How's Queen's QC these days?

Will Power Will Power -I guess I was posting more from my point as a consumer, and less about Queen’s long term viability. I totally agree that their QC really needs to step up,across the board. And I did want to point out that it’s still possible to receive a good product from them, just takes a bit more work. I get some folks don’t care for that, understandably so, but there are still good ones out there. Honestly, unless it’s a Custom piece, I’ve never had a knife that I didn’t have to tinker with, to one degree or another. That puts some folks off, and some not. YMMV.
Thanks, Neal
 
joeradza said:
Don't be shy, tell me how you really feel. lol.
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Thank you for sharing. While there is no perfect knife, no one wants to buy a knife and have it be so poor of build quality that you cannot even believe it left a factory in that condition. No pride! I have said it before and I will say it again. Buying an American product is NOT . a free pass of build quality. An American company has to earn that Made in USA badge with Better build quality than the overseas companies. Queen has not earned that Badge as far as recent years of production. I laugh when I see Ken Daniels on his Queen video and he talks about pride and build quality and for the customer. A bunch of bunk!!!!!!
 
Will, The price climb worries me. I don't have any insider information and I could be completely off. But I see a lot of the same knives sitting on virtual store shelves. If sales are down and you can't ramp up production at low price point, then prices might shoot up in desperation. I am really worried that we're going to lose another one of the few American cutlery manufacturers.
 
supratentorial said:
Will, The price climb worries me. I don't have any insider information and I could be completely off. But I see a lot of the same knives sitting on virtual store shelves. If sales are down and you can't ramp up production at low price point, then prices might shoot up in desperation. I am really worried that we're going to lose another one of the few American cutlery manufacturers.
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Add to that that I feel the knife market bubble has burst. You can see knives sticking around for sale longer on online dealers and even the secondary on this forum. The crazy prices are not sustaining, and yes even the barlows. So, Queen may have created their own demise.
 
NewBlades16 said:
Thank you for sharing. While there is no perfect knife, no one wants to buy a knife and have it be so poor of build quality that you cannot even believe it left a factory in that condition. No pride! I have said it before and I will say it again. Buying an American product is NOT . a free pass of build quality. An American company has to earn that Made in USA badge with Better build quality than the overseas companies. Queen has not earned that Badge as far as recent years of production. I laugh when I see Ken Daniels on his Queen video and he talks about pride and build quality and for the customer. A bunch of bunk!!!!!!
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I'm proud of the Queen-made knives I own.
 
Honestly I love Queen’s patterns and the materials more than most of their competitors (only GEC comes close on those criteria). I also think the Daniels are really great folks trying their best. Quality and execution is my issue, pure and simple.

All things constant, if GEC used D2 this entire discussion would be somewhat moot, aside from supply/demand. And for the aforementioned “dealer and collector hype” over GEC...it is well earned; not all of us are forgiving or groupthinkers.
 
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I love that Queen uses some higher end steels, interesting covers and some of the patterns are fantastic. I really wanted to give them a chance but kept hearing about issues. I now own 3 Queen made knives, a Northwoods, a Trestle Pines, and a S&M. My thought process was from what I know, these should be premium offerings from them and therefore should be their best work. If this is the case it is dissapointing. I won’t go into all the details but none are top quality knives, all are useable and each has its own character. At the end of the day I have decided to not purchase another Queen made knife. For a little more $ I can get a better made GEC even though it may have a “lesser” steel, for a little less I can get a better made if less interesting Case. There are of course many other brands out there too, right now I’m crushing on my Enigma Knives.
 
spyderg said:
I love that Queen uses some higher end steels, interesting covers and some of the patterns are fantastic. I really wanted to give them a chance but kept hearing about issues. I now own 3 Queen made knives, a Northwoods, a Trestle Pines, and a S&M. My thought process was from what I know, these should be premium offerings from them and therefore should be their best work. If this is the case it is dissapointing. I won’t go into all the details but none are top quality knives, all are useable and each has its own character. At the end of the day I have decided to not purchase another Queen made knife. For a little more $ I can get a better made GEC even though it may have a “lesser” steel, for a little less I can get a better made if less interesting Case. There are of course many other brands out there too, right now I’m crushing on my Enigma Knives.
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Exactly! You hit it out of the park with your comments. You said it perfectly.
 
J_Curd said:
Honestly I love Queen’s patterns and the materials more than most of their competitors (only GEC comes close on those criteria). I also think the Daniels are really great folks trying their best. Quality and execution is my issue, pure and simple.

All things constant, if GEC used D2 this entire discussion would be somewhat moot, aside from supply/demand. And for the aforementioned “dealer and collector hype” over GEC...it is well earned; not all of us are forgiving or groupthinkers.
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For me, 154cm or s30v would be moot. D2? Nahh. I have plenty of inexpensive modern folders in D2 and 1095 is not much worse.
 
NewBlades16 said:
For me, 154cm or s30v would be moot. D2? Nahh. I have plenty of inexpensive modern folders in D2 and 1095 is not much worse.
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I've had the experience that properly treated D2 is far tougher and more corrosion resistant than 1095. If one enjoys (tolerates?) a mild patina, D2 seems to come close to 154CM or S30V in practical performance, especially in a traditional folder that will rarely see extreme use.
 
J_Curd said:
Honestly I love Queen’s patterns and the materials more than most of their competitors (only GEC comes close on those criteria). I also think the Daniels are really great folks trying their best. Quality and execution is my issue, pure and simple.

All things constant, if GEC used D2 this entire discussion would be somewhat moot, aside from supply/demand. And for the aforementioned “dealer and collector hype” over GEC...it is well earned; not all of us are forgiving or groupthinkers.
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without being tagged for going to GBU, Your second sentence is a complete 180 degrees from my experience. That is all I will say on that. I can be forgiving if the issues are corrected and there is not a pattern of inconsistencies. My 69.5 Barlow in Blue Bone had such abysmal symmetry on the main clip and the sharpening attempt was worse I have ever seen. I do not make factory sharpening too much of an issue but this could not even open an envelope. I could have done better on a crappy worksharp sharpener. Ha!!!
 
J_Curd said:
I've had the experience that properly treated D2 is far tougher and more corrosion resistant than 1095. If one enjoys (tolerates?) a mild patina, D2 seems to come close to 154CM or S30V in practical performance, especially in a traditional folder that will rarely see extreme use.
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My Medfords probably have the best D2 heat treat out of all of my heavy duty moderns. My Benchmade knives in 154cm have been much more corrosion resistant. And 154cm is probably very comparable in price. While my D2 is not rusted out, it does tend to get spotty. As far as 1095, it suites me fine with traditionals as they do not get the hard use as my moderns(As you implied).. So I do not need the toughness of D2. If I did, I would want the better corrosion resistance of 154cm or s30v. 1095 is fine for my traditionals so need for moot.
 
The thing is, some of us disagree-which is healthy- but most of our RECENT experiences of Queen are not really satisfactory. But the thing we all seem to agree on is that we all wish Queen were in a better place. It is a company with real heritage, a tradition of some very beautiful knives, good steel choices, some great bone/wood. But its recent QC is simply not as trustworthy as this heritage merits.

Here's a Utility Knife (their Slimline Trapper) from the early years of this century I would say. It's everything I want in a knife: no gaps, great snap /W&T, centred blade nice deep bone jig, D2 blade arrived reasonably sharp and was not a task to improve on. I have Muskrat, Whittler and Teardrops like it and they are much prized by me. The price at the time was very competitive to GEC or even CASE.
Things just are not like this now, more's the pity.

IMG_3472.jpg~original
 
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Please try and keep the discussion around traditionals. Although I know it is sometimes hard when you want to compare alloy performance.

When discussing blade steels, you also need to take the hardness into consideration.
D2 at 61 will outperform S30V in edge retention. But Queen has its D2 hardened to a 58-59 so its performance is somewhat less than that.
 
I have tried 2 recent Queens and have not been impressed, from the 2 examples I purchased they still have a ways to go.

A Barlow I bought has an extremely weak snap on the main blade, feels like it will close on you while using and an English Jack while a beautiful looking knife came with no edge on the blades making it useless as a knife and I'm not talking about a poorly done edge I mean no edge like the knife never went into the final sharpening station at the factory, you can see the rounded edge in the picture.

It's a shame because Queen makes some beautiful knives and I would purchase them regularly if the quality was consistent. Maybe that will change as they hired a new master cutler earlier late last year and they are trying to turn things around, the pictures of some of the latest knives sure look good.

IMG_6756.jpg IMG_6787.jpg
 
I actually own the english jack pictured at the bottom of your photograph and i will say it is up to par and better than alot of traditionals i have handled. Maybe they are getting it together i wish the would do another run of those 1972 drakes well barlows. And if they arenot going to Augie i will need your help:). But the queen made robeson rcc stamped bolsters barlows are as good as any tc or NF barlow i have had

Drakes well barlow








 
Goose, the Robeson Queen Barlows are beautifully made Barlows,in my opinion some of the highest quality Barlows ever made,one of my favorites, they date from when Bill Howard was still at Queen. If Queen could get back to making knives at that level they would sell a ton.

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This thread always makes me want to put my Railsplitter back in my pocket despite all the complaints. Or take it out and admire it if it's already in my pocket. It's a good one though so that's probably why.
 
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