Click to view our Accessibility Statement or contact us with accessibility-related questions
Showing 1 of 22 conversations about:
Massdrop x Ferrum Forge Falcon (Blue Edition)
reswright
3850
Aug 5, 2019
Minor point of order: that's not actually cobalt blue. It'd be a lot more expensive if it was, because it would need to be made of a material more exotic than titanium. You can't anodize titanium to cobalt blue, it's an insanely intense color that takes a special industrial process to produce. The coloration of anodized titanium comes from concatenated light refraction created by titanium oxidization on its surface -- basically, Ti oxide shifts the apparent wavelength of reflected light the way a jagged coastline creates a shifted wave pattern. Cobalt blue pigment absorbs and then emits light at some very rare quanta for visual material, and you can't make it with varying voltage across the surface. You can only make it by sintering cobalt oxide with aluminum at a crazy high temperature. Once you make it you have to handle it very carefully even if you've gotten fully clean cobalt (some isotopes of cobalt can be pretty radioactive, and like a lot of the rarer metals, it doesn't play nice with your body once it climbs above trace concentrations in the bloodstream. ) You also have to be careful with it because it's such a deep color. If you make cobalt glass in a mold for example, you can't use that mold for any other color of glass or it will come out stained cobalt blue.
This handle is more of a navy blue. It's what you'd expect from an anodized Ti handle.
Did Drop take a bunch of their existing unsold stock of these knives, take them apart, and anodize the handles blue? Could be. All that extra labor might be why they think it's ok to charge $50 more for this version of the knife -- they decided to do this and pass on the higher cost to you. If they're just charging you $50 extra to briefly dip the handles in a charged electrolytic bath to anodize the Ti blue, i can tell you that they're charging you about $45 too much to do that, and that you should only pick up the knife if you feel like paying $45 in sucker tax.
reswright
3850
Aug 5, 2019
reswrightactually looking at the text of the drop and the very small number needed to complete it, it looks like they just did this to a bare handful of their knives, possibly because they knew only a couple people would pay $50 more for it. What's that saying about a fool and their money?
Edit: Not sure if the ad copy was updated, but $50 to have someone refinish and anodize the handles, and then have the designers tune the fit and finish, sounds more reasonable once the bit in italics makes its way into the equation. If you like to do that yourself you won't care, and it's like paying George Clooney to come wash your car. But I can see it having $50 more value for some folks.
(Edited)
Drop Refurbished
Like-new products you can trustDrop Rewards
Get $5 for every 500 points you earn! Learn more
Drop Keyboard Club
Become a member and expand your keycap collectionCollaborate With Us
For Brands & DesignersFollow Drop