Queen grinds on 1095, 420HC and ATS-34

I'll have to correct my self on my earlier post as I forgot about the longer style spear blade of which I have one. The only one I have is my old Winchester Moose and that one is a little too thick. That Winchester Moose in 1095 made in 1988 does have thick clip and spear blades and the one on my Queen Railsplitter made in 2005 has a thick ground clip blade in 420HC. The equal end models I have with stubbier spears are fine to me. It did take me a while when I started carrying the moose to get that spear where I was satisfied with it!
 
black mamba said:
This is an ATS34 S&M from 2005. I had Don Hanson III regrind the spear into a Wharncliffe, and he also resharpened it afterward. Notice how the edge on his Wharncliffe is twice the width of the factory clip blade, indicating that the edge angle is half as obtuse. Don's edge is about 15°, while the factory edge is about 30°+ (per side). The edge grind on the clip is even, and I was able to get a good edge on it with diamond stones, but it is still thick and doesn't cut as well as the Wharncliffe.

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That photo is a nice example. Don did a real nice job reshaping the blade. That's a large knife but the thick blades can be a little more awkward on smaller knives which normally have much thinner blades.

I've still not seen many of the Queen knives that were made after the new ownership. I'd like to see some of the new knives first hand. I'm hoping that they pay much more attention to the grinds now. Queen has so many good patterns and it's a shame that they've been plagued by quality issues (at least in the past).

I ordered another Moore Maker "moose". I'm not sure of the production year but I'm guessing it's old stock. I expect the grinds to be good since I've had great grinds on my other Moore Maker's. I've never been disappointed with Queen's 1095. Hopefully the construction will be good also.
 
My Indian River jack from 2010 as I believe just came in. The fit and finish on this variation from Queen as I believe is superb. There are no gaps even with a flashlight, blade is solid and all finishing is flush. The Blade on this is ground to a very acute fine tip, even more so than the spearpoint on my 56 Northfield Dogleg also covered in ebony wood from GEC. As Jake said before, Queen grinds on 1095 are superb.

I'm very pleased with what I believe is a Queen made Northwoods finished by the late Dave Shirley.
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I've had horrible examples of Queen grinds. Mostly on current production runs made in the last year or two. Counter to that, I've had and have some older (not too old) runs with perfect grinds. To me, it seems to be a phenomenon that has occurred in the last couple years.
Here are a couple examples of Queen made contract knives;
First is the Queen made Robeson Shure Edge Barlow (Made on Queen's #69 pattern). I bought this one just because it was cheap. I believe this one has 420HC steel, but for the money, I figured who cares? It can be a good user or whatever. It does have a fine edge to it though and it still retains the factory grind. The blade has a rolled swedge with a nice flat grind. Not too thick.




Another example I have is also a Queen made contract knife for a Cripple Creek Bomber Jack (also Queen's #69 pattern). This one was made with D2 steel and it has a very nice factory grind. Probably one of the best I've seen on a Queen made knife. As is the overall fit and finish on this knife. The blade has fine swedges with a thin flat grind.





Pics are not the best quality, but my point is, they can do a nice grind if they want to. They really need to take a look into their quality control department. Some of the more recent knives I've been displeased with were not cheap knives either. So when I pick up a cheap knife from a few years ago and it has a nice grind and edge applied to it, that tells me they either don't care or they don't check the work going out the door.
 
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Nice photos! Some fine looking primary grinds on those knives. It's also a nice example of a proper swedge. It's a shame about the others.
 
Thought I would ask this here instead of starting a new thread.

Has anyone picked up the new Queen Cattle King or the 48 Whittler? I have been hesitant to buy Queen since joing this forum. However, I miss my ebony GEC 81 stockman and the American Walnut is calling my name. If my will breaks, I'm getting picky due to budget, these will be users. So, they don't have to be perfect but I would like to hear more on them.


Thanks for any help
 
KBA said:
Thought I would ask this here instead of starting a new thread.

Has anyone picked up the new Queen Cattle King or the 48 Whittler? I have been hesitant to buy Queen since joing this forum. However, I miss my ebony GEC 81 stockman and the American Walnut is calling my name. If my will breaks, I'm getting picky due to budget, these will be users. So, they don't have to be perfect but I would like to hear more on them.


Thanks for any help
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I've previously owned one example of both patterns but I haven't seen other examples so I don't know if mine were representative. My D2 48 whittler had a super nice primary grind.... probably the best that I've ever gotten from Queen. My D2 Cattle King had unnecessarily thick blades with a very slight grind and a very thick point on the main blade.

My whittler had a little side to side play in one of the blades. The cattle king had good mechanics. If possible, it would be best to look them over prior to purchase. I think the 81 and 33 from GEC are better knives.
 
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Thank you Jake for the info :thumbup:

My optimism wonders if this run is any better.
 
KBA said:
Thank you Jake for the info :thumbup:

My optimism wonders if this run is any better.
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I have bought 7 2015 Queens so far. I don't think anybody is making a better knife at this point. I can't talk too much about their past runs, as I only had one Queen knife before this year and I was told that it was bought from the factory and the buyer had to go through several to get a good one. I will say that I would have no hesitation at all to recommend a 2015 Queen to somebody that normally buys GECs. In my opinion, Mr. Daniels has turned the corner at Queen. We'll keep hearing about these issues as old stock gets worked through, but unless I'm the luckiest person in the knife world these issues aren't the norm at Queen anymore.

Edit: In staying with the theme of the thread I want to say that all of my Queens are the D2 variety. The grinds on them are well done, and most of them actually came sharp from the factory.
 
It's a good point. A lot of the dealers will have old stock as well as new stock and there are very likely differences in manufacturing. If you're buying online and can't examine the knife, it may be good to at least ask the dealer for the year of manufacture. Some dealers might be willing to look the knife over for you also.
 
supratentorial said:
It's a good point. A lot of the dealers will have old stock as well as new stock and there are very likely differences in manufacturing. If you're buying online and can't examine the knife, it may be good to at least ask the dealer for the year of manufacture. Some dealers might be willing to look the knife over for you also.
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I've pointed a couple people at Queen recently. I advised them to look for the DFC tang stamp. Unless I'm mistaken, they just started using this stamp this year. Alternatively, anything in Feathered Buffalo Horn or American Walnut should be this year's stock, as they haven't used those materials in the recent past.
 
I recently picked up two. Decent grinds on both, both will actually take hair off my arm right out of the box. One of them though does have a couple of small chips in the blade. Nothing that won't sharpen out, but I thought I should share it anyway. Nothing major, but generally I like to be the person who dings my edges :).



 
i don't like the look of that. :mad: Were the dings in there from the manufacturing process or is the blade hitting the backspring?
 
^That looks like backspring contact, on that edge. The smaller, narrower ding (directly below the 'y' in 'Cutlery') looks as if it might've contacted the 'hump' in the spring, at the location of the spring's anchor pin. Might look for a tell-tale notch at the corresponding locations on the inside of the spring, as blade edges will usually leave a mark there also. That's an easy way to confirm it.


David
 
I think the dings may be from the manufacturing process, it doesn't look like the edge is contacting the backspring to me anyway:

 
supratentorial said:
...I ordered another Moore Maker "moose". I'm not sure of the production year but I'm guessing it's old stock. I expect the grinds to be good since I've had great grinds on my other Moore Maker's. I've never been disappointed with Queen's 1095. Hopefully the construction will be good also.
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I received the Moore Maker and it was made in 2009. The grind is good as expected for 1095 from Queen. The handles look nice but the mechanics could be a little better but that was also expected. It's one of my favorite patterns after modifying the spey into a sheepfoot. I wonder if Queen would be interested in making a small run of these knives with those blades and a sowbelly shield.
 
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