Switch the light off and the handle of the new Bestechman Cicada's Wing-TL keeps a dim blue charge. That is the easy part to describe. The part worth a second look sits under your thumb: a push button on the scale that trips a liner, not a sliding bar. The BMK24-T-1 lists at $109, ships in stock, and holds a 3.15-inch 14C28N blade in a frame that weighs 2.75 ounces.
The button is not a crossbar
Crossbar locks get the attention right now, and for good reason: a spring-loaded bar sliding in a channel is ambidextrous, self-adjusting and stays clear of your fingers. Bestechman went a different route here. The button on the show side presses the lock face of a steel liner out of the blade tang, and the blade pivots on washers the way a conventional liner lock does.
What that changes is mostly in the hand. You close the knife with one thumb, no wrist flick, no reaching around to a liner you have to dig a nail under. There is also no pair of omega springs to snap, which is the failure point owners of crossbar folders complain about most often. What you give up is the self-adjusting nature of a bar lock: liner engagement is set at the factory, and the leaf that keeps the blade open is the same thin piece of steel any $40 liner lock uses.
Where 2.75 ounces comes from
Blade stock is 0.091 inch, or 2.3 mm, which is thin for a 3.15-inch blade and the single biggest reason the knife carries light. The handle is 0.43 inch across, the closed length 4.055 inches, and the carbon fiber scales are lighter than the G10 or micarta you find on most folders in this size class. Deep-carry clip, drilled for left or right, the usual arrangement.
A 3.15-inch blade in 14C28N usually lands somewhere between 3.3 and 3.9 ounces on a steel-lined frame. Getting under three means Bestechman traded blade stiffness for pocket manners. At 2.3 mm the blade will flex if you pry with it, and 14C28N is tough enough that it will bend back rather than snap. That is a fair trade for a knife that lives in a pants pocket, and a poor one if you planned to use it as a scraper.
What $109 buys in a crowded bracket
14C28N is a Swedish stainless that sharpens on a coffee mug and resists rust better than D2, and it is the default steel for budget folders for exactly those reasons. Bestechman does not publish a hardness figure for this run, and 14C28N usually runs between 58 and 60 HRC in production knives.
Spend the same money elsewhere and the trade-offs are clear enough. Kizer's Drop Bear 2 with a PCB scale runs $129 in CPM Cru-Wear, a steel that holds an edge longer than 14C28N and costs more to grind. Sencut and CIVIVI button locks cluster between $50 and $80 with comparable steel, plainer handles and no glow. The Cicada's Wing-TL is charging for two things those knives do not have: a lock mechanism you rarely see outside custom work, and a handle that keeps glowing after the porch light goes out.
Whether either is worth the gap depends on how you read the spec sheet. The blade is a known quantity. The lock is the argument.
The handle measures 0.43 inch across at its widest, and the button sits just proud enough of the carbon fiber that a thumb finds it without looking, with a travel of a couple of millimeters before the liner lets go.