Linder knives SUPER EDGE 8 Worker

 WANGER Linder knives SUPER EDGE 8 Worker

Fully made in SOLINGEN Germany!

The Linder SUPER EDGE 8 WORKER is one seriously heavy duty western styled tanto blade made with Japanese Hitachi ATS-34 steel. 

The edge is as described "SUPER" and the proof is in the pudding as they say, this particular knife of mine did the following:

Yes, that's right, this essentially 5mm thick blade 

it sliced straight through that chunk of brass you see in the upper image, with no noticeable damage to the edge of the blade, either visually by eye or by running one's thumbnail across the edge to detect any evidence of edge damage! 

This knife of mine was on display at this years IWA 2025 at the Dirk Wanger Linder stand. Dirk kindly "donated" it to the cause!

The Linder SUPER EDGE 8 WORKER comes in either a black TPE grip 

or Linder's blaze orange TPE which they call "Easy Track" coloration. 

TPE is highly chemical resistant and this grip is super ergonomic. The original LINDER company worked hard to design and produce such a grip, which BTW has a keyway-ed tang and the lanyard hole liner goes all the way through the tang. So there is no chance of the handle parting company with the blade.

The Linder SUPER EDGE 8 WORKER design is from Dominik Graf and bears his logo of the "bear paw". 

The HRC is between 60-61 and the ATS-34 has  been vacuum hardened and cryogenically treated for optimal microstructure.

From my experience with many of the Linder range both prior to Dirk's acquisition and his own models of the Super edge series, these ATS-34 knives are super performers.

The Linder SUPER EDGE 8 WORKER has been designed with "heavy duty use" in mind and as such the tip is capable of extracting "buried arrowheads" from that tree "that got in the way" on that archery trip last week! 

Although, all jokes aside I don't plan on planting any of my arrows into any trees on the next archery trip, although, it's always possible and I have done it on one occasion when the arrow passed clean through a wild goat (dropping the goat where it stood) and embedded itself into (of course) the only tree stump to be found! Being in Australia, where those tree stumps seem to made out of steel, the spring steel of my broad head was, believe it or not, no longer in any way shape or form going to be used for hunting again!

Ok, so with this heavy duty western styled tanto tip this knife begs to used and is no show piece! 

There is a no nonsense Kydex scabbard and "Tek Lok style" quick release belt clip. The security of the knife within this scabbard is very good and inserting this knife you can feel a positive lock up.

The Geometry

The Wanger Linder Super Edge 8 Worker (that's a mouthful!!) main edge is ever so slightly curved. The blade itself represents a sabre grind and the full thickness of the spine occupies a little over half of the width of this blade, thus a very strongly constructed blade.

As mentioned the steel of choice here is Hitachi's ATS-34, a well-proven martensitic stainless steel capable of great HRC. These models hardened to HRC 60-61. The edge is bevelled and there are almost no noticeable grinding marks when using a X10 hand lens to examine the edge.

Whilst the milling marks are clearly visible under high magnification of approximately X12  magnification, the edges are free of grinding marks (but not dust LOL!).

Despite being a big chunk of 5mm ATS-34, this knife has great balance and feels very sturdy in the hand. 

This knife also came with a small fire steel. You'll see it later, nothing great to write home about but none the less it was housed in a kydex mini sheath. No striker as the spine of the Super Edge 8 Worker is acute enough to strike ANY steel.

It was pleasure to collaborate with Linder knives those years back and it came as a semi-shock at the time to hear that they had closed their doors. I say "semi" because it was clear the writing was on the wall when the company who had a long standing history as a manufacturer in Solingen started to sell other companies knives. It was however fantastic news to see that production has not only continued but a new injection of designs and ideas have arisen with the Wanger Linder name we see today and the continuation of the Super Edge series and as was evidenced at the Wanger Linder booth at IWA 2025 just recently in Germany.

I was a firm believer that the "Super Edge series" was what the original Linder needed to take them into the modern market place, keeping the usefulness of models designed to be used and not just looked at. Few production knives have come my way which were deadly sharp out of the box, so sharp I've managed to cut myself by a few clumsy moves, Linder and Wanger Linder knives were/are in that category.

Field reviews coming soon......

BCT