WE Knife Tiercel Puts a Wharncliffe Edge on MagnaCut

Naming a knife after a falcon is a promise about the blade, and WE Knife Co.'s new Tiercel actually keeps it. The 3.24-inch wharncliffe has the long straight edge and the low, very acute point that the pattern is supposed to have, with no cosmetic detours in the profile.

The interest here is the steel. The Tiercel is one of a small but growing group of WE models built from CPM MagnaCut rather than the M390 the company leaned on for years. MagnaCut, Larrin Thomas's recipe, is a stainless that behaves like a tougher non-stainless: it holds an edge well, resists corrosion, and does not go brittle at the hardness a production knife runs. WE has clearly decided that buyers who use their knives on cardboard and cordage care more about that balance than about a familiar steel name on the blade etch.

Deployment is either the blade cutout or the clipper tab, and there is a jimped thumb ramp over the pivot to help steer the blade through high-precision work — a sensible detail on a knife whose straight edge invites pull cuts. The handle is where WE stripped things back: gently contoured titanium scales, a frame lock arm on the off side, and a sculpted titanium clip set for right-side, tip-up carry. All of that comes in at 2.54 ounces, which is light for a titanium frame lock of this length.

Against WE's own Nexomorph, which weighs 4.28 ounces, morphs into a push blade, and runs M390 at 2.95 inches, the Tiercel is the simpler tool and the easier daily carry. Against a plain drop-point folder in the same size class, the wharncliffe trades piercing and belly for a straight edge that never runs out of contact with what it is cutting.

There is no Damascus version, which is a small mercy — but two dressed-up titanium scales are offered, one in a blue and purple whorl pattern and one in a flamed titanium finish that looks closer to a heat-anodized custom than a production knife. Ships at the end of October.

Shop WE Knife →