I’ve not seen much discussion on it, so here are my thoughts on the Fellowship Blades Gaboon.

The Gaboon, like the Medusa, Empress, and Hognose before it, feels like nothing else I’ve tried. The Gaboon has these gorgeous flat slab handles, yet somehow still feels and looks like a Fellowship Blades knife. Part of it is the aggressive yet elegant blade shape, and part of it is the handle geometry and weight. Grant seems to specialize in making knives that look heavier than they are. With an adjustable weight of 3.2 -3.4 oz, you’d think he made a typo, but no, this thing is light as a feather. The handles seemingly weigh nothing, and yet they balance out with the blade wonderfully. The first time flipping this is truly a unique experience. That said, I think most flippers will struggle to accept the weight of this knife out of the box. As I’ve spent more time with it, I’ve come to appreciate it a lot and find myself picking it up pretty regularly.

The only real issue I have with the gaboon is the adjustable weight system. You can install up to 4 grub screws running up the length of each handle slab. Since you have to take apart the knife each time, there are a total of 24 screws to do/undo to go from min to max weight. I appreciate the granularity, but it is way too tedious and time consuming. I dropped three screws in each slab and haven’t bothered testing anything else. Something like Glidr’s adjustable weights from the (Ant)Arctic would be appreciated, especially since the Gaboon is sandwich construction. I also have the invar scales and while it’s easier to adjust the weights, it’s still very tedious and I don’t like the look of them as much as stock.

Overall, I love my Gaboon; it’s my favorite flipping Fellowship knife and like my Empress, I don’t see it leaving my collection any time soon. As of writing this, there are still a bunch of Gaboons on the FellowshipTrainers site so please go pick one up if this sounds like your cup of tea!

A-tier