Most folding knives pick a size and live with it. The Zyac Z01S doesn’t. With the blade open, you press a button, slide the back half of the handle forward, and the knife locks into a shorter grip, trading a full-length handle for close control without ever closing the blade.
Zyac Design is in the last stretch of the knife’s Kickstarter run, and backers have put in more than $65,000 against a $5,000 goal.
Zyac Z01S Titanium
Grade 5 titanium handle that slides and locks short with the blade open · Böhler M390 blade in drop point or tanto · Campaign ends Saturday, November 14
Price: $399 $499 (save $100, 20% off)
Where to buy: Back it on Kickstarter
A handle that slides, then locks short
The trick lives in the handle’s rear section, which rides on a sliding structure built into the Grade 5 titanium frame. Zyac has chased this idea across two earlier designs, the Z01 and the Z05, using sliding parts to fit more blade into less handle.
Press the release, slide, and the section clicks into its short position. Your hand ends up closer to the edge, right where you want it for controlled work: scoring, trimming, shaving a whittle stick down to a point.
Slide it back out, and the knife is a conventional full-grip folder again.
Grip length is a trade-off every folder makes once, at the factory. A long handle gives leverage and keeps your hand away from the work. A short one puts your fingers right behind the edge, where detail cuts stop feeling like steering a boat. The Z01S is built for people who kept wishing that trade could run both ways.
In short mode, the knife is meant to feel like a small fixed blade: locked, rigid, no hinge in the conversation. Three generations of sliding designs got Zyac here, and the Z01S is the most complete version of the idea so far.
Two locks share one job
A liner lock holds the blade open in both modes, same as any folder. The second lock is the one built for the trick: when the handle shortens, a separate interlock engages so the blade can’t fold in short mode, even if the liner lock gets knocked loose.
That second lock earns its keep on paper. A liner lock is a friction device, and friction can lose an argument under spine pressure or a twisted grip. A mechanical block takes the question off the table in exactly the mode where your hand sits closest to the edge. Zyac locked the control, too: the release button won’t press while the knife is closed, so the handle can’t slide forward onto the edge inside a pocket or a bag.
M390, in two shapes
The blade is Böhler M390, a powder-metallurgy stainless that makers reach for when edge retention is the brief. It holds a working edge through long stretches of cardboard, cord, and camp chores, and it shrugs off rust while it does it.
Backers pick the shape after the campaign ends, in the survey. Drop point or tanto: the drop point’s curved belly for everyday slicing, the tanto’s reinforced tip for piercing work. Nobody has to commit at pledge time.
Titanium first, zirconium above it
The standard knife is machined Grade 5 titanium with a stonewashed finish, and every screw, plate, and rail sits out in the open. The mechanism is the decoration. It gives the knife a deconstructed, instrument-like look that most folders hide under their scales.
Exposed hardware has a practical side, too. Every fastener on this knife is visible and reachable, which is the difference between a knife you can strip, clean, and time yourself, and one that goes back to the maker for a tune-up.
Three collector editions sit above the standard knife: black zirconium over a gold titanium frame, a full black zirconium build, and a ZircuTi frame paired with a Damascus blade. The standard knife runs $399 against a $499 retail price, with a $369 launch special in the mix.
The full black zirconium edition is $699 against $899.
No clip, six glow slots
There’s no pocket clip on this knife, which will split the room. Carry runs through a lanyard hole and the included knife bead, and a clip is an optional add-on for backers who refuse to go without one.
Each side of the handle carries three slots sized for tritium or photoluminescent tubes, six in total. A dark drawer, a tent floor at 2 a.m., the bottom of a pack: the knife can announce itself in all of them. The tubes are add-ons, sold separately.
The campaign closes Saturday
Zyac is the same team behind the NanoArc, the curved titanium micro tool we covered in April after it raised more than $39,600. The Z01S comment thread is full of backers from that earlier run, which is its own kind of track record. One hundred twenty-five backers put up this campaign’s $65,000, an average pledge north of $500, and entry tiers are not doing that math. Collectors are buying the upper builds.
Four days is what’s left. Shipping is charged separately, and the blade shape gets picked in the post-campaign survey. When the campaign closes, the launch pricing goes with it.
Knives that do something genuinely new don’t show up often. This one does it with a slide and a click.
Zyac Z01S Titanium
Grade 5 titanium handle that slides and locks short with the blade open · Böhler M390 blade in drop point or tanto · Campaign ends Saturday, November 14
Price: $399 $499 (save $100, 20% off)
Where to buy: Back it on Kickstarter
