- Joined
- Jan 8, 2017
- Messages
- 503
Well after the lazy postman debacle of yesterday I was able to make it to the post office this morning and pick up my "new to me" Small Inkosi. So let's see how she looks.
Yup my current EDC is definitely dirty. Turns out that happens when you use your knife daily. There's actually nothing but dust on the Inkosi. Seller sited snail trails, and I mean if I didn't know I was looking for them I wouldn't have really found them. A few under the clip but definitely not something I would concern myself with. Lockup is solid at almost exactly 50% and the blade is dead center. Action is a bit rough for my tastes, but that's an easy fix. Let's see the presentation side.
Yup, she's solid. One very small snail trail on this side, which as I said, definitely had to look for it. Blade is in good shape, it's 100% clean, doesn't even say SV35N on it, though it does confirm that on the birthday card. The birthday on this little beauty is September 21, 2015, and by the shape of it I wouldn't have been surprised if it was 2016. Definitely well maintained. Being an "older" Inkosi it has the ceramic ball lockup which I was really hoping for. I'm not sure the blade has ever been sharpened. I could ask the seller, but it's not dull. If he did sharpen it he did an excellent job as I cannot tell. I'll definitely throw it on the WE later this week but first we need to see if she passes inspection.
Yup, she's been opened before. Loctite was broken and thankfully the seller didn't gob on tons of new, in fact there was no evidence of old loctite anywhere other then the pivot. The tiniest amount of pocket lint on the inside and a little grease, but overall, she's in good shape. Got everything disassembled easily and without issue and took her to the sink for a soapy water bath before anodizing.
WAIT! Did you just say anodizing? You've had the damn thing less than 10 minutes.
Why yes, yes I did say anodizing. That's the nice thing about a grail knife is you know exactly what you want done to it before you even get it. As you can see this is a decent shot of the color with indoor lighting as well as the before and after. Along with liking a clean blade I'm a stickler for symmetry. This means definitely needed to anodize both titanium slabs as well as the clip. Once I got her done I put her back together, managing NOT to pinch any washers and got it tightened down to where I like it. I'm not a wrist flicker and if I wanted a flipper I would have bought one. I want a nice, but smooth manual thumb opener that uses light force all the way from the locked to the fully open position. TL;DR, I keep my pivot a little bit tighter then most on non-flipper knives. So let's take her outside for a photo shoot.
Well now, that don't look half bad. The sun/camera combination are making it a touch lighter then it actually is IRL, but I refuse to get out DSLR unless I'm doing fish tank pictures.
Now if you're extremely anal like I am you can see the clip came out just a hair lighter then the scales. Honestly unless you are in direct sunlight though you cannot tell a difference. The two sides came out exactly the same and that was my main concern.
Either way it's a good thing I don't buy knives to resell them and actually buy users. Maybe one day she'll get a spa trip, but I highly doubt it. Either way for a grail knife it really is everything I had hoped for and I'm absolutely thrilled to have it.
Yup my current EDC is definitely dirty. Turns out that happens when you use your knife daily. There's actually nothing but dust on the Inkosi. Seller sited snail trails, and I mean if I didn't know I was looking for them I wouldn't have really found them. A few under the clip but definitely not something I would concern myself with. Lockup is solid at almost exactly 50% and the blade is dead center. Action is a bit rough for my tastes, but that's an easy fix. Let's see the presentation side.
Yup, she's solid. One very small snail trail on this side, which as I said, definitely had to look for it. Blade is in good shape, it's 100% clean, doesn't even say SV35N on it, though it does confirm that on the birthday card. The birthday on this little beauty is September 21, 2015, and by the shape of it I wouldn't have been surprised if it was 2016. Definitely well maintained. Being an "older" Inkosi it has the ceramic ball lockup which I was really hoping for. I'm not sure the blade has ever been sharpened. I could ask the seller, but it's not dull. If he did sharpen it he did an excellent job as I cannot tell. I'll definitely throw it on the WE later this week but first we need to see if she passes inspection.
Yup, she's been opened before. Loctite was broken and thankfully the seller didn't gob on tons of new, in fact there was no evidence of old loctite anywhere other then the pivot. The tiniest amount of pocket lint on the inside and a little grease, but overall, she's in good shape. Got everything disassembled easily and without issue and took her to the sink for a soapy water bath before anodizing.
WAIT! Did you just say anodizing? You've had the damn thing less than 10 minutes.
Why yes, yes I did say anodizing. That's the nice thing about a grail knife is you know exactly what you want done to it before you even get it. As you can see this is a decent shot of the color with indoor lighting as well as the before and after. Along with liking a clean blade I'm a stickler for symmetry. This means definitely needed to anodize both titanium slabs as well as the clip. Once I got her done I put her back together, managing NOT to pinch any washers and got it tightened down to where I like it. I'm not a wrist flicker and if I wanted a flipper I would have bought one. I want a nice, but smooth manual thumb opener that uses light force all the way from the locked to the fully open position. TL;DR, I keep my pivot a little bit tighter then most on non-flipper knives. So let's take her outside for a photo shoot.
Well now, that don't look half bad. The sun/camera combination are making it a touch lighter then it actually is IRL, but I refuse to get out DSLR unless I'm doing fish tank pictures.
Now if you're extremely anal like I am you can see the clip came out just a hair lighter then the scales. Honestly unless you are in direct sunlight though you cannot tell a difference. The two sides came out exactly the same and that was my main concern.
Either way it's a good thing I don't buy knives to resell them and actually buy users. Maybe one day she'll get a spa trip, but I highly doubt it. Either way for a grail knife it really is everything I had hoped for and I'm absolutely thrilled to have it.
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