Natural Outlaw died! I shocked...

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I agree (with Ken44). From my point of view, Busse has done everything that they should and perhaps more than that. That said, it is of course entirely up to Jerry what he chooses to do, not me.

Andy the Aussie said:
Knife Hunter.... given what I have placed on the line, I do really hope I am right and you are wrong..... ;)
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So, which knife are you going to use to do the necessary should things go pear shaped :eek: ?
 
knife hunter said:
Let me fix that for you Greg.

I have no problem trusting the warranty on a factory blade. Nor do I have a problem worrying a bout a knife modded by someone that knows what they are doing. THere are some here that are great. Im not gonna mention names for multitude of reasons.

But this brings another point. People modify their own knives cause they are too damn cheap to buy it done that way from Busse in the first place. No ifs and or buts about it. The fact that is done is such large amounts even times by folks that are first timers and we still never hear of a problem is a testament to INFI and the knives produced by Busse Combat. Granted sometimes some models are only offerred coated but more times than not you can get it done by Busse. Now if it had a custom shop logo on this no-e meaning Busse also got paid to modify the knife and then they can account for how it was done and that it was done correctly. That would be different.

I have received bids on a comparable $267 dollar knife that to satin it was $140 which is over 50% mark up on original price. THis has been another reason folks like to strip and modify some cause they save others the work and make a little money. Some have even been able to make a lot of money doing it and even start their own careers. This is not a knock at them. It again a testament to INFI, but it has nothing to do with Busse Combat.

Heck even R. Hinderer wont work on his own satin blades and spa them up anymore. I dont think its cause he doesnt want the work cause he will happily beadblast it, but just maybe is this another tell tell of why you shouldnt polish or buff a knife unless you know what you are doing? Much less buy a modded knife unless you really know who did the work and are confident that they knew what they where doing?

I mean its obvious when the thread from not long ago a guy turns his big knife into a scrofa ( not really but I dont have time to find. it. )
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Alright now...I've tried to stay out of this and certainly don't care to engage in hours of debate, but I take issue with bold subjective statements like, "People modify their own knives cause they are too damn cheap to buy it done that way from Busse in the first place. No ifs and or buts about it." As this is simply not true and perhaps is a belief stimulated by not ever catching the craftsman's bug.
I started making knives with my Grandpa as a child...he was a poor man with limited equipment but he made damn fine knives throughout his life... The first knife he ever made was a mod of his Navy issue knife. He reshaped the blade, installed a handle made from a downed Japanese plane windshield, and put a pummel with small photographs of him and my grandma. This is my favorite knife by far. Because of his influence I've been obsessed with collecting knives and making and/or modifying knives my whole life. With the proper equipment I've learned to make pretty decent and functional knives...I'm still a hack, but ever improving. Since being oversees without my shop I've taken great pleasure in modifying and making knives with what little tools I have. I've made several machetes recently and I'll tell you that it has nothing to do with being cheap. The price of my time to make a good machete with the tools I have I would guess to be the equivalent of about $2000 at least. So why do I do it? Because I find it to be stress relieving and enjoyable to create. I've also modified (including mirror finishes) several of my Busse and Kin knives... Why? Is it because I'm Cheap? Nope, because I enjoy the process and creating. It takes a ridiculous amout of time for me to hand polish a Busse to a mirror shine... trust me it would be WAAAAY cheaper to have the Busse Custom shop do it. I have more money than time... But again, I enjoy it. So again, let's not assume that everyone who modifies a Busse is a Cheap. There may in fact be many reasons...i.e., they enjoy it, they don't want to wait several months, they are afraid to mail it, they are anal and want it done just so, etc...

"...Heck even R. Hinderer wont work on his own satin blades and spa them up anymore. I dont think its cause he doesnt want the work cause he will happily beadblast it, but just maybe is this another tell tell of why you shouldnt polish or buff a knife unless you know what you are doing?..." I am quite sure this is because the time it takes to polish a blade is simply not worth his time (not profitable)...beadblasting is much quicker than satin finish...and satin finish is MUCH quicker than Mirror polish...it's all about TIME...not that one shouldn't do it. But I agree, if someone plans to start modifying their knives they need to first take the time to LEARN propert techniques...and by all means don't start with Busse Knives....there's much cheaper knives out there to practice on...
 
Raging Rhino said:
Alright now...I've tried to stay out of this and certainly don't care to engage in hours of debate, but I take issue with bold subjective statements like, "People modify their own knives cause they are too damn cheap to buy it done that way from Busse in the first place. No ifs and or buts about it." As this is simply not true and perhaps is a belief stimulated by not ever catching the craftsman's bug.
I started making knives with my Grandpa as a child...he was a poor man with limited equipment but he made damn fine knives throughout his life... The first knife he ever made was a mod of his Navy issue knife. He reshaped the blade, installed a handle made from a downed Japanese plane windshield, and put a pummel with small photographs of him and my grandma. This is my favorite knife by far. Because of his influence I've been obsessed with collecting knives and making and/or modifying knives my whole life. With the proper equipment I've learned to make pretty decent and functional knives...I'm still a hack, but ever improving. Since being oversees without my shop I've taken great pleasure in modifying and making knives with what little tools I have. I've made several machetes recently and I'll tell you that it has nothing to do with being cheap. The price of my time to make a good machete with the tools I have I would guess to be the equivalent of about $2000 at least. So why do I do it? Because I find it to be stress relieving and enjoyable to create. I've also modified (including mirror finishes) several of my Busse and Kin knives... Why? Is it because I'm Cheap? Nope, because I enjoy the process and creating. It takes a ridiculous amout of time for me to hand polish a Busse to a mirror shine... trust me it would be WAAAAY cheaper to have the Busse Custom shop do it. I have more money than time... But again, I enjoy it. So again, let's not assume that everyone who modifies a Busse is a Cheap. There may in fact be many reasons...i.e., they enjoy it, they don't want to wait several months, they are afraid to mail it, they are anal and want it done just so, etc...

"...Heck even R. Hinderer wont work on his own satin blades and spa them up anymore. I dont think its cause he doesnt want the work cause he will happily beadblast it, but just maybe is this another tell tell of why you shouldnt polish or buff a knife unless you know what you are doing?..." I am quite sure this is because the time it takes to polish a blade is simply not worth his time (not profitable)...beadblasting is much quicker than satin finish...and satin finish is MUCH quicker than Mirror polish...it's all about TIME...not that one shouldn't do it. But I agree, if someone plans to start modifying their knives they need to first take the time to LEARN propert techniques...and by all means don't start with Busse Knives....there's much cheaper knives out there to practice on...
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as a logical man whose grandfather was a lockheed machinist, and wounded veteran from The Battle of the Bulge, my father went to machine school, and I grew up on chicken farm having to help fix whatever broke- I would concede to your point. You are correct.:cool:

A blanket statement such as I made wouldnt apply to all:thumbup:
 
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Cheers KH...

I should add that every time I've modified a Busse I do it completely knowing that I may very well be voiding the warranty and that it is a "keeper"...therefore, I usually try to cut myself in the process to reaffirm my long term commitment to the blade ;)
 
Raging Rhino said:
Cheers KH...

I should add that every time I've modified a Busse I do it completely knowing that I may very well be voiding the warranty and that it is a "keeper"...therefore, I usually try to cut myself in the process to reaffirm my long term commitment to the blade ;)
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U2 sir:cool:

LOL, thats hillarious.:thumbup::D


Again, I dont worry about most modds either. I have beaten and seen the stories from too many that I know, and trust that have really beaten INFI and a lot of its modded in someway.

INFI is its own warranty. :cool:

Busse Combat is the genius behind it, and they have always stood behind it and us.

What more can be expected?
 
Knife Hunter pointed out the prime flaw that I had noticed in the OP's twisting argument.
He first said that he would accept a shop credit and add to it if needed to get a knife that he likes.
He later waffled.

TGLB would be a no-brainer in this case.

As to buying old Busses at inflated prices, it is a lot like buying old wine.
If you don't open the bottle, then you don't have to pay for (nor get to enjoy) the contents.

Knives break. It's an old, beat up, modded blade, get a new knife and get on with life.
You can't expect The Company to start throwing out brand new knives every time a worn out old blade fails.
IMO, asking the customer to participate just a bit financially in order for them to end up with a brand new knife is a great solution.
 
Hi Everyone

I'm a newbie here and I own no Busse knife. I joined this discussion forum just because I was planing on buying a Busse knife. Had never heard about Busse knives till a month ago, when I decided to get a knife to take to the woods. Don't plan on killing anyone or anything, and don't plan on taking any tree down. I did some research over the net and bumped into Bussecombat. Read all the info available, did some research and decided that's the knife I'd like to buy. Maybe because that's the only one I'm gonna buy so it's got be tough, and I was really impressed with the "lifetime-no-matter-what-you-do" guaranty. It's true, I was really impressed, specially because I read opinions from other people, people who own a Busse Knife, and they stated over and over that a Busse Knife is "guaranteed for life". So believe me I have no bias here and therefore I feel very comfortable about giving my own opinion regarding this subject.

Well, I must say that I'm somewhat disappointed with this "best guaranty" in the knife business. I believe that everyone here who owns a Busse Knife would like to know that they really have that "no matter what" guaranty case something happened to their somewhat expensive knife. If it was me, I'd nothing but expect a new knife (since I believe it's impossible to bring the original one back to life) no matter what. I'd be completely disappointed if in the moment I needed the so bragged guaranty it wouldn't be there. I'd never accept a credit. I understand that the knife is old but it has no bearing here simply because it carries a "lifetime" guarantee. It is my opinion that if the knife can't be replaced they should offer one that's the closest to the original one. Come on, now I know that these knives are tough, Busse himself stated that cases such as this are very rare. I truly believe that it won't break his company if he offered the owner a new knife. I think it would be a good business practice and he'd end up with a very happy customer who would tell other people how Busse knife really stay by their product.

Not long ago I bought a 700 buck watch, when I was trying to replace the bracelet for a rubber strap one of the lug screws fell on the ground an it was a huge pain in the but to find it. So, I decided to buy a new set just in case. Contacted the watch factory and yes they're also busy people but in less then an hour they replied to my e-mail. They asked for my address and fedexed not one but two sets, with no charge - nada - free, and I live all the way across the globe near Hong Kong. Of course I was a very happy customer and told all my friend about it.

Please, don't get me wrong here, I'm just saying that what I'd like to have happened if it was me here.... And I'm still planning on getting a Busse knife and if someone here has a nice Boss Street or Batac for a reasonable price, and don't mind shipping it abroad (really never understood what difference it makes to sent it to the US or some place else), I might be interested but, I must confess, I'd be a bit more concerned about the so called Best warranty in the business.

Thanks everyone and please, forgive me for the long posting...
JPaes
 
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Garth Reckner said:
Valerii,

I will share here what was stated to you privately in an email from Jerry. Your knife was modified by a third party individual. The buffing that was done on the blade was done to such an extreme temperature that it changed the surface hardness of the steel. This is what led to the failure. Generally, we do not warrant work that has been done by third party people. However, we graciously made an exception for you and issued you a $267.00 shop credit.

Thanks
Garth
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jpaes said:
.
Well, I must say that I'm somewhat disappointed with this "best guaranty" in the knife business.
JPaes
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Welcome JPaes.
I think you may have missed the part about the knife being modified in a way that affected the heat treatment.
If your watch you speak of had beem modded in a way that made it unworkable beyond repair they would not have fixed it, or given you a credit for the price it sold at when new.
If you buy a Busse don't do any modifing that would weaken the knife, and you will have the best warranty in the business.
 
JPaes, welcome!

I first came here after researching what knife I should buy, several years ago, similar to you. I was unsold at first on Busse Combat, and was actually more inclined towards another similarly expensive brand. I am very wary and even cynical when something seems to be quite well followed, like the Busse brand is here. I do not easily trust others or what they say.

Fortunately the opportunity to buy a Busse presented itself, followed by one from the other brand. While the other brand was an excellent knife, for me there was no real contest. I've been a fan of Busse Combat ever since.

I have also had occasion to be on the receiving end of the best customer service from Busse Combat. A small confusion over an order I placed, which wasn't really anyone's fault, and which Busse Combat certainly had no actual liability for. Nevertheless, Busse Combat offered without hesitation to make things right which cost them, and saved me, quite a lot of money.

I firmly believe that Busse Combat's policy here is the very best one could reasonably hope for. Jerry and Busse Combat do regularly go above and beyond to make their customers happy. If it were me, I would certainly not offer anything more, and fairness and justice are central to my character. To offer anything more could set a very dangerous and expensive precedent, which unscrupulous people would be quick to take advantage of. What you suggest would not be good business practice at all. The line has to be drawn somewhere and it is already drawn very favourably for Busse Combat's customers.

There are limits to what we can reasonable expect, and while everyone has their opinion of what that is in this case, Busse Combat is a business with their terms of sale and warranty procedure well known. If it is not well known to someone, they need only ask before making a purchase.

To expect a company to make up a customer's extra money because their purchase has increased in 'collecting' value, or inflation, or anything else, is not reasonable. Nor is expecting them to spend more money making what would effectively be a custom product to replace an item.

Plus, you seem to be ignoring the fact that the knife has had its warranty voided by the modification and Busse Combat does not need to do anything. They are offering the shop credit for the original purchase price, when they do not have to, to keep the customer happy. Some people are never happy though, no matter how much they are given. That's not Busse Combat's fault and it should not be expected to keep people happy no matter what. Busse Combat is a business, not a fairy godmother.

You are as entitled to your opinion of what is good value as everyone else here. I am not defending Busse Combat for any other reason that I think they are being more than fair. If I thought otherwise, I would say so. In fact, I am not defending Busse Combat at all, it does not need my defence.

I hope you do get hold of a Busse; I am sure you will be as impressed as I was. Both with the knife, and with the company.

P.s. I don't mean to imply anything about the owner of the knife's feelings in this matter, or anyone else's. These are my personal views on the matter.
 
It is a lot of words. The language barrier really disturbs.
I hope I will offend nobody if I provide some letters from ours with correspondence Jerry
I can be wrong in something. But the small part of correspondence can help you to understand my bad relation to a situation.

18 / 07 / 2012
Valerii,
I have never seen anything like that before! I apologize for the trouble.
It appears as though the blade was hand polished by someone after it left our shop. If excessive heat was formed on the surface of the knife during this process, it may have been the cause of the failure. We should be able to determine exactly what caused the problem once we examine the knife.
Either way, please return it to us and we will cover it under our warranty.
We will not be able to replace it with the same knife model as we have not made that version of the Outlaw for nearly 10 years. We will however issue you a shop credit for the dollar amount of what we originally sold the Ergo Natural Outlaw for.
Thanks,
Jerry
Please Ship To:
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18/ 07 / 2012
Hello, Jerry
I will send in the next few days you a knife and I will report tracking number. And you will provide what ""a shop credit""
to me in case of the positive solution of a question on an exchange? I have no information how many such knife cost.
And it will be simply possible to choose from several options of knifes approximately the same size?
What can you offer?
WBR
Valerii
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24 / 07 / 2012
Valerii,
Send the knife in and we'll examine it.
Once it arrives I will have Lexi get back with you as to the value.
Thanks,
Jerry

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Jerry received the broken knife in September 2012.
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27 / 09 / 2012
Jerry,
Please give information the problem will be solved or not.
WBR
Valerii

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09 / 10 / 2012
Valerii,
The steel is still being analyzed. I will get back to you as soon as we get the results.
Thanks,
Jerry
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passed two months

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09 /12 / 2012
Jerry,
You didn't forget about me?
It is interesting also to me and people at a forum guns.ru
Me will arrange both positive and negative answers.
Much worse when the answer isn't present.
Best regards.
Valerii.

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10 / 12 / 2012
Valerii,
I did not forget about you my friend. . .. We have the test results back and they are very interesting to say the least.
I will forward our analysis onto you this week.
Thanks for your patience,
Jerry

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passed two more weeks and I again reminded of myself
and so on


I am happy with everything. The negative result is too result.

1) I from the very beginning in case of the positive solution of a question with replacement wanted a knife on replacement

2) Jerry offered shop credit - Yes
shop credit is necessary to me? - No

3) The problem is solved - No

I didn't want to spend a lot of time for messages again. But many people participate in discussion. My opinion - a lot of superfluous is written. I didn't tell anything bad about Busse knifes. Used it not for long and it broke therefore good too I won't tell.
About the attitude of the company towards clients I already have the opinion. To come back here, probably I won't be. If somebody wants to communicate to me - write to me on Valerii@newmail.ru
 
Either way, please return it to us and we will cover it under our warranty.
We will not be able to replace it with the same knife model as we have not made that version of the Outlaw for nearly 10 years. We will however issue you a shop credit for the dollar amount of what we originally sold the Ergo Natural Outlaw for.
 
All that has done is reiterate that the problem was looked into, that the warranty was clearly stated, and that a solution was offered in the form of a shop credit for the original value of the knife, which personally I feel was quite generous on the manufacturer's part. Take the shop credit and get a new knife from the shop.
 
To #208, I don't think this case is the same as you dropping a couple of screws for a watch strap, respectiviely. To #208 and to all, I really do not know of any supplier of goods who blanket warranties the goods AND any increase in value, absent a second contractual agreement between the purchaser and the vendor/producer, and even then I have a hard time finding those matters. The reasons? May I submit that increases are totally speculative and completely outside the realm of knowledge of the parties, and further how far in the future are these increases to be entertained? Further, an uncircumscribed warranty therein would leave the purchasor totally at the whim of even one second-hand, or even further removed, purchasor willing to spend even far in excess of the collector market value of the item. Finally, should the maker an item agree, even implicitly, to cover speculative increases in case of breakage by a buyer or subsequent buyer, then the maker would also be able to claim loss in market value if an item is broken. (I say, "is broken," not breaks, because they have help in that). The examples for this type of goods (the particular knifemaker family) is extremely rare, but possible. Again, the speculative value change, not to mention alterations made by intervening buyers, makes this situation just not a part of the meeting of the minds in a purchase. In short, the maker here is covering the purchase price of the goods, NOT speculative value, even giving the subsequent buyer a "buy" on whatever the prior owner did to the blade. Assuming communications are timely, that is as fair as can be.cwd
 
Hi

Thanks for the welcome and yes, I'm looking forward to get my first Busse, specially because I liked what I have seen and researched over the net. But regarding the warranty issue, maybe I misread the "unconditional warranty" thingy that I read all over the place, over and over. For many times I read comments like "if you ever break a Busse knife you just send it over and they'll replace it" that I really didn't care much to read the fine print. And I've seen so many modified knives here that I did not know that, by doing that, people would be voiding their warranty. Well, I guess that is my fault here...

I also read somewhere, if I'm not mistaken, it was written by Jerry himself, that it would be necessary a temperature of about 1,050 F, for an extended period of time, to cause damage to the heat treatment on one of his knives. Although it is hard for me to believe that a buffing bonnet would generate that amount of heat for an extended period of time.... and it is also hard to believe that a knife that I have seen being beaten by a steel mallet, being used to cut cinder blocks and stuff would fail because someone buffed it with a sheepskin or whatever. But again, I'm just a layman here and I have no reason whatsoever to doubt Jerry's word on this cuz if I did, I wouldn't be in the market for one of his blades.

I was just trying to express the opinion of a newbie, who, unlike most of you, never had any kind of relationship with Bussecombat. I must confess that it is really nice to hear that most of you only have nice things to say about this company and his owner, and it makes me think I made the right decision. However, as a customer I would never be happy that, after thinking that my blade would be replaced by its manufacturer should anything happen to it, I finally find out that "because we no longer make that blade we will give you a credit for the value your knife had 10 years ago. It's obvious that for that credit I would never be able to replace my blade or get a knife with similar characteristics. Sorry but it's a lot different from the "break your blade and we shall replace it" that we read all over the place. Specially if the knife has a lifetime warranty attached to it and, of course, it is also reflected on it's "price".

What I also said is that, considering the insignificant number of warranty issues with Busse's knifes, I think this would be a very nice opportunity for this company to show that their warranty policies are way above their competitors' , that they are really able to take a step further a make their client, a happy client. It wouldn't hurt their business if they replaced this knife for some "equivalent" one. A happy client is not just one client, it may represent many clients...
By the way, I forgot to mention that my watch wasn't bought new, although it was in like new condition, it was used. I bought it over at Ebay from a third party, and the warranty was long expired...When I contacted the company, I did cuz I wanted to buy a new screw bars set, they never asked to see if I really had one of their watches and, like I said, they sent me not one but two sets..... Did they have to do that? Of course not.. But they made me a very happy client, and of course I'll tell others.... Well, what I'm trying to say is that perhaps Bussecombat is missing a nice opportunity here, that's all.....my humble oppinion.

Thanks again everyone and again...snip

There is a whole Busse/Swamp Rat/Scrapyard Knives For Sale Exchange sub-forum full of knives in the range you "might be interested in". This forum is not to advertise a willingness to buy...that is what the Wanted to Buy: Knives forum is there for, once you decide what you are looking for and are trying to interest someone to sell you one. Please limit posts here in this forum to discussion of the knives and post WTB's in the proper forum. Thanks, and Good Hunting. :)
JPaes
 
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I think you are missing something. The knife . Surface was heated to a temperature that changed its physical properties. The tempering of info happens at more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit. That means some one (not the manufacturer) buffed that blade enough to get it twice as hot as your oven can get. The company is willing to give this guy the original value as a shop credit on a knife that some third party ruined with power tools 10 years after out left the shop!


Fantastic warranty!
 
jpaes said:
But regarding the warranty issue, maybe I misread the "unconditional warranty" thingy that I read all over the place, over and over. For many times I read comments like "if you ever break a Busse knife you just send it over and they'll replace it" that I really didn't care much to read the fine print.
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Someone will correct me if I am wrong, but it is my understanding that Busse will replace a broken knife that is in current production or if one is lucky enough that they have some left over knife blanks in storage. Other than that, it is shop credit.

Again, someone will correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure that version of the NO hasn't been in production for at least 5-6 years.
 
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