Small CRK Sebenza with micarta inlays

This just arrived yesterday. it wasn't a planned purchase at all. a friend of mine was tossing up buying a new one and we were talking about it for a few weeks and he finally ordered the small inlay for $475.

when it arrived, he wasn't super inclined to keep it, deciding he'd rather sell it and have a plain model which is probably the better purchase IMO at $100 less

so i said.. if you want just throw it in a drawer and i'll buy it in 6 months. he said sure, and then posted it to me for xmas (sort of guarantees the sale that way too. haha )

i got mine the same day his new plain one arrived. both happy people.

there is a lot to like about these knives. i still wish they would grind these thinner, but even though this is a typical thickish grind. i find its cutting performance in cardboard to be very nice (meaning acceptable) in a way that im not inclined to reprofile and thin this blade down like i did the impinda. it still cuts better than the impinda after i'd thinned that a bit.

the large sebenza has been my favourite all time folder from all the ones ive tried. the overall design, shape open and closed just speaks to me. the simplicity also.

the small has always felt a litle small for me in terms of opening and closing with my large hand it is not super easy and requires some thought to do it.. but the smaller model is a lot less weight and so far better as a pocket knife vs a work knife. the small ones seem to have a much stiffer action than the large.. probably related to spring and detent size.

the 31 has a number of changes over the 21. some for the better. some dont feel for the better. they are using a ceramic lock interface same as their other models now. so the ceramic ball is both the lock interface and the detent ball. this was said to be an factory improvement as it is genuinely a stronger better lock with less sticking in their testing, and in Tim Reeves words, anyone spine whacking a 21 could easily put enough force on the hardened titanium to sheer off the hardened portion and ruin the knife. that wont happen with the ceramic. I have to wonder though if serious impacts will not compress the titatium housing or disloge the ceramic. also. ceramic is relatively brittle, so you'd think spine whacks might crack the ceramic ball. All of this is meaningless to me because it falls into dumb shit territory AFAIK (although my folder design was made so that none of this would ever be an issue)

other differences that are weird to me. they used to use a 303 soft steel bushing held by a pivot pin to be the stop pin of the blade. the mass of people doing extreme knife flicks and flipping vs opening and closing the knife caused may stop pins to deform over time causing lock issues.
i guess it got to the point with all the other flipping frame locks out there their "flipping voids warranty" was sounding old hat.
they changed to a hardened 416 stop pin housed in the folder with shoulders.

it solved one problem that was only an issue to people that use the knife the wrong way, and caused far more issues AFAIK.
the sebenza claim to fame was the bushing pivot and the ability to tighten every screw down tight and get a perfect action every time with no blade play. this was because of the perfect factory tolerances..

this is GONE.. now that there is a shoulder pin made seperately, its almost impossible to get consistent tolerances across all parts of the back spacer, pivot bushing and stop pin.. they are very close, but not perfect, and you can never fix them as the shouldered pin cannot be changed.

this blade, and many others. when tightened down is no better than any cheaper knife that overtightened stops its working. they are even supplying loc-tite with the knife now because they have done this "downgrade"

now you basically tighten the screws to the point where they stop turning easily and leave it there. this gives the typical excelled sebenza feel.

we are talking about microscopic tolerance issues here.. but it is no longer doing what a sebenza primary claim is. however the tolerances are still so amazing that you can basically fit the knife together without putting in any screws and the knife will work and hot fall apart. so its still quite an amazing piece of work.. its just different.

i think if they had just used a hardened bushing instead of the old 303 it would have solved all the issues and still been like a 21.

still.. i love the knife.

blade steel is the newer S45VN will be nice to see how it goes over time.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/06/2022 12:19PM by cKc (Kyley Harris).

That looks nice, I like the micarta bits.

I obviously can’t say for sure but I think you’re probably right about the changes made with regards to the bushing, lock, etc. A simple materials change probably could have been an adequate fix, like using a martensitic stainless instead of 303, as you mentioned.

You might be right about the ceramic ball slowly impacting into the titanium with time/use. I don’t think it’s likely to crack/shatter though, it’s just way too hard relative to the titanium. I’m thinking of dropping a glass sphere on the ground outdoors, vs dropping it on a steel plate. The dirt is just so much softer it won’t stress it enough to break it, the steel still isn’t as hard as the ceramic but it’s hard enough to overstress the glass and break it.

I still haven’t even seen one of those in person, let alone owned one. I’m actually looking at buying the automatic version of your old favorite Benchmade 940, they look like a really solid knife. Right now I’ve got a Pro-Tech auto on the way.

cKc,
Nice! I have always had some type of Sebenza on my grail list of knives.

I have just ordered a large inkosi also.
I have my large sebenza in nz. I am keen to see how the design differences between the bushing sebenza and inkosi play out over time. I suspect that the lack of bushing may make a knife with more simplicity and greater longevity due to being able to make micro adjustments on the pivot over the years.

cKc,
Nice! You are getting quite a collection of CRK's!

I used to have a fantastic collection. but i sold them all a while back to raise the funds to purchase my fishing boat.

i lost a lot of money on my collection doing rush sales, so in hindsight i wish i'd kept the CRK

They are my favorite folding knives, mainly because of the designs.

its sad that they are all just too thick.. 0,020" behind the edge with 18-20 dps might be ok for people using it just on hides and meats, but its just so unusable for what i need in a utility knife, which is to cut wood, plastics, packagings etc.. and do it without forces that make it unsafe.

i reground the edge of this one to thin it down a bit so that its what i'd call mediocre performance, rather than poor performance, but not good or great performance.

no exact measurements, but i just dropped the angle to about 12 dps and ground away the shoulder a bit.

these are some of the ones i had before.

that morning star sebenza was just amazing.


i still have the large 21 accoustic guitar, but its in NZ, along with the nyala fixed blade.