TOPS Knives?

Rusty Shackelford · Jul 22, 2020

How has your experience been with them as a company? I emailed them asking how to remove the finish on one of their blades, the response I received said that removing the finish from the blade would void the warranty on the knife... I've had a few coated knives and the coatings always wear off with time/use anyway. I am now wondering if I sent them a defective blade back that no longer had the factory finish if they would honor it. I only own one of their knives and nothing leads me to believe it'll ever need returning, but it's nice to know you could if something happened.

BitingSarcasm · Jul 25, 2020

Rusty Shackelford said:
How has your experience been with them as a company? I emailed them asking how to remove the finish on one of their blades, the response I received said that removing the finish from the blade would void the warranty on the knife... I've had a few coated knives and the coatings always wear off with time/use anyway. I am now wondering if I sent them a defective blade back that no longer had the factory finish if they would honor it. I only own one of their knives and nothing leads me to believe it'll ever need returning, but it's nice to know you could if something happened.

Modifying blades does usually void the warranty on most knives, but the different companies have different benchmarks for what they consider "voiding." If you take the coating off and it exposes grind lines you find displeasing, you are out of of luck I would say. But if you then take the stripped knife and it breaks during normal use, they might replace it. Becker Knife and Tool has replaced a few stripped blades when it's obviously a manufacturing defect, for instance. I have a few TOPS, but I haven't sent any in for warranty for any reason and they don't have a manufacturer's subforum here to ask questions.

So strip it yourself, the coating will come off easy with some Citristrip from the hardware store, and use it. If it breaks down enough to need warranty, send it in and see what they say.

Rusty Shackelford · Jul 25, 2020

BitingSarcasm said:
Modifying blades does usually void the warranty on most knives, but the different companies have different benchmarks for what they consider "voiding." If you take the coating off and it exposes grind lines you find displeasing, you are out of of luck I would say. But if you then take the stripped knife and it breaks during normal use, they might replace it. Becker Knife and Tool has replaced a few stripped blades when it's obviously a manufacturing defect, for instance. I have a few TOPS, but I haven't sent any in for warranty for any reason and they don't have a manufacturer's subforum here to ask questions.

So strip it yourself, the coating will come off easy with some Citristrip from the hardware store, and use it. If it breaks down enough to need warranty, send it in and see what they say.

I wouldn't send in a blade for warranty over something cosmetic like that anyway and also it's a knife not made for abuse, so it'll never see any. I don't believe that any chemical stripper will take off cerakote, needs to be media blasted off which I likely am going to go ahead and do sometime next week.