Good Surprise

I have been looking for an EDC (every day carry) knife for over a year now.  I have though long and hard about what manufacturer I wanted to get it from.  They type of blade, the handle material, and the action of the lock.  Then there is always the cool factor of the knife.  I like to have it a little on the intimidating side and very sturdy and practical. 

My multitool is the Gerber suspension and I use Gerber for my large axe and I have a Kershaw hatchet.  I am working on replacing my current machete with the Gerber Gator.  So I use lots of brands for various reasons.  Now Gerber is probably one of my top choices for cutting tools but from a few of the EDC's I have seen from them I have not been wowed or impressed by them.  I wanted to search outside the box and not break the bank as well.  One company that I have been seeing more often now is the CRKT brand.

In the end I found the folding Razel by CRKT as the best knife that fit my criteria.  I liked the aggressive look, the mikarta handle, and quality steel.  Now I have never seen the Razel in person and I was going by what it looked like on the inter web.  When the knife showed up I was thoroughly disappointed.  It was wider than I thought.  It had two pocket clips?  Why does any knife need two pocket clips?  Then the mikarta handle had the notches cut into them for grip I guess.  Now I did like the cool serration on the blade and the chisel tip is nice.  Also the action opens nicely and the quality is top notch.  So I showed my son and told him my story of how I was disappointed in the knife and that is when he issues the line of "you complain too much."  Thinking about that I decided to keep the knife and see how it did in the real world.

Using the knife for the past three weeks I have slowly been growing warmer on the knife.  Then last weekend it hit me. This knife has the most awesome use in the world!  I was helping the scouts clean some cast iron and whooped out my knife to get some carbon build up off of a skillet.  This knife was the perfect solution for cutting down on cast iron build up.  The knife also felt great in my hand while doing it.  The chissel tip it leaned to the exact angle to be able to clean cast iron all day.  I started with one skillet and wound up working on six pieces and the next morning I did three more.  I now want to go out and buy as much distressed cast iron at steep discounts just so I can sit and clean it.  I am not going to say this knife is the ultimate EDC but it is the perfect cast iron camping knife on the planet.  I also have some gaskets to replace on my sons truck and I bet this knife will knock that out in no time as well.  So maybe this knife is the ultimate EDC scraper, cleaning, and utility knife on the planet.  That might be a little high.  I am going to wait to give it my patented syring rating for a few more weeks.  I have some challenges for it before I rate it.