My First Case Peanut!

Let's try to keep all the patina building questions (forced or natural) in the Maintenance forum or else take it to email or PM. Thanks, fellas.
 
You can hardly predict what a natural patina is going to do, but to me that's part of the mystique of it all. I just bought my second Case peanut, a stag handled one with Tru-sharp blades. Nice little knives! It's so new, I don't have a photo of it yet. I happened across it at the sort of local Lowe's and couldn't resist it. That chestnut bone model is singing me a love song and I may just fall for it. - Ed J
 
I will probably get one to commemorate my dog max, just like the peanut he was a lill guy that had the bite of a pitt bull.
 
Now you have both the RR and the Case, what is your opinion when you compare them side by side?
I have the RR peanut in green checkered bone, and I absolutely love it.
Now I know I really like the pattern, I was thinking of getting a Case in CV. In your opinion, is it worth the upgrade?
 
Yes I think it's worth the upgrade. If you are really tight on cash, you would be alright sticking with the Rough Rider tho. It does everything that the Case does. The Rough Rider has matching scales, unlike my Case, but the Checkerboard cut is not all that refined. Fit and Finish wise they are neck and neck, except that the Case has half stops. If you like Case, USA Made products, and Peanuts, buy one. But it's not absolutely necessary.
 
Interesting.
I am actually completely happy with my RR (the checkering is perfect on mine) but I kinda fancy a peanut in CV, hence contemplating the Case.
I'll still get one, but I won't expect it to be exponentially better than the RR.
 
Yes that is a good approach, pretty much same quality as RR, but with CV blades. Except Case is hit or miss with quality, you might get a Case that is alot worse than the RR. I hate Case's quality control.
 
I've learned not to sell the RR short.

My friend Chet is a RR fan, and he uses a pocket knife to the point of abuse. He likes small slip joints, and to him, it is a tool to be used hard. So Chet won't shell out 30some dollars for a Case peanut, but he has a couple od small RR's he strips wire with, cuts/scores wall board to break it off on the line he wants, scrapes and pikes with it. When it needs sharpening, he takes it to the big course carborunum stone in his tool box, and keeps on. After a year or so, it looks like one of those knives that some old timer has used up to a couple of steel toothpicks. He'll toss it in the trash can and drop anpother one in his pocket.

The point of all this is, I've seen Chet use up a RR, but I've never seen him break one. And every Friday breakfast, when he has a new one, it gets passed around to be examined by knife knuts who are particular. So far, the RR's have impressed a hard to impress bunch of crusty old farts.

The big thing I like about Case, is they have a very good carbon steel, and if something is not right, their're right up the road in Pa. to send it to. RR's are all generic stainless, which in truth does not seem to be that bad. After watching Chet torture a knife, I gained a lot of respect for the RR brand.

Carl.
 
Nothing is wrong with them at all, I am considering ordering one or two more RR's. They are great to see if you like a pattern or not. Also, I am curious as to how long would a Rough Rider last, and what would it look like, after being carried for 30 years or so?

@Jackknife, after reading your post, you got me to wondering if I should've just stuck with my Rough Rider........
 
I've dismantled a RR.
I have a barlow that I really liked, but unfortunately one of the backsprings broke.
I'm not reading too much into the broken spring, I searched the internerd and couldn't find anything about RR backsprings breaking, in fact the stuff I did find was mostly Queen knives.
So, not reading too much into the backspring thing, I dismantled the knife with the idea of reassembling it with only one blade.
I ended up breaking one of the scales during reassembly, so the project is on the backburner for the time being, but it did give me an opportunity to examine the knife's components in great detail.

In short, I can't see any reason why a RR wouldn't last just as long as any other well made knife.
The components of a slipjoint are pretty simple. You've got a blade (or blades) a spring (or springs) liners, bolsters, pins, scales.
There's really nothing that could be skimped upon without it being really obvious.
There were no hidden surprises, just good quality brass, steel, nickel silver and bone components.
The pins were all tight, and we all know that RR fit and finish is decent.

I simply can't see how a RR would be more prone to catastrophic failure than any other knife.
Since we know the heat treat of the blades is ok, I can't see why a RR would wear out any faster than any other knife either.

The one thing that I would expect is for the shield to eventually fall out because it's glued, not pinned, but again, many other manufacturers do this too.

So, my best guess about the answer to your question about how a RR would look in 30 years:

I'd say it would look like a 30 year old knife :D
 
That would be really cool if Rough Rider started making Carbon Steel knives. Also, I wish Case would pick it up with the quality. I wish they would go back to strong back springs, pinned on shields, and better matching scales. In my opinion, these days Case is catering MUCH more to collectors than to actual users of their product, which is a real shame. Case's modern knives seem to be intended to just sit behind glass all of their lives.
 
True, I always thought of Case as the Zippo of the knife world, so I wasn't surprised to discover that they had been bought by Zippo.
But catering to the collector market is probably why Case is still in business and still making their knives in America.
A lot of other knife companies either went under or switched production to China.

I don't think they'd go out of business if RR started making carbon steel knives, Case still sell plenty of stainless knives, it's not like people are only buying their CV models.
 
I just wish Case would step it up with their quality. Their current productions models are no where near the quality that a model from the 70's is.
 
It's just the march of progress.
If they put that kind of attention to detail into every knife they made nowadays, they'd either have to charge a lot more for them, or get cheaper labor to make them (China).
At the moment, they are priced at a point where people can afford to collect them, which is probably why Case knives aren't rebadged Chinese knives like Marbles for instance.
Plus, the price of a Case includes an exellent warranty, when my RR backspring broke, I had no real recourse, but if it had been a Case, I could have had it repaired or replaced for free.
 
I suppose so. But correct me if i'm wrong, but I believe there was a time in America when Case knives were made much better than they are today, but were still somewhat affordable, because they were very popular.
 
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