- Joined
- Jul 10, 2011
- Messages
- 1,941
If you're only familiar with pre-Burnley Kwaiken era Boker Plus, this story probably won't be of any surprise...
However, if you're like me and spend way too much time here and on YouTube watching knife reviews, you may have notice that Boker Plus has been on the up-and-up lately; starting with the Kwaiken, they've released a number of models that have genuinely been impressive and well made: the Vox F3, Steven Kelly Scoundrel, A[SUP]2[/SUP] front flipper, the Exskelibur framelocks, the Marlowe Bullpup, etc. The era of F&F issues seemed to be behind them, and with a number of very attractive collaborations with top-tier custom makers, Boker Plus seemed to be settling into the halcyon days of the brand nicely.
Enter the Boker Plus Urban Trapper Grand: I'd always found the smaller version very attractive, so as soon as I saw a larger version had been released, I pulled the trigger and bought one from GP Knives. From what I had read, the fit and finish on the original model had been very good, so I had relatively high expectations, especially since $100 buys you very, very nice knives these days.
It arrived on Tuesday, and low and behold, it's a stinker out of the box - the blade is off-center, and the lockface one again has a steep radius with no lock insert. This is the exact problem Boker Plus had with any number of its old titanium-on-steel lock interfaces. Lockslip, lockslip everywhere. Perhaps unsurprisingly, within hours it developed lockslip. I became delusionally confident that it just needed to break in more, as it seemed to go away as the lockbar noticeably began to travel further towards 100% lockup. Alas, tonight the lockslip has returned. We're talking about a lockbar traveling a good 20% in the span of two days.
I genuinely just don't get it; they collaborate with of the best knifemakers out there, can none of them show them how to cut a lockface properly? How do they avoid this issue with some models, and then have it pop up with others? Why not just standardize your lock geometry? Luckily GP Knives are good people and are willing to exchange it, we'll see if the replacement is any better. I fear it's more an issue with the model itself than my specific instance.
Lockface, for reference:
However, if you're like me and spend way too much time here and on YouTube watching knife reviews, you may have notice that Boker Plus has been on the up-and-up lately; starting with the Kwaiken, they've released a number of models that have genuinely been impressive and well made: the Vox F3, Steven Kelly Scoundrel, A[SUP]2[/SUP] front flipper, the Exskelibur framelocks, the Marlowe Bullpup, etc. The era of F&F issues seemed to be behind them, and with a number of very attractive collaborations with top-tier custom makers, Boker Plus seemed to be settling into the halcyon days of the brand nicely.
Enter the Boker Plus Urban Trapper Grand: I'd always found the smaller version very attractive, so as soon as I saw a larger version had been released, I pulled the trigger and bought one from GP Knives. From what I had read, the fit and finish on the original model had been very good, so I had relatively high expectations, especially since $100 buys you very, very nice knives these days.
It arrived on Tuesday, and low and behold, it's a stinker out of the box - the blade is off-center, and the lockface one again has a steep radius with no lock insert. This is the exact problem Boker Plus had with any number of its old titanium-on-steel lock interfaces. Lockslip, lockslip everywhere. Perhaps unsurprisingly, within hours it developed lockslip. I became delusionally confident that it just needed to break in more, as it seemed to go away as the lockbar noticeably began to travel further towards 100% lockup. Alas, tonight the lockslip has returned. We're talking about a lockbar traveling a good 20% in the span of two days.
I genuinely just don't get it; they collaborate with of the best knifemakers out there, can none of them show them how to cut a lockface properly? How do they avoid this issue with some models, and then have it pop up with others? Why not just standardize your lock geometry? Luckily GP Knives are good people and are willing to exchange it, we'll see if the replacement is any better. I fear it's more an issue with the model itself than my specific instance.
Lockface, for reference:
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