Is it just me, or is Kershaw handling the Natrix line all wrong?

Comeuppance

Comeuppance

Fixed Blade EDC Emisssary
Joined
Jan 12, 2013
Messages
4,765
I’m just worried that they might be inadvertently sabotaging the potential success of a line of knives that I really like the idea of.

They had a really good notion: Take an extinct premium ZT model that people want and introduce it as a budget model. Yes. Take my money. Please.

But, stumbling out of the gate, they release the first several as assisted models with poor QC. Fine for the general public, but the people who actually know the lineage of the Natrix are unusually predisposed to dislike assisted knives - and even non-knife guys noticed the poor quality.

Many color variants later, they introduce the knife as a KVT knife with better quality control. Finally!

… But it has a coated blade and somewhat offputting (personal opinion, I know) blue G10 handles with a CF overlay. This continues to be the only manual normal-sized Natrix, unless I am mistaken.

Then, we have the Natrix XL, getting even closer to being the legendary 0777. It’s big! It retains the handle design, fuller, and pivot hardware!
… But it has a black coated blade and green G10 handles.

The Copper Mini Natrix was a bold move, and probably the idea I like the most.

Look, I’m all for having different looks on knives, but, maybe, on your launch, don’t get too niche with your aesthetic choices. If people like it, they’ll buy the satin-bladed black G10 version and likely pick up the color variants as you release them. I’d own a Natrix XL and a KVT Natrix right now if they had black handles and uncoated blades, and, if there are other out there like me, I worry their sales analysis will show too few sales to justify developing new models without coated blades.
 
Stonewashed/satin combo finish blade with black G10 XL version would be the bees knees. Or some black/satin combo blade would be nice as well.
 
many of us are talking about them and many getting them, so I guess they are doing it right. the initial issues was a bad start but seems that's been fixed and mistakes happen. kai isnt alone on making a mistake on a launch. no ones perfect.

I'd prefer a larger copper and the xl in uncoated blade maybe even the d2 over the 8cr13mov, but I'm nitpicking and they cant do one for everyone's preference so..........
 
Doesn't the Bareknuckle pretty much fill that gap? That to me seems like the American made basic natrix.
 
Brhowser87 said:
Doesn't the Bareknuckle pretty much fill that gap? That to me seems like the American made basic natrix.
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It is -very- close, with the sculpted handles, blade shape, and clip. It falls short (literally) of my preferred blade length, however, and doesn't have a fuller.

Shameless hotlinked images for comparison:

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b00n said:
M390 Satin finish XL Copper Natrix, I'd buy one! The others not so much.
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I was going to say something about how heavy that would be, but then I did some math:
Copper Natrix is 6.4" overall, weighs 3.2oz
Natrix XL is 8.75" overall, weighs 4.1oz

Both have roughly the same blade/handle ratio (0.75:1 vs 0.748:1)
The Natrix XL is 136.72% the size of the Cu Natrix. So, if you made the Cu Natrix 36.72% larger, it would weigh...

4.37oz. Not exactly a chunker for the size. I dig it.
 
Honestly, I'm deeply thankful they went with something at least an iota more interesting than black G-10 handles. If you like black G-10 handles, that's fine, go buy one of the roughly billion available knives with them and leave the ones that have a splash of interesting color alone.
 
Comeuppance said:
I’m just worried that they might be inadvertently sabotaging the potential success of a line of knives that I really like the idea of.

They had a really good notion: Take an extinct premium ZT model that people want and introduce it as a budget model. Yes. Take my money. Please.

But, stumbling out of the gate, they release the first several as assisted models with poor QC. Fine for the general public, but the people who actually know the lineage of the Natrix are unusually predisposed to dislike assisted knives - and even non-knife guys noticed the poor quality.

Many color variants later, they introduce the knife as a KVT knife with better quality control. Finally!

… But it has a coated blade and somewhat offputting (personal opinion, I know) blue G10 handles with a CF overlay. This continues to be the only manual normal-sized Natrix, unless I am mistaken.

Then, we have the Natrix XL, getting even closer to being the legendary 0777. It’s big! It retains the handle design, fuller, and pivot hardware!
… But it has a black coated blade and green G10 handles.

The Copper Mini Natrix was a bold move, and probably the idea I like the most.

Look, I’m all for having different looks on knives, but, maybe, on your launch, don’t get too niche with your aesthetic choices. If people like it, they’ll buy the satin-bladed black G10 version and likely pick up the color variants as you release them. I’d own a Natrix XL and a KVT Natrix right now if they had black handles and uncoated blades, and, if there are other out there like me, I worry their sales analysis will show too few sales to justify developing new models without coated blades.
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Gotta agree with you on all this. Also I think the copper Natrix is probably the coolest. I am looking forward to trying the bareknuckle but I think it comes assisted and whether or not the knife has a detent that will allow it to work well unassisted based on the detent it has. I will probabaly wait until some special edition Bareknuckles come out in s35vn or m390. Still I believe the bareknuckle is aluminum framed and part of what makes the Natrix appeal to me is that the knife is mostly g10.

Another thing that I would have loved to see is any steel but 8cr13mov. Not that I hate 8cr13mov and if I really like the knife I can live with it but even 12c27 would have made me much happier.

Btw dealing with strangely coloured scales can be dealt with RIT dye. Theres an even better dye than RIT that a friend uses for dying scales. I will post the name and notify you when I find out.
 
Insipid Moniker said:
Honestly, I'm deeply thankful they went with something at least an iota more interesting than black G-10 handles. If you like black G-10 handles, that's fine, go buy one of the roughly billion available knives with them and leave the ones that have a splash of interesting color alone.
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It's the black blade that bothers me. DLC coating is out of the question, so it's basically a 100% chance it'll have that old-school Cold Steel black coating effect where it looks like hot garbage after a week of use. Throw a stonewash on there and it's golden.

If they don't come out with one soon, I might just buy one and send it out to be stonewashed.
 
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Comeuppance said:
I was going to say something about how heavy that would be, but then I did some math:
Copper Natrix is 6.4" overall, weighs 3.2oz
Natrix XL is 8.75" overall, weighs 4.1oz

Both have roughly the same blade/handle ratio (0.75:1 vs 0.748:1)
The Natrix XL is 136.72% the size of the Cu Natrix. So, if you made the Cu Natrix 36.72% larger, it would weigh...

4.37oz. Not exactly a chunker for the size. I dig it.
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You don't understand the math you're doing there, sorry.
 
Comeuppance said:
Well, it was nice of you to take the time to tell me I'm doing it wrong without explaining why or providing the correct math.
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Okay, the way you're doing the math you should always get 2 12-inch pizzas instead of an 18-inch, right? That's like getting a 24-inch pizza by the way you're doing the math. Except you're calculating area, not a single dimension, like OAL, so the 18-inch pizza actually is bigger than the two 12-inch pizzas.

In your example it's even worse, because the scales likely won't just be longer AND taller, they'll also probably be thicker. That means the weight is going to be almost certainly more than double what the copper Natrix is. You're thinking in a single dimension about a 3D object.

Honestly sorry if you were offended by the earlier reply, just had to finish a thing real quick and figured I would have time to edit in an explanation before you saw/replied.
 
I too would like to see a full size Copper Natrix, weight be damned.

I am still disappointed in my KVT blue/grey natrix. The darn detent made it painful to flip, and I got a callus on my finger trying to break it in. Still no dice. Terrible for a great design. I will try the bareknuckle when released, and if they don't do it right, I am washing my hands of anything natrix-related in the future.
 
Comeuppance said:
Well, it was nice of you to take the time to tell me I'm doing it wrong without explaining why or providing the correct math.
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As, perhaps, a better real world example, take the classic Buck 110. It's pretty universally regarded as a hefty knife and the majority of that weight comes from the brass incorporated into it. Copper is actually a bit heavier than brass and the way the Natrix is constructed you're talking about full, solid scales of the stuff instead of double bolsters and liners and, with the XL size, a knife that would be larger in pretty much every dimension except blade length and OAL (which would be about the same) as a Buck 110. The 110 is 7.2 ounces, so the Natrix might be, what? 9 or 10 oz? We're very probably talking the same kind of weight as a Cold Steel 4 Max.
 
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