Dam that's a nice looking knife. who's leg to I have to hump to get one lefty. It really seems like every colab is right hand only. It's getting to the point that I've been skipping opening the colab emails. Make a guy wonder how hard it would be to flip the cad drawing and get the cnc to spit out a reverse.
ASpathaSpecifically on this one, the skeletonized handle prevents us from making the clip reversible. Generally, it's easy to flip the CAD file, but hard to reach a minimum order quantity to justify making a lefty version - especially in three colors. We get this request a lot and I'm actively looking at ways to make it possible.
ASpathaGetting a CNC capable of Titanium wouldn't be cheap or easy, but flipping the CAD files and programming the CNC wouldn't be that bad. You could reuse most of the parts if you bought the knife, you just need to mill new scales.
JonasHeinemanAppreciate the fact that your even looking into it. As a lefty I really feel like the world just kind a blows us off as the red headed step child. I can understand the cost effective part. Probably why I gravitate towards liner lock. I also understand its no easy feat, if it was easy everyone would do it. I've gotten into it with smiths from both Smith and Wesson and Taurus over the lefty issue.
I'm pretty surprised that many of massdrop's colab knifes if not everyone I've come across is a frame lock. It really seems like the unattractive way to lean for a lock mechanism being very intrusive to the design.
Still Awesome knife with my favorite blade shape!
BaccaBossMCNot sure about the Titanium CNC part, I figured it was all in the bits, cooling and speed of the machine. I assure you I've thought about making my own stuff. We have a makerspace in town, you can be trained and rent anything there. I though about how fun it would be to make your own grips. I also wondered how much it would piss them off if they ever where able to figure out half the crap I would cnc. Nothing illegal give you there's just allot of Subarus in my area.
ASpathaMany CNCs aren't physically strong enough to move a bit through the titanium. If I had a CNC, I would spend a lot of time making my own knives, but CNCs capable of milling strong metals are very expensive. In fact, many require the ability to use constant liquid cooling to do metals, and that is expensive and messy. Titanium-capable bits are also expensive.
MarriedinorlandoI've only recently gotten bitten by the knife collector bug, I know it was only a matter of time seeing as I already collect items that are similar. All I have right now is a Böker Plus Pelican, Spyderco Delica 4 and a Spderco Chaparral Titanium PlainEdge. The Sebenza is on the list of must buys, I just need to get further into the knife obsession first. and buy a fridge.
I'm not really happy with the Pelican to be honest.
BaccaBossMCI guess I foolishly took for granted the handful of people I know who have machines capable. I have one friend with a water jet table but he wont let me in his garage after I started salivating why leering at it.
Ignorance is a hell of a problem to have, easy to solve but can cost ya when overlooked.
I have a small collection with lots of the usual suspects. Many are lefty friendly (Benchmade axis lock and several Spydercos). But honestly as a lefty who carries concealed I very often carry my knife (small gentleman folders) on my right side. Lately I’ve just depended upon a SAK SD model on my keychain as well as a beautiful carbon fiber utility blade from China at 8 grams I think. It’s somewhat stupid having both the SD and utility slider on the keychain but I like having a scissors, etc and the slider is instant. I use it daily. This flipper has me intrigued as a right side carry as I love the steel, the weight, don’t own a wharncliffe, or a flipper for that matter. This looks like a win....though I’m a tad nervous about made in China. But only slightly. I think this factory enjoys a decent reputation. My Spydercos out of Taiwan are fantastic.
JonasHeinemanYou could easily just skip the last weight saving hole on the skeletal side and have two screw holes instead. Come on guys, there are plenty of lefties out there who wants this knife.
JonasOTL;DR - We know. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. We're working on it.
Yes, it is physically possible to make almost any knife with a reversible clip. (Most of the FFKW collabs have reversible clips, so does the Schwarz Perpetua.) I think there the aesthetic effects of interrupting the pattern of holes on the blade, which are not 100% for weight reduction, warrant some consideration. We know that 13.5% of the US population wants all knives to have left-hand options; that leaves 86.5% of the population who doesn't really like having useless extra holes in their knives. There are many, many things to consider in this equation and I've tried to explain them in a few different comments here and in every other drop where this comes up. Please believe me when I say that I am *keenly* aware of this sentiment among members. We've got some ideas on how to increase the number over time. Nobody here would complain if we sold an extra 13.5% of every knife (if that actually happened) - or maybe more, because the whole knife world would come here to find these rare birds. But it's just not that easy. It's not due to laziness or because we don't care - manufacturing is actually pretty complicated stuff. Every change adds complexity and needs to be carefully managed. It's not as simple as just deciding that we do or don't want to do something that we know members have asked for - if it was, we would just do it. I promise. So yeah - we know, and we're working on it, but thanks for the reminder that it's important to a lot of people.
JonasHeinemanFair enough and I think most of us lefties totally get the limitations. I happen to completely agree that having reversible clip holes on a knife like this would mess up the aesthetics. I’m still undecided about this one only given the Made in China aspect. The vast majority of my collection is now Made in America.
JonasHeinemanTLDR: Skeletized ambi is not hard to do. Get your design briefs right.
If you can't aesthetically add two holes to a design that is already riddled with holes, there are two reasons I can think of: You forgot to include the requirement for 13.5% demographic or just didn't care because you decided to discriminate against 13.5% of a demographic. Either reason is unacceptable in this day and age.
I'm a design engineer and I know what goes into large scale engineering projects, and if all you've got is "it's not that easy", it means you forgot to add the bullet point "make clip position ambidextrous" to the original design brief and now your tooling is already ordered, your CNC programs are already approved and the order book is already filled and the balance sheet just can't take any changes at this point. That is some pretty #weaksauce right there.
Sorry about the harsh words, hopefully you'll take them the right way and don't feel personally attacked; all I wan't is to be part of the customer base. Missing out on beautiful knives like this is infuriating.