TL;DR
- Great knife that look and feels more expensive than it is
- The blade is tough with surprisingly good edge retention for the steel
- It’s bulky in the pocket, which slows down the “C” part of EDC.
It’s Essentially a Dressy EDC Utility Knife that’s Held Back by its Sheath.
Something about turning a beloved folder into a fixed-blade EDC feels like putting lifts on a Jeep Wrangler: The thing was already good at off roading; making it go higher mostly gets you an even weirder looking Wrangler. The QSP Penguin was a fine EDC design as a folder. Turning it into a fixed blade has mostly made it bulkier in the pocket.
But similar to people who own Jeep Wranglers, knife folks aren’t really here for the functionality. They enjoy the process of answering the question “what if?”
What if we put it in a bulky leather sheath?
What if we put some copper in the handle scales?
What if we made the Wrangler even less aerodynamic then drove it over that big bush?
But in stepping back to really look at the copper-infused handle, the three-finger grip with the full tang build, the leather sheath with a long pocket clip sewn in, I have to admit I’m enjoying the answer to this particular “what if”, because it’s unquestionably a good cutting tool with a cool look. But, again like a Wrangler, it doesn’t travel well when you just want to get from place to place.
Specifications
| Overall Length: | 5.9” |
| Blade Length: | 2.53” |
| Blade Steel: | Sandvik 14C28N (59 – 62 HRc) |
| Blade Thickness: | 0.11” |
| Blade Shape: | Sheepsfoot |
| Blade Grind: | Flat |
| Handle Length: | 3.37” |
| Handle Material: | Copper foil G10 |
| Weight: | 2.36 oz |
| Sheath: | Leather w/ pocket clip |
| Made in: | China |
| What I Liked | What I Didn’t Like |
|---|---|
| Tough, sharp utility blade | Sheath is bulky in the pocket |
| Surprisingly good edge retention | Sheath design makes it awkward to draw |
| Looks great at a good price |
What’s Going On Here
This is a shortened fixed blade remix of the Penguin folder. In order to keep it pocketable, they shrunk it down so it had an over all length under 6 inches, then jammed it into a big leather sheath.
This is where my bemusement with the design comes from, because they’ve taken a good EDC design that already carried well as a folder and made it awkward in the pocket in spite of a size reduction
But far be it from me to stand in the way of the full tang-ification of all knives, especially as someone who appreciates a good fixed blade EDC.
What’s Good Here
I like the look. The name is apt because this design invokes all the rigid, snazzy goofiness of a real penguin. If I could put a real penguin in my pocket and pack it around all day to tear up boxes and nibble on my mail I would.
Do penguins bite hard? Writing this review has made me realize how little I actually know about them besides how they waddle and that they sometimes wander alone into the mountains: an impulse that apparently all of us relate to. (EDIT: I did some research and apparently African penguins bite hard enough to break the skin, which doesn’t seem that hard, but, like, they eat fish. Seems like they wouldn’t need to bite any harder than we would need to cut. The comparison continues to be apt, if not as dramatic as I was hoping).
The QSP Penguin does in a pinch, though. It bites like it’s holding a grudge. Maybe some of my impression is a placebo caused by the styling in the tip, but the beak-like shaping on the blade is great for controlled puncturing.
I wore this around the yard and on a few hikes, but by far the most critical moment of real-world use was in opening a coffee bag after the pull tab snapped. I was then left with embarrassingly expensive coffee trapped inside a thick paper bag, and needed to cut a slit into the front without spilling any of the beans while also maintaining the integrity of the crucial degassing function of the bag.
I assume the feeling of triumphant relief when I pinched the Baby Penguin up like a scalpel and made a smooth incision through one side without puncturing the other side was roughly equivalent to what doctors feel when they do emergency tracheostomies on old ladies having allergic reactions in grocery stores.
The coffee bag and the expensive coffee were saved. Everybody in the room clapped (everybody was me, but I can clap super loud).
Good Performance from a Budget Steel
The edge retention is actually decent for 14C28N, and I mostly attribute that to the blade geometry (although the 60-ish Rockwell hardness helps too; that’s not all that common to see on this steel). There’s a magic combo in the way they’ve ground a fairly prominent secondary bevel on a high flat grind. It’s not laser sharp, but the structure seems to support a strong edge that holds up a little better than I usually get from Sandvik stuff.
The best geometry in the world won’t make the edge retention good by modern standards, of course. This steel is tough and soft by design. It will take a laser edge, but it won’t keep it long if you’re really using the knife. Oddly, as much as I like this steel, I find it frustrating on this particular variation of this particular knife design.
This is a nice knife. It looks nice. It even feels nice for the size and price. I want it to have a nice steel with nice edge retention. I’d be willing to break the $100 plane for it, but as this model stands now, sitting around a comfortable budget price point, I have to give them a lot of credit for working so well with what they put into it.
The Handle Does a lot with a Little
I can only get about three fingers firmly around the handle in a gorilla grip, but that’s always been enough. Even when I carve with the knife I can get decent leverage thanks in part to the protruding pommel. That’s just enough material to get that extra pull through tough materials without feeling too hard of a bite in my grip.
That said, this is a hard handle on the thinner side. It won’t stay comfortable long, but for quick, precise jobs, the handle is doing everything it can to help.
It Waddles in the Pocket
The most critical issue is the sheath. That was driven home firmly for me when my wife picked the sheathed Baby Penguin up from my desk, tugged the knife out, looked at the sheath then said “this feels like it should be a folder”.
Boy did I have news for her (I was all ready to order her a Penguin folder after this interaction, but it turned out her excitement was from me telling her she was right, not that there was a folding version).
It’s bulky in the pocket and doesn’t really like to share space with my phone or wallet.
I like the clip. It’s long and wide with good retention, but the movement to put this in the pocket gets interrupted by the bolt just below the clip helping to keep it in place on the sheath.
It’s also tricky to draw, but this is a temporary problem. The leather has a tight grip that will break in over time, but I still don’t like the flap structure that curves up and covers most of the handle. It makes the knife harder to grab and deploy, and there’s nothing firm within easy range of my fingers to push off so I can get the knife out one handed.
The Two-Sided Caveat
I think the logic behind the sheath design was to make it more versatile. As it is, the knife slips into the sheath the same in either direction, making this an ambidextrous carry. It’s the exact same bulky experience on the left side as it is on the right side, which is a nice feature, but I’m not sure it was worth the size compromise in this case.
Comparison and Alternatives
The kicker here is that the Baby Penguin is a lot cheaper than the knives I’d recommend as alternatives, which is its own kind of achievement.
The MKM Pocket Tango is the upscale alternative. The sheath and materials are much nicer but I actually prefer the handle on the penguin for harder jobs.
The Boker Barlow Fixed Blade has the sheath I want the Penguin to have. I also like the style of the walnut handle better, but the Baby Penguin’s handle goes 2-0 here for straight practicality.
The Kizer Deckhand beats the Baby Penguin on price and comfort thanks to the gently curving Micarta handle. The Kydex sheath is less bulky, but the J-style clip isn’t exactly optimized for the pocket, so there’s a lot of give and take here.
A Dressy Working Knife with Carry Problems
This is probably the best budget fixed blade EDC I could recommend, which is awkward to say since I harped on the sheath so hard.
I would probably carry this knife regularly if the sheath were reworked a little to be less bulky. The blade is a hard cutter with good edge geometry and a tough steel, and even though the handle is a little small and thin to be totally comfortable for me, it was always comfortable enough, and I never found myself lacking the grip I needed to get a job done.
I’m impressed that QSP managed to make a knife that costs so little feel so nice. I wish they had leaned it more into hard use, though. With a slimmer polymer sheath and simpler G10 scales with harsher texture, this knife would see the yard almost every day with me. But that’s where the crux is: I can get that with the regular folder Penguin, which has been around enough to be made in just about every materials combination QSP could think of.
So maybe what I want here goes against the nature of the Baby Penguin’s style. I’ve never seen a penguin cut through rubber tubing or pry up an old loose nail. Penguins dive for fish and collect shiny rocks and they look good doing it. This is a gentleman’s carry. It’s built for tough work, but it will look both well dressed and a little awkward doing that work.
