Kizer has just released a knife called the Ara, a premium folder that is a collaboration between two up-and-coming designers. Paul Munko and Jonathan Styles teamed up to created this one, which comes spec’d to please both users and collectors.
As a quick refresher, anybody who follows Kizer – or reads KnifeNews – will be familiar with Munko and Styles. Munko made his knife world debut in ’22 with Kizer and the Comet, which established this graphic artist as a name to watch in the production knife scene. Styles has been working with knives since 2019, and has contributed multiple pieces to the Kizer corral, including both folders and fixed blades like the Smolt, which we covered in the spring of last year.
Together, Munko and Styles have created a handsome and usable knife with the Ara. The core of the experience is its 3.09-inch modified drop point blade. The edge profile doesn’t differ greatly from a more traditionally-appointed take on the form, but there’s a harpoon-style swedge up top and, behind that, a slight dip in the spine that can serve as an indexing point for guided detail cuts. For most versions of the Ara, the blade steel is S45VN, a rock-solid super steel, and one of a select group of formulas designed with modern knives in the mind specifically.
Opened with a triangular thumb cutout, the Ara’s blade folds into a handle made of sinuously sculpted titanium and embellished with symmetrical inlays. Two different, fancified carbon fibers are available for the S45VN models, as is an inlay of “snowflake titanium,” which has a multi-faceted blue finish on it that evokes the look of a frozen lake or a sheet of ice. The fourth and final version of the Ara has deep purple timascus inlays, and its blade is made from black-coated CPM-CruWear instead of S45VN.
All four versions of the Ara are-a available now. They are one highlight in a series of recent and upcoming releases from Kizer, of which more anon.
Knife in Featured Image: Kizer Ara
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