Lone Wolf T2 - NO quality control

DRider

DRider

Joined
Jan 8, 2005
Messages
597
My new Lone Wolf T2 with Cocobolo scales arrived the other day from New Graham knives. Was I surprised when I took it out of the box and there was a post it wrapped around the knife with "factory defect" written on it!

The scales, while beautiful, were not correctly matched to the titanium liners - which were also irregular. Wood extended past metal on the butt on one side by 1-2 mm or so; metal on the other side by the same amount. (no pictures yet, sorry, they may follow)

Function was fine; blade was centered with no play, lock up good, and just as written by others, the sharpest knife I've ever had - but cosmetically, and ethically, a huge disappointment. (What idiot misprogrammed the CNC machine? What moron let that out of the factory? Or - a sinister idea - who thought "we'll get away with this one?")

I incorrectly blamed New Graham and fired off an angry email. They got right back to me and explained why it wasn't their fault in a convincing manner - they just don't open each box unless specifically asked to and therefore it came with that note in the box from Lone Wolf. And also how all the other T2's in stock had serious problems and that they were pulling the entire line due to extremely poor quality control!

New Graham said that although their other T2's had problems (functional problems that kept me from taking them up on their offer, loose blades, non-centering blades) they would Next-Day a new one to me immediately - before I even sent my return - so that I could be satisfied and have a knife in hand, if I didn't want to just return it and get a totally different knife. That was really stand-up of them, offering to front me a knife at their expense when all they really were responsible for was accepting my return and issuing a refund.

I've kept the knife because it was meant to be a using knife and functionally, its fine. A little quality control and I would have been writing about how amazing the knife is - really, its such a great blade and grind, the best cutter I have in the collection, and the design is excellent. Unfortunately, quality control is terrible! (and I suppose, now, they did get away with that one). But I was very impressed with New Graham and so I wanted to be sure and let you'all know that they really stand behind their customers.

But watch out for those T2's!
 
Personally don't know what has happened! I've had mine for a little over one month and the fit and finish are fine. Blade perfectly centered and it came scary sharp.
 
My T2, also from New Graham, was perfect, no problems at all, great fit and finish. Exchange it for a new one, it's a great knife.
 
Well, if there's a note reading "factory defect" on it, it most likely slipped through QC. Give them a call and tell us how they intend to handle this in TGBU.
 
DRider said:
And also how all the other T2's in stock had serious problems and that they were pulling the entire line due to extremely poor quality control!
Click to expand...

Would someone from New Graham be willing to elaborate on this please? It sounds like more than an isolated incident.

DRider, FWIW I also think you should reconsider and exchange your knife for another. I have no doubt NG will completely check it over and make sure you get a good one.
 
I was at a knife store a few weeks ago, and was glad to see they had a couple of these knives, I had been curious to check them out. Both had fairly serious defects, both had lock issues. I was surprised, but it appears this is not as rare as it should be, too bad, they had interested me until I saw them in person.
 
I just bought one today and mine has no problems with it great knife, sharp, worth every penny.
 
Hi guys. In my email conversations with New Graham they indicated they checked their entire stock - every one had more serious problems than mine! They said they are not going to sell T2's any more - which speaks pretty loudly to them folk at Lone Wolf, I'd think.

Although of course, I want perfect looks... what I also wanted was a good using knife. The one I have has excellent blade centering, no side to side blade wobble at all, good lock geometry, and the blade itself is ground and sharpened exactly right - damn that thing's sharper'n'hell! Visually, though, its not perfect... good... but not perfect.

Would I avoid a more serious, functional issue with a replacement? Its a crap shoot. Evidently there's lots of duds out there. I decided to stick with a sure functional success rather than cosmetic improvement with a possible fatal flaw...

Here's pictures... should I have returned it? Maybe... and maybe I'm over-reacting... I leave it to the jury...

(well, now I see that my cats have added their 2cents worth of stray hair to those close ups... embarassing... :o )

DSCN0393.jpg

dc9565db.jpg
 
Uhm well, I would have returned it, considering a triangle piece of frame looks to be missing, how the heck does that happen? Uhm, besides that the scales look a little undersized? Who knows, never handled one, so maybe that's what Lone Wolfs quality is?
 
I am a bit surprised about this, I have only sent one LW back and that was because there was a very slight scuff on the scale of the cocobolo T2 about 4 mm2. I have sold quite a few of the Harseys and they have all been flawless, absolutely solid lock up, excellent grinds, spot on F&F. I wonder if NG gets them direct from the factory or through a distributor, if its from a factory maybe there was a screw up with the stuff that should have been rejected and it was placed in a 'good to go' box.
Dispite this I wouldnt have any qualms about reccomending them.
 
If these T2 knives are so shoddy in QC then safety itself maybe an issue as you have stated that you had wanted a "hard working knife" and therefore the confidence in its workmanship and materials(especially in the lock construction,blade-to-lock geometry etc.) must not be in question.Also the poor fitting scales will sooner or later really bother me,as well as being uncomfortable in future use.Good luck(BTW NGK seems to have excellent Customer Service-kudos to them). :mad:
 
I would be afraid the wood might chip off where there is no support under it. I would give them a chance to make it right, I'm sure they would not want this to go out.

My real feelings are......ARGGG !! how could you keep this ! :eek:

Robbie Roberson :) :D
 
Hello-oh...again, there was a post-it reading "factory defect" attached to it, so it obviously just slipped through QC. I really have no idea why people call them on their "shoddy" QC since apparently they themselves labeled it as a defective knife.

Yeah, it shouldn't have been shipped that way, but chances are that they just sent the wrong package to the guys at New Graham. If they did it on purpose, labeling them as defective wouldn't be that clever, huh?

Do you guys read only the title of the post you're replying to without any regard to the actual content of the post or what..?

For the record: as of yet, I don't own a Lone Wolf knife.
 
I bought and returned a T2 last year. Okay knife but overpriced at the time (I don't know what they go for know). Since that time I've become very suspicious by the words "semi-custom" and "mid-tech". I'm thinking that some manufacturers have figured out that they can charge quite a bit more and sell about the same thing using these buzzwords.

So how much are factory defects going for now? And if you sell it do you plan on selling it as a "factory defect"?
 
Quiet Storm: if you read the rest of the posts you'd see that all the remaining stock at NG were defective also. What do you make of that?
 
DRider, Thank you for being understanding of our side of this. The knife DR received could have come from one of several distributors or direct from Lone Wolf, we have no way of tracking that. Besides the QC issue with DR's knife the other T series we have in stock all had either blade play or lock up problems, some worse than others and some not bad but still problems.

Up till now most problems we have seen with Lone Wolf have been with lock up and blade play in the Italian Made Loveless knives. Also we have seen QC issues in some of the inlay fittings with these knives.

About a month or so ago Mike and I discussed pulling Lone Wolf because of the QC issues and it looks like we should have went ahead and did it.

At this time we are deciding what to do with what we have, We will either pack up what we have and send it back or go through what we have and check each knife, Sell them if they are right and drop the line. The trouble is, checking every knife we have of LW in stock will be very time consuming and time is money, At what point do you start losing money because your having to check all their products. We should not have to do this with any knife company IMO.

We understand that any company can have a bad apple from time to time and we do not mind checking knives for our customers on request. Most of the time we can send knives out and not have a problem, when we start getting this many bad apples something has to be done.

I called today and spoke with LW about this problem, Told the guy I had 3 knives sitting in front of me with issues, another one out to a customer and I had sent 3-4 back a week or 2 ago, He told me that this was hard to believe because they have not had more than 6 defective knives returned in the last year.

Just like being a alcoholic, It seems to me in order for a company to "fix" a problem they need to admit they may have one.

Again DR thanks for being understanding, Sorry it had to be you getting the bad apple.
 
It sounded to me like they received a whole package of marked defective T2s. If that's not the case, I apologize for my earlier post.

I still think that you should send it in to Lone Wolf though.
 
I got a T2 for Fathers Day. Nice knife, sharp, nice grind, profile, etc. The fitting of the wood to the liners was poor at best, as described above. I didn't abuse this knife in any way or treat it different from any other of my EDC's and it quickly gained little spots of what I surmise is surface corrosion. Wouldn't buy another.
 
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