Busse knives really worth the bux ?

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FortyTwoBlades said:
The key is about making that risk as small as is reasonably possible. ;)
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Yes, and if buying a Busse has the potential of breaking you, you probably shouldn't. But if all it means is that you have to put off another knife purchase for a little while then there is probably little harm.
 
The risk I'm talking about is the risk of getting buyer's remorse. Not financial risk, though for some that could be a concern. It's about trying to ascertain beforehand if a knife is a good match for your uses and preferences.
 
Bigfattyt said:
@ Baldtaco-II, so the camp tramp was a bad knife because the steel needed proper maintenance? It is Sr101 (their version of 52100) and it is a pretty rust aggressive steel. Great steel though. There is a reason that many master smith knife makers choose it to forge their custom blades out of. My 1095 is pretty rust aggressive, if not taken proper care of. I don't wine about it. I just know that my high carbon, and most tool steels will require a bit more care.
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What might strike you as maintenance might strike someone else as mollycoddling or pampering. This is subjective. Some people would do well to look up what the difference between subjective and objective is before they post in this thread too. Because it is subjective there is no universal right answer and only a cretin would argue that there is. The flip side of that is my answer cannot be definitively right or wrong for everyone. So, when I say that I found it bad value because it corrodes easily that cannot be wrong. That's not a wine[sic], that is a subjective value statement in response to a question. ...............................................................If folks here were more interested in a discussion rather than dipshit fanboy posturing I would have put the case as to why that is my answer. Likewise, I'd be interested in why someone else might feel that is not the case for them. Unless I'm given reason to believe that people can at least achieve the base line standard of understanding the difference between what is subjective and what is objective that isn't likely to happen. The most I'm willing to offer up is an objective statement of fact - that they corrode very easily, the objective statement that unlike knives of yesteryear I don't have to put up with that because other modern manufacturers make knives in steels that do the job just as well but don't corrode like that, and the subjective statement that I think that makes them poor value.................................................................What MS makes has zero bearing on this. That's a chaff flare sent up exclusively to divert attention and I am not easily enough distracted to fall for that. MS habitually use lots of different materials that need pampering, so what...........................................................................The thing that is very unfortunate about this thread is the repeated attempts to polarize it. I refuse to play like that because it is stupid. It's as if there is an either “you're for us or against us” mentality seeping out from some quarters. I understand how the halo effect works and some people will worship everything Busse has ever done no matter how crappy it is. It's their special snowflake, unimpeachable and not amenable to reason. Even that thing I posted above that the owner measured to have the geometry of a cold chisel and described by him as like a 3lb hammer can get explained away. The fact that is a really shitty shape to make a cutting tool no matter who makes it or what it is made from will get completely disregarded. The opposite halo also applies. There are things people don't like about the marketing of Busse, or the sycophancy, or that when you're a member of a Busse group forum a person in authority will always be on hand to promote the product or pretend to be your friend and chat home-life stuff when it suits, but when it comes to getting straight answers to stuff like “did the Busse group actually make this or is it just a re-badged OEM” you get silence. That's sets up an unreasonable negative halo and everything about Busse sux. That's just as daft as the rampant fanboyism. I drew attention to that on page 20, both camps are suffering from the same type of intellectual deficiency, only one is for Busse and one is against. I also drew attention to the fact that those of us that aren't mental midgets might find some merit in some of them..................................................................I really don't think this thread is doing anything productive now. I suspected that a while back and figured I'd bailed. We'd pretty much ended up at the mealy mouthed “well people will like what they like” and it obviously wasn't going to advance much further than that. I was only lured back in to correct two statements that were objectively wrong, not subjective opinion, but as a matter of fact wrong. One was about IP addresses, and the other that crock of boswellox that went “self formed opinions based on the busse KNIFE/s you/others have owned and more importantly, used is all that really belongs here”, like I couldn't tell from a photo that a car with oval wheels wasn't going to be great value............................................................................................................I'd prefer to exit this thread on an upbeat note and the best way for me to do that is to recap what I said at the start. Some Busse stuff offers awful value. It's not awful value because it is Busse it is awful value for solving the tasks I require knives to solve because of the shape of the device and / or the cost of going that route to the solution, no matter who makes it. On the other hand some look really good. I then went to expand about some of the little ones with the Mudder grips and how I found a degree of parity between some of those and my Linder Super Edge that I adored. I even made special mention of the new Elmax ones looking like they were potentially very good indeed. One really does need to think bigger and beyond the halo to see the nuance in the grey. One thing is for sure and that is I will not be drawn into some idiotic polar position about every knife Busse has made, it's beneath me and I hope in the future it will be beneath all of you too and not just some of you.
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
The key is about making that risk as small as is reasonably possible. ;)
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I recently bought a leather stitching machine, easily the biggest purchase for the shop I've ever made, four figures. Reasonable? No. Necessary? Yes! The risk is phenominal, but the payoff has the potential of being rather large.

To me, the risk is similar when I purchase a knife for use as a pattern for sheath making. Will I get enough in orders to at least cover the cost of the knife? I dont have the income to buy any 300.00 knives just because I like it, the loss is alarming to the pocket book. Though at the same time, if I dont I take the risk of not getting any income.

I know its a little different philosophy, but the basic thinking is still sound. My income says Buck and Case, but my business says Busse and Swamp Rat. Argh! :p
 
Baldtaco-II , Do you only prefer knives that are stainless or semi-stainless? There's nothing wrong with that but the OP was directly asking for comparisons to ESEE knives which use a very rust aggressive 1095 steel, so I see very little value in bringing up corrosion resistance as a major factor. In addition, you probably shouldn't let differences of opinion on an internet forum get to you so much as I notice that your posts have been the ones with the insulting language and negative overreactions.
 
mcconnad said:
Baldtaco-II , Do you only prefer knives that are stainless or semi-stainless? There's nothing wrong with that but the OP was directly asking for comparisons to ESEE knives which use a very rust aggressive 1095 steel, so I see very little value in bringing up corrosion resistance as a major factor. In addition, you probably shouldn't let differences of opinion on an internet forum get to you so much as I notice that your posts have been the ones with the insulting language and negative overreactions.
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On the whole stainless but I've had very good experiences with D2. In fact, if I had a good enough reason to buy one and it was I touch bigger I'd be snagging up another Enzo. Their D2 at that hardness works brilliantly. If it had a good rubber handles I would to have tossed a coin as to whether to grab one...................................None of this gets to me. Fools are as replaceable as piston rods and I am completely dispassionate about their well-being. If you look closely you will notice that it was in response to weasel words that the tenor of my deliveries became more robust. Wine[sic] and so on is not the best way to approach me if you want me to remain gentle. I don't enjoy hitting that stuff back over the net, it gets in the way of the discussion, but I'm good at it if need be........................Anyway, I'm done here now. :)
 
mcconnad said:
The initial purchase is a leap of faith. What fun is life without a little risk?
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FortyTwoBlades said:
The key is about making that risk as small as is reasonably possible. ;)
Click to expand...

That's one of the reasons I say that Busses (in general) are worth the money. The risk of trying one out is already minimal because one can nearly always recoup at least most of the outlay if the knife is found wanting. Not that it would be of course :p
 
FortyTwoBlades said:
The risk I'm talking about is the risk of getting buyer's remorse. Not financial risk, though for some that could be a concern. It's about trying to ascertain beforehand if a knife is a good match for your uses and preferences.
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When purchasing Busse knives you can prettymuch get your money back if you are not happy with it. Someone will want it.
 
Yes but it still requires time and effort on the part of the buyer when they really just want a knife to keep and use. Buying a knife, not liking it, and selling it for what you got it for...sucks. You may have gotten some experience out of it, but you also expended a lot of time and you still don't have a knife to have and use at the end of it. That's an experience that a lot of folks prefer not to have. But yes, the ability to resell quickly at full value acts as a safety net for the purchase.
 
I'm too lazy to read all the way through this thread to find out if this has been said or not, but to paraphrase Mike Stewart, Jerry Busse makes some of the toughest knives on the planet. Add to that the Busse warranty and the fact that Busse knives come with their own built-in resale market that makes it all but impossible to lose money on a Busse purchase and it's pretty silly not to try one and find out if Mike's right.
 
BT wrote:

What might strike you as maintenance might strike someone else as mollycoddling or pampering. This is subjective. Some people would do well to look up what the difference between subjective and objective is before they post in this thread too. Because it is subjective there is no universal right answer and only a cretin would argue that there is. The flip side of that is my answer cannot be definitively right or wrong for everyone.

So, when I say that I found it bad value because it corrodes easily that cannot be wrong. That's not a wine[sic], that is a subjective value statement in response to a question. If folks here were more interested in a discussion rather than dipshit fanboy posturing I would have put the case as to why that is my answer. Likewise, I'd be interested in why someone else might feel that is not the case for them.

Unless I'm given reason to believe that people can at least achieve the base line standard of understanding the difference between what is subjective and what is objective that isn't likely to happen. The most I'm willing to offer up is an objective statement of fact - that they corrode very easily, the objective statement that unlike knives of yesteryear I don't have to put up with that because other modern manufacturers make knives in steels that do the job just as well but don't corrode like that, and the subjective statement that I think that makes them poor value.

What MS makes has zero bearing on this. That's a chaff flare sent up exclusively to divert attention and I am not easily enough distracted to fall for that. MS habitually use lots of different materials that need pampering, so what?

The thing that is very unfortunate about this thread is the repeated attempts to polarize it. I refuse to play like that because it is stupid. It's as if there is an either “you're for us or against us” mentality seeping out from some quarters.

I understand how the halo effect works and some people will worship everything Busse has ever done no matter how crappy it is. It's their special snowflake, unimpeachable and not amenable to reason. Even that thing I posted above that the owner measured to have the geometry of a cold chisel and described by him as like a 3lb hammer can get explained away. The fact that is a really shitty shape to make a cutting tool no matter who makes it or what it is made from will get completely disregarded.

The opposite halo also applies. There are things people don't like about the marketing of Busse, or the sycophancy, or that when you're a member of a Busse group forum a person in authority will always be on hand to promote the product or pretend to be your friend and chat home-life stuff when it suits, but when it comes to getting straight answers to stuff like “did the Busse group actually make this or is it just a re-badged OEM” you get silence. That's sets up an unreasonable negative halo and everything about Busse sux.

That's just as daft as the rampant fanboyism. I drew attention to that on page 20, both camps are suffering from the same type of intellectual deficiency, only one is for Busse and one is against. I also drew attention to the fact that those of us that aren't mental midgets might find some merit in some of them.

I really don't think this thread is doing anything productive now. I suspected that a while back and figured I'd bailed. We'd pretty much ended up at the mealy mouthed “well people will like what they like” and it obviously wasn't going to advance much further than that. I was only lured back in to correct two statements that were objectively wrong, not subjective opinion, but as a matter of fact wrong. One was about IP addresses, and the other that crock of boswellox that went “self formed opinions based on the busse KNIFE/s you/others have owned and more importantly, used is all that really belongs here”, like I couldn't tell from a photo that a car with oval wheels wasn't going to be great value.

I'd prefer to exit this thread on an upbeat note and the best way for me to do that is to recap what I said at the start:

Some Busse stuff offers awful value. It's not awful value because it is Busse it is awful value for solving the tasks I require knives to solve because of the shape of the device and / or the cost of going that route to the solution, no matter who makes it. On the other hand some look really good.

I then went to expand about some of the little ones with the Mudder grips and how I found a degree of parity between some of those and my Linder Super Edge that I adored. I even made special mention of the new Elmax ones looking like they were potentially very good indeed.

One really does need to think bigger and beyond the halo to see the nuance in the grey.

One thing is for sure and that is I will not be drawn into some idiotic polar position about every knife Busse has made, it's beneath me and I hope in the future it will be beneath all of you too and not just some of you.
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BT, I can't follow your flow of consciousness writing style so I broke it up into grammar.

This thread hasn't been so bad.

The Swamp has made no secret that their knives are not made of stainless steel,
and their pricing is very reasonable compared to the insane prices that their knives
fetch on the secondary market.

So obviously their knives are worth the bux to some people,
just not you.

And lots of knives are made of carbon steel,
I'll bet most of 42's blades are such.

It may be a point to consider when analyzing their worth,
but by no means is this fact worthy of venom.

No object has intrinsic value, worth can only exist subject to an observer's perspective.

The title of the thread should read "worth the bux to you?"

Because that's the only way it can be interpreted,
that's not "mealy mouth," that's just facts.
 
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FortyTwoBlades said:
Yes but it still requires time and effort on the part of the buyer when they really just want a knife to keep and use. Buying a knife, not liking it, and selling it for what you got it for...sucks. You may have gotten some experience out of it, but you also expended a lot of time and you still don't have a knife to have and use at the end of it. That's an experience that a lot of folks prefer not to have. But yes, the ability to resell quickly at full value acts as a safety net for the purchase.
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Surely that's the case with any knife though, or just about anything where there is a choice.

I suppose with something really cheap, like a mora, most people would not have the hassle of reselling it if they did not like it. A lot of time and effort can be avoided by studying carefully what one's true requirements are (which can include the hypothetical if one sees a knife as an insurance policy) and reading places like this for others' opinions. Even so, it's obviously still not a given that any particular knife suits an individual.

I know that I could pick up any magnum fusion-handled Busse knife and find it comfortable to use. Would it be good enough to be worth the money to me? I would not know that until I tried it out. Perhaps a MOASH would be too heavy for me, perhaps not.

Personally, I find that search for the 'perfect' knife (in each type of use I want) to be part of the fun. A bit like the search for the perfect woman!

For those who prefer not to have that 'problem', then I hope either (1) they are quite easily satisfied or (2) they have a lot of friends with a lot of knives for them to try.


Maniacal Pete said:
shoot, I thought this thread was over yesterday.
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I ain't heard no fat lady...

...

Frankly, I'm always fascinated that these threads go on for so long when the answer is obviously personal. While there are perhaps some things that are obviously not worth the money (at least to the vast majority of us) like nasty foreign knock-offs made from dodgy steel with non-existent heat-treating sold at custom prices, most knives that we all see and discuss are clearly worth their cost to someone.

I wonder how a question like this would go down in the custom knife forum, where there are knives sold for many thousands of dollars that are often impractical, easily damaged, and absolutely, exquisitely, amazingly gorgeous... Would one of that type be worth the cost to me? No, because I don't have that much money that I could spend a car's worth on a knife. If I won the lottery though, absolutely - for the sheer joy of owning and perhaps occasionally using a work of art!
 
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baldtaco-II said:
On the whole stainless but I've had very good experiences with D2. In fact, if I had a good enough reason to buy one and it was I touch bigger I'd be snagging up another Enzo. Their D2 at that hardness works brilliantly. If it had a good rubber handles I would to have tossed a coin as to whether to grab one...................................None of this gets to me. Fools are as replaceable as piston rods and I am completely dispassionate about their well-being. If you look closely you will notice that it was in response to weasel words that the tenor of my deliveries became more robust. Wine[sic] and so on is not the best way to approach me if you want me to remain gentle. I don't enjoy hitting that stuff back over the net, it gets in the way of the discussion, but I'm good at it if need be........................Anyway, I'm done here now. :)
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BT, you are the only one throwing insults around,
the rest of us are just hanging out talking about the knives.

Chill out, man.

foxyrick said:
I ain't heard no fat lady...
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I was being sarcastic,
this is one of those topics that ain't ever going away.
 
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