CRKT Ken Onion Ripple

[Grant Lamontagne]

As much as I like Ken's work, and as much as I appreciate that this is a beautiful knife, I likely would not have bought one.  That has more to do with me not buying a whole heck of a lot of knives these days in favor of more functional multitools and SAKs.  That having been said, it is a nice knife and I am very thankful to the folks at CRKT for giving me one to take home! 



The aluminum handle on this one makes it amazingly light and the sleek handles make it feel very elegant.  I would prefer a slight recurve to the blade though, but that's a personal preference.  I would consider grinding the blade away a bit to give me that sweet recurve except the markings on the front side of the blade would be ruined! 





For those keeping track, I did manage to meet Ken this year, which I enjoyed greatly.  He's a really nice guy to talk to, and I did like a lot of his Kershaw designs, I haven't until now gotten into any of his CRKT stuff.  The man is not a one trick pony as he may have appeared with so many versions of the Speed Safe opener, as this knife so richly proves.



This is a sweet knife and at an MSRP for only $60, it's not a bad deal at all.



Def

[jekostas]

That knife used to be a Wal-Mart exclusive but it's going in to full distribution - 8Cr13MoV and liner lock vs. ACUTO+ and frame lock of the normal version.  I guess CRKT figures it won't cannibalize the sales of the higher end version, or the higher end version is being discontinued.

What I find surprising is they didn't change the model name slightly to reflect the difference.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Funny you say that- I was sure this was released last year, but they told me it was new.  Since I usually don't pay as much attention to the knives (yeah yeah, I know) as I do the tools I just assumed I was wrong.  Thanks for vindicating me! 

Of course that is another reason I probably wouldn't have bought it last year- I hate Wal Mart and don't shop there if I can avoid it.

Def

[Ashley]

If you decide you don't want it Def I'll PM you my addy.

[Grant Lamontagne]

You'll have to get in line Ash- I've already got an offer on it, and I'm not certain I even want to get rid of this one just yet.

It's a pretty nice knife, and if there was any doubt about that, the amount of interest in it proves that! 

Def

[Iagent]

The aluminum Ripple is very nice.  I was thinking about getting one on EBAY for $41 shipped, but instead, I bought a blue one that had the better blade, just a couple of days ago.  While it functions beautifully, the coloring on the knife was a little dissappointing.  The blue is different from one scale to the other, but for now this is my EDC, and I do like it.  The opening of the knife is addictive.
Here are pics.

[Grant Lamontagne]

From what I understand the anodizing process is hard to match from one run to the next, so maybe each scale came from different runs?  That probably wouldn't bother me- in fact I'd probably thing it was pretty neat! 

You are right though- this is a nice knife to play with!

Def

[Iagent]

The process for the coloring is called a Ti-Nitride coating, which is the coating for stainless.  However, you are probably right that the runs for the left and right sides were at different times, just like the leatherman tools with different dates on each half.  The coating process is also hard to control like anodizing.