Does anyone own an emerson hard wear?

B

bzzhewt

Joined
May 8, 2005
Messages
127
I know Emerson knives are a touchy subject here on BF, but after owning a hard wear traveler for a bit under two months, i wouldn't consider it an emerson anyway.
I like:
the look
the thumb hole. studs kinda get in the way for some slicing.
the Raven-like handle.
the lifetime warranty.
the price-- retails for about $75 I think, I got mine for $40 plus S&H. should have cost no more than 30 in my opinion.
decent steel (for the price range)
pretty good blade Geo and overall cutting ability.
I don' like:
flimsy handle with noticably growing blade play in the pivot and up and down in the lock, and a snapping noise as the pivot pin shifts.
clip is loosening.
flimsy seeming blade
the misleading company motto, especially when applied to a subcontracted knife.
Example:
I started with Benchmade knives as my EDC's, and through High School went through about five of them, including a CQC-7, old style PIKA, a Discontinued Liner lock, And a mini AFCK.
I lost the AFCK and decided to go with a small cold steel voyager (i know, i know, cold steel this and cold steel that) for reasons of low price, Zero maintenance (such as screws to try to keep maintained in the field), and great marketing. I can honestly say from experience that The voyager was the toughest pocket knife i have ever handled.
Over the five years i owned it, i have on many occaisions stabbed it into wood and pulled it out sideways, stabbed it through metal house doors, car hoods, lost it, froze it, broke bricks with the handle, thrown it, and just generally abused it in a horrible gross manner. mind you, the blade was always kept sharp for te knife's primary purose-- cutting, but the point through this story is that had confidence in the knife's strength as advertised, to the point where i wasn't afraid of breaking it if i wanted to test it. and i only paid 5o bucks for it
well, sorry for rambling, and to make a long story short, i gave the knife, which i SH** you not, is still in the same mechanical condition as when i bought it, minus wear from use, but still as solid as ever, to my girlfriend and then bought the emerson.
SO...
with the voyager as comparison, i will say that every day i am afraid i am gonna break this damn thing. while overall a decent knife, the traveler's "#1 Hard Use Knife in the world" potential is laughable, and it should have been priced down there with knives of its kind, such as the Gerber ez out, Schrade cliphanger, and so on.
My intention wasn't to bring up the dried up Emerson and Cold Steel complaints and controversies, but to mostly just rant and rave.
With my story and opinions out there on the table, I would like some feedback from other fellow Hard Wear knife owners to see what they have to say.
Thanx.
 
Why are Emersons a touchy subject here? You have to excuse my ignorance for I am new. I just joined today. Please elaborate.
 
just do a search and read what others have to say about emerson and cold steel.
many different people have many different opinions on both of the companies'
products, policies, warranties, marketing, quality control, etc.
Emerson Knives and Cold Steel are subjects that will spark a wide variety of responses, some even bad tempered!
Check it out for yourself on the Emerson Forum.
 
I was interested in the "Hard Wear" line of knives myself, but I never did buy one, just from reasearch and the materials that were used I was not impressed enough to purchase one. Instead I went for a Benchmade 550, which cost about the same, (maybe $10 more ). :rolleyes:
 
Ok Can someone please provide me a link to where I can read the postivie and negative feedback of the Emerson Knife Company? I cannot find anything pertaining to the heated debates of this company talked about above.

Justin
 
comparing EKI and cold steel is REALLY apples/oranges, lol, no comparison.

i guess there has been some discussion about EKI's alleged lock probs, some have had them some not, and EKI seems to inspire either love or hate, no middle ground, but its not a 'touchy' subject, imho. oh and of course the chisel grind, which makes no diff on a SD knife, does make the EKI's not the best for utility.

EKI is a step (or 3) above anything CS makes, while some argue about lock strength on them, or the chisel grind, no one says that ernie doesnt make some innovative knives, check out the custom emersons prices if ya dont think they are popular with knife nutz, $1000 or so for about anything he makes, and wayyy up from that too on some.

i love emersons myself, the CG doesnt bother me, and i have not had lock probs on mine (7-8 EKI's and 2 specwar customs)

ya just cant compare a FRN handle cold steel voyager to a CQC8, if for nothing else the EKI cost 2-3X as much, isnt fair to CS, which is 'ok' for a user knife imho, but imho none of the CS folders can match an EKI.

imho the top production knives are BM, spyderco, EKI, of the 3 none are perfect, all have had problems of 1 type/another, all have excellent warranty, all make a large number of diff models/lengths/steels/etc, nothing wrong with any of them, imho.

i would say if anyone has a lot of negative posts its cold steel, the owner of CS has a flair for the dramatic, at the best, and is a BS artist at worst.
 
DazedandConfzed said:
Why are Emersons a touchy subject here?
Click to expand...
Some user groups don't respond well to critism and/or questions of performance, especially comparitative. In general the more "tactical" the nature of the knife the more this tends to happen because all such discussions tend to migrate towards "I don't need to listen you you because the knives are used by high speed operators, neener neener neener." instead of focusing on the actual merits of the materials and/or construction details.

If you compare an Emerson to a Cold Steel knife which is a fraction of the cost it isn't unfair if the Cold Steel outperforms it, it is just sad for the Emerson. It isn't even unfair if the Cold Steel gets outperformed, unless you make negative statements about the Cold Steel folder without considering the price difference. If you get 1/10 the performance for 1/2 the price for example that would be information worth knowing.

-Cliff
 
this is exaxctly what i mean about emerson and cold steel being "touchy". I started this post to get input about other emerson hard wear owners and so far all i've gotten was yet more opinions of cold steel and opinions of emerson. SIFU1A i value your input so don't get me wrong, and i understand what you guys are saying about your points. but in my opinion all the answers i've gotten just seem to reenforce what i said about the two companies being controversial and touchy. and i wasn't comparing tthe two companies in any way, just using an undeniably damned tough knife that is a real hard use knife that happened to be a cold steel as my comparison.
But while we are on the subjectof companies, i do agree that Lynn Thompson is a master BSer and what not, but those are no grounds to dismiss all his products. Emerson's company slogans are even more full of crap than cold steel's. How can ANY knife claim to be the number one hard use knife in the world?
Again its just marketing propaganda. But at least in lynnn's case, when he makes a specific claim, the product will usually back what he said.
So now here I am, giving my opinion on companies....Sorry, What a hippocrit i am....Heh Heh.
Anyway, with this hopefully cleared up, i would like to ask again if anyone out there has any input on the Emerson HARD WEAR line specifically. I know Emerson makes a great knife, but i would like to know other people's stories with this sub brand that to me seems to have no more comparison with the real emerson than a Gerber ez out with a swamp rat.
Thanx again
 
Cliff Stamp said:
Some user groups don't respond well to critism and/or questions of performance, especially comparitative. In general the more "tactical" the nature of the knife the more this tends to happen because all such discussions tend to migrate towards "I don't need to listen you you because the knives are used by high speed operators, neener neener neener." instead of focusing on the actual merits of the materials and/or construction details.

If you compare an Emerson to a Cold Steel knife which is a fraction of the cost it isn't unfair if the Cold Steel outperforms it, it is just sad for the Emerson. It isn't even unfair if the Cold Steel gets outperformed, unless you make negative statements about the Cold Steel folder without considering the price difference. If you get 1/10 the performance for 1/2 the price for example that would be information worth knowing.

-Cliff
Click to expand...


have several EKI's and cold steels and again frankly must say i dont see the comparison, FRN handles, mystery steel, very basic designs, satisfactory performance but nothing to write mom about, i simply dont see the cold steel outperforming the EKI, none of mine has. and aesthetics matters some to me and the cold steel certainly doesnt outperform much in that regard imho.

imho its all opinion, and folks will have diff opinions, doesnt make ya right or wrong. for me personally i dont care for cold steel folders, period end, now compare EKI to spyderco/BM/MT, could see that maybe, but not cold steel.

as i have stated before i wont buy anything with FRN handles anymore they look cheap and i dont care for them, that pretty much knocks most of cold steels line out for me, doesnt it?
 
Sifu, I don't think anyone (OK, anyone except Cliff?) is trying to compare Cold Steel's Zytel handled stuff to the full built, Made In The USA Emersons. But bzzhewt seems to think his Zytel CS was better than his Zytel Emerson Hard Wear.

I'll just say that while several of all the inexpensive Zytels seem to have their adherents here - CS, Kabar, and the import Spydies and BMs (and the old USA Zytel BMs) - I've never noticed a lot of love for the Hard Wears, and it seems worth asking about. The Spydie and BM guys seem to have some level of support for the whole line, including the imports. But even the EKI fans don't SEEM (in my experience here, assuming facts which may not be in evidence, etc, etc) to speak up for the Hard Wears, unless you make it an Emerson question rather than a Hard Wear question.

Do I have that wrong?
 
Nick Hyle said:
Sifu, I don't think anyone (OK, anyone except Cliff?) is trying to compare Cold Steel's Zytel handled stuff to the full built, Made In The USA Emersons. But bzzhewt seems to think his Zytel CS was better than his Zytel Emerson Hard Wear.

I'll just say that while several of all the inexpensive Zytels seem to have their adherents here - CS, Kabar, and the import Spydies and BMs (and the old USA Zytel BMs) - I've never noticed a lot of love for the Hard Wears, and it seems worth asking about. The Spydie and BM guys seem to have some level of support for the whole line, including the imports. But even the EKI fans don't SEEM (in my experience here, assuming facts which may not be in evidence, etc, etc) to speak up for the Hard Wears, unless you make it an Emerson question rather than a Hard Wear question.

Do I have that wrong?
Click to expand...


THANK YOU NICK!!!
The entire reason for this post was to get input on the EMERSON HARD WEAR KNIVES.
NOT to compare the companies yet AGAIN.
I like resin handled knives because:
1. they are simple. if i got lost in the wilds long enough, all the screws on my linerlock or whatever high tec knife would loosen. and without the right Torx tools or whatever, it would eventually fall apart. These damn wrenches are near inpossible to find at a hardware store, let alone in the bush. I would like to have a knife in that situation that i know would probably never coma apart or wear out unless i massively abused it.

2. I am poor. Yeah, i like the titanium liners and G-10 handles as well, but in addition to having too many adjustable parts to go wrong in the event that i can't maintain my knife, they are just too damned expensive for me right now. But i do plan on buying an emerson plain blade Max-1 as soon as i can.

3. A strong lockback, by design, will last alot longer than a linerlock of equal strength. The linerlock requires way too close of tolerances to stay functioning perfectly, and by the nature of the design, will eventually wear out and cease to work. I know i am talking extremes here, but i like to look ahead to any future problems, weather all that realistic or not.

With that said, I realize that in most cases the tougher knives are going to be the higher prescision knives. But for reasons of simplicity and price, I would usually prefer a high quality zytel handled lockback. That's why i got the emerson. I used to have qualms about a simple plastic handle, no adjustment screws, etc., until i saw how incredibly tough, maintenance free, and long lasting my voyager was.

Unfortunately, the Emerson fell far below my expactations. SIFU1A, thanks for your answers, and i don't mean to dog on you, but this post is not about comparison between Emerson and Cold Steel in any way. I realize you are an emerson fan and will pick up the opportunity to say so. But i think you misunderstood my initial question. Probaly my fault anyway. Me and my rambling!

But i may as well ask you, Have you had any experience with the max-1 knives? I like the blade, v-grind, and handle. it is very similar in blade and handle shape to my Hard Wear, which is why i like it.

Any Hard Wear owners out there?
 
http://worldwideknives.com/EmersonHW/EmersonHW1.html
HWE-1.jpg


emerson cost - about 50$

http://www.knifecenter.com/kc_new/store_detail.html?s=CS29LC
29lcw.jpg

cold steel voyager cost - about 50$

steel on both = aus 8
handle material on both = zytel
cost of both = around 50$

i think there comparable. i would probably go with the voyager because of its simpler handle (no serrations and less drastic curves/angles) though the finger gaurd on the emerson is nice, and its smaller choil. havent handled an emerson hardwear, so i cant really comment on its build quality over the voyagers.
 
for an FRN handle knife in this price range i would get a spyderco endura, maybe one of the new waved enduras, if for nothing else i prefer the spyderco serrations to the other 2,
 
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