MDP,
Let me say that it is our intention for you to be happy with your purchase of a BK&T product. Before I answer your question, allow me to provide a little background.
The BK&T line is intended to give the customer high performance, at a price that will not inhibit folks from actually using them. I'm a personal fan of custom cutlery, and not afraid of taking some of my handmades to the field, but many will either not be able to afford some custom knives, or not feel comfortable really 'turning it loose' with a custom knife that they waited months to get and spent big $$$ on. I can understand this, with many 'large handmade choppers' approaching the price range that relates to a car payment, are you sure you want to dig a stuck tractor out with the blade[did that this summer with a BRUTE...not a pretty picture, I had mud all over me, but we got the tractor out of the creek bottoms
]? Ok, next point,....
We really wanted to totally coat the steel on the BECKER's. The 0170-6c is a carbon steel, and rusts readily, so we feel that a coating is in order. We use a epoxy based, black powder coat. Its good stuff, and we like it. We wanted it not only on the blade, but on the tang also, as this area is naturally in contact with sweaty hands, and sweat is not carbon steel's friend.
The scales are molded Swiss GV6H. They come out of the mold just as you see them. We set up the laser program that cuts the steel out to match the tang area up to the scales, with any error to be on the 'plus side' for the steel, so that if the tang and the molded scales don't match up exactly[which they rarely do completely around the tang] that the steel tang will be 'higher' that the scales[we are only talking about a couple of a hundredths of an inch]. When the tang is higher than the scales[within reason], if gives minimal to no discomfort. If the scales are higher than the tang, it can be more uncomfortable, so we try to avoid that. We cannot use a beltsander to get a flush fit of the tang to the scales, because that would take the coating off the tang.
On a handmade, custom fixed blade, I would expect a perfect scale to tang fit because even if you wanted a blade coated, you could take the time to fit the scales to the tang first, then coat the blade and put the very same scales black on the knife. Can you imagine fitting a 1000 BK&T's, marking the scales sets, then marking the knives in a way that the powder coat wouldn't cover up, then sending the blades out to be coated and matching up the right knife to the right scales later? But on a custom knife, sure, no problem, besides your paying enough for that kind of product, right?
Unfortunatley, we can't do that kind of cosmetic work on production BK&T's, at the prices that you guys want to buy them for. So.....
To answer your question, its kinda up to you at this point. Does the difference in the scale to tang fit cause discomfort? Do the scales stick up higher than the tang? If you think there is a problem, please contact me via email, and we will make arrangments for you to send it back to us. We will be glad to take a look at it.
Whatever it takes, we want you to be happy swinging you BK&T in the field.
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Stay Sharp!
Will Fennell
Camillus Cutlery
www.camillusknives.com
