The history of the 360¡ Pivot is a long story. So I'll give you the Readers Digest version. My oldest friend, and partner in DeltaZ, had a very old knife
that his father got in the Philippines 30 some years ago while covering the Vietnam war for CBS News. It was shaped like a pen and worked like a butterfly, but was made from the cheapest steel. Barney asked me to look into redesigning this for manufacturing.
I didn't like the "butterfly" qualities (they are illegal in my state) so I started working on other concepts. The first 360¡ Pivot we made was of wood (actually tongue depressors) to explain the unique, but hard to describe, opening movement. That design went to paper. It was prototyped by a custom knife maker we knew. The prototype was then reworked to production drawings and finally into production. That is the short version. There were many rejected designs and changes between the first concept, and the production 360¡ Pivot.
By the way, I'm not done yet. There may yet be another version of the knife to come!
As for me, I was found floating down a river as an infant by my mother, the Princess of ... Just kidding. IÕm a motion picture Key Grip with a love and interest in all things engineering. My work credits include "Forrest Gump", "Air Force One", "Wild Wild West" (sorry) and "End Of Days" to name a few. As a Key Grip, I run the Grip Dept. where we do all the camera and lighting engineering. Currently I am finally unemployed (I have been working on back to back movies for 22 months, and needed a break.) So I spend my time working on
DeltaZ matters and new knife designs. Also working on a kit airplane (Lancair 360) with my DeltaZ partner. The airplane's name is Delta Zulu.
All the best!
Patrick
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JPD
Principle Designer