Case quality

P

Paul142857

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Mar 21, 2018
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I do a lot of watching on the various knife forums but this is my first posting here. There has been a lot of talk in recent years about the quality decline of Case knives, and a couple of years ago I got a Case barlow that was definitely sub-par. But yesterday I got two Case knives (from an online order) that are nearly perfect. A canoe with crimson jigged bone scales, and a half whitler with cream barn-door jigged bone scales. I'm very pleased with these knives and hope that it indicates an overall improvement in quality from Case.
 
Moreover, CASE has a first class warranty/repair system and this extends to overseas too. As a European customer I've been extremely satisfied , if it isn't right they will make very real efforts to sort it out, not my experience with GEC I'm afraid. Admittedly, GEC makes knives to a generally higher standard-which cost as well-but if there's a problem outside the US..forget it.
 
my gripe with them is blade to handle ratio, and ive had a whole bunch of various case knives from the usual stuff to the case Bose collaborations. Just tend to not like their blade shaping and profiling. A shame because they do do single blade trappers
 
Last year I sent in a Case knife for warranty repair, it came back worse than when I sent it. Response from their customer service department was crickets.
 
Douglas is satisfied with Case quality, so am I.
EBmFqwdl.jpg
 
I've had mostly great luck with Case knives... just recently I got a canoe that has the main blade seriously rubbing when closed.... if anyone wants it...:rolleyes:

I've had a couple of older "golden age" Cases that were very difficult to open, probably an 8 or 9, but overall, my Case knives are very nicely made.

I did get a sowbelly in CV and red/black carbon fiber that came with the blades basically un-polished/finished.. had a very strange speckled sort of appearance in the steel. I tried to smooth one of the blades down with a diamond stone, which improved it somewhat, but I've about decided to leave the others as they came. It's certainly unique.

The swaybacks, are, in my experience, borderline GEC quality, as are the sowbellies (with the one exception mentioned). A couple of Copperheads are wonderfully made, as is my newer 6347 stockman.

I guess you could say that I qualify as a Case "fanboy".... :thumbsup::thumbsup:
 
Never got a bad case knife and they fixed knives for free that I screwed up, not warranty work.
 
hornetguy said:
I did get a sowbelly in CV and red/black carbon fiber that came with the blades basically un-polished/finished.. had a very strange speckled sort of appearance in the steel. I tried to smooth one of the blades down with a diamond stone, which improved it somewhat, but I've about decided to leave the others as they came. It's certainly unique.
Click to expand...
That finish was applied by Case on purpose. It is a Stonewash finish. Case applies it to some CV and SS knives. I have a couple/three knives with that finish - single and three blade Sowbellys, Sod Buster Jr.
 
Modoc ED said:
That finish was applied by Case on purpose. It is a Stonewash finish. Case applies it to some CV and SS knives. I have a couple/three knives with that finish - single and three blade Sowbellys, Sod Buster Jr.
Click to expand...
Thanks for that tidbit.... I didn't know they did that kind of thing. I've seen other knives of theirs with what I would consider a stonewash finish..... and they are a darker gray color.... this one is just plain silver with some strange markings on it. It's not a big deal to me, because I regularly tweak my knives to suit me anyway.... just different. :thumbsup:
 
hornetguy said:
Thanks for that tidbit.... I didn't know they did that kind of thing. I've seen other knives of theirs with what I would consider a stonewash finish..... and they are a darker gray color.... this one is just plain silver with some strange markings on it. It's not a big deal to me, because I regularly tweak my knives to suit me anyway.... just different. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...
Case also does "as ground" blades which are unpolished. They also occasionally do "satin finished" blades. They look a lot alike in the pics. In person the satin seems just ever so slightly shinier than the as ground. Both of these are SS though, not cv.

Best pic I have of as ground:
G10Peanut Ice1a.jpg

Satin
Gunstock2a.jpg
Here's the washed cv
Redsnglblde 7a.jpg
 
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mbkr said:
Case also does "as ground" blades which are unpolished. They also occasionally do "satin finished" blades. They look a lot alike in the pics. In person the satin seems just ever so slightly shinier than the as ground. Both of these are SS though, not cv.

Best pic I have of as ground:
View attachment 1700054

Satin
View attachment 1700055
Here's the washed cv
View attachment 1700062
Click to expand...
I tried to get a pic of the one blade I haven't tweaked on, but my semi-crappy phone camera wouldn't focus on it very well. This is the best I could get, and the inside lighting makes it look really yellow, but if you look through all the amateurish photography, you might be able to see the sort of pebbled finish it came with.

gwtWDv.jpg
 
hornetguy said:
I tried to get a pic of the one blade I haven't tweaked on, but my semi-crappy phone camera wouldn't focus on it very well. This is the best I could get, and the inside lighting makes it look really yellow, but if you look through all the amateurish photography, you might be able to see the sort of pebbled finish it came with.

gwtWDv.jpg
Click to expand...
Never saw one like that. Looks unfinished or...🤔
 
mbkr said:
Never saw one like that. Looks unfinished or...🤔
Click to expand...
Yes, that's what I thought when I first saw it.... it's almost like flawed blade stampings that they tried to "salvage".... the main blade even has a "crease" across the spine that looks like a wrinkle formed when stamping/forging... whatever it is they do.
 
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