I'd rather have an RC-Folder about the size of an RC-4 if one could fold it in half. Run the blade at around 3 3/4ths and the handle a little longer than the RC-4. Lock back, ambi thumbstuds, a coated 1095 blade run into the 60s in hardness, fully flat ground blade in a drop point profile, but with a useably acute point. Phosphor bronze washers. Four position three screw mounted hella stout pocket clip that lets the knife ride deep in the pocket. Adjustable pivot. Black coated 420HC liners and locking bar. Green and/or orange end user changeable micarta scales. Lanyard hole. Fully maintainable by the end user.
In my view, such a knife is the ultimate urban RAT, because clipped folders are way more commonly carried than are neckers.
In fact I'd call it the RC-EDC. I really think that a very hard and extremely sharp 1095 based folder would get away from the "me too" aspect of the folder market. Everyone makes a stainless steel folder, but an enthusiast brand like RC can be different and get away with it by doing a carbon steel folder, so long as the end user can be entrusted with an easy to disassemble and maintain design.
The Model 1 was a good lesson in not how to do a folder worthy of the RAT name. It is/was a liner lock, which isn't butch enough for the brand. It is/was only fully ambidextrous with effort. A knife should come with dual thumbstuds or not bother.
The scales are/were some sort of zytel, which while serviceable, screams cheap.
Of course, the AUS-8 blade and Taiwanese manufacture, while not deal breakers, didn't compel me to purchase one either. IIRC, the original mass marketed Model 1 retailed for about $70.00. In that range a folder is bracketed in price by the excellent Spyderco Endura 4 in its standard VG-10 steel and on the high end by AXIS lock equipped Benchmade Griptilians.
If RC does a folder, it has to pencil out at around a hundred bucks, but it has to be "market exotic" at that price point. Lock backs are proven strong and are inherently easier to mass produce to close tolerances than are more trendy locks like frame locks. They are inherently ambidextrous. The place an RC-Folder can set itself apart in a folder is in the blade.
Run that sucker in 1095 at 61-63 Rockwell and make it a cutter. Leave heavy prying to the rest of the line-up.
(joke! Before anyone gets angry, my economy is FUBAR as well!).
I think boats just described the folder of my dreams.:thumbup:
