My grail edc damascus sebenza

A

Ajax Ademaro

Joined
Jan 29, 2010
Messages
163
Hi guys,

Just thought I would share with you my excitement over my recent acquisition. Ever since I held ones in my hand, the sebenza has become and will remain my favorite folder. Everything about it screams quality and simplicity. Over the last few years however, CRK has made a number of design changes that haven't been to my particular taste. I am not saying I disagree with their reasoning, or think any less of their knives for it, this is just my opinion.

-They switched the solid female screws for hex key ones
-They stopped applying the coating to the Devin Thomas stainless damascus which removes much of the contrast
-They added the "Idaho Made" stamp.

So as you can imagine when I stumbled across this beauty, I had to pull the trigger.

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In my opinion, the small sebenza 21 is the ultimate EDC. In this knife, you get the simplicity, ruggedness and quality of the original plain 21, with the beauty and elegance of coated high contrast stainless damascus. I find the plain Ti actually makes the damascus seem even more beautiful by contrast. Add to that the older style screws, and no IDM and this is the perfect knife for me.:o
 
higher contrast when coated? ive handled both coated and non coated and they look the same to me.Maybe im missing something :confused: i am aware of the coated carbon damascus which helped keep the damascus frome rusting, but i was unaware that the coating on the stainless damascus made the contrast better. Any ideas guys?
 
wolf5391 said:
higher contrast when coated? ive handled both coated and non coated and they look the same to me.Maybe im missing something :confused: i am aware of the coated carbon damascus which helped keep the damascus frome rusting, but i was unaware that the coating on the stainless damascus made the contrast better. Any ideas guys?
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From what I have read, for a period of time CRK applied a permanent coating to the stainless Damascus. It's my understanding, that if this coating became damaged, it could leave the knife susceptible to corrosion, rusting, etc, and therefore they discontinued its application. However, I haven't heard any cases of this being an issue and for what it's worth, the coating did make a noticeable difference in the appearance and contract of Damascus.

There are a few good pictures of the difference in the following thread:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/863109-Time-to-share-my-CRK-grails-some

This picture in particular you can really see the difference:

L1080102.jpg


note: this is not my pic. It is fellow bladeformer chubbyong, of whose CRK collection I am extremely jealous of.
 
Ajax, I'm with you on the blade-coating. The stainless Devin Thomas with gun-kote (?) really brings out the light and dark contrasts. I have two stainless, damascus mnandis and you can clearly see the difference. The damascus w/o the coating appears dull and somewhat greyish. I still love the damascus mnandis but I wish CRK would bring back the coating ... perhaps as an additional option. :thumbup:
 
Guys, I might be wrong, but the coating of damascus blades by CRK was to non-stainless damascus. It is my impression that was a reason for only having stainless damascus starting in 2008. I could be wrong.
 
They did spray the GunKote on the stainless steel damascus but they no longer offer it. They stopped using it about two years ago.
 
tomhalv said:
They did spray the GunKote on the stainless steel damascus but they no longer offer it. They stopped using it about two years ago.
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Thanks for this. I never was aware of the gunkote on the stainless damascus.
 
Wow! I prefer the decorated scales, but you are right about the plain making the damascus even more striking. Nice score!

mercurial
 
hmmm.... thats interesting, Crk i believe stopped using it because the gunkote scratched easily and left marks on the damascus after light use. It took away from the beauty of the blade. But i guess for collectors its nicer to have the gunkote for looks. Me on the other hand am looking forward to my raindrop damascus small sebbie with micarta inlays becuase it doesnt have the coating and i plan to use it :D
 
Also, is the op's knife coated because its said that its a higher contrast and is coated but it looks very similar to the other ladder damascus picture below it and isnt shiny like the raindrops one? not trying to be a pain just figuring this stuff out. :)
 
I don't want to hijack Ajax's thread but I'd like to offer a few pics showing the coated vs. un-coated blades. The top rain-drop damascus mnandi is coated, while the bottom spirograph damascus mnandi is not. The bottom mnandi appears a bit dull and grey but was as you mentioned, I don't use the rain-drop damascus mnandi so I can't speak to the durability of the gun-kote. Hope this helps. :thumbup:

P1000691.jpg

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wolf5391 said:
Also, is the op's knife coated because its said that its a higher contrast and is coated but it looks very similar to the other ladder damascus picture below it and isnt shiny like the raindrops one? not trying to be a pain just figuring this stuff out. :)
Click to expand...
 
ParkinNJ said:
I don't want to hijack Ajax's thread but I'd like to offer a few pics showing the coated vs. un-coated blades. The top rain-drop damascus mnandi is coated, while the bottom spirograph damascus mnandi is not. The bottom mnandi appears a bit dull and grey but was as you mentioned, I don't use the rain-drop damascus mnandi so I can't speak to the durability of the gun-kote. Hope this helps. :thumbup:

P1000691.jpg

P1000692.jpg
Click to expand...


damn man im loving that raindrop. But like said above i wish crk did make the gunkote an option instead of making evryone without it. I probably would still go uncoated because of the use but damn does the coating make a beautiful damascus even better.
 
ParkinNJ picture really shows the difference well between the coated and uncoated blades. Congrats to ParkinNJ on your new white mammoth bark, it looks good next to the top one. All four are beauties
 
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