Why do buyers expect a PERFECTLY centered blade?

[Bill S.]

I expect a centered blade. It's a knife--a blade, maybe liners, and handle slabs. Put it together properly.

I haven't bought cheap knives, but with knives I'm spending decent money on I hope the assembly QC would at least look at the final product and put the oddballs in the return bucket. By the way, why can't they center a blade in the first place? Is it because that particular blade is warped? Then it should be priced as a factory second. No OCD here, just wanting to get what I pay for. BTW, I wouldn't want a watch with an off-calibrated hour or minute hand either...after all, they're watches.

[Blerv]

The blade probably isn't warped but the liners aren't always perfectly flat.

They have to shim and tighten in a particular order to optimize blade motion, safety, etc. They can avoid this by tightening tolerances, lapping components perfect flat, and spending a tad more time on the little details. Of course, you would be paying $400+ a knife.

There is nothing wrong with having a great burger at a quality pub. They are some of my favorite meals. If I stood up in shock and complained it didn't taste like a world class steak it's likely the waiter would laugh at me.

[bdblue]

A little off center doesn't bother me as long as the knife functions and the blade doesn't drag on the liners. I'm a lot more concerned about the blade grinds, how the pivot works and how well the lock works.

[Jay_Ev]

I disagree that if you want a centered blade, you should expect to pay $400+ per knife.

I own almost 20 Byrd knives, all of them dead centered, none of them were $400. In fact, none of them were over $25 bucks apiece.

In my opinion, a centered blade is a reasonable expectation.

[Blerv]

Sorry. I didn't intent to say that $400 buys you a centered knife but rather a more "perfect" one.

For the normal production knife price you should expect a high performing tool with often surprising level of F&F. The people that get microscopes out expecting godliness are simply delusional. Kudos if you get it but don't hold your breath :)

I certainly don't prefer they spend their labor hours centering blades. Amongst the specifics they could focus on.

[w3tnz]

The blade not being dead center within the scales is usually easy to fix, but if the grind is off there's no way. I can live with the former but not the latter, however I would have been p***ed off if my $400 knife was not dead centered, but that's why I brought it.

[DougC-3]

I think what a lot of people are glossing over is that the OP specifically called out "PERFECTLY" centered blades. He wasn't talking about blades that are way off or rubbing liners. I don't expect perfect centering. I expect it to be well centered, with leeway for small bias to one side or the other, as that should be expected in mass produced items. Do I prefer perfectly centered blades? Certainly! Would I pay more for a knife I want that has a perfectly centered blade then one that is barely off center? No way!

I don't think any of us are arguing that centered blades shouldn't be a goal of the manufacturer, nor should we hope for a blade that is off center. What I believe most of us are saying is the perfect centering isn't realistic on 100% of pieces and that a small deviation from center is well within acceptable tolerances for a mass produced item.

This is pretty much what I've been thinking while reading this thread, but I think an exception might be someone who is strictly collecting and looking for a perfect specimen or two of each type. The longer the blade, the more a tiny angle of off-centering shows up, so if a millie user is barely noticably off center at the tip, I wouldn't think twice about it.

[Mick]

When I buy a new knife I want it to be centered properly. However, since I can't actually handle the knives I buy on the net I live with the uncentered blade as long as it isn't rubbing when I close it.

[Cheddarnut]

With the advent of the internet people can afford to shop around for what they want in a knife because there are many options for dealers. The OP is frustrated that he is being held accountable for people excercising their right to discretion in what they select to buy, in this case they want centered blades. But down playing peoples opinions or expectations because he doesnt benefit seems rash, as those same preferences lead people to spend 100$ plus on a knife to begin with...

[Evil D]

With the advent of the internet people can afford to shop around for what they want in a knife because there are many options for dealers. The OP is frustrated that he is being held accountable for people excercising their right to discretion in what they select to buy, in this case they want centered blades. But down playing peoples opinions or expectations because he doesnt benefit seems rash, as those same preferences lead people to spend 100$ plus on a knife to begin with...

Exactly! If it's not fit and finish, then why are we paying so much for these knives? I know materials of course but I suspect any company could crank out some shoddy s30v/G10 knives with crappy fit and finish and we wouldn't be flocking to buy them would we? Spyderco has a reputation for putting out high caliber high fit and finish knives and it's because of this that people are bothered by small things like off center blades.

[FCM415]

Doesnt have to be PERFECT but I do expect centered blades, to me it is a sign of quality... Attention to detail. Most of the time, I can get it centered myself... Which means THEY could have centered it. One that I couldn't center myself was a pinned Caly 3.5CF, it also had another issue and it was wayy off center. Sent it back to Spyderco and they sent me a new knife. Could mean that brands acknowledge that it is a warranty issue but most likely just a good gesture.

When I buy high end watches, I expect the hands to line up to the indices along with the bezel.
When I buy a new car, it should drive "straight" and not have a tendency to go left or right on its own.

Not perfectly correlating examples and I know there are those that feel that Im asking too much and give me the :rolleyes: but that's ok, to each his own. When you have hundreds of knives, you are at least partially a collector wether you like it or not and as one, what is wrong with wanting the best of every model? These aren't gas station knives that my friends own these are "precision cutting tools" I take pride in. It may cut the same as a knife that hits the liner when closed but I'll be damned if my $230 dollar Southard wasnt centered.

Add: No I never manufactured anything and that is not my concern. Does it take that much manufacturing to center hobby grade tools? Maybe so, but it is still a minor annoyance when I receive one and another guy on the forum posts that he received a perfectly centered blade... Like, what happened with my knife, was it manufactured less where I have to center it myself? How about bladeplay? Is it being entitled to ask for a solid lockup??? I mean, theres like two things knife guys can look out for in terms of out the box quality... Is it really too much? I may appreciate it more if I was in the field of manufacturing knowing what it takes but consumers demand certain things, its not like asking for a perfect bevel or NASA grade machining. Some consider CRK's as a standard in quality. One of their selling points is a centered blade with no play every time and buyers swallow it up... It is a sign of quality wether you like it or not.

[2011BLDR]

Define perfectly centered:

Looks to be with my eye ?
OR
Measured with a precision instrument?

I just measured a Cruweare Milatary that looks perfect to my eyeball but measures off by .007 of an inch.

[testosterone325]

It depends on the price I pay I suppose. On a relatively expensive knife (for me about $150 +), I would hope that the blade is centred. If its a tad off no big deal but I would PREFER a nicely centred blade. I understand it takes ridiculous amounts of time, effort, money, skill etc to make a perfect knife. It is somewhat unrealistic to expect perfection on a production knife. Spydercos tolerances are pretty strict for the most part and I cant complain for the price they go for. My PM2's had blade play right out of the box and one of them was slightly off centre. But I paid less than $150 and I fixed the issues by adjusting the pivot. For me no big deal. Sal once posted about Chris Reeve's tolerances and pretty much nailed it when it comes to the expertise and time it takes to make a knife like the Sebenza. You pay for it though. It really comes down to realistic expectations. You pay for perfection. I just recently got a Sage 1 and today a Sage 2 and they are perfect in every way. I got them for dirt cheap brand new but even at regular retail prices, I would never have expected such perfect knives. At the price Spyderco's sell for, I am extremely impressed.

[mattman]

part of the "problem", imho, is the amount if quality we get on a normal basis from Spyderco, so the few weaker examples that escape seem to be even more glaring, especially since most of us in an internet forum, probably also buy the majority of our knives the same way (internet), so on the off chance that we get a "lemon", our natural instinct is to come on the internet, and ask everyone...

[Cheddarnut]

^^
Also if they allowed the ELU to be part of the process instead of discouraging it we could officially adjust nuances to own own level of expectation (as some of us do 'illegally', potentially voiding warrantys) If CRK builds in the elu's participation and they have better out of the box properties, why not producers with less stringent out of the box tolerances? There must be some of us that are so ham fisted that they are forced to deny us the priviledge of adjustments...

[Evil D]

Define perfectly centered:

Looks to be with my eye ?
OR
Measured with a precision instrument?

I just measured a Cruweare Milatary that looks perfect to my eyeball but measures off by .007 of an inch.

To me, that .007 is absolutely unacceptable. I'd ship that POS knife right back to Spyderco and demand a replacement :p


Anyway, I just bought a Bug today for $6.50, blade is about as centered as possible. Made in China, less than $10.

[Evil D]

part of the "problem", imho, is the amount if quality we get on a normal basis from Spyderco, so the few weaker examples that escape seem to be even more glaring, especially since most of us in an internet forum, probably also buy the majority of our knives the same way (internet), so on the off chance that we get a "lemon", our natural instinct is to come on the internet, and ask everyone...

I've posted this about 3 times in this thread now. The internet is a monster like that. I never even considered something like blade centering before joining this forum, but then I also never really had a knife that brought it to my attention either.

[JNewell]

I've posted this about 3 times in this thread now. The internet is a monster like that. I never even considered something like blade centering before joining this forum, but then I also never really had a knife that brought it to my attention either.

It's very similar to a phenomenon with camera lenses. Until sometime in the 2000s, no one considered dust in a camera lens an issue. Today, it's a mandatory disclosure item. The problem is that even fixed focal length lenses "ingest" air and dust when they focus ("focus breathing"), and most zoom lenses ingest huge volumes of air and dust. The inevitable result is that there is dust inside the lens. Now, this has absolutely no, none, zero, nada, effect on picture quality. However, the world of the internet has made it a pricing and disclosure issue. Sort of like "perfectly" centered blades.

[w3tnz]

If CRK builds in the elu's participation and they have better out of the box properties, why not producers with less stringent out of the box tolerances? There must be some of us that are so ham fisted that they are forced to deny us the priviledge of adjustments...

I think your looking at that the wrong way, CRK allow servicing of their knives by the ELU because the tolerances are so fine that the knife will go back together and function the same no matter what, you don't "adjust" a CRK.

Consider (hypothetically) a knife with lower tolerances, perhaps the stop pin is not perfectly round, the knife works when it leaves the factory because the maker has assured the stop pin is in alignment with the other parts of the knife, and has loc-tite'd it in place. Now if the user were to take that knife apart, and the stop pin has been rotated, your lock might not function correctly or the screws might work their way back out, clearly this is an issue for the user, which in turn becomes an issue for the maker.

If that lower tolerance knife does have a defect, you can either send it back to the MFG under warranty, or assume all responsibility and attempt to fix it yourself. I'm cool with that as long as I have both options.

[razorsharp]

I must be unlucky- I havent had many centered blades... even my sebenza is to the right a bit :P