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).