Monday, September 03, 2007

A knife offends me again

Saw this new Boker for sale somewhere, and just shook my head at it.

There are a couple things I find offensive here. First and foremost...what an uninspired, derivative piece of crap. The text in the description from the marketer's tells you all you need to know: this thing was designed to separate those that don't know better from their hard earned overseas duccats, and Boker is hoping to get them in PX's the world over. To that end, they didn't bother to design a new knife, they just stole designs from others in the industry. I won't say competitors, because the companies they ripped off here are worlds away in better quality. The handle design is clearly an attempt to copy Strider's destinctive design. Too bad this knife is nothing like Strider's quality. The stop pin design belongs to Kit Carson, who licensed it to Columbia River Knife and Tool. IIRC, Carson has a patent on the opener design (The Carson Flipper), so this thing may even be violating a patent. Nice going, Boker!

Too bad its not gonna hold up like they say it will. Chinese (that's what "Partners from the Far East" means) folders aren't known for their long and distinguished history of holding up over time, or for the use of such things as threaded inserts or thread locker. Sure, the pocket clip can be swapped both ends on both sides. You may have to do that to keep the clip on the knife. The thread holes don't have inserts in 'em. When the screws tear the threads out of the G10, if you can keep the screws (good luck not losing them forever) you can swap the clip around until you run out of holes to screw 'em into. Its not a question of "if", its "when". G10 is a great material, but not for holding fine thread screws. And remember, Chinese knifes aren't known for having thread locker in 'em. They're gonna let the manufacturer do the QC on this line, too. Should be fantabulous.

Granted, this thing retails at $35.00, so it'll be discounted to a lower price than that. I'm just sick and tired of companies trying to cash in on guys who don't know better and giving them a crap product that "looks cool". The target market here doesn't make a whole lot of money, and they deserve to be looked out for. I'm obviously not against companies making money; I'm in the Military Industrial Complex myself, after all. But we do the best we can to make the best quality product we can, knowing where its going and who's using it. That's not the design parameter here. The stealing of the design and finest quality Chinese manufacturing sickitates me. "The first choice of the ARMED FORCES on their worldwide use." My ass.

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