[Doug S]

I've noticed on my new Case Mini Trapper that the blade appears to have been overly sharpened. The edge is somewhat irregular, and some "extra" metal appears to have been removed (especially near the tang stamp). Just wondering is this is commonplace with Case, and other manufacturers. Thanks for any feedback.

You can see the curvy blade in the picture below.

[LIQUID SNAKE]

Most knives are still made by hand nowadays. Their is just an increasing use of power tools. So due to human error some inconsistency will still make it through. Good quality knife makers usually take the time to do everything right. So the product is higher quality but, so is the price because of the time involved. Cheep ones are still more hand made and less automated but, the automation is still present. If the goal is to crank out so may units in a said period of time than less attention to detail will be favored for pure numbers produced. Thus lots of defects like you described will be allowed to slip through. It's basically "you get what you pay for" especially with knives. Now the Chinese on the other hand are different. Wouldn't surprise me if they had almost total automation and just employed slaves "oops, I meant workers" as assemblers only. Just look at the quantity of **** they produce. It's bewildering the numbers of items they can make but, Stalin said "quantity has a quality all it's own". I guess the Chinese really believe in that principle.

[bikerdoc]

Doug,
I am never happy with any factory edge. Some are better than others, some like the spyderco are even great,but the all get the "Doc"
treatment. Reprofiling, sharpening, and polishing out the tool marks. Whatever they need to make them right for me.

[Doug S]

Thanks for the responses. I'm probably going to leave it alone for now, and resharpen as necessary.

[HiWayMan]

The little hollow you see at the front of the tang stamp is normal and the sign of a good knife. This hollow allows the edge to be sharpened all the way back to the tang without gringing into the tang itself. I find the factory edges tend to wear out very fast as they are usually put on with a buffing wheel. They are in essence a micro sawteeth. A good stoned edge is the first thing a new knife gets from me. The stoned edge will be much more durable.

[rcmodel]

I don't think he is talking about the little hollow, or Choil as it is called.

I think he is talking about the knife on the right that looks like some deranged GrinderMan got hold of it.

It does look excessive to me, and I'm kinda surprised it escaped the Case QC people like that.

Any chance it was a dealer return before you got it that someone else had already worked over?

rcmodel

[Doug S]

Any chance it was a dealer return before you got it that someone else had already worked over?

It's possible. If someone brought it back, and stated that nothing was wrong with it, they may have put it baqck in the display. That said, there are no scratches on the blade whatsoever, and it doesn't look like it's been resharpened.

[Doug S]

Any chance it was a dealer return before you got it that someone else had already worked over?

It's possible. If someone brought it back, and stated that nothing was wrong with it, they may have put it back in the display. That said, there are no scratches on the blade whatsoever, and it doesn't look like it's been resharpened.

[hso]

It's just a bad grind. The person who held the knife didn't do as good a job as would be expected.

You can return it to the retailer or, better yet, to Case and get one with a proper grind.

Case would want it back for QC purposes.

[exoduster18]

You said that it is a Case knife, correct? I live about half an hour away from Bradford, PA where they are made and actually applied for a job there.

During the course of the interview, they took me out on the factory floor and showed how the blades were sharpened. It's called "hafting/honing". I'm guessing that you just got the new guy working on the line and he took a little to much metal. It's not a hard process, but it does take practice and attention to detail. I'm guessing that the person got distracted.

[Doug S]

I'm guessing that you just got the new guy working on the line and he took a little to much metal. It's not a hard process, but it does take practice and attention to detail. I'm guessing that the person got distracted.

That was kinda my thinking upon first inspecting the blade.

Well, I might regret it later, but I got a little impulsive and returned the mini-trapper to the store. I exchanged it for a Case Amber Bone Canoe with CV blades. Date on the box, and blade shank indicate 2001 manufacture, so it's been in the display case for a little while. It was the display model. Blades are ground much better.

I really liked the Mini-Trapper, and might look for another in the future. I just decided that a little too much metal had been removed by someone other than myself.

Thanks again for all of the feedback.

[sadlsor]

Hopefully not too OT - I have always been amazed at the factory blade on new Cold Steel knives. As advertised, they are consistently "hair-flinging sharp."

This has been my experience with ANY new CS blade product, fixed or folding, and I'm somewhere over a couple of dozen, over about 12 years. (Can't pass up their semi-annual sales fliers!)

Even their "seconds", reduced-price offerings due to minor profile or some other slight irregularity, have amazing blade sharpness out of the box.