- Joined
- Jan 11, 2014
- Messages
- 2,914
I just got this Liong Mah Warrior One V2 in the mail and all I can say is WOW! Build quality, fit and finish, and materials are on par with every USA made folder I've had in the same price range.
-
The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is$300$250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Reate Knives
- Thread starter Gideons
- Start date
- Joined
- May 9, 2017
- Messages
- 201
Don't know how I missed this thread but I'll throw in my 2¢. Reate are simply world class and the action, if not fit, finish and materials compares with any production, midtech and even custom >$1k. my complaints would be that some of David's designs can be a bit clunky, although you certainly know who's doing them. They've got character - unlike WE which seem to be like a design house (which I'm sure is exactly what it is) where you can see the singularity of David's designs.
The New Torrents is breathtaking in its action, not many makers can get the detent so snappy for both flipper and finger deployment. I think the most elegant of David's designs so far is the K1. Some of the newer K's seem to be showing off manufacturing prowess - and I get that. OEM work is where it's at for Reate and WE.
I've got a few WE's, and while very good, I've had inconsistencies and even problems with some. Could be growing pains?
My complaint - that's echoed by others - is that secondary market prices are flat. They just don't hold their value. Only the collaborations seem to get attention. If you want a production knife of the highest quality and selling at a later date is not important, you can't go wrong. I'm interested in the Horizon D Mini (I've always said a slightly smaller version would be perfect) as well as Tashi's Starboy. Each Reate I have is completely unique. The lowly Horizon C is every bit as well assembled as my ZT-0392. My little Hills has earned a permanent home, it's not the best Reate but I love everything about it.
The New Torrents is breathtaking in its action, not many makers can get the detent so snappy for both flipper and finger deployment. I think the most elegant of David's designs so far is the K1. Some of the newer K's seem to be showing off manufacturing prowess - and I get that. OEM work is where it's at for Reate and WE.
I've got a few WE's, and while very good, I've had inconsistencies and even problems with some. Could be growing pains?
My complaint - that's echoed by others - is that secondary market prices are flat. They just don't hold their value. Only the collaborations seem to get attention. If you want a production knife of the highest quality and selling at a later date is not important, you can't go wrong. I'm interested in the Horizon D Mini (I've always said a slightly smaller version would be perfect) as well as Tashi's Starboy. Each Reate I have is completely unique. The lowly Horizon C is every bit as well assembled as my ZT-0392. My little Hills has earned a permanent home, it's not the best Reate but I love everything about it.
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2016
- Messages
- 296
Whats that recurve one on the left, 3rd one down?Don't know how I missed this thread but I'll throw in my 2¢. Reate are simply world class and the action, if not fit, finish and materials compares with any production, midtech and even custom >$1k. my complaints would be that some of David's designs can be a bit clunky, although you certainly know who's doing them. They've got character - unlike WE which seem to be like a design house (which I'm sure is exactly what it is) where you can see the singularity of David's designs.
The New Torrents is breathtaking in its action, not many makers can get the detent so snappy for both flipper and finger deployment. I think the most elegant of David's designs so far is the K1. Some of the newer K's seem to be showing off manufacturing prowess - and I get that. OEM work is where it's at for Reate and WE.
I've got a few WE's, and while very good, I've had inconsistencies and even problems with some. Could be growing pains?
My complaint - that's echoed by others - is that secondary market prices are flat. They just don't hold their value. Only the collaborations seem to get attention. If you want a production knife of the highest quality and selling at a later date is not important, you can't go wrong. I'm interested in the Horizon D Mini (I've always said a slightly smaller version would be perfect) as well as Tashi's Starboy. Each Reate I have is completely unique. The lowly Horizon C is every bit as well assembled as my ZT-0392. My little Hills has earned a permanent home, it's not the best Reate but I love everything about it.
- Joined
- May 9, 2017
- Messages
- 201
That's the Valkyrie II. You'd swear it was assisted, it fires like nothing else I've got. These are really rare, and were made exclusively for Fort Henry Custom Knives. The "I" was all titanium, the "II" CF on display side. They all sold on pre-order. As far as I know this was one of the very first Reates made and sold here. Oh, also M390!
http://forthenrycustomknives.com/product/reate-knives-valkyrie-pre-order-2/
I was seeing them go for around $425 (fair) but have recently seen some horrible gouging. I guess whatever the market (and your conscience) will bear.
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2016
- Messages
- 6,630
Those valkyries are rare and expensive. I got the next best thing, the horizon D in carbonfiber. They can be expensive but I've found some users at around $300 give or take $80 on the exchange or ig.
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2003
- Messages
- 807
I'm crazy for Liong Mah's designs, but I'll never buy one because of the Medford-style warranty: "If you take apart the knife- You have voided the Warranty. I requests all my knives be loctite before they ship to me. If you take the knife apart, you will strip the screws." That last sentence is a total vote of no confidence in your customers. It's one thing to say that the warranty is void if you *damage* the knife through your incompetence. But seriously, these knives have ball bearings, they *need* to be maintained if they're not just going to sit on a shelf, and if I can't do that as a customer, what's the point?
- Joined
- May 9, 2017
- Messages
- 201
LOL, I've had my GSD apart 6 or more times. Liong knows it too. I can totally understand it though - however rest assured unless you F* the knife up, he'll honor the warranty. Sadly, there's a lot of complete buffoons out there that think they're experts and will take a knife apart for no good reason. I'm sure that as a one man outfit he got fed up with getting sent a bag of parts. In my case, I was about to send my GSD off for review, and I dropped it at a construction site in some sand. Something nasty got into the works, and as it turns out I spent all my time working on the bearings when it was the detent ball that had something stuck to it. When I get it back from review (again) I'll take it apart and clean it again! He didn't use any form of thread lock on the thing, it came right apart the first time and I never felt the need to add any.
So I can see him wanting to cover his ass, and he's probably fine if it loses him some sales. There was a nightmare thread here regarding some poor guy that sold a Shiro F3. A month later, the buyer filed with PP for his money back, claiming he'd been sold a knife with a "frozen" pivot. What the clown had done was he tried to take it apart - with a friggin' screwdriver (claimed he used his friend's "$300 Shiro pivot tool) and scratched the crap out of the knife. Shiro uses thread lock because like most Russian knives has free-spinning pivots. So the guy claimed the pivot was frozen, when in fact he didn't know how to loosen the thread lock or what tool to use. To add to that at the same time he filed he was trying to sell it on BF as being in perfect shape and fires awesome. Somebody asked, and he had to say he couldn't take it apart, which to him meant he couldn't take it apart, and the buyer that the thing wouldn't open! You can find this thread under good, bad, ugly - but this guy was convinced he was some sort of knife guru and knew what he was doing. If I was Liong, I'd probably do the same thing! That thread even has me skittish to sell here as this guy had a fairly decent rating. Medford in fact says he'll cover anything pretty much - he even has a video showing a bag of parts he received where the guy tried to have it customized, screwed up the Ti so badly that it wouldn't go back together - and Medford was still going to replace the scales! That's pretty awesome right there.
I'd say if you want a LM knife, talk to Liong! Tell him your concerns. He's a great guy and will tell you what you need to hear - good or bad. I'd bet my last nickel he'll take care of any knife to the best of his ability - which also means sending it back to Reate if necessary.
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2003
- Messages
- 807
Fair enough that he wants to cover his ass, but if his intention is what you describe, why doesn't he just write a warranty that reflects his intention? Why not: "If in our sole assessment you have damaged the knife through improper disassembly or misuse, the warranty is void"? The only point of making written warranties is to make things clear and specific. Am I really going to buy a knife from a guy who *pretends* to use thread locker as some kind of a psychological tactic? Probably not...
...or maybe
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2013
- Messages
- 1,422
where did you hear this?
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2013
- Messages
- 1,422
they must have the whip out at the factory, or only let employees see their family once a year rather than twice. Good for them!
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2013
- Messages
- 1,422
you have no choice, if you need a phone....its made in china
everything will eventually be made there if we keep shipping our work and jobs over seas....there are some products where we still have a choice....knives
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2003
- Messages
- 807
I deal with a lot of companies all over the world. In general, US companies can barely take a suggestion, while the Chinese companies can't wait to bend over backwards to win your business. Recently I contacted a US parts maker and asked them if they had plans to produce a replacement part I needed. They wrote me back some marketing crap about how awesome their product development cycle is. So I wrote to their main Chinese competitor, and within 24 hours had an email from a product manager there, who thanked me for the suggestion, told me they would produce a prototype of the part. Within a month, that prototype showed up in my mailbox without even paying them. This pattern repeats over and over again. It also repeats among major players in the knife industry; I don't want to name names, but you can see how intently some of the Chinese makers listening to their customers. Don't get me wrong. I want to buy US everything, but the Chinese aren't only winning because of bad labor practices.
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2013
- Messages
- 1,422
thats fine, our companies cant bend over backwards because their employees are not modern day slaves. In the meantime...no more mom and pop shops....then no more blue collar jobs. Buy with pride, thats your choice!
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2003
- Messages
- 807
Surely you understand the expression "bend over backwards". You don't need to be a modern-day slave to listen to your customers in the way I illustrated.
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2013
- Messages
- 1,422
Those are called sales people....they sell ice to eskimos too
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2014
- Messages
- 2,914
I take their warrant in a similar context to Spyderco's updated warranty. Basically LM/Reate would rather you send it in than try to work on it yourself. That way he can limit potential for damage in the disassembly/warranty process, however, if you legitimately know what you're doing, I highly doubt he'd send it back with a "Sorry, you're SOL". More of a sales/scare tactic to dissuade people from disassembly, not an absolute voiding of warranty.
From everything I've read and heard about Liong Mah and David Deng, they strive to provide the end user with an awesome product and great service. Mah even gives you a business card inside the pouch of every knife with his number on it. As previously stated, if you have questions, no better person to ask than the man himself.
From everything I've read and heard about Liong Mah and David Deng, they strive to provide the end user with an awesome product and great service. Mah even gives you a business card inside the pouch of every knife with his number on it. As previously stated, if you have questions, no better person to ask than the man himself.
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2006
- Messages
- 20,593
I bought this one for 175 a few years ago and it's absolutely perfect fit and finish as well as flipping as well as knives costing much more.
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2013
- Messages
- 1,422
so why bring it up...drama
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2012
- Messages
- 28,918
Guy, you seem to have a problem with everyone. What ever the chip on your shoulder, get rid of it. It makes you unpleasant.
vanadium
Good to hear you were able to get in touch with him. That is a good sign. Let us know what you decide.