When it's not exactly Made in the USA - Hoback

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Silent H said:
Just check out how he treated the poster of this thread: https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/button-lock-wear-‘got-a-reply-from-the-knifemaker’.1757693/
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Kmikaz3 said:
« Hi,
I was hoping you would reach out to us, I had a long time collector inform me about a less than stellar post made by someone on Blade forums about my new Sumo design so I was hoping to be able to chat with whoever it was that had the issue so it could get sorted out. Really our customer service is always on the look out for any issues or questions and always ready and willing to help as long as we know about what’s going on.


I read the thread over, but I don’t have a login to Blade forums so I wasn’t able to reach out to you to correct your misunderstanding of the design/materials/and situation. It is very unfortunate that you made the post as you didn’t give me chance to speak with you about the issue before it gave us negative press.


To be somewhat forward… your knife has nothing wrong with it. But I would like to explain why it is doing what you see and how so that you have a clear understanding of the nature of it all. Please feel free to post this email on blade forums so people don’t think we make a sub standard product.


  • 1st button material: 17-4ph H1100 hardness. Which equates to about 34HRC converted. I have found through testing that having a button that is as hard as the blade will cause issues with lock stick/slip/breakage, so we use 17-4PH H1100 as a perfect candidate material for button locks. Most places use 440c but I have found that it does not work as well as 17-4PH, but the issue lays in the fact that 440C is less expensive than 17-4 so often it gets used for that reason. We don’t compromise when it comes to materials.
  • 2nd The minor wear you are seeing is from two things.
  1. When you open the knife the button acts as the detent, so there will be minor wear as the button overcomes the spring pressure and releases the blade. The button is portion that touches the blade is roughly .250 dia, which is measuring the wear pattern (looks to be about .02 wide) you would have a theoretical wear cycle of at the very least 1000 openings per .02 section equating to 12,500 openings before wear “could” present its self as a issue. I’m highly dubious this will ever be an issue in using the knife as it was intended (as a cutting implement)
  2. The button acts as the lock face when open, minor wear point as the thumb studs stop the blade and the button just holds it open. Unless your beating on the spine of the knife, you will not really see much if any wear from this part of the mechanism. So I would say you should get between 20,000-50,000 locking cycles. But I have no empirical evidence to back this up.

Having a said that very long winded response. Ill back it up with our normal message to anyone who has ever bought something from me. Send me a message and if there is a legitimate issue Ill fix it. If you wear the knife out more than likely there will only be a nominal charge to get it functioning again. Pretty simple and easy.


Please feel free to post this email in its entirety on Blade forums or anywhere else you made posts about this so people can see that we addressed your issues and are available any time, so long as we know there is a problem. I’m still sorting out my mind reading capabilities so you’ll have to bare with me until I get that sorted if you don’t post this email Ill see if I can get a login and do so my self.


P.S. to the person/s who think titanium is a better button or stronger than stainless steel, they need to actually ready some empirical data and stop posting erroneous information. They are incorrect. Titanium makes a terrible lock either button/leaf/liner/ or anything else for that matter. The only good thing it has going for it is, its natural tendency to spring back to original shape, and its super cool (or so I’ve been told) but what do I know? I’ve only been a knife maker for a short time .
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How about this:

Jake Hoback could have said:
Thanks for reaching out to us about this. Seeing the photos, I can understand your concerns.

  • 1st button material: 17-4ph H1100 hardness. Which equates to about 34HRC converted. I have found through testing that having a button that is as hard as the blade will cause issues with lock stick/slip/breakage, so we use 17-4PH H1100 as a perfect candidate material for button locks. Most places use 440c but I have found that it does not work as well as 17-4PH, but the issue lays in the fact that 440C is less expensive than 17-4 so often it gets used for that reason. We don’t compromise when it comes to materials.
  • 2nd The minor wear you are seeing is from two things.
  1. When you open the knife the button acts as the detent, so there will be minor wear as the button overcomes the spring pressure and releases the blade. The button is portion that touches the blade is roughly .250 dia, which is measuring the wear pattern (looks to be about .02 wide) you would have a theoretical wear cycle of at the very least 1000 openings per .02 section equating to 12,500 openings before wear “could” present its self as a issue. I’m highly dubious this will ever be an issue in using the knife as it was intended (as a cutting implement)
  2. The button acts as the lock face when open, minor wear point as the thumb studs stop the blade and the button just holds it open. Unless your beating on the spine of the knife, you will not really see much if any wear from this part of the mechanism. So I would say you should get between 20,000-50,000 locking cycles. But I have no empirical evidence to back this up.

However, if the knife wears out, send it to us and we'll restore the function for you at only the cost of return shipping.
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My guess is this way the gentleman would have had no problem reposting that to Bladeforums, and Jake would not have made himself look like a big meanie.
 
Monofletch said:
On every knife……

Jake Hoback Psalm 23

We are Christians who share our faith, in part, through the inscriptions on our knives. Ps23 stands for "Psalm 23," and is a personal favorite that inspires us in our work: The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.
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Looks like a classic Lionel Hutz mistake:

a9TcH1I.png


That's what they printed, but it's missing the crucial comma:

He makes me lie, down in green pastures.
 
When will knife makers learn that they need to check their ego at the door when it comes to a dissatisfied customer? The guy took the smartass approach because he got offended by this thread, when he should’ve been doing everything in his power to work to resolve the issues and perhaps take it as a moment to grow.

Something like “I sincerely apologize for all of this and here’s what I’m going to do going forward.” Instead, we get the passive aggressive attitude and patronizing technical explanation.

Well… I guess Hoback can enjoy seeing this thread everytime someone Google searches his name.
 
"Weasel wording" is a thing.

I spent a career dealing with it with defendants and their attorneys. (They all still went to the big house...despite the wriggling.)

I don't know the facts here as I've no skin in the game...but I hope it gets sorted.
 
David Mary said:
How about this:



My guess is this way the gentleman would have had no problem reposting that to Bladeforums, and Jake would not have made himself look like a big meanie.
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Exactly this! My guess is that courteous replies isn’t his forte and his ego got the best if him. Similarly how he responded to all this usa made so called by his own word « witch hunt »
 
I’m gonna just play devil’s advocate here for some thought inducing.

Do I like Hoback knives? Not particularly. They are not my cup o’ tea, so to say. Do I know Jake, I do not. Do I own Hoback’s? I do not.

However, Jake has listed the countries where parts are made. He has the obligation to state what is required by law. So if he falls in the category that he can say “made in USA,” then he isn’t doing anything wrong.

The issue I see (IMO) here is transparency. But how far do we take that? So we want to have a list of parts and where they are made from Jake? Are we gonna step it up to asking all “Made in USA” makers where the machines that make all their parts are made? What about the vehicle they drive to get to work? Are any parts on it made elsewhere? What about the screws and nails that hold their homes and businesses together?

I don’t know many/if any companies that don’t use fasteners or little parts that are made in another country.
Part of having a profitable business is to keep costs down to not have to download that cost to the consumer.

I am pro Canada & USA made. But am I willing to pay an extra $100 to have screws made here domestically? No. Am I willing to pay an extra $10 to have the hardware made domestically? Yes. That being said, I would never open a fastener company domestically because that extra $10 isn’t even going to pay for me shipping the screws, let alone all the overhead I would have.

Is it frustrating to find it easier to support overseas manufacturing? Absolutely. But instead of complaining about it, open a domestic manufacturing plant and see if you can compete.

*I in no way condone the way Hoback knives has gone about bringing this to light, however I don’t see anything illegal about it. So it just comes down to how you feel. I also do not condone the way he responded to Kmikaz3 Kmikaz3 with the issue in the other thread.

Just devil’s advocate here.

*Edit for how I really feel. Haha.
All I know is that Hoback needs to get their priorities straight. Just make the list. Is it really that big of a deal?
 
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Sharp & Fiery said:
I’m gonna just play devil’s advocate here for some thought inducing.

Do I like Hoback knives? Not particularly. They are not my cup o’ tea, so to say. Do I know Jake, I do not. Do I own Hoback’s? I do not.

However, Jake has listed the countries where parts are made. He has the obligation to state what is required by law. So if he falls in the category that he can say “made in USA,” then he isn’t doing anything wrong.

The issue I see (IMO) here is transparency. But how far do we take that? So we want to have a list of parts and where they are made from Jake? Are we gonna step it up to asking all “Made in USA” makers where the machines that make all their parts are made? What about the vehicle they drive to get to work? Are any parts on it made elsewhere? What about the screws and nails that hold their homes and businesses together?

I don’t know many/if any companies that don’t use fasteners or little parts that are made in another country.
Part of having a profitable business is to keep costs down to not have to download that cost to the consumer.

I am pro Canada & USA made. But am I willing to pay an extra $100 to have screws made here domestically? No. Am I willing to pay an extra $10 to have the hardware made domestically? Yes. That being said, I would never open a fastener company domestically because that extra $10 isn’t even going to pay for me shipping the screws, let alone all the overhead I would have.

Is it frustrating to find it easier to support overseas manufacturing? Absolutely. But instead of complaining about it, open a domestic manufacturing plant and see if you can compete.

*I in no way condone the way Hoback knives has gone about bringing this to light, however I don’t see anything illegal about it. So it just comes down to how you feel. I also do not condone the way he responded to Kmikaz3 Kmikaz3 with the issue in the other thread.

Just devil’s advocate here.

All I know is that Hoback needs to get their priorities straight. Just make the list. Is it really that big of a deal?
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The problem of course being that he is too much of an arrogant you know what to tell us if the big expensive bits are made in the USA.

If they are, say so. If not, we will speculate that they aren't and in the eyes of many, the knife isn't near worth the cost if we have to guess.
 
We adjusted our Country of origin on all of our Hoback products to Unknown this morning - we are not happy with what is - at best - a lie of omission about where these are made. The site has a laundry list of countries as suppliers or manufacturers now - if you look at it on archive.org this was not the case previously.

Overseas production is not a bad thing, however, strongly implying that these are USA Made and refusing to give any specificity on where they are actually made absolutely is. We have cancelled all purchase orders with Hoback and reaching out to him for the truth about these knives.
 
craytab said:
The problem of course being that he is too much of an arrogant you know what to tell us if the big expensive bits are made in the USA.

If they are, say so. If not, we will speculate that they aren't and in the eyes of many, the knife isn't near worth the cost if we have to guess.
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Definitely in agreement with this.
 
Transparency:

Up until early 2021 (according the internet archive) there was no mention of country of origin for his knives.

Early 2021 this was added:

  • Where are your knives made?
Our shop in located in a beautiful, remote part of Idaho! In the manufacture of our knives, we utilize sources based on cost and competitive advantage. For example, the majority of steel comes from Germany and Sweden, titanium comes from Russia, and almost all hardware available in the United States comes from China. We use domestic sources wherever possible, for component parts and to subcontract work like cutting and adding custom finishes.

All knives are QC’d, fitted and shipped directly from our shop in Idaho. We are committed to supplying our customers with a quality product backed by an outstanding warranty and excellent customer service.
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It was recently edited again with an even more extensive disclaimer.

As for how he treated the button lock issue, this explains it a lot more. As a small shop or custom maker, if your product has an issue, you have a pride and personal stake in it, you want to find out what happened and how to fix it. As an importer/assembler you see someone nitpicking a problem you have zero control over because it’s somebody else making the parts and if there’s something minor amiss you have a potentially huge headache someone is making for you over something your supplier did. You can’t go and fix the issue easily because you’re not set up to fix it personally.
 
I'm also leery of anyone who sells any product via the Mike Lindell method of trying to convince you of their faith and patriotism to hook a sale...which only leads me to question the depth of their faith, patriotism and quality of their product...rightly or wrongly.

Just give me the truth about the product up front, save the medicine show act...and I'll take it from there.
 
Jordan@DLT said:
We adjusted our Country of origin on all of our Hoback products to Unknown this morning - we are not happy with what is - at best - a lie of omission about where these are made. The site has a laundry list of countries as suppliers or manufacturers now - if you look at it on archive.org this was not the case previously.

Overseas production is not a bad thing, however, strongly implying that these are USA Made and refusing to give any specificity on where they are actually made absolutely is. We have cancelled all purchase orders with Hoback and reaching out to him for the truth about these knives.
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It's awesome seeing Jake Blowback's hubris coming back to hit him where it hurts. God bless.
 
Kmikaz3 said:
Now it all make senses why the button lock gets all beaten up… was probably made in china
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At the very least it magnifies the arrogance in his response to you and sheds even a whole new light upon it. How can he respond with such certainty on the heat treat of the part in question if all he did was drop it in as he assembled the knife?

wouter1967 said:
I'm afraid that Hoback won't be hit by his China parts knives.
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I'm afraid you're right here as well. Many fans of knife brands become emotionally invested in them right along with their financial investment. Some either don't care, are not informed, or don't care to be informed and will even argue on behalf these companies. We've seen it before with other discredited knife brands. I don't understand it for the life of me, but you can often see the proof in secondary market eBay sales of said knives.
 
Knives&Lint said:
At the very least it magnifies the arrogance in his response to you and sheds even a whole new light upon it. How can he respond with such certainty on the heat treat of the part in question if all he did was drop it in as he assembled the knife?



I'm afraid you're right here as well. Many fans of knife brands become emotionally invested in them right along with their financial investment. Some either don't care, are not informed, or don't care to be informed and will even argue on behalf these companies. We've seen it before with other discredited knife brands. I don't understand it for the life of me, but you can often see the proof in secondary market eBay sales of said knives.
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Seen it happen countless times here. The "just like the knives" crew.
 
johnny99 said:
Wasn't there a maker years ago that claimed that Kizer was stealing their design and producing it in China, only to be outed by Kizer when challenged? Britton perhaps? If I remember correctly, that was the first I had ever heard of Kizer.,and was the first instance of a maker concealing the origin of their product that I remember.
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Here's a post I made on this topic a while back, which offered a potential solution to one of the aspects that puzzled me:

https://www.reddit.com/r/knifeclub/comments/4rfeq2/_/hz7sxsc
 
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