Ask Toooj

dingy · Mar 29, 2016

hi, Toooj,
my 498 has a obvious Recurve edge ， is it nomal ?

Toooj · Mar 29, 2016

ml100,

I'll check with our Quality Dept. We are making fairly major changes to our processes and specs in an effort to up both quality and performance.....on the other hand it could be a typo

dingy,

The 498 should not have a recurve. Please post a picture if you can. I'd like to see the blade,

Thanks.

Best Regards,

Paul Tsujimoto
V.P. of Engineering
Ontario Knife Company

ml100 · Mar 29, 2016

Toooj said:
ml100,

I'll check with our Quality Dept. We are making fairly major changes to our processes and specs in an effort to up both quality and performance.....on the other hand it could be a typo

Best Regards,

Paul Tsujimoto
V.P. of Engineering
Ontario Knife Company

Thanks Paul,
if there have been changes, it would be good to know, how to tell the new from the old one.
Best regards,
Markus

dingy · Mar 29, 2016

Toooj said:
ml100,

I'll check with our Quality Dept. We are making fairly major changes to our processes and specs in an effort to up both quality and performance.....on the other hand it could be a typo

dingy,

The 498 should not have a recurve. Please post a picture if you can. I'd like to see the blade,

Thanks.

Best Regards,

Paul Tsujimoto
V.P. of Engineering
Ontario Knife Company

this is my 498 , and no doubt of that it has a recurve.

btw i love this blade , just wandering that is it nomal for 498.

dingy · Mar 29, 2016

Toooj said:
ml100,

I'll check with our Quality Dept. We are making fairly major changes to our processes and specs in an effort to up both quality and performance.....on the other hand it could be a typo

dingy,

The 498 should not have a recurve. Please post a picture if you can. I'd like to see the blade,

Thanks.

Best Regards,

Paul Tsujimoto
V.P. of Engineering
Ontario Knife Company

this is my 498 , and no doubt of that it has a recurve.

sorry for the poor phone pic , Toooj.

btw i love this blade , just wandering that is it nomal for 498.

Toooj · Mar 30, 2016

Dingy,

Thanks for the pictures.
It is not normal but it does happen when there is a thin edge after the primary grind. The sharpeners don't have enough "meat" on the edge when putting on the final cantle. It doesn't affect the knife performance at all.
We are working hard to improve the bevel grinding by implementing Quality Standards with pictures and specifications, edge thickness gauges, training and inspections. When there is sufficient edge for the sharpeners, then the final cantle will be sharp and straight.
Hope this helps.

Best Regards,

Paul Tsujimoto
VP of Engineering
Ontario Knife Company

knife chop · Apr 4, 2016

Toooj said:
ml100,

I'll check with our Quality Dept. We are making fairly major changes to our processes and specs in an effort to up both quality and performance.....on the other hand it could be a typo

dingy,

The 498 should not have a recurve. Please post a picture if you can. I'd like to see the blade,

Thanks.

Best Regards,

Paul Tsujimoto
V.P. of Engineering
Ontario Knife Company

I like where the company is going. but whoever is running the quality dept. is slow on getting these squared away. in my experience, R&D or Manufacturing may want to implement new processes etc. but in can all go down to hell unless Quality dept. approves it. just my .02 cents

Toooj · Apr 5, 2016

Double post. Sorry

Toooj · Apr 5, 2016

knife chop,

Actually, the Quality Dept is very, very good and are one of the change agents at Ontario. (Our new Quality Manager is from the Automotive Industry.) It's the Manufacturing side that has the growing pains. It's a slow process but we are gaining. The most difficult process improvement is, of course, people change. Quality is a tricky, double edged sword. (If you can excuse the pun) We are always striving for quality improvements but without additional costs or implementing new (hopefully, time and cost saving)processes without a degradation of quality. Nothing is easy.
knife chop: Good discussion though. It's good to hear other view points from people in Industry. I have been involved with Manufacturing/Quality for 40 years. Deming/Juran/Crosby; SPC; TQM; 5S; 6 Sigma; ISO. (seen and done it all)
It's a continual improvement in quality, manufacturing and technology. All of this new human technology to produce the world's second oldest tool.

Best Regards,

Paul Tsujimoto
VP od Engineering
Ontario Knife Company

knife chop · Apr 5, 2016

Great Point. That was just me coming from a biomedical background.

ml100 · Apr 6, 2016

Toooj said:
ml100,

I'll check with our Quality Dept. We are making fairly major changes to our processes and specs in an effort to up both quality and performance.....on the other hand it could be a typo

Best Regards,

Paul Tsujimoto
V.P. of Engineering
Ontario Knife Company

Any news on that?

knife chop · Apr 7, 2016

Toooj,

I'm starting to see some quality improvements specially on sharpening. Top one is the old sharpening method where the base of the edge curves down and is against the plunge.

And I this one, the edge is very nice and even. How can I get a hold of this one?

here's the link of the review.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s...Knife-Company-RTAK-II?p=15960566#post15960566

Toooj · Apr 8, 2016

ml100,

I have the marketing people looking at your question.

knife chop,

Thanks for noticing and posting. A lot of Quality is making sure people understand the basics...like what is the reason for a choil and where does the grind shoulder start in relation to the choil. 1000 small steps is what continuous improvement is all about.
Dan Maragni spent weeks with our sharpeners training and mentoring. Our Quality Dept spends many hours developing Quality and manufacturing Spec sheets for the floor. Your pictures will undoubtedly make it to the various quality boards.

Best Regards,

Paul Tsujimoto
VP of Engineering
Ontario Knife Company

LG&M · Apr 8, 2016

I work in manufacturering also. Toooj is right. I can be hard to get people to change, getting them to understand why something needs to change. " But we have always done it this way " is something I have heard often.
I know most of us would love to work at a place like Ontatro but I bet most of the fine folks there are not knife knuts like us.

OntarioKnifeCompany · Apr 12, 2016

LG&M said:
" But we have always done it this way "

The most dangerous words in business.

OntarioKnifeCompany · Apr 12, 2016

ml100 said:
Any news on that?

I checked on this a bit more, the change to the ASEK hardness was a correction to the catalog. 55-57 is correct.

buckfynn · Apr 12, 2016

Recently I purchased a few limited edition Rat 1 folders in D2 steel. I couldn't find any information in the description concerning the HRC of the D2. Is there any chance of providing the hardness data?

ml100 · Apr 14, 2016

OntarioKnifeCompany said:
I checked on this a bit more, the change to the ASEK hardness was a correction to the catalog. 55-57 is correct.

Thanks for the info!!!

KennyB · Apr 18, 2016

buckfynn said:
Recently I purchased a few limited edition Rat 1 folders in D2 steel. I couldn't find any information in the description concerning the HRC of the D2. Is there any chance of providing the hardness data?

Would like to know this as well

TwinStick · Apr 30, 2016

Hi Toooj. It's been a while.

What is the blade thickness on the Ontario Ranger series RAK Assault knife ? 3/16" or 1/4" ?

Thanks.