Damascus Solstice - Dark Matter Red

The knife was delivered quickly and in perfect condition

Upon receiving this knife, I immediately tried it out. On top of the knife being beautiful, one highly under rated thing about the knife is the acoustics. The sound is very satisfying, making it very fidget friendly. My first gentlemen’s knife was the ckrt titanium stylus, so that’s my frame of reference for this review.

Now in comparison, I’ve really come to appreciate the smooth-textured flipper on this knife. Although it sticks out a bit more, it js way easier on the finger. I’m not sure what the metal piece on the frame lock is, but it’s been surprisingly useful for indexing and gripping with my finger when closing the blade with one hand. The deep pocket carry clip also looks nice and doesn’t tear up my car seat when I have it in my back pocket.

Now for my gripes:
The first is the little booklet that comes with it. For sharpening, it says “if you do not sharpen your own knives, we recommend you have them sharpened when they start to feel dull”. Thanks, Ocaso, but I didnt really have any plans on tossing a $400 knife as soon as it got dull. Did that mean to say “take it to a professional instead of trying to figure it out”? That would have made more sense. The next section gives a “range” of edge angles, but not the exact one, and just tells you to check the website. As an engineer, I get the idea behind “fool proofing”, but honestly, if that section was going to give me direction, you’d think it’d at least tell me the exact grind angle.

My only other gripe, which lost a star for me, was the centering. I’m not sure if the knife was just simply “super buttery smooth” or if something was loose, but after about 10 minutes of simply opening and closing it, the blade became deviated towards the right while in the closed position. I understand frame locking knives can be wiggled a bit while closed, but this one is a lot easier to wiggle than my other frame locks. It makes me wonder if it simply wasn’t tightened enough, or if that was just part of the design.

In conclusion, I absolutely love the look and feel of this knife, despite the few gripes! It’s definitely my new edc.

So I'm a pharmacist who appreciates high-quality pocket knives. I've been eyeballing the CRKT CEO for a while now because it is significantly different from my current EDC, which is a Spydiechef. I figured that, given the relatively light-duty requirements of my day job, and the literally white-collar reality of being a pharmacist, an "executive-style" knife would be right up my ally. When I first saw the CRKT CEO Compact in carbon fiber handles and S35vN steel, I literally said online that "If it came with a Damascus blade, I would own one already". After a good bit of researching, I found exactly what I was looking for in the Damascus Solstice.

I've only had the knife for a bit over a week now but I must say that I am enamored with everything it has to offer. I have the dark matter blue version, for what it is worth. Upon first handling the knife, I had to overcome my caveman brain instinct of "why so light for so much money?", but once I got over that initial knee-jerk reaction, everything was straight infatuation. With the one odd exception of the cut-out at the base of the lockbar, every surface is magnificently chamfered for comfort. The "deep carry" pocket clip is an understatement--it literally hides the fact that it is a knife when clipped into a pocket, which is ideal for a breast-pocket carry. I will say that the clip is a bit tight even for the average blue-jeans pocket, but the tightness is actually appreciated in the breast pocket of a pharmacy smock, since the material is relatively thin and I don't want the knife falling out of my pocket when I bend over to pick something up. Also the lightness particularly shines in this use case, since it is not so heavy that it weighs down my smock pocket and thus does not create significant bowing of the pocket when carried within. In fact, this knife, at 1.7 ounces, weighs about as much as my heaviest fountain pen that I ever bring to work, which is the Lamy Dialog 3.

The Lockup is absolutely secure with no play in any direction. The Damascus blade is beautiful but also comes sharp enough from the factory to glide through printer paper. I will admit though that it improved after stropping with beaver craft green stropping compound, and I intend to re-profile the edge once I get my worksharp precision adjust later this month. By pure estimation I believe the stock edge might be somewhere in the 20-22.5 degree per side territory, and between the N690 and Nitro-B that the damascus is made of, I believe the knife is tough but has relatively low edge retention, so would benefit from a more acute angle of maybe 17 degrees per side. I'm the kind of person who prioritizes ease of sharpening and stainlessness over edge retention, since I enjoy regularly sharpening/stropping the few knives I have, so this blade steel is actually ideal for my desires.

If I were to have a slight nitpick, I think I would personally prefer a random Damascus pattern versus the raindrop pattern that this blade comes in, but that is definitely personal preference. Also the detent pressure is admittedly light, so unless you use a deliberate effort at flipping the knife open, it has an issue with not fully-deploying, especially with the from-factory lubrication. I've already fully disassembled the knife and replaced the stock lubrication with 10-weight nano-oil, which greatly reduced my issue with the detent strength, but I feel that this minor issue is worth knowing for anybody who is willing to drop the money for this knife.

Okay I'm running out of word space, so here is the lightning-roundup in the way of Nick Shabazz:
The good:
-the knife is light and the materials are high-quality
-it comes apart easily with minimal screws and few components "fly out" when taking it apart
-tolerances seem very nice and the machining is well-considered and implemented well
-the blade is made of 2 steels which could perhaps be better, but are far from trash-mascus that can be found in cheap knives in the market.
The Great:
-if you are looking for a sophisticated knife that is functional and a conversation-starter, I've yet to find a better example
-The tactile experience of everything--the clip, the carbon fiber, the titanium, and the blade itself--is great... I seriously find myself just running my fingers over this knife at random when performing other tasks.
The bad:
-the detent could stand to be a tad stronger
-The factory lubricant is not as smooth as I would like
-The cutout at the base of the lockbar is a bit sharp
The ugly:
-The price is high, sure, but I can't find an equally as elegant competitor for cheaper
-I think the knife edge needs a re-profiling to unleash its true potential.

So yeah, that is my long-winded review. I hope this was useful for any readers. In short I highly recommend this knife for anybody who wants a spare-no-expenses executive knife to compliment something like a fancy fountain-pen!

Beautiful knife! Well worth the price.

The Damascus Solstice