Small Sebenza Insingo 31 in MagnaCut for about 9 months

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May 20, 2021
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I cut a decent amount of packaging, cardboard, box tape, on a regular basis. The craziest cut with this knife was accidentally on some metal straps that was holding a speed rack to a wooden pallet. Surprisingly, no edge damage from that. The edge seemed to last longer than S35VN, but not as long as S45VN in the CRK I've tried.

MagnaCut was easier to sharpen for me than S45VN however, about how S35VN is for ease of sharpening, maybe even easier. I did not re-profile the edge. I only honed the edge on fine stones on a Spyderco Sharpmaker. In the 9 months I've owned it, I felt like I needed to sharpen it about 8 months in. The edge still had a good working edge, but the fine edge was reduced and could not cut paper easily and quietly.

I've experienced no rust on any CRK I've owned, so I cannot say how good the corrosion is, but supposedly it is almost LC200N in terms of resistance. I've accidentally dropped the knife, hit the edge on metal, and other things that would dull S35VN or S45VN, but no rolling has ever occurred, or chipping.

This is in Bog Oak, which I did not buy purposefully. To tell you the truth, I saw this in stock on REC and saw that it was a MagnaCut Sebenza in Insingo blade shape and it was an instant buy. I've done a fair bit of research on Bog Oak, and so this is what I can tell you about carrying it. It is quite hard and strong, you can get density numbers if you google it but with Bog Oak it is very dependent on the specific cut of wood you have. Every piece of Bog Oak is going to be different, and sometimes it's not even Oak. CRK might get their Bog Oak from a specific supplier who makes sure it's Oak or something, but I don't have any idea how that works on their end. Bog Oak are mummified trees that have been preserved in lake beds or rivers for thousands of years. The water seeps into the wood and turns the wood black from the outside in. To get really black Bog Oak (aka the type CRK uses), the wood usually needs to be in the water for about four to five thousand years. This might be why Bog Oak is so water resistant. I have had no problems with swelling or cracking from moisture. I would not use a wood knife as a salt water or dive knife though. For EDC however, it's great. So it is water resistant, has a good story behind it with thousands of years backing it, and it is quite hard to resistant to damage. I would suggest putting a very light coating of whatever you like to put on wood, I personally put a very small amount of beeswax and I think it works well. Do your own research though, maybe beeswax is bad for Bog Oak. Anyway, the inlays are still wood and wood is still prone to damage, especially pocket damage. The wood is a warm feeling and provides better grip because of the inlays protruding from the frame. So for the most part I do like to keep it in the leather pouch unless I know I'm going to be using it a lot, in which case I clip it to my pocket.

This Sebenza was apparently Glass Blasted, as opposed to their regular style of Sand Blasting. Or is it Bead Blasting that they do regularly? I don't know. This one is Glass Blasted however, and in comparison to the norm this is much smoother. I actually don't like the normal blasting so much, unless it is carried extensively and worn down so it is not so rough. The initial finish that CRK does usually has a sandpaper feeling to it. Very grippy and functional, but I just don't like it as much as the Glass Blast. The Glass Blasting leaves the lock bar very smooth so disengaging is very pleasant. Traditionally, CRK used a polished handle to compliment their wood inlays which is very shiny, or use their traditional blast finish which is darker. Visually, Glass Blasting is somewhere between the polishing and traditional blasting. Shiny, but not overly so. I prefer the Glass Blasting finish in every way, outside of the fact that the traditional finish is grippier slightly.

Lastly, I think the gold thumb studs are done differently because there has been no fading on the gold anodization even after a lot of openings. It also can freely drop if you give it a wiggle and open the lock bar, but I don't really like doing that because I don't like having a sharp knife dropping onto my finger. I've not used locktite. I opened it up and put grease on it and cleaned it at the start of my ownership like I do with all my CRK. The pivot hasn't backed out at all, and the knife has no play. Very nice.


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My experience with CRK Magnacut has been similar, with no negative feedback what so ever. It feels different on the stones and in use compared to S35vn/S45vn in a way that I really enjoy more. It's probably all in my head, but I love M4 and it feels much more like that than most other stainless steels. So far I think it's a great fit for CRK and hope to see more and more companies adapt it as their new standard.
 
My experience with CRK Magnacut has been similar, with no negative feedback what so ever. It feels different on the stones and in use compared to S35vn/S45vn in a way that I really enjoy more. It's probably all in my head, but I love M4 and it feels much more like that than most other stainless steels. So far I think it's a great fit for CRK and hope to see more and more companies adapt it as their new standard.
I think Magnacut is going to be very very common in, say, 5 years time.
 
Nice write up on your experience so far. I’m looking forward to see if mine will have similar wear. I’ve had mine for about two months and so far it’s been holding a good edge.
 
Nice write up! I have not had an opportunity to try the new steel, but I'm enjoying everything I read online.
From what I can gather, your experience with Magnacut is going to come down to the heat treat. CRK does 63-64 for folders and around 62 for fixed blades. Bark River also does 62 for Magnacut. CRK is going harder for folders to increase edge retention at the cost of toughness.
 
I'm pretty sure they're not anodizing the studs/lanyard barrel. Ti can be heated to turn blue or gold.
Heat tinting of titanium:
pale gold straw-385 °C
purple-412 °C
deep blue-440 °C
red purple-565 °C
brown gray-648 °C
green blue-925 °C
I know I've seen the inside of the lanyard barrel is gold ish on some, that the heat was applied via torch or something where the lanyard barrels were on a stick.

I almost grabbed that small31 magna in the sales area, but I'm wanting a drop point.
 
I'm pretty sure they're not anodizing the studs/lanyard barrel. Ti can be heated to turn blue or gold.
Heat tinting of titanium:
pale gold straw-385 °C
purple-412 °C
deep blue-440 °C
red purple-565 °C
brown gray-648 °C
green blue-925 °C
I know I've seen the inside of the lanyard barrel is gold ish on some, that the heat was applied via torch or something where the lanyard barrels were on a stick.

I almost grabbed that small31 magna in the sales area, but I'm wanting a drop point.
Hmm so in that case, the titanium would be gold all the way through, or just on the surface? I'm just trying to figure out why the blue thumb studs seem to wear away faster than the gold.

Not a bad idea on a drop point, there have been more magnacut CRK coming out more often. Im hoping I can grab a magnacut Impinda next.
 
Just the surface. They'd want to pull it out before it could warp. Most likely they don't have it in there long enough for much below a hundred thou could change color.
You might have seem some torched blue exhaust tips on some 'street race' cars. Those are usually done via torch, less than 15 seconds or so due to thin material. The thumbstuds density is a couple times thicker than those tips. The lanyard barrel could probably take the longer baking to help it keep it's color while the thumb stud has a fine tolerance for where it's press fit in. You wouldn't want that getting warped before install. I know I can hit 650c from my coffee roaster. I might grab a couple lanyard pins and give it a go.
 
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Actually just noticed on the CRK site: "Electro-anodized made in-house, the Lanyard Pin is a 6Al4V Titanium slip fit pin," Elctro-anno is very thin. It's possible the blue is thinner than the gold. I'll update with my lanyard blueing once I get somewhere with it.
 
Just the surface. They'd want to pull it out before it could warp. Most likely they don't have it in there long enough for much below a hundred thou could change color.
You might have seem some torched blue exhaust tips on some 'street race' cars. Those are usually done via torch, less than 15 seconds or so due to thin material. The thumbstuds density is a couple times thicker than those tips. The lanyard barrel could probably take the longer baking to help it keep it's color while the thumb stud has a fine tolerance for where it's press fit in. You wouldn't want that getting warped before install. I know I can hit 650c from my coffee roaster. I might grab a couple lanyard pins and give it a go.
It makes me wonder if they changed their methods or improved on it somehow. All my CRK's with blue thumb studs would have shown wear on the studs by now. This gold one has no visible wear at all.

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My less than week old seb31 has lost a lot of the blue, but I've fiddled with it for probably around 500 times.
Interesting dive into the tech side of this
 
I is just a lot harder to discern the wear on gold anodizing. The silver color underneath contrasts much more against blue than gold.
I thought that as well, but I don't see any silver at all. On a blue I would see a decent amount of wear by now, which is normally why I opt for the silver lugs.
 
I have cut a few cardboard boxes and the magnacut just tear them like butter. The edge feels very “toothy”.
I love it 😍
 
Great review!
Now got to wait few years for my order of small insingo to come in ;)
I really hope their estimations are over exaggerated, I want to get a Magnacut Backpacker or an Impinda but it seems like it might be a longer wait. More recovery time for my wallet I suppose haha.
 
Great write-up!

Magnacut seems to have the potential to become an enduring knife steel. I always liked CPM-154 because of its solid rounded performance with a good HT and everything I am reading about Magnacut suggests it more or less improves upon CPM-154 in every way. And if Reeve is using it, that says to me that even basic sharpening equipment will be sufficient to maintain it considering they've always placed a high value on steels that the user is able to maintain without having sharpening equipment that costs as much as a Sebenza.

I wish there was an option to get my KnifeArt 21 Insingos upgraded to Magnacut, but given their backlog on orders, I highly doubt they will do this.
 
Great write-up!

Magnacut seems to have the potential to become an enduring knife steel. I always liked CPM-154 because of its solid rounded performance with a good HT and everything I am reading about Magnacut suggests it more or less improves upon CPM-154 in every way. And if Reeve is using it, that says to me that even basic sharpening equipment will be sufficient to maintain it considering they've always placed a high value on steels that the user is able to maintain without having sharpening equipment that costs as much as a Sebenza.

I wish there was an option to get my KnifeArt 21 Insingos upgraded to Magnacut, but given their backlog on orders, I highly doubt they will do this.
I think you should call Chris Reeve about that, I know they do re-blades for older models and did indeed use the more modern steel for it. I think maybe since the demand of Magnacut is so high right now, and the fact that they are still running S45VN, they will probably use S45VN for re-blades for the time being. I do think in the future you will absolutely be able to re-blade for Magnacut. This is Chris Reeve we're talking about, they will take care of you one way or another. 👍

As for the sharpening, I did sharpen S45VN and Magnacut on a Spyderco Sharpmaker, and it was easier to get a nice edge with the Magnacut steel. I have never owned Cruwear but I've heard it sharpens similarly to that, which is that it sharpens very nicely and easily. S45VN was slightly harder, but not a burden either.
 
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