Update. KNIFE HAS RETURNED! New Large Inkosi.....Need advice/opinions Please

Great to hear you got it back, and early enough to see it before work!

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this after a few days/weeks/months.

Especially since I just ordered a Large Inkosi myself!
 
Glock Guy said:
Great to hear you got it back, and early enough to see it before work!

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this after a few days/weeks/months.

Especially since I just ordered a Large Inkosi myself!
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Definitely! I was shocked when I saw that it was delivered early. Ups usually comes around 7or 8pm.

You will love it. The inkosi is the best crk design in my opinion. Now if it only had an insingo blade!!!





I decided to remove the lanyard already. I'm not a huge fan of them. I've tried them on my other CRK's and just cannot get used to them.






Sad.....but this was its first cut!! Haha. The punishment will commence this weekend!!

 
Gizler00 said:
Thanks my friend. And thank you for the continued support. Thanks to everyone that helped me keep my sanity throughout this process.
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I have checked this thread multiple times a day for updates; I'm really glad this has all worked out. Good on CRK for fixing it. It just sucks it got caught up in the new system bugs.

Funny, I have always taken the lanyard off of my CRK's but this one I'm trying to keep on to see if I get used to it. I also cut an orange today. :)
 
nbp said:
Since the knives are hand assembled and hand sharpened (if I understand correctly) 100% QC check IS in fact possible. Every knife is in someone's hands before it gets put in the "complete" pile. Look at what you just did... if it doesn't look right, fix it while it's still in your hands! It's a lot cheaper than dealing with returned knives. It's different if a machine is just stamping out hundreds of parts into a bin all on its own. In that case spot checking is the only feasible option, that's true. I'ved worked for a company where we ran tens of thousands of bottles of product a day. We did hourly reviews but things can slip through in the meantime. With hand assembled products, there is literally a human touching every unit. Errors should be minimal.
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1) Who said 100% inspection of the sharpness was not possible? My statement on the matter is from personal experience working in manufacturing, machining parts and some insight how problems develop. Nothing more and certainly wasn't meant to be an excuse for anybody.
2) I agree- Addressing the issue before it leaves negates the need for warranty work.
3) Not sure I get the bottle manufacturing/ filling reference unless it's to define how QC can fail when 100% inspection is not performed.
4) Errors occur more often when humans touch the parts.. Not less. It's an uncomfortable truth in manufacturing. The more you handle a part or perform subsequent operations, the greater the likelihood to introduce error. Even in assembly, this happens. You can reduce that by having a separate person add 1 component to the overall assembly, but you will never entirely eliminate the possibility of error.

James Longstreet said:
Excellent comment! Totally agree. Whatever the definition of a "larger company" is. I doubt that they are even close to quantities like Benchmade, Spyderco and ZT are dealing with and also we should bear in mind that they are dealing with a very small variety of products, which facilitates most of the the production and qc processes.

I think all of you know that I am a hugh fan of CRK and abou what they have achieved. My own collection proves my words, I guess. But that should not lead to the point where I am lowering my expectations. If it turns out that there is an increasing number of knives leaving the shop with uneven edges (which I cannot confirm, but reading from above), I would expect that they undertake something about it. Attention to detail has always been one of the big pros about CRK.
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Where did the lowered expectations come from? Certainly not me..I buy these knives too and want them to be perfect when I get them. Certainly isn't in my best interest to lower my expectation but I understand QC problems are a part of the process when people are involved.
If I have to sharpen my knife, I am not too worried about it. It's something I expect to have to do at some point anyway.
In reference to Benchmade, Spyderco and ZT...Do they hand sharpen knives too? Just curious, as I was under the impression that they all have a very expensive machine to do that.

Gizler00 said:
Trust me I completely understand. I am trying to not go deeper into my own feelings on this and start a CRK war on myself here. You are exactly right....they are hand assembled........and should be looked over at every step.




I agree. I love CRK, but it does seem to be more of this lately.
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Growth causes all sorts of issues..Hopefully, they get most of them worked out. I know they are working on improving processes.


Sadly, we see much of the manufacturing processes, including assembly, being done by robots. They work longer hours and do the same thing, every time without exception. That truly is the only way we will not see any QC issues slipping by.
 
bhyde said:
1) Who said 100% inspection of the sharpness was not possible? My statement on the matter is from personal experience working in manufacturing, machining parts and some insight how problems develop. Nothing more and certainly wasn't meant to be an excuse for anybody.
2) I agree- Addressing the issue before it leaves negates the need for warranty work.
3) Not sure I get the bottle manufacturing/ filling reference unless it's to define how QC can fail when 100% inspection is not performed.
4) Errors occur more often when humans touch the parts.. Not less. It's an uncomfortable truth in manufacturing. The more you handle a part or perform subsequent operations, the greater the likelihood to introduce error. Even in assembly, this happens. You can reduce that by having a separate person add 1 component to the overall assembly, but you will never entirely eliminate the possibility of error.



Where did the lowered expectations come from? Certainly not me..I buy these knives too and want them to be perfect when I get them. Certainly isn't in my best interest to lower my expectation but I understand QC problems are a part of the process when people are involved.
If I have to sharpen my knife, I am not too worried about it. It's something I expect to have to do at some point anyway.
In reference to Benchmade, Spyderco and ZT...Do they hand sharpen knives too? Just curious, as I was under the impression that they all have a very expensive machine to do that.



Growth causes all sorts of issues..Hopefully, they get most of them worked out. I know they are working on improving processes.


Sadly, we see much of the manufacturing processes, including assembly, being done by robots. They work longer hours and do the same thing, every time without exception. That truly is the only way we will not see any QC issues slipping by.
Click to expand...


Easy brother, I wasn't fighting with you, just making points based on items you brought up. We're cool. :)

With my production experience analogy I was agreeing with you. I worked in QA/QC for 7 years for a contract blending and packaging company. In a large scale production environment where the process is mostly mechanized with minimal human involvement and large numbers of units are involved, things can be easily packaged with problems because checking every piece is physically impossible. When I think of a huge knife manufacturer like maybe Chicago Cutlery, I bet most of their kitchen knives are never touched by a human before they get packaged. Easy to miss an error.

In a small operation like CRK (yes in the real world manufacturing scale they are small) where every single piece is handled and inspected by humans before packaging most errors should be spotted before the customer ever gets them. Most likely that is exactly the case. Nevertheless, while human error is inevitable the fact that 100% QC checks is essentially guaranteed, problematic knives should be few and far between. I would guess based on my reading of problems here in this subforum the likeliest issue is when the expectation of the customer is higher than that of the one doing the assembly or grinding or sharpening. He recognizes that since it is a human doing the sharpening etc. and not a machine, as you mentioned before, some slight variation is inevitable and he is okay with that. If I, the customer, am very picky and get the knife and feel that it is not good enough, is it a defect or just a difference in opinion over acceptable tolerances? I don't know the answer to that question.

Robots and machines do certainly perform precise work with greater reliability but they can goof up too. I have a friend who runs a couple robotic lines for JW Speaker building vehicle lighting assemblies. He says a wrong part orientation on a conveyor or parts made at the outer limits of tolerances wreak havoc with his robots. Another friend was in charge of getting a GPS guided robotic system in place for assembling John Deere Gators at their plant. Well apparently the robot's sensors are picking up signals from everything including wifi and cell phones and getting confused and dropping parts off at wrong places on the line all the time. They're super backlogged as you can imagine.

So there is error involved in everything we do. Whether it's humans physically making something by hand or making the machine that does it there is going to be a foul up here and there. Good companies do their best to prevent them and then deal with them effectively when they occur. I think CRK is one of those companies. The 8 knives I've had from them have been of the highest quality. I think due to the high level of human involvement in their processes they are in a position to minimize defects and errors. If those handling the knives really do care, very few problematic knives will leave the shop.
 
bluemetalchurch said:
I have checked this thread multiple times a day for updates; I'm really glad this has all worked out. Good on CRK for fixing it. It just sucks it got caught up in the new system bugs.

Funny, I have always taken the lanyard off of my CRK's but this one I'm trying to keep on to see if I get used to it. I also cut an orange today. :)
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Thanks man. I tried the exact same thing with my insingo and small inkosi. Thinking each time I could get used to the lanyard. I think I made it about 2 weeks each time before I took it off.

gull wing said:
:DSuper, great, wonderful Gizler, glad you got her back. Hope you like her even more now.
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Thanks man! I definitely do. It feels so good to have it back in my pocket.

T.K.C. said:
I am so happy that you got your knife back early!!
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Thanks!! I was pleasantly surprised.
 
nbp said:
Easy brother, I wasn't fighting with you, just making points based on items you brought up. We're cool. :)

With my production experience analogy I was agreeing with you. I worked in QA/QC for 7 years for a contract blending and packaging company. In a large scale production environment where the process is mostly mechanized with minimal human involvement and large numbers of units are involved, things can be easily packaged with problems because checking every piece is physically impossible. When I think of a huge knife manufacturer like maybe Chicago Cutlery, I bet most of their kitchen knives are never touched by a human before they get packaged. Easy to miss an error.

In a small operation like CRK (yes in the real world manufacturing scale they are small) where every single piece is handled and inspected by humans before packaging most errors should be spotted before the customer ever gets them. Most likely that is exactly the case. Nevertheless, while human error is inevitable the fact that 100% QC checks is essentially guaranteed, problematic knives should be few and far between. I would guess based on my reading of problems here in this subforum the likeliest issue is when the expectation of the customer is higher than that of the one doing the assembly or grinding or sharpening. He recognizes that since it is a human doing the sharpening etc. and not a machine, as you mentioned before, some slight variation is inevitable and he is okay with that. If I, the customer, am very picky and get the knife and feel that it is not good enough, is it a defect or just a difference in opinion over acceptable tolerances? I don't know the answer to that question.

Robots and machines do certainly perform precise work with greater reliability but they can goof up too. I have a friend who runs a couple robotic lines for JW Speaker building vehicle lighting assemblies. He says a wrong part orientation on a conveyor or parts made at the outer limits of tolerances wreak havoc with his robots. Another friend was in charge of getting a GPS guided robotic system in place for assembling John Deere Gators at their plant. Well apparently the robot's sensors are picking up signals from everything including wifi and cell phones and getting confused and dropping parts off at wrong places on the line all the time. They're super backlogged as you can imagine.

So there is error involved in everything we do. Whether it's humans physically making something by hand or making the machine that does it there is going to be a foul up here and there. Good companies do their best to prevent them and then deal with them effectively when they occur. I think CRK is one of those companies. The 8 knives I've had from them have been of the highest quality. I think due to the high level of human involvement in their processes they are in a position to minimize defects and errors. If those handling the knives really do care, very few problematic knives will leave the shop.
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I didn't mean to come off like I was looking for a fight at all.. It's been a long crappy week, so my thoughts can reflect this in text. My apologies. :(
Probably should prove my earlier point about being human. Today was one of those days that I had the reverse Midas touch..Parts were not turning into gold if you know what I mean. My own worst enemy is me. Emotion, good or bad shows up in your work. At least in my case.
The parts I build are almost always prototypes which I almost never get blueprints for. Usually 3D bodies in CAD. If I do something to mess them up, I can call the requesting engineer and see if they can live with it..99% of the time, I will skip this step and remake it. FYI- I get to remake it.
bah
 
bhyde said:
1) Who said 100% inspection of the sharpness was not possible? My statement on the matter is from personal experience working in manufacturing, machining parts and some insight how problems develop. Nothing more and certainly wasn't meant to be an excuse for anybody.
2) I agree- Addressing the issue before it leaves negates the need for warranty work.
3) Not sure I get the bottle manufacturing/ filling reference unless it's to define how QC can fail when 100% inspection is not performed.
4) Errors occur more often when humans touch the parts.. Not less. It's an uncomfortable truth in manufacturing. The more you handle a part or perform subsequent operations, the greater the likelihood to introduce error. Even in assembly, this happens. You can reduce that by having a separate person add 1 component to the overall assembly, but you will never entirely eliminate the possibility of error.



Where did the lowered expectations come from? Certainly not me..I buy these knives too and want them to be perfect when I get them. Certainly isn't in my best interest to lower my expectation but I understand QC problems are a part of the process when people are involved.
If I have to sharpen my knife, I am not too worried about it. It's something I expect to have to do at some point anyway.
In reference to Benchmade, Spyderco and ZT...Do they hand sharpen knives too? Just curious, as I was under the impression that they all have a very expensive machine to do that.



Growth causes all sorts of issues..Hopefully, they get most of them worked out. I know they are working on improving processes.


Sadly, we see much of the manufacturing processes, including assembly, being done by robots. They work longer hours and do the same thing, every time without exception. That truly is the only way we will not see any QC issues slipping by.
Click to expand...

Hey Bill,

I think we are on the same path. What I was trying to say is this (and as I am not a native english speaker, there is always a risk that my words come accross not in the way intended):

Business success is great, because it will make sure that this great company will continue to be in this market. I don't know whether they are really growing at this moment by increasing sales. I cannot judge, as I do not have any figures at hand. Growing in this market can be achieved by two ways. Either the market, the demand is growing considerably, which would make CRK growing too. My observation is that the knife market is still fine, but not "exploding". The 2nd way to grow is by taking a larger piece of the existing cake. Only way to do this is by taking market share from other brands away. Although CRK is my favourite company. I don't see this. Even more players are entering the same market, like Reate, Shirogorov is increasing their output and their models. Others are entering the market. I think CRK has still a great community supporting them and business should be stable, maybe even with a light increase. But there are no indications and no market circumstances telling that CRK is "blowing out" competitors from the market.

So where does this speculation come from, that some of the discussed qc issues are caused by growth and as a result of that, giving them a hard time to check their outgoing knives as they usually did, because of the big increase of sales and production?

I think they are just changing some processes for whatever reasons (profitability? Why not? A company should deliver money back to their owners/investors. Nothing wrong about that) and that causes some "friction". Now, a major aspect of CRK's success is their quality. Most people, including myself, were saying that you could buy a CRK with blind eyes. Always perfect out of the box. I think that was very smart of them, because together with their long term model policy, their "silent" innovation, their strict price controlling and their supperior customer service, they established themselfes as a benchmark in the industry and as THE manufacturer for those customers who appreciated such policy.

Now they just have to make sure that this is not thrown away. Other manufacturers would love to built this reputation and it would take years and lots of efforts to achieve this. CRK needs this reputation because in terms of making the cheapest quality ti frame lock folder they will not win against these Reate, WE and so on. So better maintain your unique selling point. In other words, giving up their leadership in the quality disciplin would mean accepting a high risk, because in other disciplins like for instance most cost efficient production, other brands will have the lead because of cheaper labour costs and bigger company size.

Best,
 
ti lock said:
bhyde... Growth? can you be more specific as to what are referring to?
Click to expand...

20 or so years ago, they were a company of around 6-10 employees and occupied a space at the back of another business. Today they are around 45 employees directly (indirectly many more), have the main building they purchased several years ago and a warehouse across the street they are using for manufacturing as well.

James Longstreet said:
Hey Bill,

I think we are on the same path. What I was trying to say is this (and as I am not a native english speaker, there is always a risk that my words come accross not in the way intended):

Business success is great, because it will make sure that this great company will continue to be in this market. I don't know whether they are really growing at this moment by increasing sales. I cannot judge, as I do not have any figures at hand. Growing in this market can be achieved by two ways. Either the market, the demand is growing considerably, which would make CRK growing too. My observation is that the knife market is still fine, but not "exploding". The 2nd way to grow is by taking a larger piece of the existing cake. Only way to do this is by taking market share from other brands away. Although CRK is my favourite company. I don't see this. Even more players are entering the same market, like Reate, Shirogorov is increasing their output and their models. Others are entering the market. I think CRK has still a great community supporting them and business should be stable, maybe even with a light increase. But there are no indications and no market circumstances telling that CRK is "blowing out" competitors from the market.

So where does this speculation come from, that some of the discussed qc issues are caused by growth and as a result of that, giving them a hard time to check their outgoing knives as they usually did, because of the big increase of sales and production?

I think they are just changing some processes for whatever reasons (profitability? Why not? A company should deliver money back to their owners/investors. Nothing wrong about that) and that causes some "friction". Now, a major aspect of CRK's success is their quality. Most people, including myself, were saying that you could buy a CRK with blind eyes. Always perfect out of the box. I think that was very smart of them, because together with their long term model policy, their "silent" innovation, their strict price controlling and their supperior customer service, they established themselfes as a benchmark in the industry and as THE manufacturer for those customers who appreciated such policy.

Now they just have to make sure that this is not thrown away. Other manufacturers would love to built this reputation and it would take years and lots of efforts to achieve this. CRK needs this reputation because in terms of making the cheapest quality ti frame lock folder they will not win against these Reate, WE and so on. So better maintain your unique selling point. In other words, giving up their leadership in the quality disciplin would mean accepting a high risk, because in other disciplins like for instance most cost efficient production, other brands will have the lead because of cheaper labour costs and bigger company size.

Best,
Click to expand...

The bold part. Yes to growth leading to more than usual issues until processes and people are placed to mitigate.
For example, it was much easier for Chris himself to check every product leaving the shop 20+years ago. Fewer people and a much smaller volume going out the door. That's pretty easy to understand. Today's volume exiting the shop, it would be exponentially harder for Chris to check each piece himself, so you would need to delegate this function out to others and handle the other day to day business functions such as selling and marketing.
For the most part, the people that are in place do an extremely nice job of keeping things in line as far as quality is concerned..Now and then, you will get something that is just not quite right..close, but not right according to the laws of perfection that Chris set up in the first place. Is it ideal that issues come up? No..and it certainly is not something that the people at CRK want to happen.
Thankfully, they are really good about taking care of it if it does happen. They do sell a number of their parts online that you can purchase and take care of little things like stripped screws..etc. You can still send your knife in to get refurbished at a minimal cost as long as you didn't void the warranty.. They are looking at improving the turnaround time to do these trips to the shop as well.
These perks may not help you if you pinched a washer..broke the tip off of your blade and need a new blade fitted (with limitations of course- discontinued models being difficult to support long term for anyone) . They may be more painful if you live outside of the continental US. If you contact them on the telephone, they are always willing to help.. If by email, it may be a few days, but I have never not gotten a response within a few days.
This is all a good bit of extra insurance for the price of maybe getting something off now and then. I will take it and like it despite only living a few miles from the shop. I would do the same if I lived 2k miles away.
As far as changing processes goes..Some are changed to improve throughput..yes. There are many changes that have happened in the last 20 or so years. Some of them I was not even aware of until just recently. You would never know that these improvements were made..there is no visual indicator of them. For example, the blades in the folders are flat and parallel within .0001in before the hollow grinding operation.
That is not a cost savings for them..that is improving processes at their own expense. It's not something that people care about, but makes their life a little easier down the road..it's trying to get the processes right to save the customer and themselves headaches.
Anyway, it does sound like we are on the same page for the most part..
 
bhyde... it is probably not expressed nearly enough but thank you for giving your valuable time to this forum.

Marshall
 
bhyde said:
20 or so years ago, they were a company of around 6-10 employees and occupied a space at the back of another business. Today they are around 45 employees directly (indirectly many more), have the main building they purchased several years ago and a warehouse across the street they are using for manufacturing as well.





The bold part. Yes to growth leading to more than usual issues until processes and people are placed to mitigate.
For example, it was much easier for Chris himself to check every product leaving the shop 20+years ago. Fewer people and a much smaller volume going out the door. That's pretty easy to understand. Today's volume exiting the shop, it would be exponentially harder for Chris to check each piece himself, so you would need to delegate this function out to others and handle the other day to day business functions such as selling and marketing.
For the most part, the people that are in place do an extremely nice job of keeping things in line as far as quality is concerned..Now and then, you will get something that is just not quite right..close, but not right according to the laws of perfection that Chris set up in the first place. Is it ideal that issues come up? No..and it certainly is not something that the people at CRK want to happen.
Thankfully, they are really good about taking care of it if it does happen. They do sell a number of their parts online that you can purchase and take care of little things like stripped screws..etc. You can still send your knife in to get refurbished at a minimal cost as long as you didn't void the warranty.. They are looking at improving the turnaround time to do these trips to the shop as well.
These perks may not help you if you pinched a washer..broke the tip off of your blade and need a new blade fitted (with limitations of course- discontinued models being difficult to support long term for anyone) . They may be more painful if you live outside of the continental US. If you contact them on the telephone, they are always willing to help.. If by email, it may be a few days, but I have never not gotten a response within a few days.
This is all a good bit of extra insurance for the price of maybe getting something off now and then. I will take it and like it despite only living a few miles from the shop. I would do the same if I lived 2k miles away.
As far as changing processes goes..Some are changed to improve throughput..yes. There are many changes that have happened in the last 20 or so years. Some of them I was not even aware of until just recently. You would never know that these improvements were made..there is no visual indicator of them. For example, the blades in the folders are flat and parallel within .0001in before the hollow grinding operation.
That is not a cost savings for them..that is improving processes at their own expense. It's not something that people care about, but makes their life a little easier down the road..it's trying to get the processes right to save the customer and themselves headaches.
Anyway, it does sound like we are on the same page for the most part..
Click to expand...


Very well said.

I am really enjoying having it back. Gave it a workout all day today remodeling our bathroom. I will post up the pictures with a little review tomorrow for everyone.

Again....thank you everyone for all the input.
 
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ti lock said:
bhyde... it is probably not expressed nearly enough but thank you for giving your valuable time to this forum.

Marshall
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Thanks Marshall!
To be fair, there are a number of members here who contribute and that is what makes this part of the forum fun. Most days, I can just read. Sometimes mess with people..but I consider most people here to be friends with similar tastes.


Gizler00 said:
Very well said.

I am really enjoying having it back. Gave it a workout all day today remodeling our bathroom. I will post up the pictures with a little review tomorrow for everyone.

Again....thank you everyone for all the input.
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I am so sorry that your thread turned into a long diatribe of tangential commentary.
Glad you have your knife back and that you are happy with it!


Bill
 
Gizler, I have been remodeling the dog bathroom at our clinic, was going to post a few pictures up randomly somewhere, but since you're doing the same, mind if I throw them in with yours?
 
Amoo said:
Gizler, I have been remodeling the dog bathroom at our clinic, was going to post a few pictures up randomly somewhere, but since you're doing the same, mind if I throw them in with yours?
Click to expand...


Post them up!!!!
 
bhyde said:
Thanks Marshall!
To be fair, there are a number of members here who contribute and that is what makes this part of the forum fun. Most days, I can just read. Sometimes mess with people..but I consider most people here to be friends with similar tastes.




I am so sorry that your thread turned into a long diatribe of tangential commentary.
Glad you have your knife back and that you are happy with it!


Bill
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No worries my friend!! Thanks for the kind words and the knowledge.
 
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