Smokey Mountain Knife Works Buyer Beware

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FROGBERT

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Oct 17, 2006
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I just got an object lesson on why NOT to order an unknown knife online. I bought an inexpensive knife from Smokey Mountain Knife Works aka www.eknifeworks.com aka http://smkw.com I've previously purchased inexpensive knives that were being closed out and had good luck...when I could see and handle the knife. But online you are truely buying cows in the moonlight, pigs in a poke...what looked like metal turned out to be plastic...the thing was a complete peice of crap. Since the cost of shipping was greater than the purchase price and the cost of returning it would not be much less than the credit, I'm going to keep it as a reminder not to business with Smokey and not to buy any knife I haven't seen and handled in the real world.
If I had read a similar post prior to ordering, I could have learned from someone else's error...I hope you can learn from mine.
Frogbert.
 
Ummmm what knife did you order and what brand was it. I've done alot of knife purchases from Smoky Mountain over the last 20 years and I've never had any problems with them other than a discontiued knife that was out of stock before I placed my order. It all depends on the brand if you ordered a Frost Cutlery or Rough Rider or Combat Ready or any of the other crap brands they handle then you were taking a gamble on that alone but they handle Buck, Camillus, Ka-Bar, Kershaw, and all the other major brand names at great prices. You need to provide alittle more detail like the brand and make and model of the knife and a maybe a link to the specific knife you bought.
 
The last SMKW catalog I received had maybe one knife I would consider buying. Most of their stuff now...pos. So sad.
 
I have had only good dealings with them also. They are sometimes the best price and sometimes not, but there service has always been top rate !!
 
Cyblade: Your points are well made... It was one of the "crap brands," Frost...but I didn't know it was crap when I ordered it...had I seen & handled the knife in the real world I would have recognized it's lack of quality. If I ever again succumb to the urge to buy an unknown knife online, I will search the brand with crap OR junk in the search term...this would have uncovered the truth about Frost in these very forums.
I would agree with you that ordering a top brand would reduce the risk, providing the bargain price isn't driven by closing out a defective run...even top brands have them....So it comes back to how important customer satisfaction is to the vendor...If they tend to paint an overly favorable picture of the product...as I feel was the case with Smokey, there's still the possibility of getting stuck. At this point, I have a rather bad taste from my experience with Smokey since I feel the best online vendors help users really understand what they are buying...so buyer beware.
Here's the link to the knife I ordered: http://smkw.com/webapp/eCommerce/pr...chText=&Mode=Cat&PriceStart=&Brand=&SKU=TA436
Oh, and by the way...the adjustment key they show didn't arrive...I called they promised to send it on...which is really silly since the hinge is all part of the plastic handle and couldn't be adjusted with such a key [I just wanted to see what the response would be].
 
I only buy Buck Knives from SMKW, so I have also never had a problem with them. Excellent customer service, BUT I do know what the knives are that I am buying. I can understand the disappointment FROGBERT!
I dont think Buck has bargain pricing for defective items... also I would not buy a Frost knife...
 
I've bought hundreds of dollars worth of Forschner kitchen and meat knives, and a bunch of Victorinox Swiss Army Knives, a few ceramic sharpener rods, and a couple of other odd things from SMKW. I've never bought cheap knives from them, BudK, or any other organization because I know the value of cheap knives.

SMKW has always been fairly priced and delivered as stated for the things I've bought there. Never having had a "yen" for Frost knives, I can't comment on their quality. Since I will never buy such a cheap knife from anyone, I will probably never know.

Let the price stand for the quality when buying cheap knives. Better knives with name brands advertise their own quality. I would say your thread title says it all. You didn't beware and now must suffer the consequences. I'm not sure SMKW did anything wrong here.
 
I've had great service only, including quick, no-hassle credit on returns,
from Smoky Mountain Knife Works.

The fact that they sell a lot of cheap stuff (which I have no experience with) doesn't take away from their great customer service.
 
I have ordered many knives over the years from smokey mountain knife works, and I have NEVER had a problem ever...Yes they sell alof of cheap stuff, but you can't blame them for that? If you don't like it don't order it...you should have done your homework on the knife you bought, if you looked at the description and it didn't say anythign about the materails used than you you shiould have looked elsewhgere online for that information you can't blame them for your mistake...what knife did you buy? Exactly? By the way you get what you pay for...I don't want to sound mean or anything but if you buy a cheap knife you can't expect much at all...Smokey mountain is and always was a good company that has good customer servise, please don't call them out for a mistake you made...
 
smoky mountain isnt specificly out there to cheat you.

'suckers born every minute'

best advise is to get to know your knife brands. and if its too cheap to be true , it probabbly is


do your self a favor and drop that knife in the garbage. id be embarrased to open my letters with that.
 
Listen, you gave up $5 bucks on a knife that is listed with a 'composition' handle. Im sure you expected more but Im really not sure you got ripped off either. Ive worked around felons for many years. They will can cut in a NY minute with plastic all day long........and Im talking about a plastic blade!

I think we've exhausted our time on this $5 dollar issue. Before you go out and pay $6 bucks maybe you should invest your time on the front end of the purchase.
 
moving-van.jpg
 
FROGBERT, I can understand your disappointment. But give Smoky Mountain credit for not charging you a whole lot of money for a cheesy knife. Some outfits would!

They have pictures and model name or numbers and you can come here (now) and ask about a knife you don't know. I sympathize with your not being able to handle them because I'm often in the same position. A knife can feel very different in your hand than on the printed page. :)

But Smoky Mountain is a reliable dealer. You won't find many of us who buy regularly from them who ever have a problem. For standard items like Opinels, Swiss Army Knives, or sharpening equipment, they are hard to beat.

You might also like to check out some of the other good dealers online

www.1sks.com
www.knifeworks.com
www.newgraham.com
www.knifecenter.com

and a hundred others! :D
 
TA436.jpg


If I understand you correctly ... the entire handle is made of one piece of plastic? Including what looks like a pivot screw that could be adjusted with that tool, but it's actually all one piece of plastic? :eek:
 
Good grief man.... you bought a FROST knife and were disappointed that it was low quality???? the problem is not smkw!
 
You bought yourslef one of those $2 knives talked about here...

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=434182


Only because you didn't buy 160 of them it cost twice as much, but you can't blame smokey mountain for that...Listen I understand your frustration too, but all I can suggest is sticking around and learning a few things...Knowledge is power, as it was said the advertisement states the handle is a composite material which us knife guys knows is just a hard plastic...thats where the knowledge would have helped you...I second Esavs suggestion...next time you want to get a knife post it here 1st and we can all help you decide if thats a decent knife and what you should expect from it!
 
no wonder, heres a simple rule of thumb to go by if the knife costs as much or less than the shipping cost then RUN AWAY. Knives made by Buck, Kershaw, Spyderco, Boker, Ka-Bar, Camillus, Victorianox, Wenger, Columbia River Knife and Tool aka CRKT, Benchmade, Ontario are often safe bets although each of those companys have knives that are not thier best offerings they offer the safest bets when ordering by mail or net. The brands I listed cover the major knife companys although I may have missed a couple. By coming on here you have access to a vast amount of knowledge on knives past and present if someone here doesnt own the knife custom or production your wondering about it's probably not worth owning. Feel free to ask any questions about any knife your thinking about.
 
fracmeister said:
Good grief man.... you bought a FROST knife and were disappointed that it was low quality???? the problem is not smkw!
Click to expand...


+1

SMKW did nothing wrong. YOU did. Stick around here and learn what brands make the cut. (pun intended :D )

FWIW, Stay away from Frost, United Cutlery, Gil Hibben, Meyerco, and anything with the word "Fantasy" within a mile of the name.
 
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