I picked up a limited edition Kershaw Volt designed by R.J. Martin.
The knife is a "flipper", meaning that it has a small tab on the lower portion of the blade that allows one to flick the blade open with one hand.
There were only around 300 total of these knives made, and of that number, about 70 did not pass Kershaw's quality control checks, and those were sold as blemished knives, or "blems" as us knife geeks call them.
I was lucky - I wanted a Volt, but was not aware that they would be such a limited edition! I was a little bummed when people were getting theirs and I could not find one for sale.
Luckily, since I am a member of a few different knife forums (I know, I know...) I was able to find a place that was selling off some Volt Blems. I even saved some skrill buying the blem, and really, the blemish is so slight I'll bet you non-knife geeks would never notice it.
Ok - some pics - look how cool this design is!
Check out the blade - see the lines on it? Kershaw has a proprietary method of brazing two different steel alloys together to make what they call a "composite" blade. The Volt has D2 steel for the spine (the darker colored area of the blade) and a high-tech Boehler M390 Superclean for the edge. Yea, it makes us knife geeks really happy.
Ok - that picture is the lock-bar side of the Volt. The Volt is a frame-lock knife, a design by Chris Reeve of CRK. As you can see, there is a cut in the handle, or scale, of the knife on one side and when you open the blade, that piece of the handle slides over and locks onto the tang of the blade, keeping the blade from closing while in use. Pretty clever, and I prefer frame-locks over all other designs of folders - that is just me.
The little "circle-thing" on the lock side of the handle is a Hinderer Lock Stop, designed by knife maker Rick Hinderer - and that keeps you from being able to bend the lock-bar too far outward when unlocking the blade. Cool stuff.
The handle scales are made from titanium with a G10 (fiberglass/epoxy laminate material) inlay that matches the design on the composite blade. Again - too cool!
Ya' thinking I like this knife? Yea, I do. I have been carrying it a lot, even leaving my beloved Acies (didn't know I had a beloved knife? Ask me, I have two that I never leave the house without...) at home in favor of the Volt.
You think your knives are sharp? I'll bet they are, but have a look at the factory edge on this puppy -
This thing will pop the hair from your arm no problem, and I have not even stropped it once.
I have sharpened some sticks with it, and cut open packages etc., but no hard use yet. I plan on it , and I will report my impression of the M390 compared to my present favorite ZDP-189.
best regards
mqqn
