We need some help. . .

Jerry Busse

Jerry Busse

Moderator
Joined
Aug 20, 1999
Messages
11,991

A member on The Hood’s Woods Forum, named Northwind, experienced a major structural failure with a TOPS knife when he apparently broke off the front portion of his TOPS Anaconda blade while trying to remove it from a log. He also mentioned that when he was chopping with his Busse Basic #9 that he might have hit something that was imbedded in the tree. This apparently caused two little triangular shaped nicks in the edge of his #9. Whatever he hit, whether it be imbedded fencing or gravel, is incidental. What is important is that his Basic #9 is covered by our warranty. We will gladly remove these nicks for him at no charge.

I have not been able to contact him due to the fact that he has no listed email. I tried to post a reply in order to point out that the Busse Combat Warranty covers his knife but we have been banned from posting on the Hood forum. So, if anyone can help us get through to this customer we would certainly appreciate it.

Yours in nuclear Warranties,

Jerry Busse
 
Jerry, I'll say you need help...

Oh, hang on.... you mean you weren't asking to use my house as storage space for all the new projects?
biggrin.gif


Posted a head up on the topic, with this subject as a link... I guess now you can only wait Jerry...

James

------------------
The beast we are, lest the beast we become.
 
So there is open discussion of your products, including critism by Hood, and you are not allowed to respond, yes that seems fair.

I also broke the tip off a Steel Eagle I had, twice, as well as put a perm. bend in the main body of the blade. I would agree with Hood that it is obviously not designed to be a pry bar. Then again, based on its performance, its not designed for cutting/chopping either.

I have some pictures of the Basic #7 in use splitting wood that I'll post up shortly that involve a decent amount of prying. It doesn't seem to mind it. I don't however recommend duplicating the events, not because of possible problems with the knife, but, well, they are simply not overly sensible methods.

In regards to contacting Busse Combat, they have an active website, active emails, and run a forum on Bladeforums, the current largest knife discussion forum. If someone had a problem with one of the knives it is trivial to contact the company for resolution if this is desired.

One comment about the listed damaged to the Basic #9. If you are cutting fresh lumber in your basement then it is easily possible to keep your knife in pretty much NIB condition. However if you are working outside then this is next to impossible simply because of embedded dirt and such.

Experienced woodsmen wanting to preserve thier felling blade (which is usually of higher quality) will carry another cheaper blade that has a much more obtuse grind to remove the bark (which is the main problem), limbs, clean up roots and such.

That being said, a few small dents/rolls in a blade hardly take it out of action. My large blades are rarely in NIB condition because of contacts off of inclusions and surface grit. It is a tremendous waste of metal to grind the edge back to NIB condition every time it gets a little damaged.

-Cliff
 
I tried the link to the For Sale forum and that does appear to be the same Northwind but he has no email listed. If I don't hear from him, I will email the seller to see if he can make contact for us. In the mean time. . . I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

James, Thanks for the "warehousing" offer. . . there is a semi-truck heading your way. . . it might be a little wet when it gets there. . . it's that whole "ocean thing". . . now that's a puddle!

Cliff, All I can say is. . . . . surprise. . . surprise. . . (you can apply that response to several different points made in your post)

Thanks guys!
smile.gif


Yours in nuclear friendship,

Jerry Busse



[This message has been edited by Jerry Busse (edited 03-28-2001).]
 
Hi, Jerry,

I emailed Northwind, so you should be hearing from him. He's a fellow martial artist in my dojo system.

I'm more than certain Mike Fuller will also back up his TOPS product as well.

Peace,

Brian.

------------------
Brian Jones
Co-moderator
Wilderness & Survival Skills Forum
 
Mr. Busse,
I appreciate your concern in this matter. I dont know...it has been one BAD week so im not surprised I was able to do this to two very high quality blades in such a short time. It Figures. The serrations are pretty small and I know it wont affect the ability of this fine blade, but its just one of those things that bugs you. Like hail damage on a car. I have NO idea what on earth it could have been but I would like to get it repaired if possible. My email? Northwind_rea@hotmail.com . Like I said, I do really appreciate your concern. Ive never seen a maker put initiative into finding a customer with a problem, its truly refreshing. I picked up a ceramic stick today, and if you would like I will see what I can do. The steel is actually bent back though through the convex edge, like a little hook. I was just getting online to find contact info for both you and TOPS, and ran across the postings. Brian, I didnt get your email. Please retry, I want to make sure you have my addy right...I always appreciate a Buyu writing. So thank you for your interest, and I look forward to hearing from you. NW Northwind_rea@hotmail.com
 
DOH! Used a dash instead of an underscore in yer email name NW!

~B.

------------------
Brian Jones
Co-moderator
Wilderness & Survival Skills Forum
 
Jerry,

What a great warranty. Probably one that is rarely used due to the quality of your knives. Like you, I was also banned from posting on the Hoodlems Forum.

Odd... how a discussion about knives (on a forum dedicated to such discussions) could lead some people to such anger and outright character assassination. I for one ... refuse to engage in such tactics.

I never thought people would take comments on a knife so personal ... I never expected such a response like I received at:

http://www.bladeforums.com/ubb/Forum18/HTML/001125.html

Nor did I expect the subsequent character assassination that took place on the hoodlem forum.

In addition, I did not expect:

http://www.bladeforums.com/ubb/Forum18/HTML/001130.html

Oh well ... I stand by my post. Your knives are of top quality.

Best to all....

------------------
Greg Davenport
http://www.simply-survival.com

[This message has been edited by Greg Davenport (edited 03-28-2001).]
 
Greg,

Well, you DID agree with me that your language of your original post was a bit strong, remember?
wink.gif


Best,

~B.

[This message has been edited by Brian Jones (edited 03-29-2001).]
 
If you have dented the edge out of shape then you can dent it back into shape. It was very common for this to happen with older tools especially scythes because of the likehood of hitting a rock. You can try a steel to push the edge back into place or careful use of a small hammer and lightly tap any dents back in line.

Of course you can also brute force grind it out, but think of all the steel that is in perfect condition that you are throwing away. As I said above, unless you are extremely careful and/or only use your blade in very controlled situations, this kind of damage will happen on a regular basis on all heavy blades.

While Jerry does make a very tough and strong blade, even they can't cut through rocks and hardened metal and come out in pristine condition. Thus you will see this kind of minor damage from time to time. I can understand the feeling of "spoiling" a perfect blade the first time you marr the edge, but it will happen to each and every blade you own eventually, assuming you use them of course.

Once you sharpen the edge fully yourself the first time, major honing I mean, not just stropping. You will feel much more secure about using the blade as you know that you can "fix" anything that happens to it. And what you can't then well Busse will, so no worries. This is why one of the first things I do to blades is to cut material that will take the edge right off of them and thus I need to sharpen it fully. On light use blades I use old carpet, on larger blades I just dig through rocky soil.


As for Greg's comments, if he had made the same tone of comments but reversed them (TOPS over Busse) does anyone think that Hood would have had a problem - no of course not. It was not simply the tone but the content. Proof exists rather strongly in the Hood forum where such comments are made on a regular basis.

It is also true that Busse would not respond as Hood did to critisms about his blade even if they are made forceful and in the extreme. I know because I have done so many a time on the phone to Busse where he doesn't need to be as PC as he is on the forum, and I have used far "stronger" language than Greg did.

No blade outperforms all others in all aspects except unless the user lives on Fantasy Island. I have described in detail to Busse how blades I have outperform the ones I have of his being specific about the ways and the extent. The only result is a query for information on the reverse (their weakpoints) and then to discuss what this means towards an overall measure of functionality. What has to be sacrificed for the gain etc. .

He seems truely interested to know how his blades perform and not just to the extent as to how they outperform other knives.

-Cliff

[This message has been edited by Cliff Stamp (edited 03-29-2001).]
 
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