Case Gripe--single spring models

revnewk

revnewk

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Full disclosure: I am a 52-year old guy with a decades long loyalty to Buck Knives. I've sold off the rest of the brands in my collection (e.g. Benchmade, Spyderco, Cold Steel, etc.) and have focused on Buck.

But, I have begun to explore the traditional knife patterns beyond what Buck offers. I ventured into GEC/Tidioute and purchased a Dixie Possum Skinner (micarta) and was instantly blown away with the materials, fit-n-finish, spring snap, alignment of two blades on one spring, and overall presentation. Just wow!

But I also took a step towards Case with the same anticipation...and have been greatly disappointed so far. I have spent over $100 on two single-spring, two-bladed knives (Baby Butterbean and Mini Copperhead), and BOTH blades on BOTH knives rub against each other. At a price point of at least $60 each, I expected way more.

So...here is my gripe and question: Is this typical for all single-spring Case knives? I prefer thinner profiles for the pants pockets. If this is par for Case, then I will look elsewhere for thinner traditional patterns. Most likely that will be towards GEC.

That is, until Buck expands their USA-made 300 Series. ;)

Thanks, guys, for your thoughts and counsel.
 
My GEC Churchill had the worst blade rub I've seen on a single spring two-blader.
 
revnewk said:
Full disclosure: I am a 52-year old guy with a decades long loyalty to Buck Knives. I've sold off the rest of the brands in my collection (e.g. Benchmade, Spyderco, Cold Steel, etc.) and have focused on Buck.

But, I have begun to explore the traditional knife patterns beyond what Buck offers. I ventured into GEC/Tidioute and purchased a Dixie Possum Skinner (micarta) and was instantly blown away with the materials, fit-n-finish, spring snap, alignment of two blades on one spring, and overall presentation. Just wow!

But I also took a step towards Case with the same anticipation...and have been greatly disappointed so far. I have spent over $100 on two single-spring, two-bladed knives (Baby Butterbean and Mini Copperhead), and BOTH blades on BOTH knives rub against each other. At a price point of at least $60 each, I expected way more.

So...here is my gripe and question: Is this typical for all single-spring Case knives? I prefer thinner profiles for the pants pockets. If this is par for Case, then I will look elsewhere for thinner traditional patterns. Most likely that will be towards GEC.

That is, until Buck expands their USA-made 300 Series. ;)

Thanks, guys, for your thoughts and counsel.
Click to expand...

Are you saying that the blades touch each other when closed or that they rub together when one of them is opened?

If they don't touch each other when closed then the rubbing is caused by the user which is very, very common regardless of the brand.
 
Blade rub is normal and acceptable..:rolleyes: Talked to the head of QC last spring and this is what he told me..
John
 
Thanks, guys. I understand that often one blade is pushed into the other...but this never happens with my GEC/Tidioute (one-spring). Must just be Case?

By the way, both of my Case knife blades touch when closed. I returned the mini-copperhead today. Sad...I really liked the design. My Baby Butterbean is too marked up on the blades to return or sell.

If the QC at Case said that two blade sharing one spring commonly rub and should just be expected/endured, then I will look to GEC for such knives. As far as buying Case, I will only look at the single-blade knives with a thin profile (e.g. barlow, mini-copperlock).
 
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I may have been lucky with Case-I have a few which due to the tyranny of distance were sourced from internet dealers.
I would say generally that such defects as off centering,blade rub, BOOB(blunt out of box) and washy dyed bone colouration are not typical of Case but somewhere between occasional and uncommon.Mostly,they are good in other words.
If you have the opportunity to check out the knives yourself in an actual shop you are in luck.
Also -welcome aboard the forum and have you seen the 2018 annual traditional Forum knife we had built by Buck this year in a bold and audacious leap from GEC who have built most of them over the last 10 years or so (and hopefully will in the future ).
Cheers.
 
Not encountered blade rub on any of my GEC knives with Pen construction: 13, 33, 35, 57,62, 68, 82. So that's an exemplary record :thumbsup:

CASE well yes some. One Yellow D Penknife has it the other doesn't, same with 2 Half Whittlers one has some the other doesn't. The CASE/Bose Norfolk doesn't (nor should it at that price!!) nor does the Mini Copperhead. All have fine W&T though,

Rough Rider Mini Copperhead, 2, neither have it. Same with another one of their Penknives with Spear/Pen on one spring.

Bucks of course use unkrinked blades and a spring per blade but still carry slim which is good.
 
I've had two Case stockman knives that were so off I couldn't close the spey blade because they would hit the sheepsfoot on the way down. I had to push on the blade slightly to get them to close. Case isn't at the top when it comes to quality, but they can get it right sometimes too. If you get a good one, then you have a really good knife. They seem to be improving as of late from what I've noticed. Still, it's much better to handle their knives before purchasing.
 
JohnDF said:
I've had two Case stockman knives that were so off I couldn't close the spey blade because they would hit the sheepsfoot on the way down. I had to push on the blade slightly to get them to close. Case isn't at the top when it comes to quality, but they can get it right sometimes too. If you get a good one, then you have a really good knife. They seem to be improving as of late from what I've noticed. Still, it's much better to handle their knives before purchasing.
Click to expand...
I think this sums it up very well.
Case can and does make good knives and when you get a good one, you really get a good one. Are you buying your Case knives on eBay? If so, be warned. Some sellers are peddling factory seconds without disclosure.
 
I don't own any single spring two bladed Case knives, but my Case smooth natural bone teardrop is nearly flawless. Centered blade when closed, flush back spring open and closed and nearly flush at the half stop, and no blade play. It's every bit as good as the GECs I've owned. The CV teardrop that Will Power gave me is also impressive. The closed blade is slightly off center, but the back spring is flush in all positions, including the half stop. None of my GECs were even close to flush at the half stop.

I ordered my teardrop online, so maybe I got lucky. I've also noticed the comments on the Tony Bose designed Case knives, like the teardrop, tend to be positive, so maybe it depends on the pattern.
 
Lotta stuff going on here...

The Case knives, are you buying them sight unseen? For garden variety Case knives there will be a pretty wide tolerance for the things you are complaining about. And at $60.00 for an American made knife, that's what you have. At that price point you're buying a cutting tool. If it cuts, opens, and closes reliably that's what they're meant to do. On these knives you'll find gems, and you'll find rough knives. Blade marks don't influence cutting, opening and closing. They only matter to collectors.

If they're new and bought from a reputable dealer they should be returnable. It's hard to imagine how you could have beaten up one of them in a few hours or days enough to make it unreturnable. If you've been using it for months, then of course you should expect evidence of use.

You can't reasonably generalize about any line of knives bought sight unseen from a sample size of two. You can't ask a broad question about the quality of a given knife brand and get usable information. The word 'quality' has almost no meaning in this context.

If you have any of the older 300 series Buck knives, you've seen blade clash before. I've got a bunch of them, I know.

GEC makes a fine knife, but their lower priced knives can suffer from blade clash just like any other brand. My 66 Calf Roper has marks on all three blades, and they were marked right out of the tube, brand new. It's an inexpensive GEC offering, it's just a knife. It would be nice if the folks at GEC would learn to make a slip joint knife that wasn't a thumb nail buster, though. Seems easy enough, lots of manufacturers have done it. But that's an argument for another day.

It wasn't until the internet came along that things like blade centering, undefinable pull ratings, and the other things we complain about became so important in run of the mill knives. A lot of manufacturers, including Case, churned out highly polished knives with fancy scales that were built from the ground up to be collector pieces. They were beautiful things, sometimes gaudy as heck, but they were shiny as can be, and had no cutting edge or blade points to speak of. And they were expensive. Didn't matter, they weren't bought to cut things. These days these expensive knives go begging for half or a third of their price from thirty years ago.

Oh, well.
 
Funny how we all have different break points ... I could care less about blade rub - I have over 100 post 1970 case knives and fair to say just about all of them have some degree of blade rub - the amount of work it would take to meticulously hand fit every knife coming off the line so that there is no blade rub, especially on a single spring knife would require a piston fit - just not in the cards for knives in the Case price point in my experience.

What I'm concerned with is snap - I resell any knife I get on eBay if I can't work it in & get it to snap closed firmly. Actually I lied - far worse than a lazy snap is blade wobble. Wobble and weak snap are total deal breaker for me ....
 
Hey we should get a poll going for most loathed characteristics on new knives...
We ve covered pretty much all of them without going into more personal preferences..:):thumbsup:
 
Great idea meako meako But it's going to be contentious and most contributors will get banned for boorish behaviour and abuse:D "My peeves are real and based on years of received opinions backed up by mountains of old catalogues as sources.. yours are just pathetic....";)

But let's go..or shall we set up a poll elsewhere? Problem is there's this 'positive' yoke that's placed on everybody's shoulders, no negative talk or nay saying here!!:rolleyes:

But as Macbeth said " What man dare? I dare!"

Springs that are NOT flush on open or closed, either sunk or raised are shoddy beyond belief and show laziness ;) Nor is gross underblading to be given a pass as 'traditional' the spring and tang should line up not step down (to the depths of oblivion:D) just sayin'
 
It's been my experience that many 3 blade and two blade knives will have some blade rub. If it's a user knife (i.e. like 98% of mine would be if I had the time to use them all), then I don't worry about it. I had two buck traditionals years ago that almost made me swear off of Buck knives forever. One of them was so bad (trapper) that the spey wouldn't close into the handle because the edge would hang on the spine of the clip. If blade rub is an issue, carry two single blade knives; that will avoid the issue. Like this:

AC48uix.jpg


Ed J
 
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