Case Gripe--single spring models

meako said:
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.
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Where do I find the forum knife?
 
dsutton24 said:
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.
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Good counsel, dsutton. Thank you, my friend. I went ahead and reordered another Case Mini-Copperhead to give it another shake.
 
Most of my Case knives have been acceptable to good, nothing that I would call exceptional. I only have one Buck traditional, a Stockman, and it has a nice build. The problem that I have with it is very weak feeling springs and the thick blade grind.
 
TLARbb said:
If blade rub is an issue, carry two single blade knives; that will avoid the issue.
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While I expect some blade rub with use and am not bothered by it, I do tend to carry two thin single blades of different sizes more often than not. I find it allows me to choose a knife appropriate to the situation. I also find I tend to lend folks my small cheap knife....
 
Rich S said:
I know this is heresy but look at RoughRider knives (yes, China made),but IMHO excellent quality and workmanship for their prices -lots of styles at boot.
Rich
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I was gifted a RR 3 blade large Stockman last week and started to look into buying a Case Seahorse. I've been reading the Case might not be tight like this one is on the back springs? This RR was 14.99 and no light shows. Blades are tight and they don't rub. I'm not sure now about dropping much more than the RR on the Case.

nf5hv.jpg
 
revnewk said:
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.
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IMO, rubbing the blades as one is opening a single spring knife is not uncommon, no matter who made the knife. I have more that do than don't. Happens with other patterns with more blades than springs, also. I've even seen it on one of my Buck 301s and it has one spring per blade.

Oddly, one knife that does not rub is my Case Wharncliffe mini-Copperhead. However, Case knives IMO tend to show blade rub more than other manufacturers because of the high polish they use.
 
jill jackson said:
I was gifted a RR 3 blade large Stockman last week and started to look into buying a Case Seahorse. I've been reading the Case might not be tight like this one is on the back springs? This RR was 14.99 and no light shows. Blades are tight and they don't rub. I'm not sure now about dropping much more than the RR on the Case.

nf5hv.jpg
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I have three new Case multi-blade/multi-spring knives and the backs are all very tight and as good if not better than that shown in your picture. My Canoe has some blade rub but nothing that bothers me. The other two do not. Me personally, I won't hesitate to buy another.
 
Eli Chaps said:
I have three new Case multi-blade/multi-spring knives and the backs are all very tight and as good if not better than that shown in your picture. My Canoe has some blade rub but nothing that bothers me. The other two do not. Me personally, I won't hesitate to buy another.
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Good to know as I really like the Seahorse whittler. Looks like a very handy knife. I probably will pick one up.
 
Eli Chaps said:
I have three new Case multi-blade/multi-spring knives and the backs are all very tight and as good if not better than that shown in your picture. My Canoe has some blade rub but nothing that bothers me. The other two do not. Me personally, I won't hesitate to buy another.
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Got a Case seahorse and a Rough Rider whittler in today and the RR has tighter back springs, the Case less blade rub. Both needed sharpening and became very sharp on fine rods. Overall it is a toss up on fit and finish. With the Case having better fitted handles. The case was about 4X as much on price.
 
I have some Case knives that show rub and some that don't. I can live with it because after you open boxes with that paper based tape with the fibers running through it, you're gonna have some marked up blades. That stuff doesn't adhere to the boxes very well, but you can use it to swing across a gorge like Tarzan if you wanted.

Give me blades that show rub, but they better not wobble...that's what I say :thumbsup:
 
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