If CRK has the best F&F and tightest tolerances in production folders...

First person that comes to mind is Scott Cook who used to work for CRK, but the comparison is somewhat like apples and oranges. There are custom makers who do not have the equipment to match crk tolerances and there are some who can with a lot of time, patience and experience. To match the CRK in consistency would be a tall order for someone who makes handmade knives, but there are many who can. Tony and Reese Bose come to mind.
 
Would somebody tell me the actaully meaning of 'tight tolerance' please. English is not my first language, thank.
 
shqxk said:
Would somebody tell me the actaully meaning of 'tight tolerance' please. English is not my first language, thank.
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They are referring to "engineering tolerance" which means the permissible limit(s) of variation in an object. "Tight tolerance" would mean very little variation.
 
Bastid said:
First person that comes to mind is Scott Cook who used to work for CRK, but the comparison is somewhat like apples and oranges. There are custom makers who do not have the equipment to match crk tolerances and there are some who can with a lot of time, patience and experience. To match the CRK in consistency would be a tall order for someone who makes handmade knives, but there are many who can. Tony and Reese Bose come to mind.
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I've heard much about Scott Cook's Lochsa.. A pity it's no longer available..
 
I don't have a huge list of customs that I've had, but my Laconico is pretty tight and would have to be up there.
 
+1 for Ray Laconico. My Laconico is my smoothest knife by far, much smoother than my Sebenza and at least equal in F&F.
 
So very tight tolerances knife does mean to be very tough knife, right?

More question >> Among the big three knife company were Spyderco, Kershaw and Benchmade. Which company consider to produce the tightest tolerance folder for you opinoin?
 
shqxk said:
So very tight tolerances knife does mean to be very tough knife, right?
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Tight tolerances does not necessarily equal a tough knife. Imagine a car door, you would want tight tolerances on that so nothing can get in like wind or rain. If you had loose tolerances then there could be gaps in between the door and the frame. Another issue is that the gap might vary from individual car to car even on the same model from the same manufacturer.
 
The idea of "tight tolerance" varies from person to person. I'd have to say Keith Ouye is up there for the custom makers. It's crazy what he does with minimal tools.

ki-1108-handmade-image-01.jpg
 
shqxk said:
So very tight tolerances knife does mean to be very tough knife, right?

More question >> Among the big three knife company were Spyderco, Kershaw and Benchmade. Which company consider to produce the tightest tolerance folder for you opinoin?
Click to expand...

I am assuming since English is not your first language that you also use the metric system. Tight tolerance in knives and in particular CRK knives that are machined Titanium might be ±.125mm (just a guess and a rough conversion from ±.005" which is pretty tight but easily done by a good machinist). That means that a perfect knife can be designed and drawn up and then when it is made, the measurements must not fall outside of the +.125mm and -.125mm (hence the symbol "±") from "nominal" or perfect. When this tight of tolerance or tighter which may be the case for CRK is used the finished assembled knife will fit together so nicely and open and close smoothly that the knives will receive due praise! This is the reason CRK knives are so expensive and the benchmark for production knives. Aside from just assembling concerns CRK knives also have decoration details that are machined to tighter toleraces and chamfers and what not that set it apart as well.
 
I think some folks are mistakenly confusing the fit and finish term with tight tolerance i.e. using them interchangeably. No one can really know if it has a tight tolerance unless they are looking at a print supplied from the manufacturer, in this case CRK. And, most likely the features will have different dimensional tolerances compared to others, and it would probably depend on the criticality of that feature. For example, the OD and perpendicularity of the pivot hole has probably a really tightly tolerance hole (who knows, maybe +/- 0.002")... which is important when if comes to blade play/ slop. But a much less critical feature, say maybe the overall length of the frame, might be +/- 0.020". And... who knows if the parts are meeting print? Sorry for getting stuck on the details, and I am not intending to put anyone off, but I think the question is really more focused on F&F.

BTW, I have a CR Sebenza and absolutely love it. They do a brilliant job with F&F- almost unfathomable on how tight the lock up is with ZERO play.
 
I do believe that your 'average' knife user (just like your average human being) has no idea what 'tight tolerances' means. I think that NCOOLE and Bob Katilus have the right idea though.

While they described the phrase very well I will put it in my own layman's terms. Tight Tolerances means that each knife is precise, parts will be completely interchangeable between knives of the same model. Each knife will be almost exactly the same size and shape, with almost perfectly unobservable differences.

Basically, CRK can make the same exact knife repeatedly.


Also, the degree of tolerance has very little to do with the strength of the knife. Of course you need a relatively tight tolerance on certain parts. The lock bar and the tang of the blade for instance. But knife design and material play a much larger part in over all strength of the knife. Image a CRK (with the same tight tolerances) made of cardboard, will it be as strong as even a $1.00 Pakistani made folder with little to no regard paid to parts tolerances?
 
Did you want equivalent tolerances, or the cream of the crop for customs? Because there are guys using wire edm that get tolerances in the ten thousandths, not thousandths. My personal favorite examples are the Appletons and Michael Walker. You know how Kershaw has composite blades? Walker's zipper blades are composites made by press fitting, a fit so exact no welding needed.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/532310-An-exhibition-of-20-AMAZING-Michael-walkers
http://books.google.com/books?id=JD...sQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=ray ron appleton&f=false

I also think Wolfgang Loerchner does amazing work
http://www.wolfeknives.com/Pages/galpages/folders1.html

Makers like this are why I really don't care about CRK at all. $400 just doesn't buy enough precision for me to settle for S30V/S35VN and a beadblasted framelock.
 
hardheart said:
You know how Kershaw has composite blades? Walker's zipper blades are composites made by press fitting, a fit so exact no welding needed.
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Welding blade steel and Ti as a CB? You sure that's even possible...Just one for your Google search's.
 
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