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Queen small lockblade, 1 blade

Received this Queen small lockblade knife with curly zebra African hardwood handle today. Pictures below. I have played with it for about an hour. This review is based on first impression which can be drastically different than the impression we have after carrying any given knife for a while. You know that so forget I said it. :)

SPECS:

3" closed

Blade steel: PH-D2

Blade length: 2, 3/16" long (handle to tip)

Handle material: curly zebra African hardwood

Lock: backlock at the rear of the handle

I don't like to consider price but it needs to be mentioned I think. To expect the same level of perfection on a $55 knife as you might on a $200 knife is a little unrealistic I believe. So I keep that in mind when I form an opinion but I'll write my opinion as if price isn't considered as much as I can.

Scale: 1-10 (10=best)

First glance: 7

The fit & finish (F&F) is not great around the pivot pin/washer or other pins. The blade is not centered when closed. I don't really care about this as long as the blade doesn't touch the liners when opening or closing, scratching the blade. I only mention it for those who consider this to be real important. Some people are bugged by this. For me it's horizontal blade play that bugs me. I hate that. Other than this it's a nice looking knife.

First opening: 7

The opening is not smooth the first few times. Like absolutely no oil is applied at the factory. I DON'T care about that. I oiled it and it's much smoother now. This is something that I expect to change drastically in the next few days. When opening the blade there is a "corner" in the tang that I think is supposed to be a safety feature. That is what I consider it to be. On some knives there is a flat spot on the rear of the tang where the blade will stop at a 90° angle with the handle. At this point the spring is also flush with the liners on the handle. That's not the case with this knife. The rear of the tang is round so there's not a "stop" position. That's ok with me but I've seen enough people mention it that I guess it's important to some.

Open & locked: 7

There is a tiny bit of vertical blade play when the knife is open. This is caused by the part of the spring that fits into the slot in the tang is not formed perfectly. This may improve once the knife is broken in a bit. There is no horizontal play at all. The lock seems plenty secure. I put enough force on the blade spine to force the blade to close if there were a problem. F&F: The spring on the back of the handle fits too far into the tang slot. This causes the spring to not be flush with the liners at both ends of the handle. The spring is lower than the liners at the pivot end and higher than the liners at the rear of the handle. I think this is one of those issues where price is considered. TOTALLY unacceptable on a $200+ knife but on a $55 knife I'll not be too upset. I have pictures of this (if the issue is visible in them). Where the blade spine meets the lock spring the blade is significantly lower than the lock bar. It is so much lower that it would appear to be intentional, not just laziness on the designers when drawing the dimensions for the parts to be cut. If this is a "mistake" anywhere along the design/manufacturing process it's a HUGE mistake. I have never seen a knife with such a difference in the lineup of the blade spine and the back of the handle that I can remember. The last two pictures show this I think. I don't have a camera or the skill to get good close up pictures.

Ergonomics: 10

The knife fits great in my hand. It has a 3-finger long handle for hands my size and is VERY comfortable. I didn’t use the knife yet. But it feels comfortable with my thumb on the pivot/blade and with my index finger close to the tip as well. Great feel.

Closing the knife: 9

The knife closes fine. I can hold it with my middle finger in the finger choil, press the lock with my thumb and push the blade down with my index finger. Then I can close it the rest of the way with my other hand or by pressing the spine on my leg to finish closing it. This means one-hand closing is fine. I consider one-hand operation a very good feature of any folding knife. I can live without it but a knife that can be opened/closed with one hand gets a lot of points for my EDC consideration. Right now I can't open this knife with one hand but that may change as the pivot breaks in and gets smoother. If it doesn't that's ok. After all, it's not designed to be a one-hand opening knife.

SUMMARY

I like this knife and am happy with it. Not having used it yet I haven’t formed an opinion of the blade steel. I haven’t sharpened it. I have not owned PH-D2 (or any D2 for that matter) so I’ll learn what kind of edge I can get on the blade and how it holds the edge. For me this is a MAJOR aspect of any knife I plan on using and I do plan on using this knife. I do like the knife despite what seems to be quite a few negative comments I've made.

If I were to decide to buy another (more expensive) Queen pocket knife I think I would want to see it first. I have a few I would like to have and based on the pictures they look great. I will admit the different pictures of this knife did NOT suggest the F&F should be as pretty as the knives in the other pictures. I have considered the copperhead, gunstock, whittler (couple others). I would appreciate input from anyone willing on the F&F or appearance on other Queen pocket knives you have, especially this knife. The F&F on this knife does not justify a knife costing more than a $50 ballpark in my opinion. I was told by the reseller this particular knife was made at the factory in the past 2 weeks.

I think I have covered everything I think at this point. A lot of what I said is negative but some of that sounds worse than my personal opinion. Some of the negative things I mentioned were for people who may care more about different issues than I do. I would recommend this knife to anyone who is not picky about fit and finish. It’s a nice little EDC knife with basically a very nice appearance. In a display case with knives you may be very proud of it would look like the ugly duckling from a “beautiful knife display” perspective I believe.

Tags: Cutlery, D2, Lockback, Queen, african, blade, curly, hardwood, one, steel, More…zebra

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Jack Haskins, Jr. on August 3, 2013 at 15:01

Playing with the knife a little more and I have determined it does have a problem. I can close the blade if I try to close it holding the blade with my index and middle finger and my thumb without releasing the lock. I'll do my best to describe this. First, the bottom line I guess is I don't believe I should be able to close ANY knife with ANY lock just by holding the handle and trying to close the blade with my other hand, holding the blade with my fingers. I'm not pushing down on the spine with the palm of my hand. I'm holding the balde between my index and middle fingers and my thumb. I'm holding the handle with 3 fingers on the bottom of the handle and my thumb in the back of the handle in the middle where the lockbar pivots.

I don't know what I'll do about this. I may keep it. It's not a hard work knife. It is definately a flaw that should be covered under warranty but maybe I'll just forget it. I shouldn't forget it. I should return it or send it to Queen. I'll decide later. Kind of down about this though. It's not an expensive knife but in my opinion only $3 gas station cash register knives should perform like this.

Jack

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Permalink Reply by Jack Haskins, Jr. on August 3, 2013 at 15:40

Things are not getting better. I put painter's tape on the blade. I held the knife in my right hand and making sure I wasn't touching the lock button I put enough pressure with my thumb (right hand) on the blade spine to cause the lock to release, closing the blade. As I slowly increased pressure I watched the lock button go down as if a ghost were pushing it. This means to me that the lock is defective. The angle at the meeting place of the lockbar and the blade tang is not at the correct angle. The blade should NEVER cause the lockbar to move when pressure is applied to the spine unless an unrealistic amount of pressure is applied. Even then one of the parts should BREAK before just releasing the lock. This also means to me the problem will get worse over time without a doubt.

This is my first Queen knife. Will it be my last? Since my only REAL problem is with the lock I guess the slip joint knives may be ok. My question is, is this the standard of quality overall or did I get a lemon?

Jack

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Permalink Reply by Jack Haskins, Jr. on August 3, 2013 at 16:14

Terminology correction. I called the lockbar a spring a few times in error in my first post. A lockback spring is not the same as the spring on a slip joint. I only mention this in case anyone is confused by what I said. Sorry.

Jack

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Permalink Reply by Jan Carter on August 3, 2013 at 16:47

Jack,

My suggestion...Dont mess with it. If something is wrong just send it back. Just my opinion

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Permalink Reply by Jack Haskins, Jr. on August 3, 2013 at 16:52

Yeah. I emailed the vendor asking if I need to deal with him or directly with Queen for warranty evaluation. I don't know what Queen's opinion is on how strong a lock should be. First time with this company and all. I'll wait till I get a reply before I send Queen an email.

Thanks Jan.

Jack

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KnifeMakerPermalink Reply by Dave Taylor on August 3, 2013 at 16:53

Jack, I am sorry that your first Queen Cutlery product has bee a disappointment. I sincerely hope you will not judge all Queen knives by this first one because Queen really does make some very fine knives. Their Schatt & Morgan line is especially good, and is what I carry everyday.

I am not at all familiar with the model of the knife you have so I cannot comment on it. In a locking blade knife my all time favorite is the Queen #06L Teardrop pattern. You might take a look at it. Please keep in mind that the Zebra Wood knives are the utility/work line, with the Aged Honey Amber Bone Stag selection having polished blades and are a bit of a step up but still a fine working knife. Both the Zebra Wood and the AHABS knives all have the fine D-2 blade steel.

Top of the line of course would be the various Schatt & Morgan series with your choice of 420, D-2, or ATS-34 blade steel depending upon the specific Series. Please don't give up on Queen Cutlery.

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Permalink Reply by Jack Haskins, Jr. on August 3, 2013 at 17:05

Dave,

Won't give up on Queen yet. The knife company I have the most experience with (knives) is Spyderco. I have returned one of them because of a problem and they replaced it. This was after buying I don't know how many Spyderco's though. This time, I got the flawed knife first to get it out of the way. :) I've heard too many great things about Queen to think this one knife is a good example of the norm. Funny thing is that in addition to having a flawed knife, it took over 3 weeks to get it. :) So all the bad luck has been taken care of with this one purchase. Can you imagine how smooth things will go from now on? :)

Jack

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In MemoriamPermalink Reply by Robert Burris on August 3, 2013 at 17:14

Jack, I have bought knives from Queen for a while now and never had a problem. You just had real bad luck. Better days coming.

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KnifeMakerPermalink Reply by Dave Taylor on August 3, 2013 at 17:39

I am wondering if part of that 3 week wait time might have had something to do with the week long Queen Event and Open House last week and also all the preparations for it before hand. Queen is not a large factory operation and I am sure it took all hands to prepare for the wonderful event that they had and enjoyed.

I am not familiar with the knife you have there so I am wondering if it is possibly a new model in their line. Perhaps a design improvement may be in order, or yours might just have been one that slipped by for some reason. I would send it back to Queen so they can make it right and also see just what happened and why. Best of luck.

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FeaturedPermalink Reply by Craig Henry on August 3, 2013 at 17:46

Good review Jack!

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Permalink Reply by Jack Haskins, Jr. on August 3, 2013 at 17:49

Dave,

The 3 week delay was actually due to the vendor I ordered it from didn't have any in stock. He had to wait for Queen to run a batch of them which happened about 10 (or so) days ago. The guy who has the web site I ordered from also was involved with the show. He said sales have been going great since the Daniel's came on board. I don't know how new the model is but I was happy knowing I was going to get one manufactured after any changes the Daniel's made. That's if any needed to be made on this particular model. Come to find out they ruined the one and only Queen I have ever even seen. lol That is a joke. :)

Jack