Griptilian Upgrade
American expatriate Kevin Wilkins turns the ubiquitous Benchmade folder into a true work of art.
One of the benefits of writing for Tactical Knives is that I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of genuine knife experts. In what can at times be a fractious culture, one thing that everyone seems to agree about is that the Benchmade Griptilian is one of their favorite utility folders. I’m not sure that even Benchmade or Griptilian designer Mel Pardue knew when they introduced it years ago that their reasonably priced utility folder would hit such a sweet spot with the public. Everyone seems to like it; it was the base model for survival guru Doug Ritter’s RSK Mk1, and closer to home, it’s the knife I’m most likely to have with me on duty when I’m not evaluating a knife for an article.
In an interesting twist on the custom collaboration model, Berlin-based American ex-pat Kevin Wilkins makes and installs a Griptilian handle upgrade. The upgrade consists of replacement scales and a back spacer, and he calls the finished product Griptilikins. All the rest of the Griptilian hardware—the blade, Axis-Lock, pivot mechanism, and so on—remains the same. The upgrade is available for Benchmade’s model 550, 550HG, 551 and 552 without any modifi cation to the original knife (they will not fit the model 553 with tanto-shaped blades). The standard Griptilikins grips are machined from glass fi ber plastic laminates. The black, ranger green, cyan blue and orange versions are made from G-10, while the pale green and swimming pool green are made from the stronger, harder GFK laminate G-11. All Griptilikins grips include a spacer machined from AlMgSi1 6082 T6 aluminum alloy with a hard anodized surface. Kevin used to make grips from the AlMgSi1 6082 alloy, but has discontinued them (what’s left in stock is it). Of course, as a full-time maker, he has and can make grips from other materials on a custom basis. In case you’re wondering, the knife isn’t altered in any way, and the original scales can go back on at any time. As Kevin says, “I did not want to modify or alter the mechanics of the Benchmade knife in any way. Reasons for this were simple: The Griptilian is a superbly engineered and manufactured product. I can’t make it mechanically better than it already is. I also did not want to do anything that would prohibit the original grips from being re-installed.”
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