Which manufacturers actually finish their knives before shipping them?

[Steinar]

Just a little rant to let of some steam: The other day I sharpened a rather expensive, high-end knife... The edge had an original angle of over 40° and it wasn't particularly sharp from the factory either. (I personally regard any edge angle of more than 40° inclusive as a pain in the smurf to use, and also a smurf to sharpen, as I use a Sharpmaker. I'm not a fan of the "can opener grind".) As the knife was a "super steel" I spent ages trying to get the blade into a more or less working shape. I guess that was the reason for the ridiculous edge angle too, to avoid microchipping.

Now, that was just an example of something I find to be the rule, rather than the exception: Knives are shipped blunt, badly adjusted, badly polished, filled with grit, etc, etc. You get these lovely, little make your own knife kits, instead of a properly finished knife. 

Ah, I feel all better now.

I didn't mention the manufacturer above, because flamewars aren't the MT.o way, I'd rather focus on those able to deliver a finished knife, and I can actually only think of three (out of I don't know how many) where I feel the knives I have bought have been consistently sharp, clean, adjusted, etc from the factory: Mora, Victorinox and Spyderco. I think it's pretty ironic two out of three of those operate in the shallow end of the price pool.

So, what other manufacturers do you think it's worth mentioning? I.e., just wipe off excess oil from the new knife and off you go?

[Grant Lamontagne]

I know this may start a lot of jokes as well, but I have always had good experiences with Cold Steel.  Or rather, the bad experiences were my own dumb fault, like the time I almost cut off my little finger...

That aside, I have never had any issues with any of their knives out of the box.  Admittedly I have bought very few CS knives in the past decade or so, but there was a time when I had quite the collection of CS stuff.  In the last year I bought their Grohmann knockoff, the Canadian Belt Knife and I haven't seen any major issues or changes from the standard I was used to with it.

It's funny- I find a lot more of the "shallow end" as you put it are often better than the higher end stuff.  I have only had a few higher end knives that I was completely pleased with over the years.  I think the only consistent manufacturer in the high end (or at least high end to me, although I know some folks who think a sub $500 knife is at best medium range) that I feel confident in suggesting to folks is Chris Reeve.  Unfortunately for me, while they are indeed nice knives, I just can't get into them the way others have.

Def

[dks]

Cold steel, Rough Rider, Buck (from all countries), Case xx, GEC (mine at least), SRM, Ganzo and others
The sharpest from what I remember were cold steel. GEC and RR were improved by me.
 Queen is famous for not having a good edge and some hand made expensive slipjoints can alos be bad with grinds.
I also have an ontario with an uneven grind, but it is basically a hard use knife so it is not that bad, for me.
some of the really cheap chinese fixed blades I have were very sharp too, but have soft steel.

[Grathr]

I havent tested very many brands, but there are two brands that has alway delivered flawless products to me. Victorinox and SRM. I was especially impressed by SRM since their knives are also very cheap. ( atleast the three SRM knives I have received have been perfect right out of the box)

[enki_ck]

I've never had a bad Spyderco, Byrds on the other hand needed some fine tuning. +1 on the Mora and SanRenMu. I have a stock of 5x 710s I bought for gifts and all of them were perfectly centered and sharp out of the box. Same goes for any SRM knife I ever bought.

[Gareth]

Opinel's are worth a mention I think, never bought one that wasn't sharp from the get go.

[David]

Just a little rant to let of some steam: The other day I sharpened a rather expensive, high-end knife... The edge had an original angle of over 40° and it wasn't particularly sharp from the factory either. (I personally regard any edge angle of more than 40° inclusive as a pain in the smurf to use, and also a smurf to sharpen, as I use a Sharpmaker. I'm not a fan of the "can opener grind".) As the knife was a "super steel" I spent ages trying to get the blade into a more or less working shape. I guess that was the reason for the ridiculous edge angle too, to avoid microchipping.

Now, that was just an example of something I find to be the rule, rather than the exception: Knives are shipped blunt, badly adjusted, badly polished, filled with grit, etc, etc. You get these lovely, little make your own knife kits, instead of a properly finished knife. 

Ah, I feel all better now.

I didn't mention the manufacturer above, because flamewars aren't the MT.o way, I'd rather focus on those able to deliver a finished knife, and I can actually only think of three (out of I don't know how many) where I feel the knives I have bought have been consistently sharp, clean, adjusted, etc from the factory: Mora, Victorinox and Spyderco. I think it's pretty ironic two out of three of those operate in the shallow end of the price pool.

So, what other manufacturers do you think it's worth mentioning? I.e., just wipe off excess oil from the new knife and off you go?

I've seldom seen one of those knives in my life. From any maker regardless of price. After all we are talking about a manufactured knife not a custom hand fitted knife.

[Grant Lamontagne]

Opinel's are worth a mention I think, never bought one that wasn't sharp from the get go.

Especially the carbon ones!  :ahh:

Def

Sent from a digital multitool

[Grumpy]

Mora, i have 2 of their knives, a firesteel and companion, not expensive, but good quality, sharp and keep their edge, 
it's the company that make the light my fire firesteel knife

[THE_LONGBOW]

If a knife is a user I will sharpen it before I use it. If it is a show piece it doesn't matter as long as the grinds are decent.
I have Bucks, CRKT and Kershaw and I have had decent luck with some of the edges on each.
May I suggest investing in diamond sticks for your SharpMaker. I struggled with S30V until I got a 3 stone set up (free hand). I start with it and finish with the SharpMaker. After some practice I get a better edge than I could with the SharpMaker alone, and it is a lot quicker.

[stealth007s]

I can't say I've had this happen to me. Maybe you just got a bad one

[Ashley]

GEC and Queen have the worst edges in the business imho. Although GEC is getting better and I haven't had a Queen since the Daniels bought them out.

Ash's mobile on the move.

[Steinar]

May I suggest investing in diamond sticks for your SharpMaker. I struggled with S30V until I got a 3 stone set up (free hand). I start with it and finish with the SharpMaker. After some practice I get a better edge than I could with the SharpMaker alone, and it is a lot quicker.

I think biting the bullet and practicing freehand-sharpening probably is the way to go for irritating edges, as long as the grind isn't too bad. Just keep the original angle and go with the flow. I do have diamond sticks for my SharpMaker (bought after trying to changee the grind of another knife ), but when you have to totally reshape the grind, it's still more than somewhat tedious.

[AimlessWanderer]

Only had one Queen Cutlery (a muskrat) and it was impeccable. Case has generally been clean and grit free (with the exception of my Scout Jr which was full of gunk) but the grinds have always needed work. SRM and Rough Rider have generally been quite good. Mora, Cold Steel, and Opinel have never let me down and neither has Victorinox & Wenger. My Byrd knives have needed work, as have my CRKTs. Only got one Spydie (original black UKPK) and that was secondhand, so can't comment on them. Kershaw - again, only had one (Double Cross?) and that was very good. Buck, I've only ever had X-Tracts, but they were clean and sharp. Never tried GEC, but I have so many opions now that I've not bought a trad slippie for ages. Everything else has needed a bit of attention, but nothing to significantly annoy me.

[Santos]

Kizlyar. Not cheap though. Haven't sharpened mine in the 4 years or so that i got it. To be fair i have probably used it for no more than 60 days in that period. Don't know if the french Z50 has something to do with it either. Ausjulius on this forum told me it was unusual for my particular model to come in that steel. 

[Steinar]

Kizlyar. Not cheap though. Haven't sharpened mine in the 4 years or so that i got it. To be fair i have probably used it for no more than 60 days in that period. Don't know if the french Z50 has something to do with it either. Ausjulius on this forum told me it was unusual for my particular model to come in that steel. 

I wouldn't expect Z50 to hold an edge any better than e.g. 12C27 or 440A, since we're talking about .5% C and 14% Cr and not much else. I think you simply got a knife with a good edge geometry and proper heat treatment. Lots of axes are produced with .5% C, for instance. I've been wondering a lot about Kizlyar, but haven't pulled the trigger since, as you mention they cost a fair amount and I wasn't sure about the quality.

[Santos]

Thats mine
Got it a while back for $100 or so.. now worth $150. Its a nice knife but i think i would part with it for $100 cause most of my knife work is done with a $35 Becker necker

[Santos]

Oh and i love a Kizlyar Alligator machete but at $299 i think i will have to get lots of money, solve world hunger and a spoil a lot of women before i get one

[Styerman]

Spyderco has always treated me well in that regard , never had any issues with Benchmade either .

Chris

[jzmtl]

Pretty much every manufacturer is hit or miss. Spyderco is pretty well regarded as far as sharpness out of box goes, but I have seen one that came with a 55° edge. SOG gets crapped on a lot but a trident folder I had was one of the best factory sharpened knife I had.

[THE_LONGBOW]

I have been on a factory tour at Buck Knives. I saw a person standing at a machine putting the edge on knife after knife, he was doing it free hand. I think most if not all Buck Knives are sharpened free hand so as you can imagine the edges can vary. I can not speak for other knife company's but I wonder if this is the case every where.

[jekostas]

The only company I've never (and I mean never) had any issues with out of box is....

Sanrenmu.  Seriously.

Every other manufacturer I've had knives with issues (some minor, some major) out of box.  In fact, the worst knife I ever purchased was a Spyderco, which may surprise a lot of people.  Native 3 with an improperly machined lock that failed outright within a week.

[Wootz]

Interesting topic 

Personaly I don't mind how the edge is finished from the factory. (As long as the blade is not hollow grind, because that's what I certainly don't like)

I'm putting my own edge profil on anyway, part of the fun in having a new knife is the sharpening.
(The more meat on the metal, the more happy I am)

[Wootz]

Which manufacturers actually finish their knives before shipping them?

http://www.molenmes.be/
http://www.windmuehlenmesser.de/
http://www.herdermolenmes.nl/

[THE_LONGBOW]

Interesting topic 

Personaly I don't mind how the edge is finished from the factory. (As long as the blade is not hollow grind, because that's what I certainly don't like)

I'm putting my own edge profil on anyway, part of the fun in having a new knife is the sharpening.
(The more meat on the metal, the more happy I am)

As I said earlier, I agree   

[jerseydevil]

SAKs aside, I've had the best luck with Rough Rider and my Chinese made Bucks actually.  Case tend to do a good job as well, though my Sodbuster needed to have the edge completely redone.    You can shave with it now.... 

[Dunc]

SAKs aside, I've had the best luck with Rough Rider and my Chinese made Bucks actually.  Case tend to do a good job as well, though my Sodbuster needed to have the edge completely redone.    You can shave with it now.... 

I bought a Rough Rider knife last year and I was pleasantly surprised how good the quality was.

[cbl51]

I've always thought of Victorinox as what the industry standard ought to be. I've never had a bad Victorinox.

[jerseydevil]

I bought a Rough Rider knife last year and I was pleasantly surprised how good the quality was.

It's not just that they're good knives for the money - I've found them to be good knives, period.  My red bone RR Barlow is one of the best put together slipjoints I've ever owned.  There isn't a gap to be found, the W&T is great, and it's pretty to look at.    Even with my Case, Buck, etc, it's one of my favorite carry knives. 

[Styerman]

Al Mar knives , are as sharp as any I've ever seen . They aren't too common , but are of near custom quality .

Chris