Are Emerson Knives as Good as they say

I was seriously considering buying an Emerson, even though I had never held, much less, used one. My only knowledge of the company is a catalog I was sent....and these forums. I looked thru that catalog until it was ratty, and I kept coming back to one thing, there was more written about how cool you would be if you owned one than there was about the knife itself. Between the ego-inflating and all the company branded toys (shirts, beads etc), it has little to no information about the actual knives. I got hyped and internet bullied once into buying a product that wasen't worth what it was made of...not again. I'm glad to see that someone has the stones to go against the grain a bit in order to tell the truth. Money is too tight these days to buy hype.
 
EMT_Lee said:
And, that goes back to what I (and others) have said. Cheaping out on materials. If that liner were thicker, it would be solid. It's too thin. It obviously engages fully, so there is no other reason it would fail like that. Man... that's disappointing. I've never had one that weak.
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I've heard the fit of the lock is more important than how much is engaged and how thin the lock is. poor fit leads to stickiness and over time, the lock will travel. a better fit means the lock won't be sticky after break in, and thus it won't wear as quickly.
 
misterjuiceman said:
I've heard the fit of the lock is more important than how much is engaged and how thin the lock is. poor fit leads to stickiness and over time, the lock will travel. a better fit means the lock won't be sticky after break in, and thus it won't wear as quickly.
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You're probably right. I've never handled that knife in person, so it's hard to gauge the problem. On the Emerson's I've personally had, the liners were too thin. You could feel them "flex" with pressure on the knife's spine. They would not fail, but it was a creepy feeling when they would flex. I was assuming that the failure in the video was similar to my experiences.
 
I love Ernie's designs , but I have had few new right out of the box ( Commander and Karambits ) that had lockup issues. To be fair , I have also had a few out of the box that were fine. Only one needed to go back , the others I was able to tweak.

It wasn't due to a bad design , or cheap materials , in each case it was the backspacer that was throwing it off.

The backspacer was thicker than the blade plus both washers. Running the backspacer over some various grits of sand paper on a surface plate ( or replacing the backspacer all together with a titanium spacer ) , really changed the lockup. It didn't take much , just a few thousandths here and there on the spacer , and the lockup was back on track. In some cases it was just burrs around the screw holes in the backspacer sticking up and throwing off the fit.

Not a huge deal if you tinker with your knives , but out of the box I can see where others would be soured from buying them.

The Commander & Mini Commander in a framelock ( like the HD7 ) would be ( in my opinion ) , about the best there is in a daily user.
I had one that was converted by Reese Weiland , wish I had kept it.

Years ago EKI was one of the top dogs , now others have caught up , new players have came about ( Zero Tolerance for one ) , EKI has some new designs , but it doesn't appear as though the quality has increased.

In their price range ,EKI has some tuff competition from BM , Spyderco , ZT , and as of late Boker.
 
Depends on which one you get. I have 2 CQC7B models and they are about as close to perfect as you're gonna find. I also have a Raven, however, that has had lock-up issues that required 2 trips to the factory to fix. The Raven also
suffers from a misplaced thumb disc and a strange handle/blade ratio.
Love the CQC7Bs, though....
 
John T Wylie Jr said:
Years ago EKI was one of the top dogs , now others have caught up , new players have came about ( Zero Tolerance for one ) , EKI has some new designs , but it doesn't appear as though the quality has increased.

In their price range ,EKI has some tuff competition from BM , Spyderco , ZT , and as of late Boker.
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It's not really a competition anymore when those other companies are blowing Emerson away in price, availibility, materials, and quality. EKI needs to realize this and try to make amends. Especially to their incredibly loyal costumers who are being straight up mugged.
 
No, CQC7 EDC for 3 weeks the lock sticks bad (have to carry a spyderco to release the lock) and now it has worked all the way to the other side. Alot of blade movement side to side I tried to tighten the pivet screw and didn't help.

Emerson wants $19.00 to repair a knife that should have been fixed before he sold the knife.

Go buy $150.00 worth of Mtech (@$7.99 each) use them for hard use and throw them away when you done.
 
Found rust spots on the nonlocking liner of my CQC-11, just got it about 4 days ago. Was there a reason they made the nonlocking liner SS instead of Ti?

Either way, I plan to get it framelocked, rescaled and bolstered.
 
I have had a go of one or two of them - quite often as there is a stockist nearby - can't remember the models, but I thought they were silly.

Also, and maybe this shouldn't affect a view of the cutlery itself, the PR and pontificating coming off their site is fatuous wind. Puts me off, anyhow
 
Apec said:
Found rust spots on the nonlocking liner of my CQC-11, just got it about 4 days ago. Was there a reason they made the nonlocking liner SS instead of Ti?


Because there cheap.
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This is turning into a real 'he said/she said'. All of my experiences with Emerson have been positive, but does this make me the exception or the rule? I respect others experiences with regard to EKI knives and given those experiences, I can understand the dissatisfaction. Ultimately, each person must come to their own conclusions by using the product for a time.
 
As a person who has owned ALL the expensive heavy duty production folders at one time.. I can tell you that IMO, for the money.. emersons are hard to beat. I currently carry a cqc-14 and friggin love it.
 
i have carried the cqc-7 every day for many years. all i can say is this is one tough knife that has no-nosense. its a great knife and super fast to deploy.
 
My experience has been kind of hit or miss. Purchased a CQC-8 a few years back and the lock wore out in a matter of months. Perhaps from me playing with the wave too much? :o Eventually, the knife wouldn't even pass a spine TAP. That turned me off to the brand for awhile. My second one, mini a-100 was perfect out of the box. Solid lock up, thick liners, and and a pretty decent fit and finish. After months of use the lock has not moved at all! It restored my confidence in the brand. Unfortunately, my latest purchase (Horseman) was terrible. I assume the detent hole was not drilled correctly as the blade would come out about 2-3mm before the detent would stop the blade from coming out. Very dangerous especially since the knife was tip up carry. Returned it for a Spydie Milie that has had zero problems.

For the price of EKI's, there are much nicer knives out there. For that kind of money, I don't want to play the lottery and hope that I get a good one.
I will say that they do have very nice designs and ergos, but there are also major problems that others have already mentioned that they either ignore or are not willing to fix.
 
As good as they say? Not even close.

The whole Emerson 'thing' seems to be about the man, not the knife. The man and his tough guy image. I saw EE at the last blade show, and I think his tough guy days are far behind him.

Sure, a super duper lifetime warranty, but that does not mean the knife will not fail, it only means it will be fixed or replaced.

Personally, I think Benchmade is far superior.
 
Apec said:
Found rust spots on the nonlocking liner of my CQC-11, just got it about 4 days ago. Was there a reason they made the nonlocking liner SS instead of Ti?

Either way, I plan to get it framelocked, rescaled and bolstered.
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Where do you get such work done?
 
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