Weekend Open Thread: Moving Goalposts and a CRKT Chehalem Giveaway

Howdy all, and welcome to another edition of the Weekend Open Thread, generously sponsored by our friends at CRKT. I honestly feel bad for all of those who are stuck in places like Michigan, Illinois, or California and other states where the goalposts keep getting moved. Tennessee continues to improve, and more is opening everyday. Hopefully, we can get the country moving again and the knife community can transition back from a virtual one to in person interaction.

In that vein, Blade Show ought to be interesting. The ABS is not going to hold either testing or their auction, I have heard from dozens of table-holders who are going to sit out this year. It is coming too late to be of much use for production knife debuts, and I imagine there will considerably fewer handshakes this year.

AG Russell Knives is reopening their storefront, in case you missed the news…

Sounds like they are progressing a bit more tentatively than SMKW, but that is fine. Whatever it takes to get things moving, I am fine with it. I am not shaming mask-wearers or mask-eschewers, openers, or those not yet ready. We are all in this together, people need to stop letting the media divide us.

But enough blathering from me. It is time for this week’s giveaway – the CRKT Chehalem. This framelock folder, designed by Eric Ochs, is has an extremely clipped point, almost enough to be called a trailing point.

Here is Smoky’s take…

My own impressions are that it has a smooth opening action, one handed using the generous thumb hole. Ergonomics aren’t bad, but the finger choil is a bit on the small side to be truly functional, but the knife is well built and looks to have good geometry.MSRP is $45, but street price should be in the low $30 range.

Last week’s winner of the CRKT Pilar Copper was Ricky Hockensmith, another multi-week winner. That is fine with us, the rule is you need to sit out a week of eligibility as far as winning. The rest of you can enter up to five comments or replies. Rick can chime in too, he just can’t win.

I am a couple of weeks behind on getting knives out. I am not in the office much, and I have been remiss in reaching out. I promise to get caught up with correspondence this weekend and get the knives out next week.

So let us know how things are going in your neck of the woods. Any new knives? Are you going to Blade Show, or are you looking forward to a local show near you returning? Or anything that suits your fancy. It is the Weekend Open Thread.

As I have done since moving these Open Threads above the fold, I am temporarily backdating the previous week’s post to clear space on the homepage. So here it is…

Weekend Open(ing) Thread…Unhunkering Underway and a CRKT Pilar Giveaway

I suppose I would be remiss in omitting the fact it is Memorial Day weekend. I will have more topical post on that on Monday. Have a good one everyone.