Key Takeaways
- This has a small but slice-y semi-polished blade that emphasizes working with the tip.
- It’s super smooth in the pocket and the clip holds tight.
- The ergos feel ideal for choking up on the blade.
- The steel feels a little soft, but it’s still good for a day’s work.
This Gentleman’s Folder is a Fancy Claw You Can Put in Your Pocket.
It feels odd to say, but the Vivid summons the image of a badger in a bowtie waddling into the room and asking politely if you’d like him to chew the hell out of the boxes stacked next to your recycling bin.
Actually, I take that back. I have no qualms about summoning that image. The Kansept Vivid is a fancy claw with solid ergos that trend dangerously close to being too prescriptive, but end up giving me a smooth but firm grip.
It doesn’t have a lot of problems. I personally don’t like the crossbar lock, but I don’t like most crossbar locks. It has great steel, and makes good use of it. It rides tight in the pocket and doesn’t tear it up thanks to the smooth scales.
My only real issue with it is the crossbar lock, but that’s at least half because of my own personal bias against them. The other half is because the shape of it feels like a bad combination for my clumsy disposition, but I’ll get into that.
Specifications
| Overall Length: | 7.17” |
| Blade Length: | 3.04” |
| Blade Steel: | Damascus |
| Open System: | Thumb hole |
| Blade Thickness: | 3.0 mm |
| Blade Shape: | Wharncliffe |
| Blade Grind: | Flat |
| Handle Material: | Titanium w/ Fatcarbon |
| Lock Type: | Crossbar |
| Weight: | 3.81 oz / 108 g |
| Designer: | Jacob Lundquist |
| Made in: | China |
| What I Liked | What I Didn’t Like |
|---|---|
| Fin slicing, high-utility blade | Thumb hole opening feels awkward in my hands |
| Good ergos with usable finger choil | A somewhat plain pocket clip on a dressy knife |
| Nice high-retention pocket clip | Short cutting edge can be a limitation sometimes |
Fancy Design with Utility Intent
There’s maybe a bit of a John WIck element here in the sense that the Vivid is dressed well and is highly efficient. I don’t want to give the wrong impression about the design intent here, though. This wharncliffe blade is pure utility.
This was designed to be a fidgety crossbar lock with maybe a heavier emphasis on styling than previous Lundquist designs. That’s not to say his Vanish slip joint isn’t popping with style, just that the Vivid chases its namesake to be especially eye popping.
It’s meant to be felt and seen a little beyond the bounds of everyday cutting. If not exactly a gentleman’s carry, then something that’s almost as much fashion choice as tool, but it remains an excellent tool for all that.
Smooth Handles but a Grippy Shape
Props to this knife for having a finger choil under the blade I actually feel comfortable using.
In fact, a lot of the curvature fits my hand pretty well, but just barely. It trends dangerously close to being too prescriptive, but for my hands the divots in the handle actually work to provide comfortable grip security.
I can’t promise it’ll feel as helpful to someone with bigger hands than mine. But it does mean that I get to enjoy the carbon fiber scales without wishing for more texture. For once, there’s enough going on with the handle shaping that I never find the smoothness becoming too slippery. Certainly not for the range I’m inclined to use it in.
I wouldn’t mind more jimping for myself. Smooth and comfortable as the knife is, I do find my thumb slipping a little more than I like. That would detract from the sleek aesthetic of the knife, though.
Fast Action and Crossbar Complaints
The action is snappy. It might butter smooth, but the blade flicks out too quickly for you to notice how smooth it actually is. This thing flies out. Not much more to say there. It’s a nice knife. It has nice-knife action.
I can’t get myself to get on fully on board with crossbar locks, and the Vivid offers a good example of why. I don’t like when the movement to disengage the lock feels too close to how my hand sits or moves naturally on the knife when I’m using it.
In this case, they’ve shaped the lock into a textured slope so it’s easier for the thumb and index finger to pull down on.
That’s nice in theory, but in practice it has made me that much more paranoid about accidentally disengaging the lock.
BUT.
That actually doesn’t come up that often because most of the time I choke up on the blade and mostly use the tip, which conveniently puts my fingers around the lock and my palm tends to stand off it.
A Small Blade that Cuts Smooth
Yeah this blade sings.
The blade is slightly forward-leaning from the handle, which gives the knife a little bit of a claw look and feeling. That makes cuts feel a lot more immediate.
This has a nicely polished edge. When cutting paper it feels like there isn’t much room for error. I really have to make sure I have my angles right.
But in practice, cutting up cardboard or threads and junk mail, the edge has an addictively smooth cutting action.
There’s not a whole lot of cutting edge for how much overall length this thing has, which really highlights the Vivid as an EDC pocket knife with a heavy focus on utility. Maybe there isn’t a ton of cutting edge, but what’s there is highly functional, and all that handling space means I have more ways to adjust how I’m cutting something. In that sense, this is an optimum ratio.
Performance Drop
I don’t know what hardness they cooked this blade to, but it feels a little on the softer side for a premium knife with a thin edge. The edge lost its bite after a respectable amount of work, but the rate at which the performance dropped felt a little more dramatic compared to something like the Off Grid Black Mamba.
It was also easy to get the edge back into shape in a way that supports my suspicion that they’ve gone softer with the Vivid.
This might sound like a criticism, but I actually don’t mind it. Losing its bite and actually getting dull are two slightly but significantly different things. The Vivid did a few full days of work with me, and it’s possible the boxes and wood scraps were a little tougher than what I normally test knives on.
My testing sample is only listed as having Damascus steel. The monosteel version is S35VN, though, and I assume the Damascus version has that same steel folded in or something that will perform similarly. With that in mind I’m also guessing they wanted to emphasize toughness a little more than edge retention. If that was the intent, they hit on it just fine.
Comparison and Alternatives
I’ll stick to wharncliffe blades with this one, because the particular angle of the Vivid’s edge feels like one of its most distinct features.
The Kizer Hawk is a good option if you really like titanium and don’t mind a lot more heft. It has a little more blade length, but there’s just more knife overall because it’s also a very thick knife, and a little more suited to a full grip on the handle.
If you want to go larger but more comfortable, the Off Grid Rapid Fire Wharncliffe is a great, lower-cost and maybe more rugged option that still has a great edge. It will feel bulkier though. That’s one thing that’s tough to ebay the Vivid on. It’s really nice in the pocket.
The Vosteed RSKaos (called the Mayhem, once upon a time) is a good compromise between the bulk of the Kizer Hawk and the more subtle FatCarbon of the Vivid with ergos more in keeping with the Vivid. It also gets you a solid titanium handle with a lock mechanism that is button-lock adjacent, but feels a little more robust.
If you like the idea of a crossbar lock, but you would prefer something that is American made and a little less flashy, the Buck Range Elite may fit the bill.
I’d like to recommend the Spyderco Yojimbo. That feels like the perfect tactical alternative, but the closest I’ve come to trying the Yojimbo is the fixed blade variation, the Ronin 2. Assuming the geometries are the same there, the edge will be a lot slicer thanks to the hollow grind. I’ll admit I don’t like the thinner handle on those designs, though.
A Dressy Utility EDC
The Vivid is a precision-made tool that might look and feel nice enough to carry to a wedding. Despite all my language about it being a “vicious, claw-like cutter” at the beginning, it actually lends itself to delicate work. Its design leans into what makes wharncliffe blades so good for EDC. It gives you a near equal amount of pressure along a small blade and emphasizes cutting ability near the tip.
The fact that it has a combination FatCarbon and titanium handle takes it up a few dress codes, even if you don’t go for the Damascus version. It’s a gentleman’s utility blade.
