Kershaw Cinder Thoughts

The Kershaw Cinder appealed to me so much because of its size and price. I figured it'd be a piece of garbage since you can find them for less than $10. It greatly exceeded my expectations. The Cinder is a gem for the price! I definitely recommend you pick one up.

Quality wise, this knife is pretty good. I've always had quality issues with Kershaws in the past, but I haven't had any major issues with it yet. The lockup is very solid, and the action is smooth. There is a little bit of rusting going on near the bottle opener. It's a cheap knife and steel, so it's what I'd expect. I don't really care, since it's not that noticeable. The blade hasn't rusted at all luckily. For the price, the quality is good enough. Design wise, it's very simple. I like the look of it. It's a Hinderer design for anyone that cares.

Going onto the blade, the steel is 3Cr13MoV. It's a 1.4" blade with a 1.125" cutting edge. That's not the biggest obviously, but it does work well for those lighter EDC tasks. It's not the best steel in the world, but again for the price, what would you expect? It's been fine enough for me. I could see this knife going on the keychain for those times you need a small, backup knife. It's a little on the heavier side thanks to the liners, but I don't think it'd weigh your keys down too much. The thumbstud is easy to access and still can be opened one-handed. It can be removed with a torx screw, which is very interesting to me. I don't think it could be reversed, because the back scale interferes with where it'd stick out. There's some jimping on the spine of the blade, but it's not that grippy in my opinion.

The scales are just textured plastic. My only complaint about them is that they're black. I wish Kershaw made them more colorful. The texturing looks neat and is surprisingly grippy. The Cinder's ergos are great! I can fit a very comfortable three-finger grip, which is hard to find in these keychain knives. I've got smaller hands and can even fit a full four-finger grip if I wanted to. The down swooping portion on the blade is a great spot to rest your thumb. The bottle opener is a nice touch, but not something I get a lot of use out of. It doesn't dig into my hand uncomfortably though, so I'm fine with its addition. It's nice to know this a multi-purpose knife. The liner lock looks really neat with all the cutouts. It functions exactly as it should and has solid lockup. The bigger lanyard hole is nice too, since you can attach it to your keychain easily or attach a lanyard to it.

All in all, this is a fantastic knife for the price. It's not completely perfect in my eyes, but it has still impressed me as another small knife option. There aren't many keychain-sized knives out there with comfortable three-finger grips. The bottle opener is a mere afterthought for me, but I know some people would get a lot of use out of it. Kershaw really killed it with this knife. I didn't think I'd like it that much, but it really blew me away. This is a knife I'd consider giving people just getting into EDC. It's a simple knife that just works well. I would recommend it for sure! You might as well give it a try considering how inexpensive it is. Thanks for looking!