Worst traits of your favorite brands?

Hickory n steel said:
Can you imagine how beautiful a well aged 1095 buck 110 would look after 10yrs 😍😍 I've only had my 110 for 4 yrs and the brass bolsters already have a nice patina, but I just wish it had a 1095 blade with a nice patina to match.
I know they offer 5160, but I love good ol' 1095 which is also inexpensive and common enough not raise their pricing.
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It would be absolutely awesome wouldn't it? I love a patina myself and I think the buck 110 and the 119 would look nice with a patina. That and we'll who doesn't like some good old 1095 :)
 
Emerson - price like ZT, fit and finish worse than Ganzo.

CRK- lame blue thumb stud which is not removable easily from the blade

Cold Steel - big slogans on the blades, they can't send screws or even respond on email

Spyderco - lack of compression lock models, worse customer service than Benchmade and ZT.

Benchmade - almost all the best designs discontinued, assist opening in some interesting models with axis, which is stupid

Microtech - thieves and tricksters, they practicaly don't have customer service and they make sure you can't dissasemble and repair your knife on your own.
 
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ourgon said:
Emerson - price like ZT, fit and finish worse than Ganzo.

CRK- lame blue thumb stud which is not removable easily from the blade

Cold Steel - big slogans on the blades, they can't send screws or even response on email

Spyderco - lack of compression lock models, worse customer service than Benchmade and ZT.

Benchmade - almost all the best designs discontinued, assist opening in some interesting models, which is stupid
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I do wish Spyderco would implement the compression lock onto more models. Others have mentioned it and I've noticed it, but their recent adoption of using a stronger loctite hasn't hindered my ability to disassemble a newer PM2.

Overall I'd like to see more micarta used.
 
trevitrace said:
I do wish Spyderco would implement the compression lock onto more models. Others have mentioned it and I've noticed it, but their recent adoption of using a stronger loctite hasn't hindered my ability to disassemble a newer PM2.

Overall I'd like to see more micarta used.
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Compression lock manix 2 with flipper and micarta scales.
 
trevitrace said:
I do wish Spyderco would implement the compression lock onto more models. Others have mentioned it and I've noticed it, but their recent adoption of using a stronger loctite hasn't hindered my ability to disassemble a newer PM2.

Overall I'd like to see more micarta used.
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Educate me please why some folks think the compression lock should be so preferred. It seems to me the only lock that when to release it, I cannot have a firm/full grip of the handle. I mean, we are basically pinching with three fingers, the chance of accidentally dropping the knife is greatly increased than other types of lock when closing. Yes it can be fun to play with and yes the fingers are out of the way of the blade.
 
Back to the OP topic.

Hinderer and CRK - somewhat overpriced. $350 retail of xm-18 3.5 or large sebenza 21 would be reasonable, especially considering other competitors products (quality, materials, f&f etc.).
Benchmade - overpriced mostly.
Spyderco - taking apart the knife voids its warranty. We are talking about a tool with a few parts that naked human eyes can easily see, or a tool that most people can put together with their eyes closed.
 
Not sure how others do it, but I hold it like this when I disengage it.



Not too much movement from how I'd hold the knife while using it, and yes, my digits are out of the way of the falling blade.
 
Benchmade - overpriced, consistent steel upgrades/ changes to wring out more dollars

Spyderco - increasingly expensive, models with 159, 257 blade steel variations

Emerson - expensive for what you get and would it hurt to try a lock back or something other than a liner lock?

Cold Steel - overpriced and why change things when they were just fine (voyager models)

Microtech - stop it with the @#$% you screws.

Case - once made solid items but QA now hit or miss.

All companies that do MAP pricing.
 
Strider - I want more exotic steels S30V just does nothing for me anymore it is a MEH steel

Microtech - Make more manual and Out the Side knives!!

General Complaint Department - If I could stop basically only liking "more expensive" knives that would be great for my wallet too
 
sharp_edge said:
Educate me please why some folks think the compression lock should be so preferred. It seems to me the only lock that when to release it, I cannot have a firm/full grip of the handle. I mean, we are basically pinching with three fingers, the chance of accidentally dropping the knife is greatly increased than other types of lock when closing. Yes it can be fun to play with and yes the fingers are out of the way of the blade.
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You can easily close the comp lock with a full, firm grip.
 
Any company that still uses S30V & that makes exclusives for only certain companies.

Microtech - Warranty & CS

Benchmade - Discontinued great models, Going in the wrong direction, Price/Quality

Spyderco - Sprint Runs, Warranty/CS

CRK - Would like to see a different steel & Double Lugs

Strider - S30V

Emerson - Ti Lock, QC for the price. It would be more reasonable for about 30% of their MAP prices, Should have some sig series made into production

ZT - Steering away from "Built like a Tank"

Hinderer - Flashy Bling & Factory angles too wide

Companies that Were made in the USA that moved overseas
 
Armadew said:
You can easily close the comp lock with a full, firm grip.
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trevitrace said:
Not sure how others do it, but I hold it like this when I disengage it.

Not too much movement from how I'd hold the knife while using it, and yes, my digits are out of the way of the falling blade.
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Thanks. I see what both of you mean. My right index finger is a bit stiff, guess that's why I've developed the pinch-close method.
 
Spyderco- No dissasemble, johnny 5 alive! That rule is ridiculous. We all use our blades, no reason why we can't fix/clean the damn things ourselves. They need to step up the game in the flipper department. I know its not their strong suit, but if they're going to compete go all in or not at all.

Insert china made knife manufacturer- Prices! China knives that competed with midtech or high end production knives used to be a "bargain". Now they seem to be priced right along side USA made knives. Crazy.

Benchmade- Cant say anymore than whats already been said. Poor F&F for what you're paying, and that price is too much.

ZT- Weight reduction (lack of). They use a lot of titanium, which is great, but some weight saving mill holes would be greater!
 
Victorinox- You're stuck with plastic handles if you want the tweezers, pin, toothpick and (sometimes) pen.

Cold steel- Ridiculous names, billboards on the blades and/or the absurd marketing videos make me feel like a 13 year old mall ninja for buying even the most practical knives and tools they offer.

To all companies it may concern- designing an intriguing knife and not making a non-serrated edge an option.
 
I've seen several comments on customer service, especially Syderco's. I wanted to chime in with my recent (and first) experience with them over the past couple of weeks:
  • It's more difficult to get ahold of them than Benchmade, ZT, or Chris Reeve.
  • Their turn-around time was exactly equal to Benchmade's (who sets the gold standard for knife customer service in my book). I sent knives to Benchmade, Spyderco, Chris Reeve, ZT and Emerson on the same day. The Benchmades and Spydercos came back on the same day, a little shy of two weeks.
  • One of the knives I sent in was an original Manix that I bought on the Exchange here. It had a very gritty action. I disassembled it to see if a cleaning/greasing would help. It did not so I sent the knife to them explaining the issue. They returned it with a much smoother action. It would have been obvious that I disassembled it due to the Slide Glide grease I applied which would be nothing like a factory lube.
  • Another knife I sent in was an original PPT with lockup issues. The issues was documented within the pass-around thread when this knife was released. The lockbar simply did not travel over far enough to properly engage the blade tang. Spyderco obviously changed the design because my newer sprint run PPT has a larger lockbar cut out and excellent lockup. Spyderco stated they could not fix it and offered a credit of $240 (the knife's MSRP when new). Now this sounded like a good deal until I started crunching numbers. That credit applies to Spyderco's MSRPs. Have you seen these insane numbers? No one is paying those prices. The street prices are much lower. I did not feel that any of the knives within a $240 MSRP window really matched the PPT. I had the option of paying the extra amount over $240 for any other knife but the way the numbers worked out I'd be paying $50 or more (maybe much more) than the actual retail price for these knives considering the original $150 of the PPT. I stewed over that for a few days trying to decide what to do. Anyway, it ended up working out because I found they had a few of the discontinued Burch Chubby knives marked down from MRSP $360 to $216 so I went with one of those. If not for that exceptional circumstance I would not have felt great about that experience. Essentially the high MSRPs can screw you in that circumstance. By the way, Spyderco kept the PPT too. Now contrast that with a similar experience I had with Benchmade last year. My 110 dive knife was rusting under the rubber handle. It was still functional but I was sending 13 other knives to them for various things and threw it in the box. They cleaned it up as best they could but said they couldn't really do much with it. They returned the still functional knife to me AND gave me a $100 credit (price of the knife when I bought it). I don't know if that was normal but it blew me away.
  • Conslusion: Overall the Spyderco customer service experience left me pretty luke warm. Not terrible, not great and in my experience Benchmade has them beat in that arena.
 
Benchmade: Hates their customers, MAP, QC is spotty, keep discontinuing models that are actually good, refuses to bring back decent models, no balisong custom shop.

Spyderco: More use of non-stainless then I like, screwed U.S. customers on the Janisong, keeps killing my wallet because they make too much stuff I want.

Microtech: Warranty is worse than the devil, stupid proprietary screws so I can't tighten loose parts up.

Ontario: Needs to make more models in D2, seriously, the LE Rat folder in that stuff is amazing.

Emerson: Can't get the models I want because they're discontinued/only produced in small batches. No Gypsy Jack & Persian for me. :(

Fox: Hard to find all the models in America.
 
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