Tell me about Emersons

I was a Huge Emerson fan. It was my first knife, an A100 and I loved the handle,shape,feel. Then I got a CQC-7V and a Emerson Roadhouse. I loved them all so much because of handle shape and how they feel in your hand and I think they have some of the best looking blades with the stonewash on top and satin below. It wasn't until I started really getting into knives that the small things started to bother me. Super thin liner-lock,uneven finish,sticky liners,154cm,loose pivot, but mostly the fact you can never get the pivot adjusted right to get perfectly lined up and no blade play, Its just not possible on most. So as my collection grew and I added sprint spydercos, ZT, and strider I began disliking my Emerson and almost resenting him and the knives. The fact he refuses to evolve pisses me off. To me he is starting to get left in the dust by almost every other top end production maker. Its the evolution and new designs and materials that's putting knife makers like Zero Tolerance at the top this year. I know for a fact if he listened to his customers he would have some of the best knives in the world. To me a thick frame-locked, ball bearing,titanium bolstered, Elmax bladed Roadhouse would be the ill-est knife in the world. I'm sure some would agree if all his knives got that treatment they'd be top sellers with a price increase or not. I guess it is his arrogance that leads him to believe he doesn't have to evolve. In the end I sold off all of my Emerson's except the Roadhouse as I just love the handle and blade shape so much I can never part with it. But I will most certainly not be purchasing any Emerson Knives anytime soon.
 
Just when you thought the thread was dead, ITS BACK.

The 7v and roadhouse have only been out for like a year, not exactly a long trial period to for going from loved to resented in under twelve months. Glad you ended up with something you like though, personally everything you listed as a dislike I view as neutral or positive. The one thing that rubs me wrong is the recent giant price bump, they opened a bigger factory shouldn't the prices be dropping?
 
EricV said:
Just when you thought the thread was dead, ITS BACK.

The 7v and roadhouse have only been out for like a year, not exactly a long trial period to for going from loved to resented in under twelve months. Glad you ended up with something you like though, personally everything you listed as a dislike I view as neutral or positive. The one thing that rubs me wrong is the recent giant price bump, they opened a bigger factory shouldn't the prices be dropping?
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Don't they need to get back the cost of the factory? ;)
 
EricV said:
Just when you thought the thread was dead, ITS BACK.

The 7v and roadhouse have only been out for like a year, not exactly a long trial period to for going from loved to resented in under twelve months. Glad you ended up with something you like though, personally everything you listed as a dislike I view as neutral or positive. The one thing that rubs me wrong is the recent giant price bump, they opened a bigger factory shouldn't the prices be dropping?
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If you use knives almost everyday, I'd say a year is plenty of time to hate a knife. I think my 480-1 Shoki was the record in a week when the lock stopped working properly and acted like a slipjoint.
 
It makes it all the worse to have a brand new knife go from nice early lockup to lock bar hitting the liner with very light use in only a few months.
 
I bought my first Emerson in '97-a Raven A. I still have it, along with at least a dozen other EKI knives. The designs are, IMHO, excellent. However, my experience with their QC/F&F is quite another matter:
Off-center blades, which cannot be adjusted.
Unreliable lock function/overtravel
Stripped screws when new out of the box.
Suffice to say, my $ has gone elsewhere. YMMV
 
EricV said:
Just when you thought the thread was dead, ITS BACK.

The 7v and roadhouse have only been out for like a year, not exactly a long trial period to for going from loved to resented in under twelve months. Glad you ended up with something you like though, personally everything you listed as a dislike I view as neutral or positive. The one thing that rubs me wrong is the recent giant price bump, they opened a bigger factory shouldn't the prices be dropping?
Click to expand...

Seriously? A year isnt enough time to tell whether or not you like a knife? Seriously? I can tell in the first 5 minutes of holding it? What planet are you from?
 
What I like about my Emersons are their military combat designs. All of them are production models. My favorite one in my collection is the Persian. The ultimate custom would be the the Viper MV-3. It has a ATS-34 / 4 inch blade, micarta scales and titanium liners.
 
glockfire said:
Seriously? A year isnt enough time to tell whether or not you like a knife? Seriously? I can tell in the first 5 minutes of holding it? What planet are you from?
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I'm not saying a year isn't enough time, one day of work is plenty of time most of the time I agree 5 minutes is more than enough time to find something you don't like that matters enough to not buy one or return it. Doesn't it seem odd to buy one knife, like it even for its flaws then buy two more and hate them for the very same flaws that the first one had?
 
Havent owned a Emerson in about a decade.

Crappy fit and finish, chisel grinds which is crap, not sharp blades, stripped screws / not tapped holes, wave is a very annoying design, 154cm steel, thin weak liners, weak lock, bad lock up.

they feel like cheap knives, honestly feels like a $15 knife.

I have experiences similar problems with the custom knives as well.

Im not hating on EMerson, just stating what I have experienced from the knives I have bought.
 
I have a CQC7A. Really like. Have been looking to get a mini CQC7 or a mini 100 but they are not out there. What is it with Emerson production? Lower production = higher resale. Good for Emerson, bad for consumers.
 
severedthumbs said:
Havent owned a Emerson in about a decade.

Crappy fit and finish, chisel grinds which is crap, not sharp blades, stripped screws / not tapped holes, wave is a very annoying design, 154cm steel, thin weak liners, weak lock, bad lock up.

they feel like cheap knives, honestly feels like a $15 knife.

I have experiences similar problems with the custom knives as well.

Im not hating on EMerson, just stating what I have experienced from the knives I have bought.
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a decade is a long time....

for example, that's 4 years before you joined BF.

all my Emerson experience has been with ones produced after 2009 and I share none of your complaints. In fact I find Emersons have been consistently the sharpest knives out of the box; aided by the chisel grind naturally, but the quality of the edge they put on is better than almost any other production knife. Kershaw/ZT and Hogue are the only ones I've personally seen with better finishes on the edge.
 
100eyes said:
a decade is a long time....

for example, that's 4 years before you joined BF.

all my Emerson experience has been with ones produced after 2009 and I share none of your complaints. In fact I find Emersons have been consistently the sharpest knives out of the box; aided by the chisel grind naturally, but the quality of the edge they put on is better than almost any other production knife. Kershaw/ZT and Hogue are the only ones I've personally seen with better finishes on the edge.
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I know what a decade is, thanks. My first emerson was the benchmade tanto emerson design. got it as soon as it came out. it was the best emerson I owned. owned the first knives to come out of EKI, a CQC-7 and 98 commanders. got them in 1998 too. They were good knives, but still has their issues. I like emerson and his designs, just not his finished product. The last emerson i bought was in 2002, it was a custom cqc-10.

As far as sharpest, Spyderco, KAI, ColdSteel, LionSteel, Microtech to name a few all come much sharper than any emerson I have ever owned.
 
severedthumbs said:
I know what a decade is, thanks. My first emerson was the benchmade tanto emerson design. got it as soon as it came out. it was the best emerson I owned. owned the first knives to come out of EKI, a CQC-7 and 98 commanders. got them in 1998 too. They were good knives, but still has their issues. I like emerson and his designs, just not his finished product. The last emerson i bought was in 2002, it was a custom cqc-10.

As far as sharpest, Spyderco, KAI, ColdSteel, LionSteel, Microtech to name a few all come much sharper than any emerson I have ever owned.
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yet you don't seem to have any problems drawing conclusions about a product in 2011 based on products from 2002 and older? there are many uses for data from a decade ago, I don't think general product review is one of them.
 
100eyes said:
yet you don't seem to have any problems drawing conclusions about a product in 2011 based on products from 2002 and older? there are many uses for data from a decade ago, I don't think general product review is one of them.
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I have handled new ones. not much has changed. and reading the problems people are still having today tells me for a fact nothing has changed. all of this is known problems of EKI products.

Many still regard the 98 commanders as the best knife EKI has ever produced. I owned 4 of them, the best EKI knife, so my product knowledge is more than adequate for my quality review.
 
Emerson knives are blessed by magical elves.
Proof you say? Well, consider this:
I've been carrying my CQC-12 while working security at Chrysler headquarters, and there's been no fire alarms, vandalism, theft or alien zombies while I've been on duty. On the very next shift, there's been all those things (except for alien zombies, that is).
The only difference is that THOSE guards don't carry an Emerson knife.
Some would say it's pure coincidence, but I discern the hand of magical elves at work.
Hard to argue against proof like that, isn't it?;)

(The CQC-12 is a pretty sweet knife though, and doesn't wreck the pockets of the dress pants, due to that sweet, sweet, smooth titanium)
 
I recently bought a new Emerson CQC-10. I paid a pretty penny for it, but I still quite like it. Yeah, I can understand many of the complaints, but after some adjusting and cleaning of the blades, and a bit of knifesturbating to break it in, the CQC-10 has a centered blade, decent lockup (though the linerlock it does appear to be slowly travelling further and further...) and fantastic ergonomics.

Yes, the G10 backspacer isn't lined up with the handle, yes, there is a burnt electric smell, yes, 154CM isn't the greatest blade steel in the world, yes, it's expensive, BUT I still like it, quite a bit too. The design of the handle is outstanding, the chisel grind is simple enough to deal with, and the wave is a great feature. Even if it isn't quite worth what I paid for it, I like it.

Each to their own.
 
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