IS OK? YES?

IS ARE SURE?

Yes, today is more faceless made-in-China garbage. Straight from Aliexpress again this time. This one drew my eye because it explicitly bills itself as “mechanical” in its product description which is, in full: “Stainless Steel Mechanical Folding Knife EDC Mini Paring Knife Keychain Portable Emergency Self-Defense Knife Express Cutter Too.” (Presumably the L fell off, unless in Lionel Hutz tradition it’s actually, “Cutter, too!”)

But the other reason is because its “brand,” insofar as any of these types of things may actually have one, is listed as “YESISOK.”

I am not making this up.

Behold such tremendous features as:

  • Sharp Blade: Yes
  • Blade Material: Stainless Steel Trowel
  • is_customized: No

Truly, we are living in the future.

The Yesisok is also fantastically small. If you had a bit of creativity you could probably just about employ it as the tab on a zipper pull on your bag or jacket, and you’d probably get away with it in a number of places.

Maybe forget I said that last part.

It’s just 2-3/8" long when closed and the slightest hair under 3-5/8" long open with a teensy little 1-3/8" blade. That’s 6.0325, 9.2075, and 3.4925 centimeters en metrique, so at least we can say one thing on the spec sheet is actually accurate.

In its blurb it claims to be made of 4Cr13 steel which is feasible, given that this alloy is both very cheap and very Chinese. It’s straight backed with an upswept tip, and at 0.079" thick but only 0.288" across it must be said that its bevel is very steep.

Steep enough that if you are habitual jig sharpener it may actually give you some trouble, since the primary bevel is close to 35 degrees. The actual apex is even steeper still, as close as I can figure to a full 40 degrees per side, coming out to a combined 60 which is very nearly square.

So this will never be a chopper or surgical slicer, but despite all expectations it does come out of the box reasonably sharp enough to serve as a dinky little package opener, envelope cutter, and fingernail picker. The little blighter only weighs 0.6 ounces or 17 grams precisely (also accurate on its spec sheet) so you could just stash it around your desk or just about anywhere else, really.

Of course I wouldn’t have been drawn to the Yesisok at all if its mechanism weren’t weird.

There’s actually a whole litany of these types of little knives on the Chinese wholesale market, all with the same action which could basically be described as, “Like a balisong, but with only one pivot.”

I also have to imagine having only the one significantly reduces the cost.

Both halves of the Yesiok’s handle swing out 180 degrees, in opposite directions, and come back around to meet up on the other end leaving the knife open in the process.

There is no latch, but there is a detent ball on the little spacer on the tail end which clicks in both the open and closed positions. There is no mechanism other than this; The sheer flexibility in the presumably laser or waterjet cut handle plates plus the inherent lash in the pivot is the only thing that allows the detent ball to clear its pocket at all.

The pivot is plain, equipped only with a brass washer beneath and even then, curiously only on one side. This is the side with it. You can see the opposite side further up the page, there, which reveals the conspicuous absence of its twin. I have no idea if it’s supposed to be this way, or what. Maybe it’s to provide more spacing for the detent ball to clear, who knows. Omitting one washer likely removed a whole two or three cents from the total bill of materials cost.

Two pins are pressed through holes in the blade opposite each other, and these are what serve as the endstops for the mechanism’s travel.

As you would expect these are none too precise nor is the track they ride in, so the blade can rock and roll noticeably even when it’s ostensibly locked open.

The whole process works like this:

It’s also worth mentioning that you can only open the knife one way, so if you try to shove from the wrong side not much will happen. There’s just enough imprecision in everything that you can push one of the handles a couple of degrees past the closed position, but that’s it. Of course there’s no tactile indication of which way you ought to try to push, though, so you’d better just get used to how the thing works. From closed, the handle without the spacer screwed to it swings away from the edge, i.e. push it towards you if you’re looking at the spine of the blade. It can also be assembled such that the opposite is true, and given that there is no mechanical impetus to choose one versus the other I would not be at all surprised to learn that half of these left the factory with the blade facing in one direction and the other half facing the other.

All this adds up to making the Yesisok maddeningly fiddly to use. Part of its description implies “self defense” as one of its applications, but needless to say you can forget that. Opening it is tricky and ideally requires both hands, is tough to do quickly, and even once done the end result is unlikely to impress ruffians of any stripe.

It’s well and truly comically tiny. But not, it must be said, the smallest folding knife I currently own.

It’s got a loop on the tail that’s built into the spacer which you can use to turn this into a keyring knife, or possibly attempt the aforementioned zipper pull strategy. You’re on your own figuring out how, though. For nearly five bucks, the manufacturer didn’t even bother to include a dinky split keyring. Nor even a box. Mine just came in a plastic baggie with a sticker on it, the truly traditional harbinger of top flight Chinese cutlery.

There’s not much inside to look at. Note, however, the lonely and singular brass washer. The spacer screw is a T6 head and I think the pivot screws are meant to be T8, but I found a T9 driver actually fit better. You’ll need a driver in each side if you care enough to disassemble this, because…

…While the pivot screw does indeed have an anti-rotation flat on it…

…The holes in both handle plates are just round.

This makes me wonder if all the pieces of hardware in this are commodity parts.

The tail spacer is the most interesting part of the entire knife, if you ask me. It’s got the detent ball mounted there is also prevented from rotating by having yet another pin pressed into it as well. Based on the texture around the edges plus the lack of telltale machine marks, I think it’s actually a casting. It is steel though. The entire knife is, sans the washer. A magnet sticks to all of its components.

I took a picture of the blade separately, but I already said most of what needs to be said about it so I’m not sure what’s to illustrate. I’m going to show it to you anyway, though, because I went through the effort to take the snap and process it, so you’re going to look at it at least once.

Unsurprisingly it’s had no polish or finishing work done to it at all after grinding, but the flat is pretty smooth and shiny. I imagine that’s because the raw bar stock it was made out of was pre-polished.

#The Inevitable Conclusion

There’s very nearly something resembling a valid use case for the Yesisok and others of its ilk, but only barely. If you’re in an environment where a big traditional and dare I say “real” pocket knife clipped to your pants is frowned upon, this could stand in as a very cheap and at least reasonably serviceable substitute. Moreso if you are in a locale with insane blade length requirements, or one of those places where one handed opening knives are forbidden. Since you’d have to be a damn wizard to get this thing open with one hand.

But otherwise its main appeal is as a fidget toy, since its mechanical design is deeply silly.

It’s OK.

I guess.