Thanks Neuron.
My opinion, for the record, is that Mr. Ralph is way out of line here.
If you make it right, you won't have to "make it right".
best
mqqn
Very well said. Perfectly summarizes my feelings too, not to mention why I often find it frustrating to be a mod here on the forum. I think Scurvy could have used somewhat better judgment in terms of the contexts and frequency with which he voiced complaints about the forum knife, but at root, and as a fellow knife nut, I do totally understand his and others' frustration and feel it myself. The quality of some of HTM's offerings, especially the liner lock Gunhammers, simply doesn't measure up to what a knife at that price point should have. Ultimately, that's what it comes down to, and if there hadn't been quality issues with HTM stuff over the last couple years none of these issues would have come up in the first place.
I'm extremely busy working on my dissertation and other grad school obligations and don't have a much time to devote to knives or the forum as I did even a couple years ago. When I'm on the forums, I often find myself wishing that I lived near HTM instead of halfway across the country simply so I could poke my head in and see how they're doing things, peer over the shoulder of whoever is doing QC, and look at each and every knife as it was assembled, and then say "no, what the hell are you doing" when a knife with, say, lock play makes it through QC or the guy doing the etching puts "S90" instead of "S90V". That sort of thing has to stop, and I'm going to bug Darrel about it whenever I speak to him from here on out, urging him to take a more active role on the HTM side of things. I can't promise it'll make a difference - I don't work for HTM, live near them, or have a manufacturing background -- but I do know Darrel and have his ear on these sorts of things, so hopefully he'll carve out some time to take a close look at why the HTM stuff isn't measuring up to the standards he's set in nearly 30 years of making custom knives.
The reason people are here and care in the first place is because they like Darrel's knife designs and, in many cases, have seen/handled/owned one or more of his custom knives. I dare say, too, that nearly all of you would like Darrel and his passion for knives if you met him in person instead of only crossing paths with him when he makes a terse post on the forums. But all that stuff is secondary to making a quality product: we can all think of knifemakers, company reps, and so forth who are can't take criticism well when they or their company occasionally missteps, but the quality of their products is consistently high enough that it's not a big deal. HTM still has a lot of work to do in order to reach that level. I'm hoping it'll get there, not just as a friend of Darrel's and someone who loves his custom knives, but as someone who likes well-made knives in general.
Anyway, sorry for the long and somewhat rambling post, but since this thread has already gone well off its original topic, I figured it's as good a place as any to take off my mod hat for a moment and contribute my two cents as well.