I got my carbon fiber chimera with talonite blade yesterday. After owning the knife for 2 days here are my impressions.
Lock Up
The lock up of the knife is the first thing I look for in a folder. The lock up of this knife is rock solid. The knife passes the spine wack test and all other tests I've done including trying to accidently unlock the knife by torquing the handle. I have complete confidence in the lock, which is pretty rare. The lock is a very thick (.08") liner lock. There is absolutely no blade play in any direction even when the blade is torqued hard. The action is very smooth and the oversized ball detent does a very good job of keeping the blade closed.
With all this said I do have one complaint about the lock: to have the liner clear the blade tang requires a good amount of force and hurts my thumb if I do it continually. This difficulty in unlocking comes just before the liner clears the blade tang where the liner offers the most resistance, not because of galling. The titanium liner has very minimal sticking with the talonite. This only occurs when i unlock the knife over and over and my thumb will get sore. Casual unlocking should pose no problem.
Ergonomics
This may be one of the most ergonomic knives I have ever handled. There are not hot spots. The liner and clip pose no problem to the ergonomics of the handle.
Asthetics
What can I say? The knife looks awsome! The carbon fiber especially surprised me as to how good it looks.
Fit and Finish
While there are some noticable grind marks, (on the blade tang and where the cutouts reliefs for the liner) they are very minor and are hardly noticable. The blade is a tad off center when closed. The blade grind is perfect.
Talonite
This is my first experience with talonite and first impressions of it are not very good. The knife came pretty dull, I know talonite only gets so sharp but I expected it to at least be able to shave. After sharpening it, it did get sharper but will barely shave. I am currently testing it with BG42. BG42 will get much sharper and has a lot of bite but we will see if talonite will hold it's mediocre edge after the bg42 no longer cuts.
Overall the knife is awsome and I would not hesitate to buy another. The slot does take some getting used to but that soon becomes second nature.
Lock Up
The lock up of the knife is the first thing I look for in a folder. The lock up of this knife is rock solid. The knife passes the spine wack test and all other tests I've done including trying to accidently unlock the knife by torquing the handle. I have complete confidence in the lock, which is pretty rare. The lock is a very thick (.08") liner lock. There is absolutely no blade play in any direction even when the blade is torqued hard. The action is very smooth and the oversized ball detent does a very good job of keeping the blade closed.
With all this said I do have one complaint about the lock: to have the liner clear the blade tang requires a good amount of force and hurts my thumb if I do it continually. This difficulty in unlocking comes just before the liner clears the blade tang where the liner offers the most resistance, not because of galling. The titanium liner has very minimal sticking with the talonite. This only occurs when i unlock the knife over and over and my thumb will get sore. Casual unlocking should pose no problem.
Ergonomics
This may be one of the most ergonomic knives I have ever handled. There are not hot spots. The liner and clip pose no problem to the ergonomics of the handle.
Asthetics
What can I say? The knife looks awsome! The carbon fiber especially surprised me as to how good it looks.
Fit and Finish
While there are some noticable grind marks, (on the blade tang and where the cutouts reliefs for the liner) they are very minor and are hardly noticable. The blade is a tad off center when closed. The blade grind is perfect.
Talonite
This is my first experience with talonite and first impressions of it are not very good. The knife came pretty dull, I know talonite only gets so sharp but I expected it to at least be able to shave. After sharpening it, it did get sharper but will barely shave. I am currently testing it with BG42. BG42 will get much sharper and has a lot of bite but we will see if talonite will hold it's mediocre edge after the bg42 no longer cuts.
Overall the knife is awsome and I would not hesitate to buy another. The slot does take some getting used to but that soon becomes second nature.
