Kaviso x QSP Penguin Titanium Frame Lock with S35VN

Fat Carbon materials are truly a work of art. The manufacturing team in Lithuania have been a pleasure to work with over the last few years on several Kaviso projects, and when we brought up the Penguin, they were keen to collab. For show side scales we landed on Dark Matter, a heat resistant composite using recycled carbon fiber rowing, biobased resin, organic pigments, combined using renewable energy. Even more impressive is the intricate details hidden within these scales – blue or green vivid dashes of color throughout.

Did we stop at cool scales? Clearly not. What fun is biobased carbon fiber if the rest of the knife doesn’t match? We test anodized a dozen sets of titanium to find shades we loved (and complimented that Dark Matter CF) and went all out – Frame of the knife, hardware, pivots, even the thumb studs have all been anodized in small batches to complement the Dark Matter colorways.

Perfectly centered, flat grind S35VN sheepsfoot blade with thumb stud openers on both sides for snappy, easy deployment of the blade. A substantial upgrade over D2, S35VN is a sweet spot for steel hardness, ease of maintenance, and corrosion resistance. Jimping on the spine of the blade for better grip when cutting or carrying.

Developed by Crucible Industries (one of the leading manufacturers of specialty steels for the cutlery industry) and Chris Reeve (arguably the most famous knifemaker in the world), S35VN is perhaps the most balanced blade steel ever created in terms of all-around performance. It’s made through a process of Crucible Particle Metallurgy (CPM), which results in near perfect consistency in the distribution of carbides. Compared to conventional melting practices, the CPM process produces a steel characterized by superior dimensional stability, grindability, and toughness.