For 14 years, The James Brand has been the poster child of design-first everyday carry, and it’s a reputation that his earned them equal parts devotion and eye-rolling depending on which corner of the knife forums you frequent. But a dog doesn’t bark at a parked car.
Lately, the Portland outfit has been on a tear, treating both the Elko and the Ellis to ground-up redesigns wrapped in a new machined dot motif. Turns out those were just the warm-up acts. The main event is the Helton, a full-blown pocket multi-tool aimed squarely at the Swiss Army Knife.
Picking a Fight With Switzerland
Victorinox has been building essentially the same knife since the 1890s, and while they’re great tools that we love, nothing has really changed over the last 100+ years. And enthusiasts have spent years asking for locking tools, better steel, and of course, a pocket clip.
The Helton is TJB answering that wishlist itself. It keeps the familiar footprint (3.5 inches closed, right in 91mm SAK territory) but rebuilds everything around it with 6061 aluminum scales, and a VG-10 blade in place of Victorinox’s famously soft house steel.
Four Tools, Four Locks
The Helton packs four folding tools including a partially serrated drop point blade, spring-loaded scissors, a Phillips driver that shares real estate with a bottle opener, and a flathead that also moonlights as a file and light scraper.
Every one of them gets its own dedicated liner lock, which is a proprietary TJB design. That’s four separate locks inside a 3.5-inch handle, is pretty impressive from a machining standpoint. It also cures the SAK’s oldest sin, and that’s tools folding shut on your knuckles mid-task.
Choose Your Loadout
The scales are also hiding two more useful tools. A set of tweezers and a beefy steel pick slot into the handles, and they’re interchangeable with the removable pocket clip. So you can run the clip plus one scale tool or ditch the clip and carry both. A lanyard and anodized bead round out the box.
Is $169 a lot next to a $59 Victorinox Compact? Sure. But the Compact’s 15 functions ride in plastic scales with no locks. We’d look at this as paying for the re-engineering, not necessarily the tool count.
Spec Sheet
Brand: The James Brand
Model: The Helton
Closed Length: 3.5″
Blade Length: 2.5″
Blade Steel: VG-10 (partially serrated)
Handle Material: 6061 anodized aluminum
Locking Mechanism: Proprietary TJB liner lock (one per tool)
Opening Style: Machined nail slot
Tools: Blade, scissors, Phillips driver, flathead driver, file, bottle opener, tweezers, pick
Carry: Removable pocket clip, lanyard, or slick
MSRP: $169
Pricing & Availability
The Helton launches tomorrow, August 25th, priced at $169, and we expect the first run to move fast.
Recap
The James Brand The Helton
The James Brand takes its shot at the Swiss Army Knife with the Helton, an all-metal 3.5-inch multi-tool that gives every single one of its tools a dedicated liner lock.
