OX TOOLS P224301 Pro Heavy Duty Fixed Blade Folding Knife

I have used the branded Stanley knives for 50 years. The first one was my dad’s and I thought it was inconvenient to fit and remove the blade every time we wanted to use it. Then when I set up home I bought the Stanley with sliding blade. A while later found I had to buy another one because I use the standard straight blade 80% of the time, I use the hook blade the other 20%. So instead of carrying two knives in the pockets, went online to study reviews. Realised that work knife designs have moved on; that there are many more designs. There are heafty ones which allows you to put more force into the cut but it was convenience I was searching for.
The reviews voted the Milwakee knife of similar folding design the best but having spent another thousand pounds in powered tools in the last 6 months, decided to put the knife on the wish list before spending any more on tools this year. Well, it must be Amazon cookies which puts various knives on the pages such that this OX came up. What caught the eye was the colour. Didn’t particularly want a red (Milwalkee) coloured knife but preferred either a DeWalt yellow or a Makita tyrquoise. This OX has a bright blue.; nice colour, so continued to study the features. Yes it can hold spare blades which is perfect. There is one blade in position, and space for 3 spares so I can put a spare standard spare plus 2 hooked blades in that spares holder. There is a hole to slot through a landyard which was the deciding factor. 40 years of wearing employers issued coveralls (and Royal Navy coveralls) I am used to having the knife in the dedicated boat knife pocket by the right thigh. These pockets are usually on the long side for cater for boat knives. So I needed a hole in the folding OX knife’s handle to loop through a lanyard so as to easily extract the knive from said pocket. Great.
Is it sturdy ? Yes it is; there is not much play (much less then half mm) once the blade is openand clicked into place. One reviewer said it was too stiff to open the knive one handed. Luckily I do not have arthritis yet so am able to open and close the blade one handed. Yes, agreed it is a bit stiff to pull open but I prefer it this way than if it could be easily flicked open. Anyhow, I haven’t had to resort to using a bit of oil to make opening a bit smoother
It comes with pocket clip in place. Looks like I can unscrew the main pinion and remove this clip.
Reckon it is one of the better sub-10 purchases I have made. At least I have found this folding knife more comfortable to use, and I am more confident using it than compared to the old Stanley designs.
I never heard of OX until 2 months ago when chanced upon “tough” (near indestructible) bucket. That’s because my experience of “made in China” products from unknown brands lack R&D, poorly designed, else poorly produced in order to cut costs to make the product cheap. Well, thanks to the bucket and now this knife, both exceeded expectations when taking prices into account, so OX has gone onto my acceptable list of branded tools.