Ho ho man, this sucks (cracked 2011 rendezvous whaler and repair)

J

jsdistin

Joined
May 27, 2016
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So there I am minding my own business snapping some photos of a knife I’m thinking about posting for sale to have some extra cash for souvenirs and whatnot on a trip to Disney in a couple months with the wife and kids. I shut the secondary blade and “crack” the back of the knife blew out in my hands. I’m not sure how broken up I am about it though, because I was thinking about selling it because it just wasn’t seeming too important to have a safe queen put away when I still have young kids running around. I’m not really sure what I’m going to do with it yet. I’ll probably call Great Eastern and see what they can do but I’m assuming it would be just gluing it together. I can’t imagine they have others sitting around just in case and as far as they’re concerned a replacement of equal value would be any whaler they have sitting around, it’s not like they were selling them for as much as they are sold for now on the secondary market. Maybe I’ll just end up gluing it myself and having a nice user.
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Man, I feel your pain. I too have parted with some rare safe queens to use funds for more important things. Regardless, that injury is a hard one to incur. It happens so quickly however:(
 
jsdistin said:
My guess would be the tension and strength of the spring and the secondary snapping down on it.
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If the pin was supported only by the bone, maybe. But what of the liners? They provide the structural support.
My guess is the pin was peened too tight to the bone.

Shame that happened. That's a beautiful knife. A little "superglue" should fix it.
 
That is really a shame. That is definitely my favorite version of the Whaler (which is my favorite GEC knife). I would be sad about the breakage even if I had been planning to move on from it. If it was getting pocket time it would really be no biggie, but if it has been a safe queen then that is just a kick in the pants.
 
If you were taking the photos out in the cold, shrinkage of the metal (brass?) liners could have put extra stress on the already too-tight pin set??!!:eek:
Sorry for your loss!!:(
 
Ouch.. I liked your post, but I don’t like what happened to the Whaler! I’ve never seen those covers before and they fit that pattern better than any I’ve seen yet, so it is a true shame what happened.

Luckily it’s not your favorite or anything like that, but I’m sure that’s not much of a relief. Hope you figure out a way to get it back into service.
 
Ufda, that one would hurt, always loved that run of the whaler. I would definitely reach out to GEC and see if there is anything they can do. Good luck!
 
afishhunter said:
If the pin was supported only by the bone, maybe. But what of the liners? They provide the structural support.
My guess is the pin was peened too tight to the bone.

Shame that happened. That's a beautiful knife. A little "superglue" should fix it.
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Yes, depending on what gec says, it definitely may be a superglue situation

abbydaddy said:
That is really a shame. That is definitely my favorite version of the Whaler (which is my favorite GEC knife). I would be sad about the breakage even if I had been planning to move on from it. If it was getting pocket time it would really be no biggie, but if it has been a safe queen then that is just a kick in the pants.
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It’ll probably be getting some pocket time in the near future. To add insult to injury it is the one pictured on gec’s site as the example.
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McFeeli said:
Ouch.. I liked your post, but I don’t like what happened to the Whaler! I’ve never seen those covers before and they fit that pattern better than any I’ve seen yet, so it is a true shame what happened.

Luckily it’s not your favorite or anything like that, but I’m sure that’s not much of a relief. Hope you figure out a way to get it back into service.
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It was certainly up there on the list but since I couldn’t bring myself to use it it wasn’t the favorite.

Matt_WY said:
Ufda, that one would hurt, always loved that run of the whaler. I would definitely reach out to GEC and see if there is anything they can do. Good luck!
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I’m going to call or email them tonight, but I’m not expecting much. After that it’s on to the crazy glue.

Thanks guys
 
Thar she blows! If I remember, those were plenty pricey. Based on what you told us of the situation, I would let the GEC-ites have both barrels. Please let us know how they react.
 
abcdef said:
Thar she blows! If I remember, those were plenty pricey. Based on what you told us of the situation, I would let the GEC-ites have both barrels. Please let us know how they react.
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I emailed them and included the pictures and a description of what happened. I’d think that the only way they can do anything other than glue it would be to fire up the laser and re-scrimshaw new covers (which I’d be fine with but doubt will happen). I assume I’ll hear something tomorrow sometime and will update then.
 
I got a reply early this morning from Great Eastern. They said because of the knife that it is all they can do is glue it since they don’t have any others for replacement. I’m going to go ahead and glue it and I’ll post some pics when it’s done.
 
jsdistin said:
I got a reply early this morning from Great Eastern. They said because of the knife that it is all they can do is glue it since they don’t have any others for replacement. I’m going to go ahead and glue it and I’ll post some pics when it’s done.
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Make sure to use Zap-a-Gap, or some similar thin glue, that will flow deeper into the crack. Use a tiny needle to help push the glue in.

That sucks...
 
So far so good. It’s glued and I haven’t done any more damage to it. I used a super glue that had a brush and nozzle and used the brush to get down in the crack as much as possible, after using a thin blade to carefully pull the crack apart without expanding the crack. This was so I could get as much coverage as possible as I’ve found it is much less noticeable if there are fewer air gaps. Assuming I get through sanding and polishing without any issues I think it’ll be good to go.
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glennbad said:
Make sure to use Zap-a-Gap, or some similar thin glue, that will flow deeper into the crack. Use a tiny needle to help push the glue in.

That sucks...
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Didn’t see this until I was already done gluing. I think I got fairly good coverage though. On a somewhat related topic I have a old ulster scout knife on it’s way that has a bone chip missing from near the pin but I was told the pin is still fully surrounded with bone and in tact do you have any suggestions on epoxy and how to color it dark brown. I’ve never used epoxy before. I figured you might have some pointers, I hear you’re a baaaad man when it comes to this stuff. Thanks for any help and thanks for the advice already given, I doubt this will be the last repair like this so I’m going to look into Zap-a-Gap.
 
I had a nice Dowell in linen micarta that cracked at the pin all the way to the edge, of course it didn't shear off as would a natural material but it was visible.
 
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