“Why don’t you talk about a normal knife for a change?”

Fine.

(Paging user @GraniteM…)

The Gerber EAB is a unique take on the EDC, a liner locking utility knife folder with a low MSRP.

Sorry.

As you can see, the play here is that it takes standard trapezoidal utility knife blades and thus neatly sidesteps two hurdles inherent in designing a cheap but competent knife. The first is eliminating the need for fancy performance knife steels and precision machining of the same by outsourcing the blade entirely. And the second is helping it appeal to non-knife people, who might be dreading the effort and/or expense of having to keep their own knife sharp.

The result is pretty much the perfect little every day carry knife for the everyman – the sort of person who might need to open some boxes or mail, cut the occasional rope, sharpen the odd pencil. But probably not have to slay any zombies or cut down a tree.

Actually, even if your workflow involves a lot of boxes the EAB should be perfect. The best tool in the world for box cutting is, well, a box cutter blade. The thin profile of one of these utility knife blades makes it just glide through cardboard, in a way that’s tough to achieve with a fancier, but thicker, knife.

The mechanism is a simple liner lock. No thumb stud is provided so the package stays sleek and snag free, but you can open it with one hand with just a modicum of dexterity. A little ricasso is provided for your index finger so you have a little more to grab without cutting yourself.

The EAB is scarely any bigger than it needs to be to contain its blade. It’s just about 2-3/4" long closed, and 5-1/8" long open. 1-9/16" of the installed utility blade’s edge is exposed and usable and yes – you can take it out and flip it around to use both ends of the blade if the half you have out gets dull. It’s all stainless steel except the blade, and weighs in at 63.7 grams (2.25 ounces).

The reverse has a pocket clip which Gerber say can double as a money clip, if you’re into that sort of thing. As you can see, mine is a working knife and it’s accumulated its share of scuffs and scratches over the years. I also could have chucked a fresh blade in it for photography purposes… But I didn’t, because I can’t be bothered. This isn’t a knife that’s designed to be pretty.

Gerber ship this with a thicker than usual utility blade preinstalled, which I’ve long since worn to nothing and replaced. Exchanging the blade is pretty easy, but does require undoing the pictured screw. The screw head is designed such that you can remove it with the edge of a coin, and the penny I used is pictured here.

Usually in my little reviews I disassemble the knife in question a bit further and we have a gawk at the spacers and pivots and screws and all. But the EAB has a pair of these spanner screw heads on either side and believe it or not, I don’t have a bit that fits it very well. It’s clear they don’t want you messing around in there, so just this once I’ll behave.

Hey now it’s you-know-who, I’ve got the you-know-what, I place it you-know-where, you-know-why: we compare.

The EAB is quite a bit smaller than my usual EDC knife, the Kershaw CQC-6K. Its slim and minimalist exterior doesn’t look very knifelike at all, and the pocket clip is just shy of what you could charitably consider a deep carry design. The EAB is thus unlikely to attract much comment or notice if you have it about your person in polite company.

The Inevitable Conclusion

The EAB is a knife for everyone, despite not being a knife for everyone. There are an awful lot of things it hasn’t got: A slick tactical opening mechanism, much in the way of length or girth, any kind of collectability, a corkscrew… But what it has got is utility, in spades.