Butch Vallotton, like most knifemakers, started making knives as a hobby, had to start selling knives to pay for his hobby and before he knew it became a professional fulltime knifemaker in 1984 with a waiting list of customers at the age of thirty.  A self-proclaimed gadget freak, a good part of his business comes from automatic knives and he is credited with inventing the ambidextrous blade thumb stud. 

His collaboration with Spyderco called the Vallotton Sub Hilt Folder features an ambidextrous thumb stud that both opens the blade (in addition to the Spyderco Round Hole) and doubles as a stop pin keeping the blade from rotating open beyond the locked position. 

A long time fan of Italian-style, heavy-stock folders the Sub-Hilt bears an international flavor with a modified coffin-shaped handle of polished black G-10 with tongue-and-groove fitted stainless bolsters.  Further complementing the handle is a Michael Walker LinerLock a four-way: tip-up/tip-down, right- or left-handed steel clip and screw-together