I'd like to thank them too. Here's a little story of my latest interaction with Buck:
My most abused knife would be a Buck 110 that I bought over 25 years ago when I was in my mid teens. I beat on that knife mercilessly for several years. I banged it, threw it, pryed with it and practiced my early (bad) sharpening skills on it. I learned how to flick open a blade with that knife and did it incessantly, regardless of how hard it was on that poor knife. Then I traded it to by best buddy at the time for a Boker bird knife. I didn't really want the Boker, but my friend was working as a painter and the Boker just didn't seem sturdy enough for what he was doing and I'd sort of retired the 110 and replaced it with a Puma 971 Game Warden which was slimmer and would fit in my pocket, so I didn't need the buck anymore.
About 2 1/2 years ago I get a call from my friend, who's still by best buddy after 20 years and he asks if I remember the old 110 I traded to him many years ago. I said of course, that was my first real high quality knife. He say's he just found it in a drawer and was wondering if I'd want it back, for free as it's a bit worse for wear. I said heck yeah, and by the way, do you want that old Boker back? I never really liked the thing and it's in the same shape as when I got it as it's just been sitting in a drawer all these years. He was blown away that I still had it. So we traded back.
That poor 110 was in terrible shape. There was so much blade play that the lock would fail if the slightest pressure was put on the spine of the knife. It had been dropped on cement. The handle had been used as a hammer. The edge was teh ugliest I'd ever seen. But it was an old friend so I gave it a place in my safe to save for posterity. A couple months later at my 40th birthday party, my friend presented me with a 100th anniversary Buck 110. So I had a pair of 110s, beauty and the beast, both with a nice sentimental attachment to my best friend.
After looking at that beat up old knife and knowing that in it's present condition it was nothing but a danger to anyone who might try to use it, I decided to try to bring it back to life. I had a business appointment in El Cajon CA about two miles from the soon to close Buck factory, so I dropped in to see about repair. The lady said it would be no problem and that I should look for it in the mail in a few days. I told her that I knew in some cases where a knife is really abused, they will just exchange it, and that if this knife couldn't be repaired, I wanted it back as is, as it has sentimental value to me. That was just before Thanksgiving. Just a few days ago my old friend the 110 returned to me. I was amazed. They'd fixed the pivot and lock so it is just as tight as new! They buffed out most of the cosmetic damage like where I'd tried to use some dull old metal stamps to put my initials on the handle. They'd also reground the blade and made it look great. I know it was the same blade because when I was around twenty and working in a machine shop, I had used the Rockwell hardness tester in the shop to check the blade...three times. A Rockwell tester leaves a tiny tell tale mark in the steel tested and this blade still had all three of the ones I'd put on it so many years ago. They'd polished up all the brass parts to look just like new, except for one small corner where some impacts with concrete had left scars too deep to just buff away. There's some dings in the wood, but not as many as you'd think considering what a hard life this knife has had. Unless you look close though, it looks like a brand new 110. The Buck folks repaired all that abuse under warantee and the lady at the counter arranged it with a smile. I asked her if she was moving with the factory. She replied no so I'm guessing that she will be out of work soon
Last night I went to my friend's 40th birthday party. I told him I'd brought along an old mutual friend and he looked at me quizically until I reached in my pocket and produced the 110. He was blown away at what a great job Buck had done refurbishing our knife.
Thanks Buck, sad to see you leave California.
John
