Ordered this 'Baby Kratos' from SHADE Indonesia 2 ish years ago as a gift from me to me with the promise to myself that I'd actually edc her. Turned out to be a great decision. Ive done so many tasks with this blade that it feels second nature now to reach for the handle at my hip. Diamond and ceramic rods are my frinds when it comes to touching up the edge.
On their site you can choose from a couple different steel types so I went for 5160 and it came with a great heat treat on it so I can do really tough work with this blade and fairly easily touch up the edge after.
When I first received the blade it had a satin polish with brut de forge finish. After cutting through meat, vegetables, branches and a few other things, the satin finish decelops a patina. Sometumes I polish that off with a brass liquid polish and have now started seeing a hamon / quench line from the heat treat. Thats a little surprise I'd never have seen or enjoyed if I just left her in a drawer or display case.
Enyone else make a decision like this? Did it turn out great for you, or become a big regret?
by TimepieceBlades
26 Comments
I wouldn’t call that sage queen worthy? I’ve edc’d my custom Ernies
I’ve EDC’d plenty of handmade customs and $1k+ knives. I wouldn’t buy ’em if I wasn’t gonna throw ’em in the pocket!
Tools not jewels,
All my EDCs are grails, I only have one I can’t bring myself to carry and thus need to sell.
I think different people have different definitions of what would be considered safe queen worthy.
I personally don’t consider any production made knife (regardless of price) a safe queen worthy knife. After all there are lots of them and they can be replaced if used and damaged. But one of a kind customs that can’t be easily replaced, I fully understand someone giving the safe queen treatment.
And yes I do rotate in some of my customs for carry but I do consider what my day is likely to entail before doing so.
Beautiful blade
I carry all my knives. The most expensive one is probably this Protean
https://preview.redd.it/sivtabxdph4g1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a9d86531e423c860882d0e86e3b493376225be54
I don’t mean to sound like a hater at all, but this knife is only $300 and far from *this subs* definition of “safe queen”.
Like most CRK are daily beaters and they run $500+. Some of us carry multi thousand dollar knives & customs. This is not meant to sound pompous or a flex, just reality of a lot of users here. One day I’ll carry a $2k+ Marfione and the next, a $200 Spyderco.
I get if something is super special like an heirloom or a full dress but I feel the knife makers that are true enthusiasts want their tools used. You can edc a high end knife and not beat the 💩 out of it. Then again I have some knives that I beat the 💩 out of that might make some cry. 😂 Super nice carry OP! 🔥
If you said you bought this for $15 at a flea market, I’d believe it.
The same people who keep $1k knives in safes leave $90k trucks unattended in the Walmart parking lot.
The world makes no fucking sense.
safe queens are for brokes
No safe queens and no trailer queens. Use your shit.
This concept is estrange dto me.
I refuse to buy unusable knives. If im uncomfortable spending that much on a knife that will get used, i buy one that i can afford to use.
Don’t get me wrong, i will look at knives that i consider too be too expensive to use, but then i go, that’s not a knife anymore, that’s artwork
There are only a handful of mine that I haven’t carried yet and that’s normally because it’s a hand satin finish or I want to keep it perfect so I can trade for a more user friendly finish or version. Like my skiff drifter is gorgeous but I want to trade for a stonewash fugitive or something similar before I carry and use it. I do sometimes carry a custom Blaurock BRB3 with a sick san mai recurve blade and inlay worth around 4k. Left in in my lap one day getting out of the truck and it fell onto some rough asphalt 😂 Barely scuffed it up, but nothing to cry over
Beautiful blade. Full tang. If it does what you want it to do, it’s a great piece!
You EDC this ? Are you crocodile Dundee ?
Beck WSK.
What are those gloves?
I’ll EDC any of the knives I’ve bought off of [Dan](https://www.etsy.com/shop/DLWBlades) on Etsy. Dude makes em by hand in Missouri, no super steels, carbon, super sharp true convex grinds, beautiful sheaths(although sometimes not as tight as I’d like), and they even come with a strop loaded with BarkRiver green, all for around $100, usually less, but it depends on the size of the knife.
https://preview.redd.it/x1c4ncc61j4g1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=02db9674b090c0d9c5ba0f239c31735d460239cb
Excuse my ghetto hot pot in the background, I’ve been dailying a Spartan Blades Harsey Folder Blue / Gold Frag Monkey Edge exclusive and CCKS exclusive for the past 2 or 3 years. Stood in 2 different lines to pick this up.
Not many people in the USA know about SHADE Indonesia. Hence the fucktarded comments in this thread. Especially the idiot who said he thinks it’s a $15 flea market knife.
I don’t believe in safe queens. All my knives get carried in rotation
Keeping a knife in a safe is a bit like having a fancy gold plated screwdriver that you don’t use. Pointless. It’s a tool and you should use it.
My Borka Shylock gets a lot of pocket time. It costs about as much as a nice used Toyota.
EDC’d a reate exo gen 1 until i lost it