Rick Hinderer sent Cease and Desist to Youtuber for saying the steel was soft in his knife?

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Do I get this right?

1. He tested a couple of RHK knives (for whatever reason*) and one that was already messed with came up 0.4 too soft?
2. He then blasted all over the internet that all the knives from RHK are "garbage"?
3. RHK reacted with an official "take it back or we try to hurt you" letter?

*If you want to find something bad - you only need to be petty enough and you will find something.

This sounds like a artificially created drama to create clicks and maybe generate a bit of dough from it...
 
Tuna said:
I want to know in what real life situation that knife fails because it was not heat treated 0.4 HRC higher
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It wouldn’t. TK’s trolling (or developing a fixation) on a technicality that he hasn’t verified with a professional 3rd party. RHK got to where they are by developing trust in the customers, so it’s a little sad and annoying to see so many circling their wagons in support of TK on this just because the controversy is entertaining.
 
TK May be a talented new maker. I don’t know. Unfortunately he may never be a respected maker as he seems to not have respect for an established maker. There’s respectful avenues to address his claim but he chose not to use them. Social media has been great to bring more people into this hobby but it’s a double edge knife (no
pun intended lol). There’s an incredible lack of education out there. The same newbies who think an impeccable custom knife that doesn’t “flick” open or “drop shut” is a poorly made knife are the ones who buy into everything they see on YouTube or Reddit. It’s a shame……but at least they’re buying knives….
 
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1. Sounds like a case of assholes colliding.

2. I see a lot of knifemakers that claim to make “hard use” knives run them softer than they have to so they don’t break as easily when abused. It is no shock at all when they are at the low end of spec.
 
A few of thoughts as I’ve been watching this thread:
1 - My class was about 6 semesters deep earning our engineering degrees before the smart people with PhDs trusted our hardness test results. We were also using extremely expensive lab grade equipment in a lab environment. Not sure I would trust someone’s numbers working out of their garage.
2 - The Hoback fiasco taught us how swiftly the internet can blow up a knife maker’s reputation (deservedly so in that case). One thing that was brought to light in the thread dedicated to it was that a lot of people “confirmed” what they “knew” as “facts” through internet sources in no way associated with information provided by the maker. One vendor admitted as much in the thread in a post that was promptly deleted. So, to say that an influencer with a following willing to donate money for possible legal fees can’t hurt a known maker is just wrong. These things snowball out of control and RHK is right and has every right to try to get in front of it. Falsehoods and bad data can quickly become “internet facts” when people want to believe them.
3 - The fact that people are donating money to TK means people believe him and are willing to put their money where their mouth is. To me that’s proof enough that this could in some way impact RHK financially which is why he sent the C&D letter to start with.

I’m no lawyer but that’s my 2 cents.
 
I’m not taking anyone’s “side” in this, however, there are a LOT more ways to have handled this than a C&D letter. Hinderer gave this TK guy the fuel.

So one dude on IG or facebook or whatever said something. Ya, social media is powerful. Why didn’t RHK decide to use it to his advantage??

“Hey TK, I do run my blades at the low end of the HT approved spectrum. I’ll tell ya what…I’ll send you one of my knives, you send me one of yours and we will both do real world tests and post them.”

That is one option. Instead of preserving and proving why RHK does what they do, RHK decided to whine.

Biggest blunder here is that RHK went the “pushy” way (totally their right), instead of the “man up” route.
 
schluterc said:
TK May be a talented new maker. I don’t know. Unfortunately he may never be a respected maker as he seems to not have respect for an established maker. There’s respectful avenues to address his claim but he chose not to use them. Social media has been great to bring more people into this hobby but it’s a double edge knife (no
pun intended lol). There’s an incredible lack of education out there. The same newbies who think an impeccable custom knife that doesn’t “flick” open or “drop shut” is a poorly made knife are the ones who buy into everything they see on YouTube or Reddit. It’s a shame……but at least they’re buying knives….
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I won't be buying any of his knives.
 
One of the things I like about RKH is that they always answer emails within a day.

The letter says they got flooded by emails regarding the heat treat. If that’s true, and obviously RKH tried different more friendly routes first, it’s completely normal to want the emails to stop. This is not emotional, IMO, but a normal business calculation.

In addition, RKH - with that letter - is defending Peter’s, their heat treat and QA. Which should matter to many of us as Peter’s is widely used by other brands as well.
 
ferider said:
One of the things I like about RKH is that they always answer emails within a day.

The letter says they got flooded by emails regarding the heat treat. If that’s true, and obviously RKH tried different more friendly routes first, it’s completely normal to want the emails to stop. This is not emotional, IMO, but a normal business calculation.
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But hey! “The internet will make everyone’s life easier and we will have more free time!” 😂🤣😂

Another giant lie brought to us by the world’s greatest “thinkers.”
 
This is outrageous. I'm calling for a boycott of Hinderer knives.... Maybe if enough people join the boycott they will sell out in 45 minutes instead of 15 and I'll have a chance at buying one every now and then.

Personally, I don't have a problem with RHK sending a cease and desist. They have every right to protect their reputation and that seems the proper way to go about it. I think people should be accountable for what they say and it sounds like this TK guy is making some serious claims he'd better be ready to back up. To me it's all just Facebook drama but I guess in today's world companies have to be involved in social media to survive. It makes sense that a company would want to protect their "Social Media Reputation" and nip this problem in the bud so to speak.

On the other hand I think RHK would have a hard time showing they lost anything over TK's claims since they sell knives as fast as they can make them. I don't know how many people trust the word of some random youtuber over an established knife maker anyway.
 
Sharp & Fiery said:
I’m not taking anyone’s “side” in this, however, there are a LOT more ways to have handled this than a C&D letter. Hinderer gave this TK guy the fuel.

So one dude on IG or facebook or whatever said something. Ya, social media is powerful. Why didn’t RHK decide to use it to his advantage??

“Hey TK, I do run my blades at the low end of the HT approved spectrum. I’ll tell ya what…I’ll send you one of my knives, you send me one of yours and we will both do real world tests and post them.”

That is one option. Instead of preserving and proving why RHK does what they do, RHK decided to whine.

Biggest blunder here is that RHK went the “pushy” way (totally their right), instead of the “man up” route.
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Entertaining every twit with a low viewership on Instagram is beneath RHK. Businesses don’t have time for all that garbage, hence the C&D. TK is absolutely frightened right now because if and when the legal battle comes, and evidence is slammed in his face in court, THEN RHK can release a nice little PR memo stating all the facts of the situation, and pretty much guaranteeing TK’s reputation is associated with trying to stir up drama with larger makers for Instagram validation.

Sometimes playing the back and forth with people as you mentioned only lends more unwarranted credibility to their mission.

Would the Pittsburgh Steelers play a football game against a local high school team just because they talk trash? Of course not. RHK doesn’t have time for the b.s. drama.
 
Paratrooper06 said:
Entertaining every twit with a low viewership on Instagram is beneath RHK. Businesses don’t have time for all that garbage, hence the C&D. TK is absolutely frightened right now because if and when the legal battle comes, and evidence is slammed in his face in court, THEN RHK can release a nice little PR memo stating all the facts of the situation, and pretty much guaranteeing TK’s reputation is associated with trying to stir up drama with larger makers for Instagram validation.

Sometimes playing the back and forth with people as you mentioned only lends more unwarranted credibility to their mission.

Would the Pittsburgh Steelers play a football game against a local high school team just because they talk trash? Of course not. RHK doesn’t have time for the b.s. drama.
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Exactly, the Steelers would laugh it off…or would they send a C&D?
 
Paratrooper06 said:
Aren’t you the one that said RHK should engage in a testing pissing contest?
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I believe those were my exact words. 🤪

I said that Hinderer should have used social media to his advantage. And used one example.
 
Good morning

I have been a full time knife dealers for over 25 years - I have been dealing with Rick Hinderer way back when he was making beautiful art knives while in the Knifemakers Guild.

I have sold thousands of his knives over the years and never had any issues - period.
In fact, HRC numbers have never been questioned - at least not directed at me.

As a business owners I stand behind Ricks decision to challenge this person in court to defend his business and reputation.

I don't know the OP or his knife making skills and I have not gone though this entire opus of 17 pages.

I do wonder how many blades the op tested to have a lower HRC than advertised - if only a few out of all the 20CV knives Hinderer makes then the OP needs to get a life.

Or at the very least, instead of bashing any knifemaker on social media he could have had the common courtesy to call the shop and ask to speak to them about the situation.

But the OP chose the drama route which will cost him dearly in the end if not rectified.

Also, its kind of squirrely to have a gofundme for his legal bills which he does not have any as of yet.

Stay safe and best wishes from Florida

Neil @ TNK
 
Sharp & Fiery said:
I’m not taking anyone’s “side” in this, however, there are a LOT more ways to have handled this than a C&D letter. Hinderer gave this TK guy the fuel.

So one dude on IG or facebook or whatever said something. Ya, social media is powerful. Why didn’t RHK decide to use it to his advantage??

“Hey TK, I do run my blades at the low end of the HT approved spectrum. I’ll tell ya what…I’ll send you one of my knives, you send me one of yours and we will both do real world tests and post them.”

That is one option. Instead of preserving and proving why RHK does what they do, RHK decided to whine.

Biggest blunder here is that RHK went the “pushy” way (totally their right), instead of the “man up” route.
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I want to agree with you but trying to use social can also make it a bigger disaster. Hoback tried it and everything he said made it exponentially worse. A strongly worded letter might be a better form of damage control in some cases.

Not trying to be contrary but some of that would be in the back of my mind if I was in RHK’s shoes right now.
 
Sharp & Fiery said:
I believe those were my exact words. 🤪

I said that Hinderer should have used social media to his advantage. And used one example.
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And I disagree that RHK needs to get into a social media fight with every idiot making stuff in his garage trying to stir up controversy. The C&D is the professional response.
 
Most of us here are employees, not business owners. Hard to even relate to your hard-earned business reputation and earning potential being threatened or affected by random internet opinion.

Most business startups fail. To sacrifice personal and family time for years to build a business…I think I’d defend that however I see fit. Maybe even aggressively? Lol. Cmon. Give RHK a break here.
 
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