Smith & Sons just earned themselves a continuing customer

[knivesandbooks]

Awhile back I purchased a Smith & Sons Spur. It is an edc sized fixed blade that looks awesome and comes with a top tier leather sheath. The sheath is still awesome and I've no complaints. Best non-custom sheath I've owned. The knife though had issues. It was a $140 knife and came with 1095 steel. It was also not ground thin at all. In an effort to try and make it cut well, I reprofiled it. I didn't go too thin at all, not even as thin as my 1095 traditionals. However, the edge was chipping and flaking off (with audible snaps) while I was reprofiling it. I wasn't using diamonds, was going slow and easy, and everything was soaking in water. It had to be a heat treat issue, hardened too brittle.

Well, I emailed the company. Not complaining, but asking advice as I still had it in the back if my mind that it was my fault while sharpening. One of the owners, Pamela Smith, emailed me back saying it was not my fault. She said that that run did have a heat treat issue and was not ground thin enough.

This is where Smith & Sons has won me over though: not only are they going to replace the knife, they're going to replace it with one that has AEB-L steel and a more aggressive grind. Just replacing it was unexpected based on service I've recieved from other companies in the past (no, I'm not talking about Spyderco). Telling me that the new one will have a better grind would have made me very happy. But also giving me a much more edc friendly steel and probably more expensive steel is a major plus.

[remnar]

That's some top rate customer service!

[Doc Dan]

That is pretty good customer service.

[knivesandbooks]

Well, the replacement knife is in the mail. They're also sending me a t-shirt. They did an HRC test to confirm our suspicions and the steel was a couple points higher than their target point. I do suspect that there is more to it than their hardness though. I think part of the issue was the hardness and the shallow grind. I bet if the grind was more aggressive from the start, the edge would have been a lot less brittle. But, it doesn't matter now. I told them that I wasn't picky on the handle material and would accept any so long as it was micarta or g10. My original was denim micarta but the new one is going to be natural micarta. AEB-L steel. I'm pretty excited.