Isn there anyone at Buck that checks the quality of the knives anymore ?

sitflyer said:
I assumed that their LE's and Custom Shop LE stuff was such a line...have had a few bumps in the road on these as well...I'm looking at a Damascus Paradigm right now with a scratch that runs across the tip creating a nice silver arc across the Damascus pattern...liner rub...didn't even think to look for it.( Not an affordable everyday user knife by any means!!! ) Aestheticly the blade is ruined for me. Yet I continue to purchase a few Bucks here and there. I got my first buck when I was about 14 years old, that makes 36+ years of using their knives.
I wish the best for Buck Knives now and in the future, But I must admit that when I read Joe's remark about:
The tolerance the shop has is that as long as you can slide a piece of paper between the blade and the inside of the case, it is ok.
Made me scratch my head , and chuckle out loud. I'm buying mosly older Bucks now.............................
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Again, I will say that after the move to Idaho the QC went out the window. I do believe its because the new work force is made up of a body to fill a spot in the line. It used to be filled with a qualified and trained individual who care for the product they put out, not just a quota of product...
 
I have an old (approximately 1970's vintage) Buck 110.
There are absolutely no quality issues with this knife.

I recently purchased a Buck 389 that was made in China.
The Chinese made knife is inferior to the 110 in just about all respects.

It is all very well for the Buck company to tell purchasers to return inferior merchandise for replacement/rebuilding, this is fine for American customers.
What do customers elsewhere in the world do ??.

I will not be buying any further Buck products in the future.

It appears that Buck is following in the footsteps of Gerber as regards quality, that is they are on the downwards path.

This is my opinion.
 
Assuming a non-automated QC inspection process, the paper test seems perfectly reasonable for a working knife like the 110. It's an easy test, a reasonable tolerance and non destructive.

I think it would entirely insufficient for the collectible "boutique" versions though. Much higher customer expectations.

Regarding blade play, IMO this more of an engineering, design and materials issue. At least not according to my experience. The problems I've seen have to do with play developing over time, not having play out of the box.
 
I've been watching this thread closely and will continue to. I havent bought any "new" Bucks lately for myself, just older users. But I did order my son a larger orange camo bantam for Christmas because he really liked it when he seen it online. I personally would of chose the 110 but he liked the bantam. I'm a little concern since it is in a clampack so I cant examine it. Hope all is well.
 
pinnah said:
Assuming a non-automated QC inspection process, the paper test seems perfectly reasonable for a working knife like the 110. It's an easy test, a reasonable tolerance and non destructive.

I think it would entirely insufficient for the collectible "boutique" versions though. Much higher customer expectations.
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This term "Boutique" keeps surfacing, and has little to in this thread. The majority of the knives referenced here are working knives with the exception of a few like Sitflyers Paradigm. But it doesn't matter if your knife is a working knife or something you plan to sit on a shelf, they both should be and are expected to be a high quality knife. Having a paper test tolerance is not acceptable in my opinion because after you begin using your knife things only get worse. So, if it just passes this Paper test who cares about the future of the knife? What are the tolerances on the other things that are making the knives look like crap, such as unevenly ground bevels, blade play, scratches in blade finishes and the other host of problems. I just bought an Alaskan Guide 110 with that CPM 154 steel and coated blade. The Bevels are ground uneven, one is noticeably higher than the other side, and again it was an internet purchase. If I can tell that there is something wrong about the knife, why cant the person who is standing in front of the machine.
 
I think this is something they(Buck) are aware of,I am sure they know their quality is not even close to what it was,Their name used to stand for a quality knife,now peopl and even company insiders just refer to the knives as product,because thats all they are now,how many can we sell seems to be what its about now.

I also think the clamshell packs are a joke,its hard to buy a knife you can see but not touch,and it makes a lot of old timers question why they can't open it and see it until its bought.I will no longer buy any buck knives that i can't hold in my hands first.
 
RAZORBLADES said:
I think this is something they(Buck) are aware of,I am sure they know their quality is not even close to what it was,Their name used to stand for a quality knife,now peopl and even company insiders just refer to the knives as product,because thats all they are now,how many can we sell seems to be what its about now.
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And that is certainly their right to follow that path, right? It isn't too much different than most other American manufacturers these days. Look at CASE; bought by Zippo. They release umpteen hundred "collectors" or "memorial" edition knives a year. Put a different color scales on it, a different blade etch, and it is now a "XXXXX knife like Grandpa used to carry". CASE makes a lot of nice knives and they are capable of great work, but it seems to be a really good CASE is just a fluke anymore.

RAZORBLADES said:
I also think the clamshell packs are a joke,its hard to buy a knife you can see but not touch,and it makes a lot of old timers question why they can't open it and see it until its bought.I will no longer buy any buck knives that i can't hold in my hands first.
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The worst thing about the clamshell packs is that they are a "pig in a poke" for both buyer and seller. The seller can't take it out of the clamshell as then the buyer won't think it is brand new. Could be a returned product or something worse. So a seller has to send it out to you (or you buy it off the shelf) with no idea of how well the knife works. If they get the knife back, they lose what little profit they had in a $35 dollar knife, and worse, if they don't remedy the problem to the purchaser's satisfaction, they can come here and blast the seller in front of several thousand people.

From the buyer's side, they can't inspect the knife and they don't know what they are getting. For me, no matter the product, if it is in a blister pack/clamshell, I open the product in the parking lot where I buy it for inspection so all I lose is the 20 minutes needed to return the product right then and there should I need to do so.

Robert
 
Most of the Bucks I have acquired this year have been the web specials. Considering these are mostly made up of left over(?) blades and such, I have found nothing wrong with them. Maybe because they are a small select grouping of knives rather than the regular production they get a better once over?
 
Buck can do whatever they want with their "product",Its not the same company as when Chuck Buck was in charge,and it never will be the same quality knife that was made in El Cajon,When Chuck ran the company,quality was the goal ,now its not.

All my future buck knives will be old models off the bay ,no more new ones for me,and non of my oldies will ever see Idaho.
 
I think Buck still makes the best manufactured fixed-blade knives("famous for holding an edge"). The recent batch of onetwentyfours is testament to that,(more praise than complaints).

However their line of folding knives lack the quality of the other American made counterparts.

Keep up the good work on the FB knives. They are my favorites since the demise of Cammillus and Schrade.
Remember the basics and keep doing what your best at.

Thanks for listening,

:):thumbup::)
 
Simply put, NO. They fired all their QC right before your knife was made. DUH!

RAZORBLADES said:
Or do they just make them up ,pack them ,and get them out to the marketplace?I have bought 12 new buck knives just in the last 2 months,and i haven't found one that wasn't as good as it should be.There was anything from a loose rivet,sharp rivets,handles ground down way too much,and dull blades/loose blades.

My last buck purchase showed up today,a 110 alaskan guide with rosewood handles,and i've never been more disappointed in a knife as this one.I'll make a video and post it tonite so you can see my problems,and i'm aware you can just mail it back and they will make it right,but what i want to know is why can't they make it right the first time and avoid the hassle of sending a brand new knife back t be re-worked.

I'm over here in Canada,and its darn expensive to send back a knife now,plus the waiting and not having the knife i bought.I am not bashing ,i would like some answers as to why these are being shipped?The knife i opened this morning topped it off for me,i feel like it was built by someone with no care whatsoever about what they were building,just there to get a paycheck,assemble it ,and move it down the line,.

I am all done buying any bucks until they decide to make some changes to address the quality control,the knife was over $100 with taxes ,and in my opinion that is too much for what i got inn the mail today,I will address all my problems in the video i post tonite,and see if buck will decide to hire a person that will just check every knife before its packaged,its that simple,have a person that their sole purpose at the company is to look and check every knife,I bet that will save them a ton of costs in the long run.

See ya tonite!
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We were into the hunting camp and we got on the topic of knives,just about everyone had a 110 either in the truck or their belt,Now the funny thing is there were 4 old 110 owners with old 110 knives,some with the blade half gone,LOL,And a couple guys with fairly new(1-3 years old 110's)Can you guess what we noticed?The old knives are still tight and lock solid,with no flaws,the REAL wood handles were perfectly fine,The new knives were lacking in quality with loose blades and poor snap.I wish they never made the move to Idaho.They say it was to decrease costs,but they made the move ,saved money,and still ruined their name by sending knives to china to be made.They never sent knives to china when they were in El Cajon.I am disappointed in Buck for what they have done to their name and the quality of their knives..Not to mention leaving customers that just bought a brand new knife from them at a premium price,that has to be sent back to their shop to get "fixed" before being used for anything,at a cost of $30 to the customer(me)
 
mbjannusch said:
This term "Boutique" keeps surfacing, and has little to in this thread. The majority of the knives referenced here are working knives with the exception of a few like Sitflyers Paradigm.
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If you prefer the term "premium" to "boutique", you can just mentally do a global search and replace on my posts above.

Where is the price point line between a working knife and a premium priced knife? Opinions on this will vary but I would say that line is somewhere between $50 and $75. Below $50 and I will think of the knife as a "working knife" and grant a lot of leeway on fit and finish issues (but will expect durability on par with a $15 Opinel). Above $75 and I will have greater expectations on fit and finish issues.

The Alaskan Guide 110 sells for about $90 and by time it got to Canada for RAZORBLADES, it was well north of $100 US. Bou^H^H^HPremium knives aren't my cup of tea, but at that price, I totally understand why RAZORBLADES would be disappointed in the knife if it wasn't real close to perfect on fit and finish.


But it doesn't matter if your knife is a working knife or something you plan to sit on a shelf, they both should be and are expected to be a high quality knife.
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My experience is that customers have different expectations and understanding of quality at different price points. Generally when paying premium prices (IMO, north of $75), I think knife customers have a right to expect both good fit and finish and good durability. Under $50, my sense is that customers know and expect that they should pick brands based either on looks or performance. Rough Rider and Taylor Brand Schrade are clearly targeting the former. Buck used to target the latter.

RAZORBLADES description of deer camp mirrors my own (where I hope to be a couple of weeks). My cousins are the kind of guys who would stick a knife blade in a vice just to see if they get things to move and who would toss away junk. They drive their F-150s like they drive their log skidders and treat their tools similarly. If somebody were to sit around the stove and whine about a gap in a liner or a lock bar "sitting proud", they would be laughed at. That don't mean nothin'.

Please note, both views (premium vs working) are both legitimate.


Having a paper test tolerance is not acceptable in my opinion because after you begin using your knife things only get worse. So, if it just passes this Paper test who cares about the future of the knife?
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Shimano makes deraillers (gear changers) for bikes. Rear deraillers are similar to knives in their basic design consisting of lever arms pivoting on pressed or peened pivot pins and bushings. When these pivots develop play, the derailler shifts poorly.

Shimano has several lines of deraillers that sell at different price points. When new, the cheap stuff and expensive stuff are roughly comparable. But over time, the cheap ones develop play. This is because they use inferior pins and materials, not because of poor QC.

The issue with play in regular Buck 110s isn't a QC issue. It has to do with the materials they're using and/or the production process being used. IMO, it is unacceptable for the knife to get worse over time. I have a 1970s Opinel that I bought used, beat on hard for several years and have given it to a friend working as a carpenter. He's beaten on it for a bit. I saw the knife last night. Zero wobble. My 70s vintage 110 has no wobble. The new 110s that are wobbling at RAZORBLADES deer camp are doing so because Buck has changed something in the materials and production process. My recent Bucks came out of the box with no wobble that any QC process would find. They developed it over time. Materials and process. That's where the play issue lies.


If I can tell that there is something wrong about the knife, why cant the person who is standing in front of the machine.
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I agree with you. For fit and finish issues, they should be able to tell. I think Buck as both design problems and QC problems. I also think you're right about pointing to the move to Idaho. Moves like that tend to flush out corporate memory. That's tough.
 
I think buck has taken the 110 design and found a way to make it as absolutely cheap as possible,and corners were cut to it.Lookmat any new 110 made in 2012,find one with woodgrain and post a picture,because all i see it was looks like black wood,the obeechee wood make a nice natural woodgrain before,now it doesn't.Something has changed in every process ,even making the wood has been cheapened.I see a lot of new 110's with uneven grinds on the clip,they just son't look right.Blade play on a new knife is bad,and it only gets worse with use.The regular `110 should be $60 and have the quality that backs it up.I think they made so many plastic knives now that they tried to use the same process making 110's, the cheap method.
 
I'd love to pick up on of the older 110s for a user but the ones I see on the bay or either in horrible shape or a hefty chunk of change. Sometimes that hefty chunck is tempting . I dont know enough about theolder ones to know a good deal when I see one.
 
pinnah said:
If you prefer the term "premium" to "boutique", you can just mentally do a global search and replace on my posts above.

Where is the price point line between a working knife and a premium priced knife? Opinions on this will vary but I would say that line is somewhere between $50 and $75. Below $50 and I will think of the knife as a "working knife" and grant a lot of leeway on fit and finish issues (but will expect durability on par with a $15 Opinel). Above $75 and I will have greater expectations on fit and finish issues.

The Alaskan Guide 110 sells for about $90 and by time it got to Canada for RAZORBLADES, it was well north of $100 US. Bou^H^H^HPremium knives aren't my cup of tea, but at that price, I totally understand why RAZORBLADES would be disappointed in the knife if it wasn't real close to perfect on fit and finish.




My experience is that customers have different expectations and understanding of quality at different price points. Generally when paying premium prices (IMO, north of $75), I think knife customers have a right to expect both good fit and finish and good durability. Under $50, my sense is that customers know and expect that they should pick brands based either on looks or performance. Rough Rider and Taylor Brand Schrade are clearly targeting the former. Buck used to target the latter.

RAZORBLADES description of deer camp mirrors my own (where I hope to be a couple of weeks). My cousins are the kind of guys who would stick a knife blade in a vice just to see if they get things to move and who would toss away junk. They drive their F-150s like they drive their log skidders and treat their tools similarly. If somebody were to sit around the stove and whine about a gap in a liner or a lock bar "sitting proud", they would be laughed at. That don't mean nothin'.

Please note, both views (premium vs working) are both legitimate.




Shimano makes deraillers (gear changers) for bikes. Rear deraillers are similar to knives in their basic design consisting of lever arms pivoting on pressed or peened pivot pins and bushings. When these pivots develop play, the derailler shifts poorly.

Shimano has several lines of deraillers that sell at different price points. When new, the cheap stuff and expensive stuff are roughly comparable. But over time, the cheap ones develop play. This is because they use inferior pins and materials, not because of poor QC.

The issue with play in regular Buck 110s isn't a QC issue. It has to do with the materials they're using and/or the production process being used. IMO, it is unacceptable for the knife to get worse over time. I have a 1970s Opinel that I bought used, beat on hard for several years and have given it to a friend working as a carpenter. He's beaten on it for a bit. I saw the knife last night. Zero wobble. My 70s vintage 110 has no wobble. The new 110s that are wobbling at RAZORBLADES deer camp are doing so because Buck has changed something in the materials and production process. My recent Bucks came out of the box with no wobble that any QC process would find. They developed it over time. Materials and process. That's where the play issue lies.




I agree with you. For fit and finish issues, they should be able to tell. I think Buck as both design problems and QC problems. I also think you're right about pointing to the move to Idaho. Moves like that tend to flush out corporate memory. That's tough.
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Now there is allot of dialog here to wade threw, so bare with me. The first thing I disagree with is your price point opinion. I don't believe price is what makes a knife one that would sit on a shelf verse one that is deemed a working knife. For instance the AG 110, it has a price tag of $90, there is nothing that would stop me from taking that knife out to the field and using it. Yet, most of had the chance to check out the Buck Web special 525 made of silver and gold inlay, this knife will be either sit in my display or be given as a gift to sit in someone else's display, its not a user and was bought for $85. Premium can refer to the blade material, handle or scale material.

Secondly is the "expectation", When I buy a Buck 110 I expect quality, whether I buy an AG 110 with CPM 154 and rose wood handle scales or I buy a plain Jane Buck 110 from WW. Both are BUCK 110's and should have the same level of quality and QC. The only difference is the materials being used change the price of the knife, not the quality. It should have a tight blade, with evenly ground bevels, polished bolsters, sit in the closed position evenly in between the liner, Pins that don't pop out any farther than the one next to it and feel good in hand. I think because Buck puts out a million knives a year, their expectations for the tolerance level has dropped and they dont expect as much in order to maintain the production numbers.

Thirdly You state it's not a QC issue, its the materials they use. The materials used and the process for making the knife hasn't changed in 30 years. Buck still uses 420HC steel, Brass bolsters and Macassar Ebony handle scales. The Process hasn't changed. The knives that rolled off the line 30 years ago were just as screwed up but the production quota wasn't there, and they removed the knives that didn't meet the high standards. Now they have to let the crap slide in order to keep up with the demand. I say raise the price, slow the production and create a demand for a quality knife, not just a knife that says BUCK, because that doesn't mean anything any more...
 
I went to Smoky Mountain Knife Works yesterday with the intention of buying a Buck 501. All three knives in stock had some fairly substantial side-to-side play. I looked at a Buck 503 and found the same thing, then looked at a couple of Buck 55s that were perfect in every way. I then looked at six Bear & Son lockbacks (not sure of the model, although they had rosewood handles) and all of them had locks tight enough to require a pair of pliers to close. In the end, I went home with a $13 Chinese made Kershaw that met all my needs.

My take on the whole deal with Buck quality? Sh!t happens. I'm in manufacturing QA/QC; my company produces millions of auto parts every year. We have STRICT standards, check incoming, in-process, and outgoing parts every day, and have lot trace practices that would please an O.C.D. anal retentive. With this being said, we still have bad parts that get out. We still have in-house issues. It happens- we aren't perfect. Neither is Buck. Neither is Bear, or any other knife company, for that matter.

Buck pulled up shop and moved it, set it back up, and employed a new work force. Common sense tells you there's going to be quality issues and bumps in the road. They'll get it straightened out. The next time I'm at SMKW, I'll be at the Buck counter, going through all the 501s until I find the right one for me. I buy knives to USE, not to set on a shelf and look pretty, so I overlook a lot of the "fit and finish" issues some folks seem to get their panties in a bunch over. The wobble I saw was bad enough that I wasn't comfortable spending forty bucks on the knife, but that doesn't change my opinion of Buck quality nor diminish my love for their knives.
 
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