So I decided to try Ultem with this Kubey Doris. Now I get it. This stuff looks cool and has a friendly feel in my hand. I don't just mean the milling or texturing but the thermal feel. It's nice.
As for mods, the top surface and the transition to it were pretty good but the outer edge where it drops was pretty crisp. I went around and smoothed over that transition. I didn't take care to make it pretty and only took it out to 200ish grit, but Ultem seems to sand very well. It's amazing how much ergonomic difference can be made by just rounding over hard edges and corners.
I also deleted the forward lock-bar jimping. Like a lot of other modern knives, this one followed the trend of having jimping protrude out past the scales like little teeth. I've never gotten a real benefit from that and it usually just creates a row of tiny hot spots. So I got rid of them. I also recessed the surface to match where my thumb or first finger tends to hit it on the close.
The detent is a little strong, which is
perfect for thumb or finger flicking off the hole. Unfortunately, that plus aggressive spine jimping makes the front-flipper a little tricky. For instance, I can only reliably use one method of front-flipping this one. This highlights my general dislike for multiple deployment methods, as I rarely find knives that are tuned perfectly to all of them. I decided to leave the lock-bar tension as is.