Let's Talk (about a different side of) GEC!

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Repaired pic3ABE9B6B-53BE-41A4-A80E-2467F1C33E18.jpegMy repair was only possible because they had a spare blade , I remember Chris stating only if they had one . They don’t stock extra blades for repair . I’m missing a tailgate for my 96 ford , I don’t expect the ford factory to have one .
 
Dave Dallam said:
I

I’m not at all upset. Not even a little, just surprised that they cannot repair their products. For twenty years I ran a surgical instrument company. We always repaired anything we sold, no matter how old.
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Ah, the tone of your posts implies differently. That knife was obviously well used before it was, well, abused. For the record, knives aren't the only industry where this is the case. If your car was from around 2008 and wasn't a model they made hundreds and hundreds of thousands of, you might find yourself having a similar experience if say, something vital like a fuel pump went. I speak from firsthand experience, incidentally. And in this case, it wasn't a small knife-making concern like GEC, it was Ford, a giant global company that has made millions of vehicles.
 
TheChunk91 said:
I doubt there was anything wrong with the steel. You see so many old knives with broken blades for a reason; people abused them. It’s not that hard to snap a blade.

I think it’s silly that they wanted $5 to return your knife.
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The secret is to put in in the mail with no postage but put the ship to address as the sender. Then it gets returned for free.

The customer is always right. That's what people like about us.
 
I appreciate all of your responses. I’m still new to this site and to GEC at least within the last year. I only have about a dozen. Please understand my comments are only my surprise at discovering that GEC knives, but maybe all pocket knives, just aren’t repairable. I’m disappointed though. But not pissed. And I'm still a huge GEC fan. Just bought another one today, in fact. Time to end this thread.

End of Transmission....
 
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My experience with GEC's repair service has been very good. I got one repaired that was a current production knife, cost $5 or 10... honestly can't remember.
The other was a 2008 model that had the acrylic scale shrink a tiny bit away from the bolster. I wanted to replace it with something, and was told straight out that they did not have the original acrylic to replace it with. They said they could replace the scales with something else, but it would have to wait for a "few months" because they are so busy making knives, they would just have to work it in when they had time. That sounded completely reasonable to me.
Stuff breaks.... that knife looked VERY well worn, and I would guess, along with everyone else, that it had likely been used as a pry-bar by someone that didn't know any better. I'm pretty sure we will never know for certain...
There are folks on this forum that rebuild/repair knives... you might discuss a rebuild with some of them, but I imagine it would cost at least as much as a new knife.
Good luck with it, whatever you choose to do...

edit: you could also grind the top edge of that blade into a curve, and turn it into a stubby wharncliffe blade... that would still be a pretty dang useful knife..
 
I mean. o_O

They put a new pen blade on a #44 for me for like $20, which I was happy with, but it was recent to the production of the knife.

Why would they repair an obviously abused knife?
 
It would probably be a tonne smarter to send to someone like Glennbad who'll rebuild it vs. the factory.

It's like hitting a deer with your truck and railing it to Ford in Detroit to make like new. It's not going to play out.
 
I don't find it surprising GEC wouldn't fix it under warranty.
(a) A broken blade is not usually a manufacturing defect. (It could be, if there are signs in the break there was a pre-existing micro crack or crack that happened during forging/shaping or heat treat.)
(b) You are not the original retail buyer or owner, (Read the warranty. "Original Purchaser Only" and "Not Transferable" are both explicitly specified.) so the knife is out of warranty, anyway.

It doesn't even surprise me they wouldn't pay return shipping. Few companies do.

"GEC is a niche company making small runs of ever changing patterns on the whim of the owner, leftover parts get built out into factory sale knives etc, so no parts to back up repairs" (sitflyer)

sitflyer sitflyer Are you saying that for all practical purposes, GEC doesn't really have a warranty that covers manufacturing defects, such as a broken backspring, the original purchaser can rely on should the worst case event happen and a back spring breaks?
Manufacturing defects don't always show up immediately, you know. Some take time.

A broken backspring is a manufacturing defect on a single blade knife, a multi-blade knife with one blade per backspring, or a multi-blade knife with two blades per backspring that has half stops on both blades. No matter what the age of the knife is. Breakage from metal fatigue shouldn't happen on a properly heat treated and tempered part. Ever.

A cracked natural cover such as bone, antler, or horn isn't necessarily a manufacturing defect, since natural materials can and do crack.

FWIW, I know my two GEC knives are not under warranty. I am not the original purchaser. All my Case knives, and one of my Cold Steel fixed blades are out of warranty for the same reason. Some of my knives with a "lifetime" warranty, are out of warranty because the company responsible for the knife closed shop generations ago.

ddallam ddallam
Seems to me you have at least three or four choices/options:

1: Contact one of the gentlemen here on BF who repair and modify (blade deletes, re-covers, etc.) and find out if they have (a) suitable blade(s) to repair it (I'm sure that at a minimum, they'll have a pen blade from a blade delete they've done.)

2: Sharpen it up as a box cutter, as you mentioned.

3: Donate it as a "parts knife" to one of the gentlemen who repair and modify knives. Everything but the blades and pins can be re-used.

4: (Eventually) buy a 25 that doesn't have stag covers, send both to one of the gentlemen who repair/modify knives to have the blade(s) from your "new" 25 transferred to the broken knife, or same difference, the bolster/liner/cover assemblies of the broken knife moved to the "new" 25.

(3 and 4 could be combined.)
 
"A man's got to know his limitations". ~ Dirty Harry.

I know that GEC runs a very tight ship manpower wise. They don't have a separate repair shop staff. When somebody who is normally employed producing knives has a bit of time, that person will try to fix knives with problems.

For knife with broken blades where they don't even have duplicate blades, it's a horrendous manpower drain to try to do anything with it. The frames are customized to each blade style. A blade from a different design would require a massive reworking of the knife to bring it up to GEC appearance standards. Even if you were willing to pay, their staff does not have that much extra time to put into a one-off. To be fair to GEC, you would not only have to pay for the time he spent on your knife, you would have to pay for all the production knives he is not making because he is working on your knife. That equates to many hours of labor at several hundred dollars an hour.

I still think the Traditional Forum is an acceptable venue for this thread. So I am going to leave it here.
 
afishhunter said:
I don't find it surprising GEC wouldn't fix it under warranty.
(a) A broken blade is not usually a manufacturing defect. (It could be, if there are signs in the break there was a pre-existing micro crack or crack that happened during forging/shaping or heat treat.)
(b) You are not the original retail buyer or owner, (Read the warranty. "Original Purchaser Only" and "Not Transferable" are both explicitly specified.) so the knife is out of warranty, anyway.

It doesn't even surprise me they wouldn't pay return shipping. Few companies do.

"GEC is a niche company making small runs of ever changing patterns on the whim of the owner, leftover parts get built out into factory sale knives etc, so no parts to back up repairs" (sitflyer)

sitflyer sitflyer Are you saying that for all practical purposes, GEC doesn't really have a warranty that covers manufacturing defects, such as a broken backspring, the original purchaser can rely on should the worst case event happen and a back spring breaks?
Manufacturing defects don't always show up immediately, you know. Some take time.

A broken backspring is a manufacturing defect on a single blade knife, a multi-blade knife with one blade per backspring, or a multi-blade knife with two blades per backspring that has half stops on both blades. No matter what the age of the knife is. Breakage from metal fatigue shouldn't happen on a properly heat treated and tempered part. Ever.

A cracked natural cover such as bone, antler, or horn isn't necessarily a manufacturing defect, since natural materials can and do crack.

FWIW, I know my two GEC knives are not under warranty. I am not the original purchaser. All my Case knives, and one of my Cold Steel fixed blades are out of warranty for the same reason. Some of my knives with a "lifetime" warranty, are out of warranty because the company responsible for the knife closed shop generations ago.

ddallam ddallam
Seems to me you have at least three or four choices/options:

1: Contact one of the gentlemen here on BF who repair and modify (blade deletes, re-covers, etc.) and find out if they have (a) suitable blade(s) to repair it (I'm sure that at a minimum, they'll have a pen blade from a blade delete they've done.)

2: Sharpen it up as a box cutter, as you mentioned.

3: Donate it as a "parts knife" to one of the gentlemen who repair and modify knives. Everything but the blades and pins can be re-used.

4: (Eventually) buy a 25 that doesn't have stag covers, send both to one of the gentlemen who repair/modify knives to have the blade(s) from your "new" 25 transferred to the broken knife, or same difference, the bolster/liner/cover assemblies of the broken knife moved to the "new" 25.

(3 and 4 could be combined.)
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They do have a warrantee, you can return a defective product to the place of purchase for a refund or replacement, if available ;) and that is only if you are the original purchaser (fair enough). But we are not talking about a broken spring here, are we? We see an obviously well used knife, with both blades snapped off ( prying much ? )
I just got to LOLZ at this one...
 
Hmm I went and found your ebag listing and threw out a bid, but now it's already up at 25 bucks. I'm surprised. I figured it would make a fun little project, apparently you have a few people that agree.
 
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