Full hardened construction, purpose-built handle geometry, and the detail work our military customers have come to expect.

The Fairbairn–Sykes is the most storied fighting knife of the twentieth century — designed in the Second World War for British commandos by two veterans of the Shanghai police, carried through every theatre since, and never really out of service. The Patrol is our working interpretation of that lineage.

Reworked for the modern soldier

This is not a display piece. The Patrol configuration reworks the classic for modern patrol carry and field use: full hardened construction, purpose-built handle geometry that improves on the original’s famously slender grip, and the detail work our military customers have come to expect from the bench. The silhouette remains unmistakably F–S; the execution is entirely current.

A knife with a service record

Few patterns carry this much history on their profile. The original was issued to commandos, airborne forces and special units from 1941 onward, and the design has been adopted, adapted and honoured by regiments around the world ever since. Carrying one made properly — hardened throughout, finished by hand — is a way of keeping that lineage in working order rather than behind glass.

Who commissions it

Serving personnel who want the lineage with a service-grade edge; veterans marking their own history with the pattern; and collectors who believe an F–S should still be able to do its job. For formal occasions, the Parade configuration dresses the same knife for ceremony, with finishing and engraving specified to regiment or individual.

Built to specification

No Fairbairn–Sykes is pulled from a shelf. At commission you choose the steel — stainless RWL-34, PMC27 or AEB-L, carbon O1, or our in-house stainless Damascus, pattern-welded in Petworth from RWL-34 and PMC27 in patterns from Ladder to Odin’s Eye. Each has its own character; we will talk you through what suits the work you have in mind.

The handle is shaped to the blade from your choice of materials — stabilised woods and burls to fossilised mammoth ivory — and finished with standard or mosaic pins. Engraving is done in-house: initials, crests, and species studies fine enough to count the hairs.

The sheath

We make every sheath here, moulded precisely to the individual knife. Most Fairbairn–Sykess go out in leather — black, brown, or a colour of your choosing, with hand-tooling and engraved silver panels available for presentation pieces — though Kydex on our hybrid leather system is the right answer for hard, wet use.

Yours, on the record

No two Fairbairn–Sykess leave the workshop quite alike, and each one is treated accordingly: numbered, recorded in the ledger, warranted for life against manufacturing defects, and dispatched sharpened, papered and insured. It is the sort of record-keeping that matters on the day a knife becomes an inheritance.

When you are ready, design yours in the design tool or simply start the conversation — the finished piece always comes out of one.