born2be -- welcome to the forums, and to questioning the Sebenza "mystique."
I'm in the odd position of straddling the Sebenza fence, so to speak. Surprising myself totally, I bought a Sebenza at a knife show Saturday. It was at a very attractive price, and I had just gotten a CRKT S-2 about a week before. I can now, if I wish, compare the two of them.
The Sebenza is used, so I can't speak as to how smooth the action was when it was new. Everyone seems to swear it is super smooth out of the box. Well, my S-2 was not super smooth, but it was pretty smooth. It has the same handle material as the CR, but has ATS-34 blade steel.
When I posted about the Sebenza the other day, I think I said it had the smoothest action of any knife I'd ever used. Well, I realized yesterday that really isn't true. Two of my CRKTs the KFF and the M16-14 are at least as smooth as the Sebenza. They aren't new by any means. The M16 was stiffer when I got it than the KFF. The KFF was mighty smooth when new, and now sufficient TufGlide and enuff cycles later, it is at least as smooth as the Sebenza. Maybe smoother. Both of them require so little effort to open the blade it is amazing.
So far, I'm willing to concede that the quality of the Sebenza is there. I know the steel is better, and the action is terrific. Mine has 2 tiny, shallow scratches, the only flaws I could find. My biggest quarrel with it is the ergonomics. Rather I should say the near total absence of them. Plus which, the handle is shorter than I would like it to be. I'm going to have to live with the Sebenza awhile -- I am carrying it -- and see if I can get over the poor ergonimics.
To me, the ergonimics are extremely important. As Ed Fowler has said, the handle is the interface between the knife and the hand. Good knife design recognizes the shapes of the human hand, and is formed to fit the hand as well as possible. There are no real straight lines on the human body, except at certain exhilarating moments and for those few condemned to have only one eyebrow.
Take a look at the handle along the line of the blade spine (when opened)of the Sebenza. It is straight as a string. The hand simply will not form itself into a straight line to match that form. There are high points and low, or non-touching points. I have to admit that I wonder if there isn't some arrogance involved in that.
I am not a heavy user of knives. I keep thinking about trying to carve, but if I do, it won't be with a Sebenza. So, the edge-holding of a blade in reality isn't nearly as important to me as it is to many others. So, going back to the percentages discussed earlier, only using my S-2 instead of the Pinnacle -- which by the way has extremely similar styling to the Sebenza -- it cost less than a third of what the Sebenza costs new, or its current value. If I carried it for years, I'd probably need to sharpen the S-2 say every 3 years, instead of every 4 years for the Sebenza. So, the question may well be, is the Sebenza worth all that extra money because I'll spend at most an hour less sharpening it over a 12-year period than I would the S-2? I'm thinking about that.
Oh -- to be fair, one must consider the warranty. Sebenzas are warrantied for life -- at least to the first owner. I'm simply not aware of what warranty CRKT provides. I've only heard that they are great about standing behind their products. Also, the finish of the Sebenza is different from that of the S-2. The Sebenza has an almost velvety feeling to the handles. That is very nice. It also has a rounded blade spine, something the S-2 does not have -- which few knives have. Again, looking at Ed Fowler's words about that, he says a knife with a blade spine not rounded simply isn't finished. I can't find any logical argument against that.
I'll finish this incredibly long post by saying that I do believe that the frame lock is the simplest, strongest lock possible. I likely will limit most of my carry knives to those having that lock.
Hope this helps rather than confuses.
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