How does GEC respond to quality control issues with their knives?

[AndreLinoge]

Imo, business models like GEC and Busse are designed to capitalize on never having to do more than offer store credit for an old price on a 'real' warranty claim. Busse states they will 'replace only if blanks are around for that model'.. well, they deliberately underproduce and constantly rotate models (sound familiar?) so they very rarely ever actually 'replace' a knife, should it be non repairable. Not much different (probably even worse) is GECs 'shut up and wait for us to decide to make those again' approach. No thanks, I can think of a dozen people (several of which are members here) I would glady pay for repairs or a rebuild. Its become safe for me to say that if a company has a quickly rotating product line, then they simply cannot be relied upon for warranty anything unless you just want a refund/credit.

 

[black mamba]

Logan, I would send that one back to the dealer you bought it from, after contacting them, of course. They should be able to refund your money or send you another one, and then return it to GEC.

 

[glennbad]

Schrade open stock knives with DELRIN covers were notorious for spring pin cracks. I would think of Delrin as a pretty durable material, so to me, that looks like it's a design flaw. Whether it's too much strain on a spring pin, shock to the pin from opening/closing blades, pins that peened too tightly, or thin cover material, it sounds like a design flaw that is not apparent at the onset of rolling the knives out.

 

[ccsavage]

Lots of factors being hand assembled. do they pay well? do the get paid hourly or by production? is it a negative workplace? do they treat there workers like humans? who knows. Its seems odd that you can buy half a dozen in the same pattern and have so many variances....week spring..strong spring, centered or rubbing the liner, polished up nicely and even...dull spots and uneven.

 

[Will Power]

@L.H.S. I just want to clarify something. The 73 I damaged the day I got it by dropping it out of the tube onto the doorstep. ENTIRELY my fault and an accident. At no time have I expected or demanded that GEC fix this free, on the contrary I offered to pay all costs, shipping etc myself! I might add that it was the Pile side so it would be considerably less tricky to fix, no shield inletting needed. But my enquiries were met with indifference and nonchalance so I got fed up with their attitude. Perhaps it's because I'm a foreigner and therefore get viewed as less significant? Don't know but I didn't like the tone or approach. The knife I then gave to Brett who was desperate to match numbers and knives as part of his engagement celebrations, as I recall. So no attempt on my part to get them to do something for nothing.

I might add, that a forum member who is sadly no longer with us, shared my experiences and had a similar position as regards their fixing of knives, this came in an e-mail exchange.

Hence my vexation at the prospect of having to send in the Beer Scout. Yes I am disappointed at its lack of durability, it may not have chamfered sides but it's pretty thin bone actually. I think a knife costing what it did, being a work knife, and not having been damaged really should have lasted better, especially when looking at some of my old warriors. As regards other GECs well a White Owl developed a crack just like that, but only one side, the Beer Scout is cracked on both sides. A 73 single blade with chamfered sides, single blade, cracked four days after getting it at Easter 2009. My dealer very kindly took it back and gave me serial No.3 and I believe he returned the knife for recover purposes to GEC as it was otherwise unused. But that was in the long lost days before stuff got spoken for before it was born

I'm carrying a Micarta 13 Clerk this week. Can Mic crack??

 

[Will Power]

I broke a blade on an older 73 and was completely disgusted with myself over it..I emailed chris and she said they could fix it for 25$ if they have a blade. I figured I was out of luck but the next day she emailed and said they found a blade and to send it in.. that's pretty damn fine in my book.

Well, obviously you were very lucky. They must be keeping some 73 spares about the place...

Can we ask the elephant in the room question...? HOW did you break a blade and WHAT were you doing??

 

[Ramrodmb]

I don't know if the pattern is prone to cracking. I was thinking that it may have more to do with the chamfer. Both Buzz's knife and my knife had chamfers. But Will's knife doesn't have a chamfer. And there's a pretty good amount of distance between the pin and the edge on Will's knife. So maybe my guess about the chamfer was wrong. I don't know.

I never considered sending it to GEC. I just assumed that wasn't really a warranty type of issue. I've had other knives crack but those others were dropped unlike the GEC. I just used them as is.

The word brings to mind Zooey Deschanel so it can't be bad.
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/bein-quirky-with-zooey-deschanel/n13462?snl=1

Here is that same crack 2+years later. After being stabilized by a drop of xtra thin superglue. It sits on my desk at home. Literally hundreds of tops it has lifted. None the worse for wear. No kid gloves required.
Not ideal, but not a big deal, either. I was very happy to have it.
Thanks for the great knife supratentorial .

 

[Will Power]

Looks a good repair, I can't really see it

But you must've had gloves, kid or otherwise...to get that bail off!

 

[matfox]

When I started to sharpen my pocket knives I completely messed up a spear blade of one of my #15's.
After getting in contact with GEC they offered me the same price as above for blade replacement.
The knife was sent and repaired, which helped me a lot! But it had pretty much side to side play in the open position after getting it back, not comparable to a new knife.
I tried to fix as best as I could with a little bench, pressing together the polsters, hammering the pivot, losen the blade a little,... but couldn't get it perfect.
Anybody else made experiences with blade repair at GEC?

 

[supratentorial]

Here is that same crack 2+years later. After being stabilized by a drop of xtra thin superglue. It sits on my desk at home. Literally hundreds of tops it has lifted. None the worse for wear. No kid gloves required.
Not ideal, but not a big deal, either. I was very happy to have it.
Thanks for the great knife supratentorial .

Nice to see it doing well, Mark. It's sort of like seeing an ex girlfriend that you still like.... miss her but happy to see her doing well....haha!

 

[ccsavage]

Well, obviously you were very lucky. They must be keeping some 73 spares about the place...

Can we ask the elephant in the room question...? HOW did you break a blade WHAT were you doing??

It was a lesson learned the hard way. I purchased an older one and paid quite abit for it. When i got it it was bent, crinked I think they call it so far over it rubbed its way closed. I read up on it and watched a guy doing it on YouTube and figured heck yea...problem solved!!! I would caution anybody from trying this at home. Haha. I told great eastern the whole story and they are taking care of me.. that's pretty awesome of them

 

[pholder]

last year i purchased a gec 72 green micarta, after oiling the pivot and rocker pin for the lock back the rocker pin started to spin and because there is a taper to the grind on the pin it started biting my hand. i e-mailed them with an explanation, they told me to send it in that they would make it right, 2 weeks later a new one arrived. they made it right. outstanding customer service in my opinion.

 

[supratentorial]

I have a handful of GEC knives and the fit, finish, walk and talk on them are excellent! I recently bought two new GEC knives - one from a distributor and one from a member of this forum.

The one from the distributor has centering that is slightly off - not as bad as my case knives, but surprising as all my other GECs are spot on. Also, there are some weird greenish-black speckles of dirt or dust on the bone scales. I was able to flick off many of these, but some are still stuck in grooves of the jigging. Lastly, the scales have rough spots that catch my skin as I rub them, whereas my other jigged bone knives do not have this issue. For the knife I got from a forum member, the pull seems a lot weaker than I am used to from GEC! The snap from half stop to close is very very unimpressive.

I do not have a ton of GEC knives, so I would like to ask you based on your experience - do you think my issues here are normal / not a big deal? Or is this something I should speak to the sellers about? I do not want to be unreasonable! Lastly, are these the sort of quality issues GEC would fix for me?

I got a chance to look back at the other posts. The initial questions aren't really realistic expectations in my honest opinion. The complaint about a slightly off center blade seems to be a common complaint. In my opinion, it is carry over from modern knife collectors. With respect to traditional knives, I think the importance is exaggerated at best and often completely misunderstood. Since the blades are bent to center, it has nothing to do with quality. The manufacturing is very different from modern knives. And unless the blade is resting on another blade or the liner, it will not affect its function. The complaint about polishing compound stuck in the jigged bone is particularly surprising. This type of finishing is a bigger part of manufacturing traditional knives and it is not uncommon to find some residual polishing compound. Part of it may also be do to a familiarity with modern knives. But also I think that it is also a change in the perspectives of collectors. Watching the 3 part factory tour on GEC's Youtube channel would be a good introduction for new collectors.

 

[ccsavage]

I agree with the above. I never thought twice about a centered blade until I started reading the forums years ago when I was heavy into the new one handers..on the other hand all it takes to have a centered blade is to have flat surfaces and drill holes squared to those "flat" surfaces. If a blade has to be bent to center somebody's skipping that all important step. Here's a quote from the late great Frank Centofante.."several times throughout this text I will stress the importance of keeping all pieces flat when making folding knives. This point you must keep in mind." From the book how to make folding knives.

 

[supratentorial]

I agree with the above. I never thought twice about a centered blade until I started reading the forums years ago when I was heavy into the new one handers..on the other hand all it takes to have a centered blade is to have flat surfaces and drill holes squared to those "flat" surfaces. If a blade has to be bent to center somebody's skipping that all important step. Here's a quote from the late great Frank Centofante.."several times throughout this text I will stress the importance of keeping all pieces flat when making folding knives. This point you must keep in mind." From the book how to make folding knives.

He got started about the time when the Buck 110 was a new modernized folding hunter. He typically made that style of knife. To me, his knives are as modern as the 110. I think of it as the pre Spyderco modern knife. Some have the opinion that it is traditional. There is no set definition of the word "traditional" with respect to knives.

I've never seen a knife from Centofante with more than one blade and crinking is a more important step in the manufacturing of some multi-blades.

Frank didn't use dies, of course. At least sometimes he used screw construction. There are a lot of differences in the type of manufacturing.

Keeping things squared is certainly important. But we are talking about very small amounts and very different types of manufacturing.

 

[ccsavage]

He got started about the time when the Buck 110 was a new modernized folding hunter. He typically made that style of knife. To me, his knives are as modern as the 110. I think of it as the pre Spyderco modern knife. Some have the opinion that it is traditional. There is no set definition of the word "traditional" with respect to knives.

I've never seen a knife from Centofante with more than one blade and crinking is a more important step in the manufacturing of some multi-blades.

Frank didn't use dies, of course. At least sometimes he used screw construction. There are a lot of differences in the type of manufacturing.

Keeping things squared is certainly important. But we are talking about very small amounts and very different types of manufacturing.

Thats true. GEC isn't making one at a time.

 

[supratentorial]

A while back, I made a post to collect references for the manufacturing of traditional knives past and present --> https://www.bladeforums.com/threads...knife-manufacturing-past-and-present.1507023/

The GEC factory videos are embedded in the 2nd post.

And here's an article that I posted about the manufacturing at Remington 100 years ago -->
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/remington-enters-cutlery-field-100-years-ago.1523378/

There are some modern knife factory tours on Youtube for comparison. Here's a knife sharpening robot at Spyderco.

And here's the knife sharpening robot at GEC.

 

[supratentorial]

This topic brought to mind some 100 year old knives that I've seen with bent liners. It's not something that I've seen often so I'm not sure if it was a common practice but it is still interesting. The liners were bent presumably to provide more room for the three blades that were set inside the knife. I don't know for sure that was reason but they did work well for that purpose. They had a very precise bend in the middle on both sides. The covers were perfectly fitted to the knife despite the bend in the liners. The bent liners might make present day collectors twitch! Haha!

 

[sharkattacksw]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't GEC knives basically made the same way that knives of this style were made years and years ago, many times on the same machines? If so, I'm sure the old knives had these cosmetic issues as well. Back then people probably didn't care about blade centering, "walk & talk", cosmetic blemishes, etc. They just wanted a knife that cuts. Derrick from Knives Ship Free, has a great video on what to expect from these new "old" folders. You can't expect modern manufacturing tolerances on these knives if they're still assembled by hand and manufactured on old equipment, after all, can you?

 

[Copperberry]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't GEC knives basically made the same way that knives of this style were made years and years ago, many times on the same machines? If so, I'm sure the old knives had these cosmetic issues as well. Back then people probably didn't care about blade centering, "walk & talk", cosmetic blemishes, etc. They just wanted a knife that cuts. Derrick from Knives Ship Free, has a great video on what to expect from these new "old" folders. You can't expect modern manufacturing tolerances on these knives if they're still assembled by hand and manufactured on old equipment, after all, can you?

Great great video. I wish someone had shown this to me before I started collecting traditional knives, would have saved me some grief — as a natural resource manager I am constantly reminded that just as important as managing the recreation areas is managing peoples expectations!