GEC and Jigging

sceva

sceva

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Sep 18, 2002
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I often wonder why GEC doesn't settle on one or a few nice jigging patterns. Over time they have many different patterns that vary from very very nice to downright atrocious. Some that have nice depth and perfect grippiness while others are so shallow there may as well be no jigging or so deep it looks like a claw gouged it out. I also notice that once used you may never see that particular jigging again. It's only my opinion but I wish they would settle on a nice signature pattern for most then they could offer special or different jigging if wanted for a variety should it be warranted.

Here is one one my favorite GEC Jigging results, on a 09 Esquire.



Here is one that leaves something to be desired; the 06 Pemberton jigged blue bone. (Flock of birds jigging?) It is shallow, narrow, ans ragged on the edges and offers no real grip. I love the knife and the blue bone but in my opinion I wish they has either left ir smooth or used a more traditional pattern like that on the esquire.




What are your thoughts? Please show examples of whet you like and don't like.
 
You're not wrong. The quality of GEC's jigging is uneven, to put it kindly. But when they get it right, it's very well done.

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I like the jigging on these knives.
I don't have any examples of bad jigging, those knives don't hang around.
The #55 has some good jigging, similar to the jigging on the Charlie Lambs.
I also think GEC does good Peach Seed, like on the TC Barlow shown.
I also enjoy their "Cougar Claw" jigging, similar to Queen's Winterbottom.

 
sometimes it comes out great and sometimes it starts to chip like on my 92 eureka jack, c'est la vie
 
JohnDF; Those are very nice. I'm not a fan of the Couger clawed ( but then I never cared for winterbottom bone either) but that one has a nice look to it.
 
A bit off track but this shows various jigging from different manufactures some made/done by GEC.

Z Bone 1 .jpg

Top knife - Schrade by Schrade; Open Remington - by Camillus; Closed Schrade by GEC; Closed Tidioute by GEC; Open Lambfoot (Waynorth Cutlery) by GEC; Closed Remington Bullet Knife by GEC .

To my way of thinking, the jigging on the open Remington by Camillus and the jigging on the Lambfoot by GEC are superb while the jigging on the others is just so so.
 
Here are a couple pics I took for a similar thread a couple years ago. Some of my favorite and least favorite (I’ll let you figure out which is which 😉) jigged bone from GEC, on #77’s from the same run.

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The Northfields always seems to get the “better,” random jigging.

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But there’s also plenty of Tidioute jigging that looks good to me, too.

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I agree with the OP. It would be good if they had some nice standard jigging patterns that you can count on them using regularly. For example, Case’s chestnut jigged bone is a standard one that Case uses, it is consistent, and it looks fantastic, in my opinion. I tend to like more random jigging (although the peach seed shown above is great too), and GEC has shown that they can do it on several of Charlie’s SFOs. It seems like when most people talk about the best GEC jigging, Charlie’s SFOs are mentioned, but they don’t do that jigging regularly. I’m not sure if it is harder for them to do, or maybe it just comes down to the fact that it is all a matter of opinion, so they do a variety to try to please everyone.

This is my only GEC jigged bone example, it’s not random but I do like it.
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I have a feeling the answer to the question “why doesn’t GEC have standard jigging patterns that they use consistently?” is probably the same as the answer to “why doesn’t GEC keep a few popular patterns in regular production so they’re always available?”
 
Aren’t the differences in jigging from being “handmade”, hence the claim to fame and fortune (high prices n exclusivity)?
 
Travman; Yes, the earlier run on 06 Pembertons had very nice jigging, it was the later run with blue bone in 2019 that left a lot to be desired.

Un-Chained; I don't consider that jigging their best but is nice and it's head and shoulders above the Blue Pemberton jigging. I LOVE that color though, Plum isn't it.

It just goes to show that GEC can do very nice jigging but they do seem to like to experiment and frankly, there are quite a few that are not so nice. You would think that if they experiment and it doesn't come out nice they would not run a whole batch of it. What they do great is the colors; very few fails there.

"Aren’t the differences in jigging from being “handmade”, hence the claim to fame and fortune (high prices n exclusivity)?"
Jakemex; Hand made or hand jigging is no excuse for poor jigging. I tend to think that it's more that they jig a large batch and even if it comes out less than expected it is simply not cost effective to scrap it. Also, I am not sure that the final result is apparent until it is dyed, installed and final shaped / polished. Hence; maybe they should stick to what works or ie well received.
 
I don't have any GEC pocket knives, but many I see have the most beautiful covers out there.
They seem to use many jigging patterns and old school color choices you just don't see anymore.
When I look at many GEC's I see pre war American pocket cutlery.

I love the quality of jigging put out by Case, but they use a lot of bright vibrant colors that are a bit of a turn off for me most of the time.
Their dark red bone is iconic and classic that you just gotta love and green is my favorite color, while with many of the others however it's not the quality of the dye job which seems to have risen in my experience but the color choices that detract from things.

The brown, honey, amber, golden brown, and mahogany...ect those are colors I find the most beautiful in jigged bone and GEC does more of those.
 
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