Rough Rider & Related Slipjoints

Nixelplix said:
Man those are nice! I wonder how much hand fitting and adjusting happens at the factory?
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mmarkh said:
I would venture to say none at all. They are super cheap for a reason.
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Not possible to determine. Chinese labor is inexpensive.

My company has parts made in China. Our technical reviewers tell me that the Chinese do many things with manual labor which, if done in the US, would be done with machines for cost reasons.
 
This article is a bit glossy, but it reports that Chinese labor costs have gone up 5 to NINE times as much as they were just ten years ago. It certainly calls into question the thought of super cheap labor being a big factor in their pricing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/10/business/international/chinese-exports-withstand-rising-labor-costs.html?_r=0

I keep up with international labor and economic issues to some extent and there seems to be a fair amount the unrest in China now spawned by a new affluence in the middle class, the newly tolerated factory labor strikes, and now the payment of employee benefits. But... instead of prices going up dramatically (imagine what a NINE fold increase in labor costs would do to any US product!) they have held the line on product costs while prospering.

All of the shortcomings seen here are nothing new to the traditional knife crowd, even with knives that cost as much as 10X their Pacific Rim counterparts. Shields that fall out, dye sweating off and coloring my pants pockets, bad bevels, poor snap, bad fit, and on an on... all are part of the domestic traditional knife world as well. If there is one failure in hundreds, I would say the Chinese track record would be considered pretty dang good.

I am one of those that has a great deal better luck ordering RRs, Boker Plus, Robert Klass, etc. over the internet. I give most of them as gifts, so I don't want to fool around with returning a knife to the factory for adjustment, nor do I want to give someone a gift that is subpar. I have given several Chinese made knives as gifts over the last 5 years or so, and all of them are still in service!

So far, so good. I hope that RR and their cousins can continue to produce a high quality knife that has mass appeal so they can continue on.

Robert
 
On Monday we had rain all day, and I was cooped up in the house with the kids. We were all getting a little stir crazy, so in the late afternoon I put on a movie for them and snuck out to the garage to mess around with my Rough Riders. I love that these knives are inexpensive enough that I don't worry about messing with them. I have practiced jigging the scales on my smooth bone trapper, and Monday I went ahead and replaced the scales on my whittler. This is what it originally looked like:

31TIzqDtJeL.jpg


I do quite a bit of smoking (meats) and I have a friend that chops wood for the local Boy Scouts troop to sell, so last year he brought me some logs that he thought I might use for smoking. I don't know what kind of wood it is, and haven't used any, so I went ahead and cut up one of the logs he left and shaped a couple scales out of it. I finished it with ultra thin CA. I think it turned out OK, though I still don't know what the wood is. (I've never been good at identifying woods)

NewScales1.jpg


NewScales2.jpg
 
Cory Hess said:
On Monday we had rain all day, and I was cooped up in the house with the kids. We were all getting a little stir crazy, so in the late afternoon I put on a movie for them and snuck out to the garage to mess around with my Rough Riders. I love that these knives are inexpensive enough that I don't worry about messing with them. I have practiced jigging the scales on my smooth bone trapper, and Monday I went ahead and replaced the scales on my whittler. This is what it originally looked like:


I do quite a bit of smoking (meats) and I have a friend that chops wood for the local Boy Scouts troop to sell, so last year he brought me some logs that he thought I might use for smoking. I don't know what kind of wood it is, and haven't used any, so I went ahead and cut up one of the logs he left and shaped a couple scales out of it. I finished it with ultra thin CA. I think it turned out OK, though I still don't know what the wood is. (I've never been good at identifying woods)
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Great job, looks good !

That's one of my favorite patterns, I think they call it a "boxcar whittler" or something like that .
Anyway , they make that pattern with smooth bone ( in black) . You can't tell if its bone, micarta or some other synthetic.
 
Addylo, that's a real looker! Rough Rider's sowbelly pattern is one of the slimmest and best available. Lovin' the reverse frosted etch, too.
 
That sowbelly is gorgeous. The etching is the only thing keeping me from ordering one right now. Actually, what the hell? What is it? $13? Life's too short.
 
Cory Hess said:
On Monday we had rain all day, and I was cooped up in the house with the kids. We were all getting a little stir crazy, so in the late afternoon I put on a movie for them and snuck out to the garage to mess around with my Rough Riders. I love that these knives are inexpensive enough that I don't worry about messing with them. I have practiced jigging the scales on my smooth bone trapper, and Monday I went ahead and replaced the scales on my whittler. This is what it originally looked like:

31TIzqDtJeL.jpg


I do quite a bit of smoking (meats) and I have a friend that chops wood for the local Boy Scouts troop to sell, so last year he brought me some logs that he thought I might use for smoking. I don't know what kind of wood it is, and haven't used any, so I went ahead and cut up one of the logs he left and shaped a couple scales out of it. I finished it with ultra thin CA. I think it turned out OK, though I still don't know what the wood is. (I've never been good at identifying woods)

NewScales1.jpg


NewScales2.jpg
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Nice job with the covers. Good looking knife. How did you finish them? What is ultra thin CA?
 
incision said:
Nice job with the covers. Good looking knife. How did you finish them? What is ultra thin CA?
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Thank you very much. It was my first time attempting to replace scales on a knife. CA is Cyanoacrylate, which is super glue. If you go to a hobby shop they'll have it in all different thicknesses. (ultra thin, thin, medium, etc.) I had some gaps, which I filled with sawdust from sanding the wood and then rubbed some medium CA on it. It basically superglued all of the sawdust into a solid, which matched the color of the wood because it's the same wood. Then I wiped it all with ultra thin CA, which is thin enough that it soaks into the wood. It leaves it with a smooth hard texture like a polyurethane, but instead of sitting on top of the wood it's down inside of the wood. It's really neat stuff, and I think I paid $10 for the two bottles. A little goes a long way, and I could probably do another 15 knives or so with those two bottles. You just have to use a little at a time and go quickly. It's super glue, so your work time is 5 seconds or so before it's setting up.
 
Those Mercury Heads are really beautiful, never seen one here in Europe, sigh! Might make an interesting knife-shield even! The RR shown with them is certainly a nice pattern too.

Thanks, Will
 
Cory Hess said:
Thank you very much. It was my first time attempting to replace scales on a knife. CA is Cyanoacrylate, which is super glue. If you go to a hobby shop they'll have it in all different thicknesses. (ultra thin, thin, medium, etc.) I had some gaps, which I filled with sawdust from sanding the wood and then rubbed some medium CA on it. It basically superglued all of the sawdust into a solid, which matched the color of the wood because it's the same wood. Then I wiped it all with ultra thin CA, which is thin enough that it soaks into the wood. It leaves it with a smooth hard texture like a polyurethane, but instead of sitting on top of the wood it's down inside of the wood. It's really neat stuff, and I think I paid $10 for the two bottles. A little goes a long way, and I could probably do another 15 knives or so with those two bottles. You just have to use a little at a time and go quickly. It's super glue, so your work time is 5 seconds or so before it's setting up.
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Thanks! I'm excited to experiment with CA. Probably on a Rough Rider.
 
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