Very disappointed with my Commander

Chounch McGavin

Chounch McGavin

Joined
Nov 20, 2006
Messages
110
I just received a supposed brand-new Commander BT from Smokey Mountain Knife Works -- smkw.com -- in the mail. It has approx 5% lockup. I mean, this thing is unacceptable. And to make matters worse, SMKW.com slapped a barcode sticker on the blade. That's ok, right? I can easily peel it off. Wrong! It's the kind of sticker that you have to scrape off with your nail for 20 minutes.

Even my abused CQC7B is locking up at 90%

I should have ordered directly from Emerson
 
Strange that a new knife would be locking up so late like that. Are you sure they did not send you the display knife that 100,000 have flipped already. Sorry to hear about this, if you explain this to Emerson I am sure they would be happy to replace the lock bar Ti for you. Especially since it was a "brand new knife".
 
Over Kill said:
Strange that a new knife would be locking up so late like that. Are you sure they did not send you the display knife that 100,000 have flipped already. Sorry to hear about this, if you explain this to Emerson I am sure they would be happy to replace the lock bar Ti for you. Especially since it was a "brand new knife".
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I believe the barcode/pricetag sticker on the blade supports your assumption that this thing was a display knife.
 
Chounch McGavin said:
I just received a supposed brand-new Commander BT from Smokey Mountain Knife Works -- smkw.com -- in the mail. It has approx 5% lockup. I mean, this thing is unacceptable. And to make matters worse, SMKW.com slapped a barcode sticker on the blade. That's ok, right? I can easily peel it off. Wrong! It's the kind of sticker that you have to scrape off with your nail for 20 minutes.

Even my abused CQC7B is locking up at 90%

I should have ordered directly from Emerson
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Do you mean it only engages 5% or it only has 5% left before it hits the other liner? Either way, I agree that it's unacceptable for a new knife. Yeah, the blade sticker would tell me that this is a heavily groped display knife. IMAO, those should always be sold at a bit of a discount and indicated to be a display model before the buyer agrees to take it.

OTOH, I've had 6 or 7 Emersons since 2011 (from other dealers) and all have been excellent in F&F and performance. My mini-15 is my "go to" folder 6 days a week now for warehouse, home, and general stuff. The liner lock started out engaging just the width of the lockbar (about 50% of the blade thickness at the tang) and has never moved since the first time I opened it. No flex in the lockbar under reasonable stress... no issues of any kind.

Good luck with yours.
 
I received a new Commander SFS directly from Emerson, made in 2012, and I believe the lockup was even less than 5% so I sent it back for repair. It came back with a much greater percentage of lockup but the only problem was that after I deployed the blade using the wave feature, it took both my thumbs against the lockbar -- while the knife laid on a table -- and putting the pressure of my 200 lbs of body weight onto the lockbar, just to get it to release. I have done this over and over, thinking it may "loosen" the stickiness of the lockup but it doesn't seem to help.
I have been attempting to establish contact with Emerson regarding this matter for a week and a half and am still looking forward to resolution. Since I have had no problems with my Journeyman or CQC7, and given the praises of other Commander owners, I think I got a lemon. I really like the knife a lot -- it's just that I need to be able to close it with one hand.
 
You might try taking a #2 pencil and rubbing the lead on the blade tang. A little touch of graphite will help ease the spalling effect of the blade steel and the liner's titanium.
 
Indiana Joe said:
I received a new Commander SFS directly from Emerson, made in 2012, and I believe the lockup was even less than 5% so I sent it back for repair. It came back with a much greater percentage of lockup but the only problem was that after I deployed the blade using the wave feature, it took both my thumbs against the lockbar -- while the knife laid on a table -- and putting the pressure of my 200 lbs of body weight onto the lockbar, just to get it to release. I have done this over and over, thinking it may "loosen" the stickiness of the lockup but it doesn't seem to help.
I have been attempting to establish contact with Emerson regarding this matter for a week and a half and am still looking forward to resolution. Since I have had no problems with my Journeyman or CQC7, and given the praises of other Commander owners, I think I got a lemon. I really like the knife a lot -- it's just that I need to be able to close it with one hand.
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Don't scare me like that. I just placed my order with them earlier today.
 
Indiana Joe said:
I have been attempting to establish contact with Emerson regarding this matter for a week and a half and am still looking forward to resolution.
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Why don't you try picking up the phone and calling them....... They WILL answer the phone......;)
 
Hearing stuff like this about Emerson really makes me never want to deal with them.

I cannot stand ernie from his ridiculous posts on here. "do you know how it feels to break your hand on someones face?" ect ect.

Im purchasing a new blade soon and would love a roadhouse but I just hear way to many bad things.
 
nuckingfuts said:
Hearing stuff like this about Emerson really makes me never want to deal with them.

I cannot stand ernie from his ridiculous posts on here. "do you know how it feels to break your hand on someones face?" ect ect.

Im purchasing a new blade soon and would love a roadhouse but I just hear way to many bad things.
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NF, I think that it was Winston Churchill that said words to the effect, 'Bad news makes it's way around the globe, before good news can get it's pants on'. What I am saying, is that I have had nothing but good experiences dealing with EKI and none of my Emerson knives have been problematic in any way, shape, or form. EKI is a family run business rather than an impersonal large corporation. Can they make mistakes? Sure. Will they correct any problems? Absolutely.

Give a Roadhouse a try, NF and if you don't like it, you will have no problem selling it.
 
cevtv said:
Why don't you try picking up the phone and calling them....... They WILL answer the phone......;)
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Agreed! They do answer! I called several times after the initial fix on the lockbar. The problem is that they want me to deal with one individual, which is fine with me, but she hasn't returned my calls for -- well, tomorrow it will be two weeks. I think I will email them instead.

In the interest of full disclosure, this is the only negative experience I've had with Emerson. It's my third knife from them. For the price point, I don't feel like I should have to go through this much effort to get this type of sticky lockup issue resolved. Some great solutions have been presented so far and I appreciate them, but it seems to me that I shouldn't have to do a temporary fix --- what if I had gotten deployed a few days after receiving the knife? It's a hard-use knife that I would've liked to rely on & it would have been useless to me.

Truth of the matter is that it may not be may be EKI's fault -- it may simply be the lady I'm having to deal with. But the folks answering the phone won't assist me, they simply speak to someone in the background and then take a message.
 
Indiana Joe said:
Agreed! They do answer! I called several times after the initial fix on the lockbar. The problem is that they want me to deal with one individual, which is fine with me, but she hasn't returned my calls for -- well, tomorrow it will be two weeks. I think I will email them instead.

In the interest of full disclosure, this is the only negative experience I've had with Emerson. It's my third knife from them. For the price point, I don't feel like I should have to go through this much effort to get this type of sticky lockup issue resolved. Some great solutions have been presented so far and I appreciate them, but it seems to me that I shouldn't have to do a temporary fix --- what if I had gotten deployed a few days after receiving the knife? It's a hard-use knife that I would've liked to rely on & it would have been useless to me.

Truth of the matter is that it may not be may be EKI's fault -- it may simply be the lady I'm having to deal with. But the folks answering the phone won't assist me, they simply speak to someone in the background and then take a message.
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I don't understand why your issue has not been resolved yet. If I were you, I would call every day, more than once a day if necessary, to ensure that [insert any company's name] was on top of my situation. There is absolutely no reason for you to wait two weeks. Honestly, just tell them you want a replacement or a refund. If that doesn't go through, Ryan @ Bluelinegear.com sells the Commander SFS and he will hook you up!
 
I bought a user CQC-7V off the marketplace several months back. This was my 2nd Emerson after a mini-Commander.

When I got it, I saw that the lockup was past 50%. Since I am from the Philippines and couldn't send the knife back in easily, I took a pic of the lockup and sent it in an email to EKI. They replied that that was not unusual for their knives and that I had nothing to worry about. But if I would feel more comfortable sending it in, they would be more than happy to fix it for me. But I could live with it so I didn't send it in.

I have no doubt Emerson will take care of you. Give them a call.

My 2 cents.

Good luck!
 
Well, I'm officially done with Emerson. I just received another low quality Commander directly from Emerson Knives. The lock-up is just as terrible as the display model I grabbed from smkw.com

I told the customer service lady what I was looking for and they still did not deliver. I guess I'll sell off my collection and buy more Strider tools.
 
Any pics of the lock up? Blade sticker? Possibly any other defects or flaws? Was the lock up extremely early 5% or extremely late with only 5% left before touching the other liner?
 
To recap, my super-early lockup issue was resolved very quickly by EKI but the Commander was returned to me with a super-sticky lock. The good news? Today I was briefly put on hold and finally put through to the young lady I'd been dealing with a couple weeks ago. She apologized for the long delay in responding to me (she had been very ill) and suggested to me that there may have been a batch of Commanders that came out during that particular run and that she will send me a completely different Commander -- and she will even personally inspect it for me before mailing it out. I did not ask her to do this (although I had thought about doing so!) and was delighted at the news.

Twice during the call she said that she will have her "dad" look at my sticky knife so he can try to see what may have happened during that run. Uhhh, Ernie has a couple daughters that work for him at EKI, doesn't he? It kind of make sense that she is the person (or, one of several?) who fixes the knives that are sent in. It just seemed like a strange thing to say during my conversation, that's all.

Either way, I now feel like I am being taken care of. Although I didn't ask, I am kinda glad she volunteered that she had been ill -- it certainly helps me to understand why things felt like they'd been dragging along.
 
Chounch McGavin said:
Well, I'm officially done with Emerson. I just received another low quality Commander directly from Emerson Knives. The lock-up is just as terrible as the display model I grabbed from smkw.com

I told the customer service lady what I was looking for and they still did not deliver. I guess I'll sell off my collection and buy more Strider tools.
Click to expand...

Your terminology for the lockup is backwards by common use. If you asked for a Commander with a 90% lockup then that is exactly what they gave you.
 
Rob, I think I got that one backwards too. So, if the lockup is such that it only engages the first 5%, is that called "95% lockup?"
 
No, I think you had it right. Typically people attribute an increasing percentage to the amount that the lockbar has traveled. For instance, a 20% lockup would describe a lockbar that travels 20% of the way across the tang to lock the knife, and a 70% lockup would be further across the tang.

Stating that the lockup is a diminishing percentage as the lock progresses is viewed as backwards by general usage. The percentage of lockup increases rather than decreases relative to the lockbar's position on the tang, or the lock's "age" so to speak.

It seems to me that Chounch has it reversed, where the percentage starts at 100 and diminishes as it progresses.
 
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