surprising Perrin Street Beat grind

If you don't like it return it. They shouldn't charge a restocking fee if there is a problem with the knife.

But I bet it cuts just fine. Without a good picture I don't know exactly what is uneven but you can fix it yourself if you want to keep it.

Returning it or keeping it seem to be the options which are the same for most anything you buy.
 
Spyderco is a fantastic company with fantastic products. That being said, I don't understand the automatic defending of products that slip by QC. If the knife isn't right, it isn't right. I can understand knives getting through QC every so often, but I don't know why we should just accept that just because it came from a great company. If anything, Spyderco having the reputation it has, we should hold it up to a higher standard than say, Smith and Wesson. To me, that's a compliment to Spyderco. If that was the case with a Smith & Wesson knife, I'd just say "Well that's S&W for you..."
 
Dammit! Just saw that this is an old-ass thread:p It's all good. My post still stands:D

Welcome to the forums triktm98:thumbup: If there's something wrong with the knife, Spyderco will replace it. For all we know, that particular Street Beat was made prior to this thread and just sat around until you bought it.
 
DaveH said:
IMO your guys are perfectionists.

Does it is anyway impact on the knifes function? My guess is no. You guys want perfection for $100 or so? That's just not realistic.
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damn right i want perfection, ESPECIALLY when laying out a lot of money.
 
harkamus said:
It looks to have been ground by machine, but the choil area looks like one of the above pictures. The actual edge grind is different on both sides as well...some "thicker" edges." Not sure what the knife terminology is, but on one side it's consistently thick; I guess that means the edge angle is very acute? On the other side it ranges from that thickness to about half, sort of like a wave. Not sure if you understand what I'm trying to convey, but it's uneven as well.

EDIT: And as an American, I refuse to buy into that wabi sabi mentality. I didn't buy a wabi sabi knife. :P
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Perfection is always their until you look close. The difference is size of edge bevel is related to the uneven main grinds of the blade. When you sharpen to very acute angles like I often do you start to see just how many knives have uneven grinds. For example: if you set a perfect grind (ie. edgepro, aligner, or the like) you will notice on some knives high and low spots in the grind height of your bevel on one side. This difference in grind height is the varying thickness of the blade. Finding a knife that is perfect is a lot easier than it sounds and when you look close you find that most knives have uneven grinds in one way or the other.

With knives that have a swedge like most benchmades (spine area near the tip) you can tell just by looking at that that if a blade is evenly ground (good luck finding it).

I don't know exactly how to explain it but it has something to do with grinding one side and then grinding the other for large stock removal.
 
Kaizen1 said:
Dammit! Just saw that this is an old-ass thread:p It's all good. My post still stands:D

Welcome to the forums triktm98:thumbup: If there's something wrong with the knife, Spyderco will replace it. For all we know, that particular Street Beat was made prior to this thread and just sat around until you bought it.
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Guess you haven't been to the Spyderco forum and been following the Spyderco customer service threads. There have been a few knives like the one mentioned that have been returned to Spyderco and nothing done because they were told that the knife "was with in tolerances." I would assume a knife that suffers the same problem will get the same response. This hasn't happened just once but has come up a few times recently.
 
FlaMtnBkr said:
Guess you haven't been to the Spyderco forum and been following the Spyderco customer service threads. There have been a few knives like the one mentioned that have been returned to Spyderco and nothing done because they were told that the knife "was with in tolerances." I would assume a knife that suffers the same problem will get the same response. This hasn't happened just once but has come up a few times recently.
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I guess it depends on what "within tolerances" means. Whatever the issue was with the OP was, according to Sal, unacceptable. But I guess it depends on the new guy's knife. I wonder if he can provide a picture of the issue.

I try to be as objective as possible with things like this, so I don't like to assume that Spyderco is being "unfair" (or not) or that the guy is justified in his disappointment (or not) without seeing the knife.
 
Everyone is just being too picky, like I said in my previous post your not going to find perfection in everything and what is perfect to one is completely wrong to another.


Its hard to imagine it but think of a piece of clay, flat grind one side of that piece of clay then flat grind the other (like a knife) and see if you can keep the side ground first from changing dimensions.

This could be better told by a metallurgist.
 
Sal Glesser said:
Thanx for the input. That is not normal. Mine is even. Thanx for fixin' it, sorry you had to go through that.

I meet with the maker nerxt week. I'll put it on the agenda.

This particular maker does most of their work by hand.

sal
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Right here we have documentation from the man himself that it is NOT considered perfectly normal, and that those who find flaws are not being "too picky".:thumbup:
 
stabman said:
Right here we have documentation from the man himself that it is NOT considered perfectly normal, and that those who find flaws are not being "too picky".:thumbup:
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Agreed. Like I said in a previous post here, I just don't see any good reason for automatically accepting flaws in the products. That doesn't make any sense to me. But for clarity, I'm talking specifically about the OP's complaint. The second complaint from the new guy that bumped this old thread might be a different story. I see no reason to assume that his complaint is either warranted or not. It only makes sense to look at the knife and the supposed issues first.
 
Sal might say it isn't normal and you might can get him to look at it personally, but there was a thread not long ago that had a terrible grind and it was sent back by customer service as being within tolerances. There are some that are similar in Spyderco subforum right now. I will try to find the other thread and post a link.

Yeah you might send it in and something happen, but from the recent rash of bad grinds that are within tolerances I wouldn't bet on it. You are going to take a chance sending it to Spyderco instead of returning it when you still have time. I like my Spyderco knives but with my limited experience with customer service and the recent threads of "within tolerances" knives I wouldn't bet on it.


Edit: Here is one example: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=723864&highlight=spyderco+center+grind
 
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FlaMtnBkr said:
Sal might say it isn't normal and you might can get him to look at it personally, but there was a thread not long ago that had a terrible grind and it was sent back by customer service as being within tolerances. There are some that are similar in Spyderco subforum right now. I will try to find the other thread and post a link.

Yeah you might send it in and something happen, but from the recent rash of bad grinds that are within tolerances I wouldn't bet on it. You are going to take a chance sending it to Spyderco instead of returning it when you still have time. I like my Spyderco knives but with my limited experience with customer service and the recent threads of "within tolerances" knives I wouldn't bet on it.


Edit: Here is one example: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=723864&highlight=spyderco+center+grind
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Wow, over 3 weeks and no response from Sal for that? That sucks. Thanks for the link.
 
Kaizen1 said:
Dammit! Just saw that this is an old-ass thread:p It's all good. My post still stands:D

Welcome to the forums triktm98:thumbup: If there's something wrong with the knife, Spyderco will replace it. For all we know, that particular Street Beat was made prior to this thread and just sat around until you bought it.
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I just read that the spydercostore.com only charges 10% restocking fee on returns. They don't charge any restocking fee for exchanges, and their policy is such that the customer just orders another one and returns the old one after it arrives. I'll try my luck with a second Street Beat. With their policy, I can compare both of them and keep the better one (hopefully the second one has better grind lines).

I wouldn't be so picky had Sal not replied with what he did. The man said it himself; the knives shouldn't be like that. Maybe I did get a new old stock, but correct me if I'm wrong. The old Street Beats came with tek-lok. The newer ones came with g-clips. Mine came with a g-clip. I suppose mine shouldn't have passed QA.
 
If I recall correctly, Spyderco knives are sharpened by hand. Not sure if this is the acase for other manufacturers. This might account for the difference between edge even-ness-an edge done on a machine will be harder to maintain.
 
I personally think the bigger problem is with vertical play in the lockbacks but no one seems to worry about that. I'd make a solid bet that most all of our knives from most all makers have uneven grinds in one way or the other.

You could also say the LL of a EKI is not correct either but most will tell you its fine. Though 99% of the EKI' I've seen and own all suffer from the same issues.


I've known about uneven grinds for quite some time now so its nothing new but once someone takes the time to notice it, it becomes a issue when its not even something that will affect the abilitys of the knife.
 
knifenut1013 said:
I personally think the bigger problem is with vertical play in the lockbacks but no one seems to worry about that. I'd make a solid bet that most all of our knives from most all makers have uneven grinds in one way or the other.

You could also say the LL of a EKI is not correct either but most will tell you its fine. Though 99% of the EKI' I've seen and own all suffer from the same issues.


I've known about uneven grinds for quite some time now so its nothing new but once someone takes the time to notice it, it becomes a issue when its not even something that will affect the abilitys of the knife.
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Yes, that point has already been established as has the one I'm going to reiterate. The knife cost 160ish dollars. Sal said the knives shouldn't be like that. Those two things alone merit my wanting a knife of better fit and finish. After all, why settle for less when you can have better, and in this case, should have better (according to Sal himself)?

If this knife had a substantially lower price point, I wouldn't care, nor would the OP have cared I suspect.
 
triktm98 said:
Yes, that point has already been established as has the one I'm going to reiterate. The knife cost 160ish dollars. Sal said the knives shouldn't be like that. Those two things alone merit my wanting a knife of better fit and finish. After all, why settle for less when you can have better, and in this case, should have better (according to Sal himself)?

If this knife had a substantially lower price point, I wouldn't care, nor would the OP have cared I suspect.
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To be fair the picture is gone so we don't really know what they are talking about exactly. He said he fixed it. An off center grind can't be fixed. A uneven grind can be made more even. For all I know it could have been a chisel grind in the picture that has been removed and Sal agreed it shouldn't be there. Just because Sal said it shouldn't be that way, doesn't mean he is going to throw away every knife that comes out of the factory because they are a little off. No businessman could, or should, do that. We still haven't seen pictures of your knife to know how off it is and how nit picky you are being. No trying to sound rude or that I don't believe you but there are some perfectionist around here that could probably never be satisfied.
 
I suspect the original photo was this:

n12kwl.jpg


The grind was centered fine, but extended unevenly into the bolster/heel. I cleaned that up such that it looks almost exactly even, and rounded the relevant edges, but of course the original satin finish suffered.

I then went ahead and convexed this knife, and have used it in a utility/hiking role as well as for concealed carry (horizontal, small of back above the belt). Convexed and highly polished, it's a great cutter, scary sharp in typical VG-10 fashion, and it handles very well. I like it a lot.

Given that I got it as a user, that original twinge of OCD passed as quickly as character accumulated. Had I gotten it as a safe queen (of which I have only four, to pass along to the kid in pristine shape), I probably would have felt differently.
 
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