What comes close?

Originally posted by teacher
I blame my Sebbie addiction on two people..... John Puckett, who was the first forumite I met; told me about them. OwenM, the second forumite I met when I bought a BM from him; showed me his Sebenza and let me handle it. This was when I was "infected". It took about six weeks and I came down w/ a full blown case of 'sebenzaitis'. It has been all but uncontrollable since then.........;)
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Infected? Full-blown case?
You make it sound like we gave you AIDS, or something:eek:
What's that stand for anyway...
All I need
Is a
Dozen
Sebenzas
?????
You're what, halfway there?:p
 
No........7/12......but who's counting.....;) Except my bank account......... :eek: :( :D
Have a good one , and thank you both for your part in this, I think.......:D

Chuck
 
Well said Owen!:) I think you will be hard pressed to find many custom makers who can come close to the Sebenza"s quality AND versatility.

Paul
 
It's pretty hard to find any production knife that comes close to the fit and finish of a Sebenza. Chris Reeve Knives are not really a production company, are they? :confused: Sort of..."Semi-production?"

Microtech is one production company that did an outstanding job with the L.C.C. The fit and finish of the Microtech L.C.C. is better than some handmades I've seen.
 
CRK is not really a production company in the same sense that Benchmade and Spyderco are but rather a small shop of workers trained by Chris and supervised by him. The knives are 95% handmade under his close supervision. They fall into that fuzzy area between custom and production. Not really custom but not really production. I have a couple of customs and as has been said in previous posts to this thread, are customs better, no but different ,yes. The most expensive folder I own is a CRK small wood inlay with black and white ladder damascus. Tom Mayo and Darrel Ralph can and do make framelocks that are priced in the $400-500 range. Both makers make knives that will not dissapoint. With the customs you get more variety and choices as far as blade shape and blade steel. Are customs better knives? Yes and no.
 
The only complaint about the Sebenza in general that made sense to me besides pure aesthetics was that the handle is not the most comfortable one out there. Typically a folder is not used for hour after hour of cutting so handle ergonomics are not quite so important (IMHO of course) as it would be on a knife used extensively for food prep, or something like a machete which may indeed be used hour after hour.

Even granting this argument, the Sebenza's handle is well designed for the knife's over-all purpose. The very thing that makes it ergonomically less than ideal, its flatness, allows it to carry (especially IWB) hour after hour without being noticed. It also helps to keep the price down. Yes I know that sounds strange, but imagine what ergonomically rounded titanium slabs would cost!

There are always trade-offs in engineering. I think CRK pretty much wrung the best out of those that went into the Sebenza design. I have a dozen high-quality folders, but unless I'm going very very dressed (which happens about once a year), one or the other of my two Sebs (a small and a large) are the only ones that actually get carried any more.
 
What comes close?

Hmmm apples and apples, lets see, not much jumps to mind, Mayo of course does but pricing throws it up there a bit, Darrel is also of that caliber, love his new blade finish, but close to CRK, consistently close? In quality fit and finish and price range, I'd say you'd be hard pressed to find one Close and I've owned a lot of knives...William Henry, though quality is excellent, the Sebenza beats it handily by it's tank construction. Must be why I own so many? and so many others come down with the virus...
Even some Snipertypepeople have fallen victim lately:)

hmmm Apples and Oranges....my first thought was an older Benchmade Custom Butterfly knife, mainly for the quality fit and finish and one of the toughest locking folders out there!

your mileage may vary....:D
G2
 
Just caught this old thread...

It is a VERY different knife, but I often carry an Al Mar Hawk for my general purpose EDC (rotating in my recently-acquired Umfaan). The reason I mention it in this regard is because I like REALLY SHARP knives, and few compare to CRK in that regard. The Al Mar does. It is literally razor sharp (I just cut up a big cardboard box and it is like using a box cutter).
 
Wow - there's a blast from the past!

When I posted this question, I was starting to become a bit disenchanted with my small Classic Sebenza. I questioned why I had paid so much for it, and wondered if maybe I had simply fallen for "hype".

It turns out that I simply needed to spend a year in the "desert" of production knives to see what OwenM said - there are many fine production folders that share some of the attributes of the Sebenzas, but very few to none that combine them all so well as a Sebenza does. After a year-long hiatus, I ended up going through about five more Sebenzas until I acquired the "Zulu Trio" :)

Unfortunately, I had to release the large plain regular and the Umfaan to pay for Christmas bills. And now, unfortunately, my small decorated Solar Wind is up for sale for similar reasons :(

After I sell that knife, I plan to purchase an inexpensive folder to serve as an EDC until such time that I can afford to buy what I consider to be "the one" :)

Thanks for the memories,

Matthew
 
Holy-ba-moley. . .it's always cool to see an informative thread, like this one, pop-up from the depths !

The Sebbie is a "high-end production" utility knife. Personally, there is nothing out there that can compete in that specific catagory !

The only thing that I feel that comes close in the "high-end production" world is Microtech (older models). But they are "tacticals."

And it's true. . .you'll need to step up into the custom world (Carson, Mayo, Terzuola, Onion, Smyth, DDR, Chew, Obie, Cook, Maxwell, Duncan ~ to just name a few) to get the quality that you get with a CRK !

Then again. . .I could be wrong.

But generally not. :p ;) :D
 
I was happy with my pocket knives until I went to BladeShow last year. I had the opportunity to actually hold some CRK knives. I learned a lot and started looking and watching... Since then two large sebbies, two small sebbies, a mountaineer (passed through), four umfaans and a mnandi. Once I bought the small sebbie it was impossible to leave it out in favor of one of the "other" pocket knives. I even have trouble leaving one sebbie out to rotate in one of the others. I agree with teacher that "infected" may be the right word.
 
My 2 Sebenza's are the best folders I have ever owned by quite a long way but saying that I have never spent that sort of money on a folder before.

The only one I had that came close was a Microtech kestrel and that was stll a long way off a Sebenza.

Since I bought my first Sebenza at the end of last suumer I have stopped looking at other EDC knives and am just saving up to buy more sebies.
 
What comes close? - my Mayo TNT (as already noted - but not close in price alas!) and Mike Obernauf framelocker (which was actually cheaper than the same size Sebbie!). Both great.

Those customs have made me appreciate just how good the Sebenza is.

I reckon the upcoming Buck Mayo will be close to a Sebenza too.
 
I have a Buck / Mayo on order to so I guess we'll see.

I've been carrying a Ti Salsa for a while now and it competes for EDC with a small sebenza.

The Ti Salsa is slightly smaller length closed, a full inch smaller in length open. It's wider, which means it doesn't disappear in the pocket so well, but being wider makes it easier to grip for me, plus is has those nice finger cutouts which happen to fit my hand better.
 
G2 had it right: who hits the QC standard set by CRK for precision, engineering, and "tank-like" quality consistently? Nobody.

I am one of those who ventured into "custom" territory and came back disenchanted. None of the customs I have owned lived up to what I came to expect from owning the Sebenza. I saw a thread, "Acceptable flaws in customs", and said to myself, WTF? I can't spend that kind of money for flaws, maybe others can. I expect perfection and I got it in the Sebenza. Not a pretty, not as "cool" but mechanically perfect.

I also went backwards into less expensive factory knives, as I couldn't bring myself to use the most expensive knives I ever owned up to that point. Also a mistake.

My large Sebenza goes everywhere with me. I have a few Microtechs on the way just because I like them. But they won't "replace" the Sebenza. I also have a Ron Clark on order in S30V, but that is a fixed blade. I liked reading this one again myself!

Leo G. :D
 
Thats cool, looks like somthing though....:confused: not sure what though!:)
Seriously that is nice!:D Didn't he used to work for CRK? If he did, I can definatly see the influence.

I think my DDR static maxx comes very close! I love it! So much I've ordered a another one with a different blade shape.:D :)
 
I'll just say if CRKs didn't exsist and I was after a production folder, I would say the Al Mar Sere 2000 is a smooth folder:)
 
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