What's the problem with Queens back springs

B

BoilerUp17

Joined
Feb 19, 2015
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Last night while watching tv I went to open up my Queen Mountain Man only to have the back spring split right in half rendering the blade a floppy useless mess. I have read on this forum that a few others have had the same thing happen to them. But only after 9 months of normal use and extreme care I am very disappointed that this happened. Is anyone familiar with there reapair policies and willing to share there experiences before I send my right hand man across the country to be fumbled with by a company who couldn't do the job rite the first time?
 
Do a "search" for Queen Repair.

That is disappointing. In years past (pre-2009) Queen made some of the finest knives on the market and then QC slipped. It was the hope of many of us that when Ken Daniels bought Queen that the Queen product would improve dramatically. It hasnt happened. Some things are improving but it has been slow.

I know that doesn't help your situation. The thing I'd suggest is to get ahold of Queen (e-mail or phone) and then send the knife to them for replacement. I'd deal with Queen and not the dealer on this one as you have had if for a long time.
 
Do you know when the Mountain Man was made? Not that it will help you, but I'm curious. I've heard from a couple dealers that Queen has gotten a bit better recently, and that has been my (very limited) experience as well. I've been really happy with this year's knives especially, though they might exhibit the broken springs in the future. I'm curious to know if this was a 2014 knife or maybe one that was made in the pre-Daniels era.
 
Modoc ED said:
Do a "search" for Queen Repair.

That is disappointing. In years past (pre-2009) Queen made some of the finest knives on the market and then QC slipped. It was the hope of many of us that when Ken Daniels bought Queen that the Queen product would improve dramatically. It hasnt happened. Some things are improving but it has been slow.

I know that doesn't help your situation. The thing I'd suggest is to get ahold of Queen (e-mail or phone) and then send the knife to them for replacement. I'd deal with Queen and not the dealer on this one as you have had if for a long time.
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This^^^

Sounds like a bad heat treat on the back springs. If they are too hard the will snap instead of flex after a while.
 
Yep BTDT

I had onebrokenspring repaired only to have it fail again muy pronto. It was one of the first run 1095s and a wonderful knife. Been in a drawer since then. Ah well I hope you have better luck than I had.
Will
 
I've had two of the mountain man style folder backsprings break as well as the main spring on a three blade stock knife from Queen. The strange thing was in all cases the knives were simply sitting a drawer and not being used. I pulled them out to carry them only to find a broken spring. Queen doesn't seem to do springs very well.
 
I know it doesn't help your situation and I hope Queen will fix you up, but I was just going to say that if this is perhaps one of your favorite knives that sees a lot of pocket time, maybe a modder could make a decent replacement for you. That could get expensive though. Just a thought.

I'd be less than happy with a broken spring on a pretty new knife like that. From the other posts, I would think Queen has to be aware of this issue. Why hasn't it been corrected?
 
Thanks everyone for your insights. I do believe Queen would not repair the knife and simply send me a replacement. Knowing that they come up short in this area I'm thinking I could take it to a custom maker and see if he could fix it and toughen it up since it will see a great amount of use.
 
Joe58 said:
I would think Queen has to be aware of this issue. Why hasn't it been corrected?
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It may have. That's why I'm interested to know when these knives with the broken backsprings were made. This could be an issue that was corrected five years ago, but the springs from that time are still breaking. I've just recently gotten into collecting Queen knives, and would like to know whether this is still an issue or not. Can somebody that has posted that they've had Queen backsprings snap on them please post when the knives where made?
 
I'd also like to hear when they were made, good point Cory.

Touching a lot of wood, I've never had this hideous thing happen on any knife. It must be due to inadequate heat treat or perhaps the Queen D2 steel is too much for the stainless backsprings? It should be covered by any lifetime warranty as it's hardly a fault you can induce by abusing the knife!
 
Not trying to be smart/wise arse here but - in the search box type in broken spring and there are quite a few threads you can go through to research broken springs on Queen knives.
 
I appreciate the suggestion. I have searched Queen broken backspring, broken spring, and broken spring Queen. The threads that pop up are all from 2013 or earlier, and the 2013 threads talk about knives that are "a couple of years old". DrPenguin says his broken spring was on one of the first 1095 runs. I find threads about Queens in 1095 from 2005, so it would have to be made before then. My question is, is this Mountain Man from that time frame (before ~2010 - 2011) or more recent? The OP says that he's had the knife for 9 months, but I have a GEC that I purchased last week that is stamped 2012, so just because he bought it recently doesn't mean that it was made recently. I can do a search and pull up a dozen threads from six or seven years ago about the extremely stiff pulls on GEC knives, that doesn't mean that the new 38 whittlers are going to have extremely stiff pulls. The issue has been addressed and those threads are no longer relevant for new GEC knives. It is entirely possible that I'm missing pertinent threads or posts. If that's the case, could you please point me to them? I admit that I have a hard time finding things here sometimes.

My question is, did Queen fix this issue and we're seeing knives from years ago that are still exhibiting the problem or are new Queens still being shipped out with these same issues? I don't mean to hijack the thread or keep harping on the same question, but it seems silly to open another thread on this issue and the question hasn't been answered.

To attempt to answer the OP's question, the most recently documented Queen's response to warranty work was a thread by Cuts Like A Kris in the GB&U forum. It isn't confidence inspiring: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1274157-Horrible-return-customer-service-from-Queen?highlight=queen

I personally sent them a couple emails about some new knives I bought a couple of weeks ago. They never responded. I took that as a bad cue and returned the knives to the dealer. Hopefully you have a better experience.
 
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BoilerUp17

Call or email Queen

Tell them they have a reputation to fix and they will do that my fixing your knife

Good luck

keep us updated
 
Manufacturer warranty and warranty work aside, I don't think we can conclude there is a backspring epidemic here. Although I agree with a generally diminished fit/finish over the last years, I have seen no evidence that there is any higher percentage failure rate in backsprings such as being suggested here. It would be interesting to know the year of manufacture, if possible, but I think we can expect to see a nominal percentage of backspring failures from any given year - and any given pattern.
 
Mike, Have you noticed any improvement in QC since Daniels took over? My newest Queen-made knife is from 2009. Both blades were off center and hitting the liners. One blade was a nail breaker and the other barely had any snap at all. The nail breaker eased up a bit and the weak spring hasn't gotten any weaker but it's developed side-to-side play. It's a shame. They have such nice patterns.

Actually, I have one newer one but it was marked "EDC" so I can't really draw any conclusions.
 
BoilerUp17 said:
Thanks everyone for your insights. I do believe Queen would not repair the knife and simply send me a replacement. Knowing that they come up short in this area I'm thinking I could take it to a custom maker and see if he could fix it and toughen it up since it will see a great amount of use.
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Queen did in fact repair my knife, replaced the backspring. I had done a lot of work convexing the D2 blades and they were very careful with them. It came back exact with a brand new backspring. This was years ago but a simple email to Queen seems to be the thing to start with.
 
E-mails can get lost. If you want satisfaction, don't come here, but use the phone instead.

I look at a lot of used knives. I've seen many older Queens in very good shape (no pun intended :) ) I've seen just about every brand (except for GEC since they are new) with a broken backspring. Often times, broken backspring knives are the source of parts for "frankenknives" cobbled together by unscrupulous collector/cutlers.
 
supratentorial said:
Mike, Have you noticed any improvement in QC since Daniels took over? My newest Queen-made knife is from 2009. Both blades were off center and hitting the liners. One blade was a nail breaker and the other barely had any snap at all. The nail breaker eased up a bit and the weak spring hasn't gotten any weaker but it's developed side-to-side play. It's a shame. They have such nice patterns.

Actually, I have one newer one but it was marked "EDC" so I can't really draw any conclusions.
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It probably would not be fair to Queen to judge them on what was made soon after the transition as they were using a lot of spare parts to get a product to market in order to keep the lights on. But, over the last year it has seemed hit and miss with the quality trending upward. There are still a ton of EDC and SECONDS showing up on the market, which says they are trying real hard to insure a quality product goes out the front door. I have not noticed a "parts" or heat treat problem, only a fit problem in the situations that I was disappointed.
 
I heard from the Queen Collectors Club at the Mason Dixon knife show that the original owners of Queen, Servitronics, did a bad heat treat on an enormous amount of backsprings. That was followed up by them not scrapping the backsprings but using them. Now, the Daniels are trying to rectify that situation. My recent Queens have not had any issues, but one of my Schatt and Morgan Heritage jacks had a bad main blade backspring, while the pen blade backspring is almost perfect. This one is in bone, I have another in ebony and another in rosewood, and they are in great shape, no issues knock on wood.
 
For those who were interested I am almost certain that this knife was made prior to the Daniels era. This is only based on the date of purchase as I don't know how to accurately date the knife.
 
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