Honest Impressions of the Robo-Assisted Dominator from the Blade Show

Roadrunner · Jun 16, 2003

Well, I made the blade show last weekend and I really enjoyed drooling all over the Camillus booth. Here's what I thought of the Dominator:

Handle: I liked the carved titanium handle a lot. The flame pattern was really eye-catching and aided the grip a bit as well. Actually, I played with a custom Dominator on the Darrel Ralph table and I'm not sure I could tell the difference between the two as far as the handle was concerned. Very nice.

Lock: The frame lock was great, I especially liked the scallops on the inner side of the lock bar. It helped to spread out the pressure on the pad of my thumb while releasing the lock. Releasing the lock on this knife takes a lot of effort, which is understandable and not really a detractor on a knife this size. I'd love to see these on the Maxx too; it was a bit tougher on my thumb. They were on the Gibbs Maxx and it made a big difference, to me at least.

Blade: I love the shape of this blade! It was really just beautiful, nicely ground and finished. I wouldn't change a thing about it.

Robo mechanism: This is where the knife fell short to me. The Robo mechanism was way too stiff for my comfort level; once I got the blade moving it snapped with authority but the initial effort was too much for my taste. Hopefully this can be improved for production but when I asked if this was the production model the answer was yes. The custom Dominator on Ralph's table was a manual and I liked it much better.

So there it is. I love the shape and style of the knife, the construction was first-rate, but I don't think I'll be buying one with the Robo mechanism unless it's tweaked some more before prodcuction. Make a manual version and I'm all over it though.

Dirk · Jun 16, 2003

Well, you actually handled the Aftermath, not the Dominator. It's easy enough to get the names confused as both names have been flying around a lot lately.

I'm sure Will can give you the official answer, but I did hear it said that the production version should be a bit easier to open. The detent won't be as heavy.

You should also be able to remove the spring that operates the Robo-mechanism, thus making your knife a complete manual. This has been discussed in a couple other threads. If you do a search, you should be able to get the details.

penguinva · Jun 16, 2003

Thanks Dirk - it was definitely the Aftermath RR - I was with DDR all weekend at the table and if he had had a Dominator I would have been all over it - the spring on the Aftermath can be removed to make it manual if desired and put back in later. Awesome knife manual or robo-assist.

Bill

rajan · Jun 17, 2003

Hi,

All this talk about user removable spring has me thinking...is the folder user serviceable (disassemble, clean, reassemble) without voiding the warranty?

TIA.

Manji · Jun 18, 2003

it'd be great if taking the knife apart doesn't void the warranty. I don't really see why it does in the first place (well i guess it's cause theres a lot of people out there who don't know what they are doing...) If they made a more EDC friendly version of the aftermath, say in the 3.5" blade size i'd get it.

rajan · Jun 18, 2003

Originally posted by Manji
If they made a more EDC friendly version of the aftermath, say in the 3.5" blade size i'd get it.

That will be the Dominator.... 3.65" S30V robo-assisted blade.

Will Fennell · Jun 18, 2003

Roadrunner,
Thanks for your honest opinion! We have already noted customers input from the show and made adjustments to the force needed to start the blade opening. We wanted it to be more difficult to open than some of the competion out there, for safety reasons, but not too hard. We had the first knives assembled there at the show, and after returning from the show, we have had adjustments made to the rest of knives before they started shipping.

BTW, field testing @ the farm after the show tells us that this knife really CUTS! The free hanging 1" hemp rope was EASY with this monster.

Roadrunner · Jun 20, 2003

Thanks for all of the information guys! You're right, I was talking about the Aftermath :footinmou . Anyway the Aftermath was, as I said, really cool. Will, that's great that you have loosened it up, hopefully my local knife shop here will get some in so I can try it out with the new spring. I'd still like to see a manual version to make it a bit more affordable though. That's nice that it will work without the spring, it's always good to have options. Manji and rajan, I doubt it will be officially user servicable. If you're good and can do it without ruining the knife I would say go for it, but the Camillus warranty does state that dissasembly will void the warranty, so they could charge you if you ruin it. I'd expect that they would still help if it were a problem unrelated to dissasembly, since they're just a great company like that, but they do reserve the right to charge you if you've ruined it through abuse.

Just one more thing Will, I was serious about wanting to see those lock bar scallops on the original Maxx too. That was another of those little things that really jumped out at me when I handled all of them at once. Are there any plans for this? Thanks again for the information.