What do you think about this spine?

F

Flying4Pandas

Joined
Aug 18, 2008
Messages
57
Just received this knife in the mail from BladeHq. After initial opening of the box and admiring the knife, I immediately noticed that the spine is not symmetrical. It may be difficult to see from the photos, but the right hand side of the blade, the spine chamfers off sooner from the pivot point of the knife. Hopefully you can distinguish what I am referring to with the photos. The knife is an Asheville Steel Paragon Pheonix

My question is, for a price tag of $290... is this acceptable?

QZ1m4S3.jpg

1D5zdLB.jpg


I'll try to take some better photos, its difficult to catch what your eyes sees with the black cerakote blade.
Links to photos:
http://imgur.com/a/UUA9x
http://imgur.com/a/3ln0K
 
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Placed links to the photos:

I'm having trouble loading an image, isnt it just a set of Brackets containing the word IMG and /IMG?
 
Flying4Pandas said:
Placed links to the photos:

I'm having trouble loading an image, isnt it just a set of Brackets containing the word IMG and /IMG?
Click to expand...

In the future you can make it easy, imgur provides you a copy button that will put the correct syntax on the clipboard for you:

1oKdXsP.jpg
 
Its entirely up to you what you find acceptable or not. I personally wouldn't worry about it. Two years ago it would have been a different story as I was very particular about such things. But having owned countless knives since then and my experiences before then I discovered my expectations were too high. Not that a perfect knife cant be made. Its just that most companies have a "good enough" policy and there is a pain threshold of imperfections they will allow before scraping a whole knife that is otherwise perfectly fine. If it makes you feel any better I have had ZT and Microtechs that were more off than that.
 
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Flying4Pandas said:
I got it, thank you for the help!
Click to expand...

No problem, happy to help if I can.

I'm having a hard time figuring out the answer to your question, though. I can't really tell how far off the grinds are in your photo, the look off but not very far off to me, but it's hard to tell from the images.

It's a subjective thing in any case, as it won't affect how the knife performs.
 
Looks perfectly usable to me, not sure what you were really expecting. It's a production knife and little things like that are common and mostly acceptable as long as they do not affect the overall function & integrity of the knife.
 
I can see both sides of the swedge. And by swedge, I mean argument. $290 is a lot for a knife, and sure you want it to be perfect. But hand-ground symmetry is an impressive and exclusive feat, meaning it is rare. Your spine's asymmetry wouldn't give me cause to return it. Even if it were machine ground, we're talking maybe a millimeter of material on one side that will never ever affect functionality and will only be noticeable to someone who is trying to guilt trip himself into feeling bad about what he spent. I'd say enjoy it and use it. The first mark you put on that blade, you'll love the knife an order of magnitude more because it did its job and served you to cut, and you won't care about little cosmetic flaws anymore, either.
 
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Thanks for your help guys. I think I will call BladeHQ and talk to them about when they'll expect to receive another shipment of these knives in. The knife is awesome, the opening mechanism is unique and appealing. However its hard for me to "unsee" what I have now seen.
 
What kind of knife is that? But to be honest even if you get one with a perfect swedge understand you very likely will find something else you don't like on another. Possibly an even more glaring defect not so easily missed. I have had countless times where I have returned a knife for a cosmetic defect only to wish I had kept the original as the subsequent replacements had issues that were even worse.


EDITED: Nevermind. Its a paragon. No offense but I would consider yourself lucky that it wasn't worse. Paragon is well known for making well made knives but not perfect in aesthetics. If that is all you can find wrong with it I would count your lucky stars.
 
PURPLEDC said:
What kind of knife is that? But to be honest even if you get one with a perfect swedge understand you very likely will find something else you don't like on another. Possibly an even more glaring defect not so easily missed. I have had countless times where I have returned a knife for a cosmetic defect only to wish I had kept the original as the subsequent replacements had issues that were even worse.
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Good point! This small defect might be the best I can expect.

The knife is a Asheville Steel Paragon Pheonix. The knife will be a shelf queen in my collection. I am in love with this mechanism that opens and closes the knifes blade and own a Asheville Steel Paragon Warlock as well.
 
I'd be more gutted by that horrible looking handle with the huge gappy seam up the middle.

Looks like one of those early 80s fake bayonet/survival knives they'd sell at Army Surplus stores.
 
I've received many knives with swedge grinding off, some more, some less. The first time I saw it on a $300 knife, it was a little annoying to say the least. But then I would think back to a couple experiences I had early in my knife buying frenzy.

Both knives returned (at different times) for cosmetic issues that to me l, seemed significant. And both were traded out with new knives. The first one came with another similar, but different cosmetic issue. The second was cosmetically perfect in every way....but, had a significant difference in the action, to my detriment. I chose to be satisfied for the reasons that attracted me to the knives in the first place. And decided to choose my battles a little more carefully in the future. I'm not trying to discount your specific experience. Just sharing a couple of my experiences with somewhat similar issue. I wish you well and satisfaction in however you approach it.



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Sent from my mind....using Tap-a-Thought. (tm)
 
Danke42 said:
I'd be more gutted by that horrible looking handle with the huge gappy seam up the middle.

Looks like one of those early 80s fake bayonet/survival knives they'd sell at Army Surplus stores.
Click to expand...

I think the huge gappy seam disappears when the knife is closed, but I don't own one so I'm not sure (the knife has a novel opening method insomuch as it's a hidden gravity knife revealed by squeezing the pivot causing the handle slabs to separate and allow the free-swinging blade to be flicked). It looks kind of neat, but if I want to open a knife that way I'd just as soon use my beloved axis lock (you can wrist flick every one of my Benchmades--the axis is lock is fantastic, but providing a strong detent is not its forte).
 
Here's how the knife works (the Phoenix is a variant of the Warlock):

[video=youtube;E9c6jVdZD7U]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9c6jVdZD7U[/video]

And what the innards look like:

[video=youtube;lRBi_y8t7tE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRBi_y8t7tE[/video]

The slight asymmetry in the spine grind wouldn't bother me, but like marci said, it's up to you. If it's going to bug you, return it. You might see if they'd be willing to look at a couple and see if there's one that doesn't have this issue that they could send you. :thumbup:
 
If you put any production knife under a microscope, you will find something.
If it was me, and the knife's action was good, I'd be keeping it. That's me though.
If it annoys you, return it. Just know you WILL find something with its replacement.
Good luck!
Joe
 
I live in Asheville and these things are in several of the gunships and pawnshops around here. I have examined many of them and you are indeed lucky to get one with such a minor flaw. Their prices just floor me for what you get.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk
 
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