it all began.
I have become comfortably N.U.M.B.
Okay, Nick. Just a little Pinch-LOK.
There’ll be no more BLADE PLAY!
Nor any lock stick or lock rock!
Does it lock up?
I do believe it’s holding good.
That’ll get us on the floor of the next Blade Show.
Come on, it’s time to go.
There is no doubt. My dream’s succeeding,
I called my knife friends on my Verizon.
All the KnifeToobers, they fawned in waves.
I’m now on the map. I’ve no words left to be saying.
That night, at my desk, I caught a fleeting glimpse,
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look. It wasn’t gone.
I saw myself emerging from the dark.
The dream had come. The knife was done.
I have become comfortably N.U.M.B.
I don’t know what the hell all that has to do with anything related to the N7 The Cantilever, but you know when you know you need to do something, you know?
Introducing the N7 The Cantilever
The NUMB Knifeworks N7 (aka The Cantilever) is Nick’s 2nd official release, coming onto the market earlier in 2026 (the first, N1 The Cornerstone, was released in 2025 to great acclaim). The N7 knife was made available in 8 configurations, the only differences being the titanium handle bolster finish (raw titanium and PVD), scale materials (carbon fiber and micarta), and the blade finish (belt satin, stonewash, and satin DLC). The N7 configuration I am reviewing, the Molten, features a satin blade finish, gray raw titanium bolsters, and a sweet set of red, gray, black & white (molten, right?) carbon fiber scales. It’s beautiful.
The entire N7 line of knives is made in China by Reate Knives, and the expected quality workmanship of Reate is clearly evident.
Blade
The N7 blade is made of either NSM 90PM steel (manufactured mostly in the production plant in Söderfors, Sweden, owned by Erasteel of Paris, France, but also in smaller part by Carpenter Technology of Philadelphia, PA), or CPM-S90V steel (previously manufactured by the now defunct Crucible Industries on Syracuse, NY). They are the exact same steel; just the name has changed. Both NSM 90PM and CPM-S90V are prized for their phenomenal edge retention and their excellent corrosion resistance, although toughness is the steels’ Achilles Heel, rating below average (the 3-legged stool of steel performance never excels equally in all 3 properties. Such is the nature of steel metallurgy).
Which version Reate used for the N7 depends on when the raw steel barstock was manufactured. Crucible stopped manufacturing S90V in March 2025 due to bankruptcy. In May 2025, Erasteel, having acquired most of Crucible’s trademarks and legal assets, began manufacturing the steel again, but renamed it NSM 90PM in May 2025. The sole distributor for both CPM-S90V and NSM 90PM (along with MagnaCut, MagnaMax, and NSMwear [formerly CPM CruWear]) steels is Niagara Specialty Metals (NSM) of Akron, NY. While I am not aware of any metallurgical comparisons between NSM 90PM and CPM-S90V, Dr. Larrin Thomas, pocketknife blade steel metallurgy extraordinaire, has written in his blog, KnifeSteelNerds, about the improvements made in the performance of MagnaCut since manufacturing was switched over from Crucible to Erasteel. In any case, NSM 90PM is likely to be at least as strong a high-performance, ultra-premium steel as CPM-S90V, if not better.
Blade Features
There are many features of the NUMB Knives N7 blade worthy of discussion, so I will take that on below. Follow me!
Blade Shape
The N7 blade is shaped in the modified sheepsfoot style. I mean, who wants a normal sheepsfoot, right? That’s not interesting at all! Give me modified every time.
The actual reason this is a modified sheepsfoot is not the psychedelic, cloven hoof polish. No way, Dr. Dre. It’s because the spine of the blade isn’t straight, descending toward the tip in what looks like will be a classic drop point, but at the end of the flat, the blade’s spine takes a 25° dip to reveal its modified sheepsfoot-y nose. In addition, the blade edge bevel runs along a big, curved belly that shrinks in height as it runs from the heel to the tip. Hey, I’m definitely not offput by a prominently curved belly. Heck, I kinda like it, if you know what I mean.
Since starting this blog, when I was primarily a fan of drop point blades, I have gained a deep appreciation for sheepsfoot-style blades, including the geometrically angular blade shapes of the Winterblade Severn, the Winterblade Factor B4, and the Winterblade Fusion. But I even more so adore the curvaceous turns of the nose in the CIVIVI Vision FG, the Karbon Knives Buckhorn, the Spyderco Drunken, the Chris Reeve Knives Large Sebenza 31 Insingo, the Spyderco SpydieChef, and especially the gorgeous Viper Knives Moon. Oh, be still my lustful, beating heart! Grrrrrowwwwl.
The N7 blade features a tall, deep-hollow-grind primary bevel. The grind line between the 2 regions is crisp and clean.
Blade Finish
The primary bevel of the N7 blade sports a polished, vertical satin finish, which lies beneath a shallow, near-full-length, horizontal, hand-rubbed satin finished flat that runs along the spine. This multi-grind-region finish is an excellent example of the bladesmithing work done by Reate. Very nice.
Opening Mechanisms
The NUMB Knives N7 offers 3 blade opening mechanism options. Well, it might be 2.5 options, but I’ll get to that.
1. Thumb studs. This 1st method is the easiest to use, the most utilitarian, and most enjoyable (at least to me). The N7 CPM S90V / NSM 90PM blade offers dual thumb studs (eat your heart out, fans of, well, some CRK Sebenza models. Yeah.) The thumb studs are very well-positioned for easy access and smooth action. Very impressive!
The studs are rather short; they do not extend out to the full width of the handle, and that’s just fine with me, as they are easy to use. They are straight, little cylinders (no pointy cones here – looking at you, CRK!) that end with narrowing, 3 concentric circle steps. The position of the studs has zero presence in the cutting path of the edge, which is a great thing. The blade actually has a generous finger / sharpening choil, and because the studs are deeply positioned on the ricasso, the user won’t find the cutting action blocked by the thumb studs. However, running the material being cut off the heel of the blade into the unsharpened choil is another story. But as long as you use your NUMB Knives N7 as a competent knife user, you’ll not have any problems.
Overall, the N7 studs are almost perfect. Almost. They’re definitely very good, as they are perfectly placed for efficiently getting the blade open in a jiffy. My gripe: Reate must have raided the Benchmade thumb studs bin. Instead of ending in always appreciated, smooth, curvaceous domes, the studs end in fairly sharp-edged, 90° angles, so their edges feel a bit uncomfortably sharp. To be sure, if you use a very strong magnifying glass (a microscope is even better), you can clearly see that it’s not “Spyderco blade spine sharp”. I can confirm that Reate did radius the edge of the studs’ top step. Just barely, but they did. However, it’s still a bit sharp to your thumb. The tip is flat because each thumb stud ends in a T8 socket hole. I guess having that feature makes it easier to remove the studs, assuming anyone would ever need to remove the studs. However, personally, I’d sacrifice that miniscule, ultra-rarely needed convenience for a much more comfortable, dome-topped thumb stud that I’ll enjoy 100 times daily, any day of the week. Even on Tuesday.
Lastly, I have to say I’ve never been a competent, reverse flick thumb stud flicker. But for unknown reasons, this is the first knife in which doing a reverse flick with the clip side thumb stud was as easy as opening the blade with your thumb on the show side. In fact. reverse flicking the studs on the N7 blade is so easy, even a Knife Karen can do it! And you know how much I already love me some hunky thumb studs, but this easy reverse flickability feature makes them all the hunkier.
2. Top Flipper. The blade tang of the N7 has a unicorn horn flipper tab. Don’t get me wrong; it’s not exactly a weaponized unicorn tab like these:
1. Hiroaki Ohta FK5, MorrisAndKing.com
2. Nagao Higonokami, BladeHQ.com
3. Gerber Jukebox, KnifeCenter.com
4. Maxace Kestrel, BladeHQ.com
5. WE Knife Roman, WEKnife.com
Heck, it’s not even a unicorn for reals, like these:
• Top: Equine unicorn, DreamsTime.com
• Second: Elasmotherium (Siberian Unicorn Rhino), MyModernMet.com
• Third: Humpback anglerfish, Britannica.com
• Bottom: Financial investor
To be fair, it’s not like the N7’s top flipper is hurtfully evil. It is a bit pointy, rising a fair bit above the front of the handle, but on the other hand, it’s not too long and has a blunt tip. However, it’s not the easiest flipper design to use consistently, at least for me. Does it work? Yeah. Sort of. I find that I commonly get only partial openings (where the blade doesn’t get all the way to the locked position).
The position of the flipper doesn’t consistently work well due to its position of 27° out from the centerline as measured from the pivot. The angle is too acute, which significantly reduces the leverage needed to break the detent and open the knife. If the top flipper was placed at least another 20° further off from the knife centerline, it would be so much easier to use, all but eliminating the instances of only achieving partial openings (at least in the case with my old, Knife Karen thumbs).
In addition, the smooth flipper tab would have greatly benefitted from 2 or 3 lines of the same quality jimping used on the spine. It’s too smooth as it is now.
That all said, if I really focus, get a good thumb position on the flipper’s unicorn horn, and flip it with the assertiveness of a highly peated Islay scotch, I can sometimes achieve an explosive blast into the open position. Perhaps the inconsistency is just me, although Nick pre-emptively apologized to me about that flipper feature. I say no apologies needed. It can be made to work, and certainly better knife handlers than me will enjoy it. For me, though, if I had my choice, I’d rather have a dram of an assertive, cask-strength Ardbeg scotch, served neat in a Glencairn glass, than rely on the N7’s smooth top flipper. That’s more satisfying.
3. Fuller? Lastly, which I only rated as a ½ method, is the half-pipe, grooved fuller, fully embedded in the flat, running 30.8% of the blade length. Visually it’s a very appealing feature of the blade. Unfortunately, the fuller (aka blood groove, blood gutters, channels, and Bo-Hi) doesn’t add nearly that much value as an opening method. The fuller channel is a shallow, semicircular groove. While beautiful, there’s no easy way to get good enough contact to open the blade. Have I ever been able to reverse flick the N7 open with the fuller? Yeah, but only a few times. Some of the time it’ll open about ⅔ the way, but usually I get nothing. Zip. Nada. Bupkis. Maybe it’s me, but maybe it’s the fuller.
The problem with this fuller, specifically in terms of using it as a blade opening method, is the semicircular shape. If the edge had more of a ledge to dig into, it would have been great. It’s positioned correctly for a great reverse flick, but the internal shape is not conducive to using it as such. Yes, I’ve done it, maybe once or twice, and I’ve failed countless other times. Again, better knife handlers than me may have much greater success. I will be sticking with the perfectly working thumb studs. Those little dudes have never let me down (well, almost never).
Swedge
There’s no swedge. Movin’ on…
Spine Features
The NUMB Knives N7 The Cantilever doesn’t have a crowned spine (much to my disappointment, as I just love the rounded softness of crowned blade spines!).
Thankfully, it also doesn’t have what I call Spyderco Spine Edges – the unfinished, intensely sharp, 90° spine edges that are little more than very efficient, abrasive fingerprint removers (I’ll need to eventually revise this critical, anti-Spyderco stance, as I have finally acquired a couple and appreciate their utility and ergos, although they are still ugly AF).
Nick & Reate took this matter into consideration in the N7’s blade design. While the spine isn’t crowned, its potentially wicked sharp, 90° spine edges were radiused enough to make the knife more than comfortable (hey, Spyderco, please talk to Nick! He knows how to do what you haven’t yet figured out in decades of knife manufacturing, despite your unpersuasive slogan “constant quality improvement”).
There is 1 fantastic feature that is worthy of vigorous public acclamation. The N7 has blade spine jimping. In fact, it has fully functional, narrowly-spaced, jimping cuts. And double in facts, the N7 blade has TWO sets of blade spine jimping! And plenty of it!
The primary jimping, starting just behind the thumb studs, runs for 25 cuts, going all the way down to the end of the fuller. It’s perfectly designed to be a grippy platform for a firm thumb press.
But wait! There’s more! If you want to choke up on the blade to do finely controlled cuts, the 2nd set of jimping, spanning 11 cuts, gives you that confident, positive control. Very nicely done, NUMB Knives‼
Choil
Does the N7 have a choil? Yeppers. Is it well-executed? Affirmative. Let’s talk about it.
The N7 blade has a generous choil for an index finger or sharpening or whatever else you want to do with it. How generous? Well, the choil length, when limited to just the blade, spans 10.06 mm / 0.396″. If you want to include the cutout in the handle as well, the choil length span grows to 20.94 mm / 0.825″. The depth of the choil is 5.62 mm / 0.221″. Now if you have polish sausages for fingers, this choil may not perfectly accommodate your girthy mitts, but for most of the rest of us, this choil, along with the aforementioned jimping, gives us a great option for comfortably choking up on the blade.
Another positive feature of the N7 choil is that the plunge grind is well behind the blade edge heel, giving you quite a bit of long-term sharpening potential. It doesn’t have as much lifetime sharpening potential as such knives as the Winterblade Severn, the Winterblade Factor B4 or the Winterblade Fusion, but Bryan Winters’ knife designs are anything but typical. The N7 is a far more familiar knife design, so it does a fine job with a design that is less of a shock to one’s senses (one that I particularly love, BTW). The N7’s hollow ground primary bevel, which thins out the blade’s TBE, adds to the longevity of a proper blade edge (meaning it won’t quickly go to a thick edge so quickly).
Of course, a generously wide choil has its detractors. They will decry that such a design sacrifices a sizable amount of blade cutting edge. If that is what you think, may I introduce you to the Spyderco Bodacious, a knife whose blade has a complete absence of a choil and, as a result, at least to me, has a weird-looking, albeit maximized cutting edge.
But if you really want this blade, good luck choking up on it, and be sure to keep the butterfly bandages handy. In addition, get ready for a fugly blade edge heel when you need to sharpen it after the very first time. To each his own, I suppose.
Geometry
Many knife reviewers love to talk about the importance of blade “geometry” but never explain it. I previously covered what geometry actually means when discussing knife blades, and I explained it for them! I recently created a method for calculating primary and edge bevel angles using Excel (and a few key measurements). Using this methodology, you see those measurements and the results below. Cool, huh?
In addition to the blade geometry data up above, I also included a calculated insight score into the blade’s cutting performance potential using a methodology developed by Piratech that they call Cutting Geometry Coefficient. If you know me, you already know I am not smart enough to recall my high school trigonometry (heck, I’ve even forgotten my multiplication tables!). Instead, I let Excel calculate this metric for me! Who needs high school after all?
A CGC score of 0.100 and lower is the target. It means the blade is designed to provide excellent cutting performance (assuming it’s sharp!). The N7 is designed to get a wicked sharp edge. The S90V blade was selected to retain it.
Note: The CGC was developed for assessing flat grinds. Hollow grinds with the same score will feel like they cut better than a flat grinds in shallow-to-moderate depth cuts but will become more problematic on deeper cuts (such as across cardboard). In those circumstances, since the CGC score is the same as flat grinds, the performance levels out.
Beyond pure, mathematical geometry, the edge bevels must be sharp. And if you ask me, for any knife above the ultra-budget level, I expect the edge bevel grinds to be even along the whole edge as well as symmetrically ground on both sides of the blade.
The edge bevels of the N7 The Cantilever are nicely ground, with the one notable exception being the depth of the bevels at the heel are short. The factory edge came decently sharp, but they left some potential sharpness on the table. For a Reate-made knife, this is a surprise to me.
Blade Markings
There’s very little graffiti on the N7 blade. If you like very clean, practically text-free blades, the NUMB Knives N7 will make you very happy.
On the show side, the only etchings are the knife’s serial number (024) and the PinchLOK logo, both in very small text, which run along the ricasso above the front of the handle. On the clip side, there’s even less graffiti. Running along the ricasso above the handle front is the steel name, S90V, again in very small text.
That’s all I have to say about that.
CPM-S90V / NSM 90PM TECHE
When I can get the ratings data for the knife steels I review (I primarily gather the data from the authoritative KnifeSteelNerds.com as available), I include it here in a section I call TECHE. What does TECHE mean? Well, you could look at the table below and figure it out, but it stands for Toughness, Edge Retention, Corrosion Resistance, HRc Hardness Rating, & Ease of Sharpening. Clever, huh?
Note that all ratings but HRc Hardness Range are based on a scale from 0-10; Hardness is based on the Hardness Rockwell C scale, which technically is between 20 and 68.
** Ease of Sharpening data is not a rating produced on KSN.
HRc Rating
Reate tells us the NUMB Knives N7 blade is hardened to 60-62 HRc. I have no way to test that, and the NUMB Knives N7 hasn’t been tested (yet) by Steel Hardness Lab. Reate OEMs knives for an enormous number of brands, but OEM data is not listed in SHL. As such, until the N7 is tested, all we can do is trust that Reate is reporting the right number.
Note: While generic, steel-type hardness ratings from manufacturer data sheets are a helpful start, knowing how a specific knifemaker hardens their blade steels gets you closer to how well your knife was made. You can get that info by checking out the ever-growing Steel Hardness Lab database to see how specific knife blades made by specific knife brands fared in professionally performed hardness tests. It’s great information, and it’s free to access!
Blade Dimensions
Have you ever wondered why the entire electromagnetic spectrum, spanning from radio waves, visible light, to gamma rays, is composed of the same massless photons that are only differentiated by their energy levels, but regardless of their energy, they all travel at the same speed of light? Yeah, me, too. Here are the measurement specs for the NUMB Knives N7 The Cantilever knife.
- Blade Length (from tip to 75% down the front of handle scale):34 mm / 3.202″
- Cutting Edge Length:67 mm / 3.097″
- Blade Height:97 mm / 1.219″
- Primary Bevel Thickness:00 mm / 0.118″
- Blade Thickness Behind the Edge (TBE) Bevel:63 mm / 0.025″
- Primary Bevel Half Angle:07°
- Edge Bevel Half Angle:29°
- Cutting Geometry Coefficient (0.100 and lower will provide excellent cutting performance):063
- Sharpening Choil from Handle Scale
- Length:06 mm / 0.396″
- Depth:62 mm / 0.221″
- Flat
- Length:26 mm / 2.569 “
- Percentage of blade length:2%
- Fuller
- Height:34 mm / 0.131″
- Length:05 mm / 0.986″
- Percentage of blade length:8%
- Flipper Height:73 mm / 0.186″
- Thumb Studs Span:53 mm / 0.375″
- Thumb Stud in Cutting Path Length: 0 mm / 0″
Size Comparisons
I’ve been getting a lot of requests to show size comparisons to the knife reviewed in my post, even though I’m already providing so many exact measurements for every element of the knife. But so be it. I hope this visual size comparison is helpful in determining whether this knife is for you.
• Top: A house, CNTraveler.com
• Middle: NUMB Knifeworks N7 The Cantilever
• Bottom: ½" roofing nails, Amazon.com
Knife Body & Scales
As if the N7’s S90V modified sheepsfoot, hollow-ground blade wasn’t enough, we have the beautiful knife handle and all the special accoutrements contained therein. Let’s discuss.
Handle
At a high level, this handle design, while far from unique, has so many nice touches that it’s an instant hit. It starts with the titanium bolsters. These are not separate handle features, however. Instead, these are one-piece construction, integral bolster-liners, in which the bolsters are milled out of thick, original liner stock. The bolsters sport excellent milling details, such as sweet, curvaceous edge beveling; smooth, wavy line milling that gently improves traction without abrading your thumbprints as well as adding significant aesthetic value to the handle; and lastly, the hole for the parallelogram-shaped lock buttons includes a raised, radiused edge, even as it follows the angle of the beveled edge at the top of the handle. Gorgeous milling work.
Sitting atop the stacked titanium liners are a pair of very appealing “molten” carbon fiber scales in black, gray, white and red that continue the edge beveling of the bolster, showing their stacked layers of color. The scales are flat and smooth carbon fiber, although not lacquer-polished smooth like some knives I’ve handled, so there is some extremely fine surface texture to aid in your grip. I enjoy the hand feel of the scales, especially due to their width (which is a comfortable 12.25 mm / 0.482″), giving me a good grip. (I am NOT a fan of the new trend of absurdly skinny handles, especially when they go down as far as 7.1 mm / 0.28″! Yikes!). The beveled edges of the scales make that grip very comfortable.
The fit and finish of the border between the bolsters and the scales is perfection in action, a feature expected on Reate-made knives.
If I had any criticisms, or at least unfulfilled wishes, I would have liked to see the scales be fully contoured. But that would likely have necessitated contoured bolsters, and contouring titanium is a whole new level of complexity and, thus, cost. Too bad for me.
Liners
The previously mentioned titanium liners are full-length, and the scales sit atop the liners in a stacked construction.
Locking Mechanism
This is the really exciting part of the NUMB Knives brand. Nick, our industrious designer, has invented a brand new blade locking system. He’s dubbed it the PinchLOK. Let’s talk about the lock’s features, how it technically works, and how it’s implemented.
The PinchLOK is a dual-button mechanism. Unlike other dual control locks, such as crossbar-style locks, ball-bearing locks, the Microtech RAM lock, and many more, which can all be released by retracting either side of the pass-through bar or cartridge, the PinchLOK buttons function independently from one another. As such, you must “pinch” both buttons to release the blade lock.
The lock mechanism features not 1, not 3, but 2 detent balls, 1 per side. Since both balls slide off the blade tang at the same time, followed by the lockup moving onto the tang, this gives the knife a cool and firm double-click as the opening blade slides into place. I really like that!
The bolster buttons are technically coil-spring-actuated levers that are under spring tension when the knife is closed. The mechanisms of the levers themselves, including the lever axles and the coil springs, are secured beneath a pair of fastened-down partial liners at the front of the handle.
When the knife is opened, and the detent balls slide off the tang ledge, the springs push the bottom of the levers onto a wedge-beveled lock face milled on the top flipper arm of the tang. The matching-angled, beveled faces of the twin levers thus hold the blade securely in place.
To release the blade, both buttons must be simultaneously squeezed to retract the lever faces off the beveled tang lock faces. Once done, the blade can fall freely back into the blade channel.
The PinchLOK was very well thought through from an ergonomics perspective. First off, when the blade is closed, the buttons retract into the bolster, which means the bolster is very comfortable to hold. There are no sharp edges; the parallelogram bolster lock holes have that really pretty, milled, radiused border discussed earlier. Nice! That does, of course, mean that you can’t use the lock buttons to open the knife, but seriously, who does that anyway? This is why the Pocket Knife Gods gave us thumb studs.
When the blade is open and locked in place, the top edge of the PinchLOK buttons extends from the bolster. The perimeter of the lock buttons also sport radiused edges, eliminating any finger-abrading sharp edges. (In fact, the only sharp edges on this knife are where you want it — on the bottom side of the blade!). The lock button faces themselves also have milled, horizontal lines to add that much more traction. Releasing the lock is easy, but requires pinching both buttons, since each button actuates its own separate locking lever.
Overall it’s a very pleasant knife to hold and use. That’s what user-centric design gets you. Thank you, Nick!
If I had anything else to add, my only suggestion would be that the lock is misnamed! I think the action is more of a squeeze action than a pinch action. I mean, take a look at this! From a finger perspective, I think I‘m onto something! Amiright?
I think I will start a nationwide petition to have the PinchLOK named to be the SqueezeLOK! Hmmm. On second thought, the last time I had an idea to rename another company’s blade lock, it never really took hold. Oh well. Nick, think about it! We can even share the trademark!
Pivot
The pivot on the NUMB Knives N7 is a great feature. It’s a steel, keyed, anti-rotation, D-style pivot barrel that manages the blade tang on caged, ceramic ball bearings.
The pivot design aesthetic is clean and neat. The show side pivot face is flat with the NUMB Knives brand logo, a stylized N, that’s milled into the surface. The clip side pivot face is also a clean, flat design that hosts the T10 socket.
The pivot appears to have a very thin pivot collar around its circumference, but a loosening of the T10 pivot socket reveals the bolster is beautifully milled in place with the raised ring running around the pivot face holes. It’s another example of the excellent milling prowess of Reate.
Detent
The detent on the N7 The Cantilever is provided by the ceramic detent ball at the bottom of the PinchLOK push button lever. And since there are 2 PinchLOK push buttons, then, of course, there are 2 detent balls! The dual lever springs and the perfectly sized detent ball catch sites (aka the holes) on the blade tang ensure that pivot lash is never present. And because there are 2 balls and 2 lockups to fall into place, you receive a clear and distinct double detent click. Very Nice! I Like!
Stop Pins
NUMB Knives opted to have Reate place the knife’s dual stop pins (dual is a running theme here, isn’t it?) on the blade tang. These internal stop pins (aka a hidden stop pins) run within the confines of curved channels cut into the steel liners, the ends of which form the stop pin boundaries. I always like to see internal stop pins used. This tells me that the knife designer was conscious of not placing the closed stop pin where it would contact the choil. And we all know why this is important, right? Right?
Far too many knife manufacturers create knives that employ this faulty design. In the image below, you can see a particularly egregious example of a stop pin design where the closed blade hits the stop pin just a couple of millimeters behind the blade edge heel.
Below is a photo of a mid-grade ($100+) knife I purchased in late 2025 from a well-known manufacturer via an online knife retailer, and the blade choil / stop pin impact zone is right next to the start of the blade edge.
So why is this such a problem? Let’s try another photo.
Note: I don’t yet have the new blog post photos of the aforementioned knife, so I’ve substituted a photo of another, similar blade edge as a proxy so I can show you how close to the blade edge the stop pin impact mark was located.
You can see how close to the sharp edge the blade hits the stop pin. When you sharpen a knife with such a poor stop pin design, you will soon remove enough material that either:
- The rear of the blade edge will hit the stop pin
- The rear of the blade edge will need to be left as is, creating a needlessly ugly, deformed edge
- The blade will travel further and further down into the blade channel as the stop pin contact point is eroded, eventually causing the blade edge to impact the backspacer or standoffs, causing major damage to the blade edge.
What thoughtful knife designer does this? It’s gross indifference at best, more likely gross negligence, if not outright hostility to their paying customers (I’ll be writing up my analysis of this knife in great detail sometime later this year).
Nick did great work in designing the N7’s blade / handle interface, and Reate made his excellent design come to fruition.
Blade Centering
The blade is perfectly centered.
You can’t see it? Here’s a close-up for you.
‘Nuff said.
Backspacer
The NUMB Knives N7 knife comes with a lovely titanium backspacer. It’s flush fit with the handle spine, separated from the liners by chamfered edges, and has a smooth feel. There are 2 sections of what can only be called faux jimping. It offers no value in increasing handle traction, but it certainly provides a pleasing aesthetic value.
Indeed, the design of the dual faux backspacer jimping, to me, is a mirrored homage to the blade spine jimping. I like it. Plus, it continues the “dual” theme. That’s fun.
Lanyard Mount
Sometimes you can’t get a break. The last 3 dudes in the world who care about lanyards, Jordan, Kent, and Owen, were jumping in ecstatic jubilation when they learned that such a cool knife as the NUMB Knives N7 has a large lanyard hole right through the scales at the back of the handle. But then I broke the news to them that NUMB Knives charges more for one N7 than they typical pay Walmart for 44 new Ozark Trail crap. Now they are in tears, knowing they’ll never be able to get a NUMB Knives The Cantilever knife. Boo-hoo.
But don’t be sad. They would have tied one of their gross, frayed, stained, stringy, cheap, used lanyard loops on this premium knife. Get out of here with that.
I think pass-through lanyard holes on premium knives cheapens their look. I hope that Nick will ask Reate to change the way a lanyard can be attached, such as via the backspacer, which is how Poikilo did it with their Tuna. That’s a classy way to do it without diminishing the aesthetic of the knife.
If that method proves to be too costly, then do the right thing and scrap the lanyard hole altogether. I mean, who uses this anymore?
Why denigrate such a lovely knife with a crappy piece of string tied to the end of the handle? The knife doesn’t want it. It shouldn’t be there. Seriously, just say NO to frazzled handle twine. Yuck!
Sticks, Rocks, Lashes and Play
This section reveals the results of my standard set of knife operational checks. Some of these are quality of manufacturing issues, and others are simply end user experience issues. Let’s see what I found.
- Lock Stick. The NUMB Knives N7’s innovative PinchLOK would appear, at least according to this specimen, to be immune to lock stick. I really appreciate that!
- Lock Rock. There’s no lock bar here to move or wiggle!
- Blade Play (Up-or-Down, Side-to-Side). The blade is securely held in place with no movement whatsoever.
- Detent Double-Clutch. The dual level, dual detent balls don’t work that way.
- Detent Lash. The N7’s dual detent balls sit in their dual detent holes on the blade tang, securely holding the blade in place.
- Pivot Lash. I detected no movement of the blade around the pivot barrel, indicating precision milling work.
- Blade Bounce. When the dual PinchLOK buttons are, well, pinched, disengaging the blade, the blade freefalls like a guillotine, which unsurprisingly produces a fair bit of blade bounce.
Handle Dimensions
Have you ever had a rat crawl into your car’s tailpipe and get stuck, only to blow out like a booming cannonball when you start your car? Me, neither. Let’s talk about handle dimension numbers.
- Weight:61 g / 3.549 oz.
- Weight to Blade Length Ratio (some prefer a 1.0 ratio):24
- Handle Length:54 mm / 4.352″
- Blade to Handle Length Ratio:74
- Closed Knife Handle Height:45 mm / 1.317″
- Open Knife Handle Height:24 mm / 0.836″
- Handle Thickness: 25 mm / 0.482″
- Scale Thickness (includes liner if present):02 mm / 0.158″
- Pivot Center to Balance Point on Handle (0.0 is balanced at pivot): 16.91 mm / 0.666″
- Thumb Stud to Pivot Center Distance (higher can mean less leverage for easy, fast opening):33 mm / 0.643″
- Thumb Stud Angle from Vertical Center when closed: 139 mm / 5.472″
- Thumb Stud Tip to Scale Edge Clearance: 61 mm / 0.063″
- Flipper Tab from Pivot Center Angle: 154°
- Backspacer Length:44 mm / 1.71″
Hardware
Overall, the hardware on the NUMB Knives N7 The Cantilever is a mixed bag. Let’s talk about it.
Pocket Clip
The pocket clip is made of flat, milled titanium in the popsicle stick-style shape. The clip has a milled recess on top to add to its aesthetic appeal. It shares the same color finish as the titanium liners and bolsters. Its edges are slightly radiused, eliminating any skin-abrading elements. The tip is nicely rounded and extends down to the scale (there’s no specific clip flat spot there on the scale, as it’s not needed with smooth scales) with a full-width ramp toe, providing a secure grip. In fact, it’s a very tight clip. Luckily, the clip material is rather thin at 1.34 mm / 0.053″. Given the milled clip’s height off the scale at 4.23 mm / 0.167″ (at both the start and end), that gives you 2.89 mm / 1.114″ for your pocket edge to slip underneath. Of course, the thicker the pocket edge, the more difficult it’ll be getting that tight clip to bend up enough to slip it over a thick pocket edge. Just sayin’.
The height of the pocket clip isn’t bad. The length is. When I say the clip’s a popsicle stick, it’s more like an airport runway overpass for denim. At 62.24 mm / 2.45″, that comes in at 56.31% the length of the handle. The length of the clip gives rise to a hot spot right on the head of the middle finger metacarpal bone in my palm. Is it insufferable? No. Is it uncomfortable? Yeah. The bone joint for your middle finger’s connection to your hand’s metacarpal bone is the largest bone joint, meaning the cushion of your palm is least effective there. The pocket clip needs to be shorter to lessen the pressure on that contact point. The head of the metacarpal bone on the ring finger is much smaller in diameter, so the end of the best designed pocket clips end there. Nick, please change that feature in your coming handle designs. Please.
The clip uses 2 screws and is not flush fit. This means that the opposite scale side (did I mention that it’s ambidextrous?) a shallow milled recess of its own. While it’s not unsightly on the swirls of color of the “molten” carbon fiber scales, it’s much more visible on the crystal titanium scale options. The clip need not be seated in a recess since 2 screws hold it in place. Eliminating that would give the unused side a cleaner look.
One good thing I can say about the pocket clip is that’s reversible, so Mollydookers can enjoy this knife as much as we do. Rock on, man.
Fasteners
The fasteners are definitely not an optimum setup on the N7. You’ll need to get your full set of Wiha Torx bits out and ready to use.
The Good
There is plenty of good news here:
- The fasteners are all Torx.
- The fasteners are all flat top, countersunk screws.
- The fasteners are all made from the same color titanium as the liners and bolsters.
The Bad
The handle uses all sizes of Torx bit fasteners:
- T10: Pivot screw
- T8: Pocket clip, internal liner and thumb studs
- T6: Body scales and PinchLOK button faces
There’s no need to remove the button faces, so the big issue is the single, mid-body screw that secures the CF scales, are T6. Why is this? Is it to reduce the visibility of the required screw? If so, I have a better idea. If you look at the other models of the NUMB Knives N7 The Cantilever, they come in a variety of handle colors. If on the “molten” the body scale screw was black, then a T8 would be all but invisible. I do not like T6 screws, as they are far more likely to strip. For the sake of improved disassembly and maintenance, I highly recommend this small but much appreciated change.
The Ugly
Hey, this isn’t a Clint Eastwood film. We’re done with fastener talk. There’s nothing more to see here. Just skedaddle along now, ya hear?
Hardware Dimensions
“You seriously don’t you believe in Silicon Heaven? Preposterous! Where would all the calculators go?” — Kryten
With that established, let’s talk numbers.
- Pocket Clip Length:24 mm / 2.45″
- Pocket Clip Length to Handle Percentage (< 50% preferred):31%
- Pocket Clip Arm Thickness: 34 mm / 0.053″
- Pocket Clip Height at Fastener: 23 mm / 0.167 “
- Pocket Clip Height at Tip: 23 mm / 0.167 “
- Pocket Clip Access Height for Pocket: 89 mm / 1.114″
- Fastener Sizes: T10, T8 & T6
Weight
Our NUMB Knives N7 is a perfectly sized little fellow. It’s not a full-blown chubster like the Kunwu Excalibur, but nor is it the wispy soft, thin bladed and wooden broomstick handled Opinel. Our boy is a minor mesomorph that comes in at 100.61 g / 3.549 oz. It’s got a great, solid presence in the hand without feeling heavy. Given the blade length, measured 81.34 mm / 3.202″, the Weight-to-Blade-Length Ratio, for which some folks claim to prefer a 1.0 ratio, is calculated to be 1.24. I think some folks need to mind their own business. This is a good-feeling knife.
Original Packaging
Nick designed the N7 packaging to impress immediately upon receipt, before you even see the impressive knife itself! Is it wrapped in the typical, taco-folded nylon pouch? Nah. NUMB Knives gives us a colorfully painted metal tin box, inside of which lies several stickers, a nice, large (196 mm / 7.718″ x 202 mm / 7.953″) microfiber cloth, and a foam-filled lower box liner that softly and securely stores the knife.
It’s a nice, balanced presentation without coming across as either ostentatious or low-value cheap. It may not be the craftsman-style hardwood box of Herman Knives, but the price of the NUMB Knives N7 is 20% to even 10% of a Herman knife. Personally, I’d rather have the money I spend for a knife to be invested in the knife, not in a fancy box that I will likely never use again.
Knife Karen Nitpicks
I am a big fan of the NUMB Knives N7 The Cantilever knife. You know, it was a grail knife for me. Yeah, it’s not perfect, but it’s really nice. I mean, the little nitpicks I have are hardly worth mentioning. It’s not like they are that annoying, really. Although, that said, there are issues that, if resolved, would make the knife that much better. I kind of wish that these issues were better handled before I received it. In fact, if they were, I’d be much happier with it. You know, I am a bit more than just annoyed by these things. Hey, I need to speak to the manager about this! Right NOW!
- Thumb studs. The thumb studs work well enough, but they really should have domed ends rather than the skin-scraping, 90° flats at the tips. It’s an oversight in the ergonomic design, and it must be addressed!
- Top flipper. The top flipper unicorn horn is hard to use consistently. It’s incorrectly positioned to be a useful opener (it’s positioned too close to the handle centerline, barely off to the side of the pivot instead of on the end of the handle top). That vertical horn is also devoid of jimping, making it that much harder to use.
- The fuller as an opening method. The fuller, being milled as a semicircular groove, offers little-to-no grip access when attempting to use it as a reverse flick opening method. This makes the unicorn horn top flipper seem easy to use!
- Handle contouring. There is none. The handle scales are flat. Yes, they do have nice beveling all around the perimeter, but dang it, I love contoured handles!
- Pocket clip. The pocket clip is about a mile long, which is a mile too long. It spans nearly the full length of the carbon fiber scales. While it’s a nicely milled titanium popsicle stick of a clip with slightly radiused edges and a rounded tip, the height of the clip, given its length, creates a genuine hot spot at the joint of the bottom of the middle finger and metacarpal hand bone. Did I die in agony? As a matter of fact, I did. I had to be resuscitated in the ER by an AED device. Shocking, I know. Well, I may be exaggerating. Just a bit. Maybe.
- Lanyard hole. The lovely N7 handle is desecrated by the presence of a needless, nasty lanyard hole! Who in their right mind would want to tie an old, frayed piece of used shoelace onto such a beautiful knife? Nick, please don’t feed the trolls and encourage this uncouth behavior!
- Blade bounce. When closing the knife, given that the PinchLOK levers completely disengage from any contact with the blade (unlike liner, frame, and compression-style locks, whose leaf-spring detent balls remain in contact with the blade tang), the released blade, guided by slick bearings, falls closed like a guillotine. Since the blade uses internal stop pins that run within a curved, milled channel in the liners, the blade hits the stops and immediately bounces back out. This is not uncommon with free-swinging blades mounted on pivot bearings. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it!
- Fasteners. This one is just weird. To disassemble the N7, you will have to go through 3 different sizes of fastener! T10, T8, and T6. The pivot screw is T10. That’s fine. Then there’s a pair of T8 screws at the pocket clip – that’s excellent! I’d be really than happy with the T10 & T8 arrangement! BUT… there’s a retention screw in the center of each handle that secures the carbon fiber scale in place. And it’s inexplicably a T6! What?!? Why?!? Forget the manager – I need to speak to the CEO about this one!
Price
The NUMB Knives N7 pocketknife can be purchased at either BladeHQ or directly at https://numbknives.com/ (although not right now; they are sold out there). Regardless of where you place your order, the N7 costs $355 (other models range from between $350 to $365). That might strike you as expensive. And it sure is!
But remember what you get here: a hollow-ground, high-carbide, S90V blade; a set of beefy, big, decoratively milled titanium bolsters CNCed from the knife’s full-length Ti liners; a decoratively milled Ti backspacer; a pair of gorgeous carbon fiber scales that, along with the bolsters, host very nicely milled perimeter bevels; and a milled titanium pocket clip. But the biggest feature of the NUMB Knives N7 is the unique and innovative PinchLOK designed by Nick Palizzi. And the knife boasting all these impressive features is manufactured by Reate Knives, one of the premiere knifemakers in the world. The N7 is a very special, premium pocketknife.
Yes, the price is high. If you want a cheap knife, stop by the counter the next time you fill up with gas. It’ll be utter crap, featuring a loose pivot, a poorly heat-treaded, very soft steel blade, an untrustworthy blade lock, all constructed with garbage materials and trashy fit & finish. Seriously, if the top issue with you when you buy a pocketknife is price, then get a cheap knife, and live with the results. That said, Miguron is making some impressive, ultra-budget knives as of late. But you won’t get the PinchLOK there.
Verdict
It’s hard to believe that N.U.M.B. Knifeworks (the official spelling of the company name, but I’ve saying NUMB Knives because that’s why) just emerged in our little enthusiast community’s pocketknife-o-sphere back in 2025! That seems crazy! But if you follow any of the major KnifeToober reviewers / influencers, you’ve likely already seen a video review of the jaw-droppingly innovative line of knives designed by Nick Palizzi.
Indeed, when I was first introduced to NUMB Knives and their ingenious PinchLOK blade lock, it instantly became a grail knife for me. Sadly (VERY sadly, in fact!), I don’t have the deep pockets nor do I (yet!) have the huge reach of many KnifeToober reviewer / influencers who enjoy the largess of so many knife manufacturers, so I knew it would take some time for me to experience one in my hand.
Well, I have to give all the credit in the world to Nick & Lindsay Palizzi, the owners of NUMB Knives, for succumbing to my pathetic, continuous begging (well, it wasn’t that bad, right Nick? Right? Nick? Uh oh). They offered to send me one of the latest releases, the N7 (aka The Cantilever) for review, and here we are.
So did it live up to my expectations? Nope. It exceeded them in multiple ways. The knife is manufactured by the ballyhooed Reate Knives in China, so high expectations were assumed from the start. Is the N7 perfect? Well, no, but is anything else? It’s an impressive knife with many great features. It has a few elements that could be improved, but in sum, it is an excellent knife that I love, and I have no doubt many others will as well.
I love the S90V (NSM 90PM, actually) blade. This stainless steel has exceptional edge retention (assuming the HRc is as claimed, this blade will be an excellent performer). Toughness? Not so much. But if you use the N7 like a slightly fragile blade in a premium knife (don’t attempt to cut cardboard with staples, you silly nut!), then you’re good! The sheepsfoot design with its hollow grind design will prove to be a long-lived, wicked slicer. The dual blade spine jimping (which is functional!) makes the knife that much more versatile.
The handle is a combo of titanium liners with colorful carbon fiber scales stacked on top. The front of the handle is equipped with a pair of bolsters milled from the liner’s Ti barstock. Those bolster faces are milled with a wavy line pattern (not a simple job) that are both aesthetically attractive as well as add a modicum of improved finger grip traction. The flat scales are milled smooth, but this smooth CF still possesses an extremely fine microtexture that adds a positive effect on grip. The edges along the entire handle have been beveled, making the knife very comfortable to hold. The handle also features a titanium backspacer, an ambidextrous, mulled pocket clip, and titanium fasteners.
Just those features alone would be enough to make the N7 an excellent, premium knife. But there’s one big feature that you can’t find anywhere else.
The pièce de resistance of the NUMB Knives N7 The Cantilever is the cleverly engineered, beautifully designed, and fun-to-use PinchLOK. Nick, the lock designer, didn’t riff on an existing knife lock. No, he created a brand new blade lock design. The PinchLOK starts with a pair of external rocker buttons, positioned on the bolsters, which internally function as independent levers actuated by small coil springs within the handle liners. Each button lever separately engages with a section on the blade tang, beveled in order to give the ends of the levers a flush-faced fitment on the tang, securely locking the blade in the open position. Each lever has its own detent ball to hold the closed blade in place. To release the open blade, both independently functioning lock buttons must be pressed.
When the lock is engaged, the lock buttons only protrude from the handle at the top edge, whereas when the blade closes, the buttons are fully recessed within the bolster, which gives the handle a clean, smooth look and feel. The pressure required to press the protruding lock buttons to release the lock is fairly light, but despite this, there isn’t a safety concern. In my medium-ish-sized Knife Karen hands, I can’t find a way to position my grip so that both buttons are pressed. And remember, both buttons have to be independently pressed before the lock will disengage. Even the lock button faces are finely milled to add to the handle aesthetics and the button grip.
You can’t help but to be impressed with the engineering and intuitive function of the PinchLOK.
There are only a few nitpicks, the sum of which are rather minimal considerations. For example:
- I found the non-domed ends of the thumb studs to be a bit sharp.
- The top flipper lever, which protrudes a fair bit beyond the front of the handle, is needlessly hard to use because the lever tab, I believe, is too close to the handle’s centerline, robbing the user of needed leverage.
- The top flipper lever face is polished smooth instead of hosting the useful jimping found in ample supply elsewhere on the knife.
- The pocket clip is too long, which creates a hot spot way up in your palm on the bone joint just under your middle finger.
- Lastly, to disassemble the knife, you need T10, T8, and T6 drivers. The T6 is only needed for a single body screw that holds the CF scale in place.
Simple solutions to the above include, in order:
- Thumb studs. Either deal with the thumb studs as they are or replace them.
- Top flipper part 1. Get a good grip on the handle, positioned perpendicular to your thumb, focus, and flip assertively. You can also skip using it, which is what I do.
- Top flipper part 2. Same solution as above. Try to use it as is or skip it.
- Pocket clip. You can replace the clip, although it is a very nice, milled titanium clip, so I will use the knife as an EDC, not as a camping or hard work knife.
- Fasteners. Bring out your whole set of Wiha Torx driver bits and do the work. Whattaya gonna do?
I started this quest thinking of NUMB Knives as a personal grail. Not all grail knives need be over $1,000+, you see. From my introduction to the N7 via a video reviewer, I loved the look of the blade, the design of the handle, the quality of the materials used, and of course, that fascinating new PinchLOK system. Now that I’ve held the N7, flipped open the lovely blade, gripped the ergonomic handle, used the functional jimping, looked closely at its excellent fit-and-finish details, and disassembled it to explore the clever engineering of the PinchLOK system, I’m even more impressed. It’s also been a treat to get introduced to Lindsay and Nick, the founders of NUMB Knives. These are cool people.
If you are looking for a new, medium-sized, premium pocketknife made with exceptional materials by a top-quality manufacturer, Reate Knives, and you have a budget in the ~$350 range, you can’t go wrong by adding the N.U.M.B. Knifeworks N7 The Cantilever to your shopping list. Enjoy! 