LT Wright disappointment

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GunnersFan

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Recently purchased an Illuminous 5 in 3V. Fit and finish outstanding, great ergos. Unfortunately, edge took a little rolling in the first few minutes of use. I wasn’t doing anything unusual- just making a tent stake out of dry maple. Something that my ESEE 4 has done many times with no issues.

Shop asked me to send back, to their credit. They said heat treat tested fine, so they resharpened and sent it back. However, the knife is made with a true Scandi grind, and the resharpening added a bevel, so that the Scandi is now like a secondary bevel. There are also several dark spots on the new “primary” bevel where the edge rolling had been.

I have no doubt that LT Wright is an excellent shop. After all, that’s why I bought from them after reading so many great things about them here on the Forum. But this hasn’t been a great experience, and I think this is my first and last LT Wright knife.
 
GunnersFan said:
Recently purchased an Illuminous 5 in 3V. Fit and finish outstanding, great ergos. Unfortunately, edge took a little rolling in the first few minutes of use. I wasn’t doing anything unusual- just making a tent stake out of dry maple. Something that my ESEE 4 has done many times with no issues.

Shop asked me to send back, to their credit. They said heat treat tested fine, so they resharpened and sent it back. However, the knife is made with a true Scandi grind, and the resharpening added a bevel, so that the Scandi is now like a secondary bevel. There are also several dark spots on the new “primary” bevel where the edge rolling had been.

I have no doubt that LT Wright is an excellent shop. After all, that’s why I bought from them after reading so many great things about them here on the Forum. But this hasn’t been a great experience, and I think this is my first and last LT Wright knife.
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What did they say when you emailed them after you received your knife back, letting them know that they'd whiffed the scandi grind?
 
I haven’t contacted them again, for two reasons. First, there wasn’t much in the way of communication from them the first time. Several days after they received the knife I received a boilerplate email stating that “my order was being processed.” I had to email in order to find out the details about their decision.

Second, I assume they inspected the repaired knife as they said they sharpened and then tested it. I can only assume they felt that the added bevel was adequate from their point of view. So I guess I’m not sure what brining it up would do.
 
So they made the new edge more obtuse compared to the original angle?

Are you going to repeat the initial testing to see if the maker fixed the knife?
 
To question 1: yes, it appears so.
To question 2: not sure I understand. I didn’t do any testing. The maker said they tested the heat treat, and that it was fine. But I didn’t do any testing myself. If I suggested otherwise in earlier posts, my bad.
 
GunnersFan said:
To question 1: yes, it appears so.
To question 2: not sure I understand. I didn’t do any testing. The maker said they tested the heat treat, and that it was fine. But I didn’t do any testing myself. If I suggested otherwise in earlier posts, my bad.
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As for testing I meant making another tent stake out of similar wood.

I have a few LT knives. I like them, but I agree they could tweak their heat treating requirements. I believe they use Peter's. ?

I wish LT's AEB-L was run a little Harder.
I don't have any of their 3V.
 
Ah! Sorry, I misunderstood. Yes, I did use it for a while yesterday, on the same stocks of maple from the initial episode. And it seemed to cut well. I like to make my camp stuff quickly, so the first time I was taking heavy cuts, hogging off material. Perhaps that was more than the original Scandi edge could handle, though I think it should have handled it.

This time I was more delicate with the cuts, and it did fine. Just took me longer. No big deal though.
 
First, let me start by saying that I love a "true" single bevel scandi grind. What I've found/read is that very few people/companies actually make a single bevel scandi grind because it takes a very particular mix of ingredients to get a stable edge. Most companies, including actual Scandinavians & Finns end up adding a primary bevel to increase stability.

What LT Wright did was increase the edge stability by throwing a secondary bevel on there. While I don't love that fix, I sharpen all of my scandi edges down to "true-ish" single bevel scandi and rid myself of most of the (usually) crappy factory primary bevel, and then I put a very subtle micro bevel on there. for a very negligible cost in cutting performance, you get a much more stable edge.
 
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