I had a great time designing my current knife, the Index, and wanted to move to an EDC folder. I thought long and hard about what style do I make. The three main that I could think of were a fiction folder, a slip joint, and a locking knife. There are pros and cons with all of them but I ended up going with a friction folder. My reasoning is that first, it is the simplest design of the three. I am a big fan of walking before you run. I started with a fixed blade and learned a ton. With a friction folder, I take a step in complexity without adding too many additional parts. Second, it makes it more friendly world wide. Like my Traveler, I like the idea of something that can go with you and a friction folder passes a lot more knife laws. Finally, there just aren't that many out there. There are a ton and ton of locking knives, a lot of slip joints, but the least amount of friction folders (that I can find).
Now that I knew I was going down the friction folder path I needed to come up with a design. I played with a bunch of different options and then had that "ah ha" moment. If I can design it just right I can come up with a knife that pairs with the Executive. It's going to be the same width and length and I hope to have an overall similar appearance.
Overall, I love the design right now. I have made a bunch of 3D printed prototypes in order to test it and just received some preliminary hardware. The next steps are going to be finalizing the design and then working on a functional prototype (or small production run). Depending on pricing I may just make 25 or 50 to start and go from there.
As always, let me know what you think and if you have feedback. Also, I need a name for this knife so if anyone has any ideas please let me know.