Ikaika

Ikaika

The Ikaika is a KO Knives production piece (note the KO Knives logo on this knife as opposed to the Ken Onion Hawaii logo that appears on Ken's custom and mid-tech knives). Ikaika is a Hawaiian word meaning "Spirit of the warrior" or "strong, powerful and massive". Vince Ford, formerly of Spyderco and Camillus, Shawn Cavanaugh, Larry Chew and Tim Wegner, as well as Ken, all had a hand in the production of this knife. It was Ken's attempt at testing the contract manufacturing market, which proved to be a big hassle. The handle is a molded Kevlar/Hytel and the blade is 440-C with an "Ion Bond 172" coating from Multi-Arc Scientific. The sheathes were done by Tim Wegner at Bladetech. There were supposed to be 200 made, but only 140 were completed. The entire run of Ikaikas sold out quickly in 1996.