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Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
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Kershaw whiplash? any thoughts?
- Thread starter newknife
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2002
- Messages
- 131
Our original lanyard knife, the K-AT had a hole in it, but it was somewhat awkward to thread the lanyard. So when we were designing this knife we wanted the lanyard to be fast and easy to deploy and stow.
Gavin
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2005
- Messages
- 3,652
Thanks for the information and for taking the time to reply, Gavin.:thumbup: Unfortunately, I never got to try the K-AT, so I wasn't familiar with how it worked.
Regards,
3G
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2009
- Messages
- 4,573
I just got the Whiplash today, thanks to Hardheart. These are just my initial impressions, not a full review. I will do a full review in the next couple of days with -- if I can get may old piece of junk camera working -- pictures. In the meantime, here are my first thoughts.
I just received the Keershaw Whiplash knife in the mail, courtesy of Hardheart. It comes in a nicely designed silver, red and black box, as one would expect from a reputable maker like Kershaw. I’m in the graphic design business and I’ve designed a few boxes in my time. I certainly wouldn’t be ashamed if this were one of my designs: it’s nice. I doubt any of you care about the box though, so on to the knife.
Opening the box we find that it contains a plastic bag with the sheathed knife, one slip of paper with Kershaw information on it, and a second slip with a few words about the blade coating. Not all manufacturers bother telling you that coatings — all coatings — will scratch and wear with use. Nice touch, Kershaw.
Removing the knife and sheath from the bag we have, well, the knife in the sheath. The sheath itself seems to be, to my untrained eye, a composite of what I’m guessing is a ballistic nylon bonded to a semi stiff, yet flexible, plastic. The edges that form the belt loop are turned under and stitched, and there’s a formed plastic channel riveted to the edge where the cutting edge would be. A nylon strap with a heavy duty snap holds the knife securely in place. There is a nice little tab with the Kershaw name on it sewed to the outside of the sheath. All in all, it’s a decent, secure, safe sheath for a knife in this price range. Nothing fancy, nothing exotic, but a good, serviceable sheath, non the less. My personal preference on this particular knife would have been kydex, but I wouldn’t go to the expense of replacing this one, since it is a decent sheath.
Withdrawing the knife from the sheath brings us to the object of our interest: the knife itself. The blade itself has a fairly nice sweep to it up to the centerline, with the point itself pretty much in line with the handle, something that I very much like if I have to use the point for minor drilling of wood around camp. Above the cutting edge is an unsharpened clip point, with an unsharpened swedge going back about half the length of the black coated blade. The cutting edge of the knife is — how should I put this — less than a cutting edge. The hairs on my forearm, or anything else, are in no danger of being cut by this blade. Out of the box, this is the dullest knife I have ever seen, not at all what I would have expected from a company like Kershaw. When I do the actual review (no, this isn’t the actual review, just initial impressions) I’ll touch up the edge so we can test it for cutting ability and edge retention. Right now, it has no cutting ability, other than soft butter; yeah, it really is that dull.
The blade on one side has the Kershaw logo, while on the other side it says 4355 on one line, with 8Cr13MoV on the next line, and G & G Hawk Design on the bottom line. Below, at an angle next to the handle, it says China.
Moving on to the top of the .125 inch/3.175 mm thick blade we come to the 1/4 inch deep vertical cuts (6) in the blade. I’m not yet really sure of the purpose of these deep, deep cuts. If they’re meant to be jimping, it’s pretty excessive — although, with gloves on, it might be just what the doctor ordered. I must say that, when holding the knife as I would for fine work cutting notches in sticks or anything requiring good control at the back of the blade, they are perfectly positioned. Just behind the deep cuts is a section of more conventional, and smoother, jimping revealed by an inset portion of the handle.
The handle scales themselves seem to be molded plastic with an embossed pattern to improve the grip. I should point out that the edges of the plastic scales themselves are a little sharp, but I would think that a few passes with some sandpaper would quickly fix that. The scales are attached with six small pins (and probably epoxy, too, although I have no way of knowing for sure).
Now we come to the overall shape of the handle, and what has caused most of the hubbub about this knife. Let me begin by saying that the handle overall is relatively comfortable for a flat slabbed handle. I have only medium hands (I’m 5’9”
, but would like to have seen a longer handle. The tang of the knife protrudes from the back of the handle to provide anchoring points for the lanyard (more on that later), but is a little sharper than I would like and causes hot spots when holding the knife for work. Because of the deep choil on the bottom of the handle, the knife provides a surprisingly secure grip. So far so good, and if the designers had of stopped there, I think they would have had an instant winner on their hands. Unfortunately, they didn’t, and the next bit is what has stirred everybody up about this knife design: it the lanyard, or more specifically, the cut into the handle above the choil for storing the lanyard.
Because of the way the plastic scales overlap this inset, I can’t measure as accurately as I would like, but the tang at that point seems to be about 7/16 of an inch thick, which is actually a little thicker than I would have thought from the photo. As others have pointed out, there have been many knives made over the years with stick tangs, the classic Ka-Bar Marine fighting knife being just one example, that have proven to be sturdy and durable knives. The difference here being that the stick tang portion is only at the top of the knife along the spline, while a more traditional design, like the Ka-Bar, has the stick tang aligned along the center line of the blade. Is having the thin tang at the top inherently weaker? I really don’t know yet, but I must say that it certainly looks odd. We’ll have a better idea after testing, but right now I’m inclined to say that it’s stronger than I thought it would be.
All this brings us to the lanyard (you knew this was coming, didn’t you?). The lanyard itself seems to be a length of 550 paracord attached at the very rear of the knife by passing it through a set of holes, then melting the ends to make them larger than the holes. My guess is that it’s not the strongest method, but if it ever breaks, it should be easily replaceable; just don’t lose the little stretchy rubber tab that’s used to hold the lanyard in place in the handle when it’s not being used. The scales on this knife are actually four plastic scales mounted in such a way that they leave a deep channel along both sides of the knife to house the lanyard when it’s not in use, and a rubber tab holds it under tension by looping over a steel protrusion at the rear. It works, but it’s somewhat less than elegant.
Why go to all the trouble to design an entire knife around a lanyard? That’s a mystery to me. In my opinion they would have had a far better knife by eliminating the lanyard (c’mon, just drill a hole for it), not cutting into the tang beyond the choil, and having solid scales on each side. As I said earlier, I think that would have been a winner.
Thanks,
Dawsonbob
I just received the Keershaw Whiplash knife in the mail, courtesy of Hardheart. It comes in a nicely designed silver, red and black box, as one would expect from a reputable maker like Kershaw. I’m in the graphic design business and I’ve designed a few boxes in my time. I certainly wouldn’t be ashamed if this were one of my designs: it’s nice. I doubt any of you care about the box though, so on to the knife.
Opening the box we find that it contains a plastic bag with the sheathed knife, one slip of paper with Kershaw information on it, and a second slip with a few words about the blade coating. Not all manufacturers bother telling you that coatings — all coatings — will scratch and wear with use. Nice touch, Kershaw.
Removing the knife and sheath from the bag we have, well, the knife in the sheath. The sheath itself seems to be, to my untrained eye, a composite of what I’m guessing is a ballistic nylon bonded to a semi stiff, yet flexible, plastic. The edges that form the belt loop are turned under and stitched, and there’s a formed plastic channel riveted to the edge where the cutting edge would be. A nylon strap with a heavy duty snap holds the knife securely in place. There is a nice little tab with the Kershaw name on it sewed to the outside of the sheath. All in all, it’s a decent, secure, safe sheath for a knife in this price range. Nothing fancy, nothing exotic, but a good, serviceable sheath, non the less. My personal preference on this particular knife would have been kydex, but I wouldn’t go to the expense of replacing this one, since it is a decent sheath.
Withdrawing the knife from the sheath brings us to the object of our interest: the knife itself. The blade itself has a fairly nice sweep to it up to the centerline, with the point itself pretty much in line with the handle, something that I very much like if I have to use the point for minor drilling of wood around camp. Above the cutting edge is an unsharpened clip point, with an unsharpened swedge going back about half the length of the black coated blade. The cutting edge of the knife is — how should I put this — less than a cutting edge. The hairs on my forearm, or anything else, are in no danger of being cut by this blade. Out of the box, this is the dullest knife I have ever seen, not at all what I would have expected from a company like Kershaw. When I do the actual review (no, this isn’t the actual review, just initial impressions) I’ll touch up the edge so we can test it for cutting ability and edge retention. Right now, it has no cutting ability, other than soft butter; yeah, it really is that dull.
The blade on one side has the Kershaw logo, while on the other side it says 4355 on one line, with 8Cr13MoV on the next line, and G & G Hawk Design on the bottom line. Below, at an angle next to the handle, it says China.
Moving on to the top of the .125 inch/3.175 mm thick blade we come to the 1/4 inch deep vertical cuts (6) in the blade. I’m not yet really sure of the purpose of these deep, deep cuts. If they’re meant to be jimping, it’s pretty excessive — although, with gloves on, it might be just what the doctor ordered. I must say that, when holding the knife as I would for fine work cutting notches in sticks or anything requiring good control at the back of the blade, they are perfectly positioned. Just behind the deep cuts is a section of more conventional, and smoother, jimping revealed by an inset portion of the handle.
The handle scales themselves seem to be molded plastic with an embossed pattern to improve the grip. I should point out that the edges of the plastic scales themselves are a little sharp, but I would think that a few passes with some sandpaper would quickly fix that. The scales are attached with six small pins (and probably epoxy, too, although I have no way of knowing for sure).
Now we come to the overall shape of the handle, and what has caused most of the hubbub about this knife. Let me begin by saying that the handle overall is relatively comfortable for a flat slabbed handle. I have only medium hands (I’m 5’9”
, but would like to have seen a longer handle. The tang of the knife protrudes from the back of the handle to provide anchoring points for the lanyard (more on that later), but is a little sharper than I would like and causes hot spots when holding the knife for work. Because of the deep choil on the bottom of the handle, the knife provides a surprisingly secure grip. So far so good, and if the designers had of stopped there, I think they would have had an instant winner on their hands. Unfortunately, they didn’t, and the next bit is what has stirred everybody up about this knife design: it the lanyard, or more specifically, the cut into the handle above the choil for storing the lanyard.Because of the way the plastic scales overlap this inset, I can’t measure as accurately as I would like, but the tang at that point seems to be about 7/16 of an inch thick, which is actually a little thicker than I would have thought from the photo. As others have pointed out, there have been many knives made over the years with stick tangs, the classic Ka-Bar Marine fighting knife being just one example, that have proven to be sturdy and durable knives. The difference here being that the stick tang portion is only at the top of the knife along the spline, while a more traditional design, like the Ka-Bar, has the stick tang aligned along the center line of the blade. Is having the thin tang at the top inherently weaker? I really don’t know yet, but I must say that it certainly looks odd. We’ll have a better idea after testing, but right now I’m inclined to say that it’s stronger than I thought it would be.
All this brings us to the lanyard (you knew this was coming, didn’t you?). The lanyard itself seems to be a length of 550 paracord attached at the very rear of the knife by passing it through a set of holes, then melting the ends to make them larger than the holes. My guess is that it’s not the strongest method, but if it ever breaks, it should be easily replaceable; just don’t lose the little stretchy rubber tab that’s used to hold the lanyard in place in the handle when it’s not being used. The scales on this knife are actually four plastic scales mounted in such a way that they leave a deep channel along both sides of the knife to house the lanyard when it’s not in use, and a rubber tab holds it under tension by looping over a steel protrusion at the rear. It works, but it’s somewhat less than elegant.
Why go to all the trouble to design an entire knife around a lanyard? That’s a mystery to me. In my opinion they would have had a far better knife by eliminating the lanyard (c’mon, just drill a hole for it), not cutting into the tang beyond the choil, and having solid scales on each side. As I said earlier, I think that would have been a winner.
Thanks,
Dawsonbob
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2005
- Messages
- 3,652
Great review, and very thorough!:thumbup: Have fun putting it through its paces!
Regards,
3G
Regards,
3G
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2009
- Messages
- 4,573
I emailed you earlier today to let you know that I had gotten it. Yeah, I expect to have fun with it.
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2009
- Messages
- 4,573
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2009
- Messages
- 4,573
I'm working on a review of the knife at the moment. It would be done already except I'm having trouble with my camera. I'll see if I can finish it up tomorrow, and get it posted. In the meantime, I did post a "first impressions" piece a few space up this page (it was post #245).
- Joined
- May 10, 2009
- Messages
- 1,686
Alright, thanks for the update. Can't wait to see how this did, due to all the controversy over the design.
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2009
- Messages
- 4,573
I got my 12 year old camera working today and took pictures of the knife. I'll sort, select and crop them tonight, then write the review in the morning. With any luck, I'll have the review — with pics — posted by tomorrow afternoon. Thanks for your patience.