The Emerson CQC-7B folder was mentioned in my dreams page for some time, before I finally decided to buy it. The order was placed to KnifeCenter.Com, who provide an excellent service. My CQC-7 arrived in less than a week. When I finally got it in my hands, I was really thrilled, like when I got my first real pistol (a Sig Sauer P-226). As I was admiring the knife, it slipped from my hand and landed (blade open) on top of my M-1911, which was resting on the couch next to me, the blade of the knife hitting the hammer of the pistol. Result? A small dent on the knife's blade! God Almighty, the first day I got the bloody knife!

I managed to ruin my newly acquired dream, before even I got the chance to use it. Panic! Well, I thought do not worry, Internet is here to help you out. I got into Emerson's site and found their e-mail address (please note that at that time, Emerson's site had no resharpening instructions. Even if they did have them, I didn't have the tools to do it, so what could I do?). I send them an e-mail, asking for directions on how to sharpen the knife, and if possible, to send it back to them for resharpening. Guess what? No response! Absolute silence, as if nobody reads the e-mails of the company. After a few months, I tried e-mailing them again. Same response, silence. In the mean time, the Emerson (dented or not) had become my standard knife, being carried on myself even on my wedding day.

After the second e-mail went unanswered, I gave up with Emerson Inc. and tried to restore its blade to the original condition. I got a Lansky kit and after spending a whole afternoon of elbow grease, I manage to make the blade straight and really sharp again. One notice here, the edge angle of the CQC-7 is almost 35 degrees. Since the Lansky kit has a fixture which goes only up to 30 degrees, I had to improvise, manufacturing an additional fixture, which allowed me to resharpen the CQC-7 without changing the blade's edge angle. I continued to carry that knife on myself, and never lost a chance to show it to friends and other interested parties. During this period, it has been used to cut various things, mostly soft things such as paper and cardboard, but I was really careful not to abuse the blade, so no wires etc.

Then, one day I went to buy some oysters. The Greek variety of these tasteful creatures has a straight edge, so opening them with a knife is a piece of cake. As I wanted to be sure that the oysters were fresh, I thought I should open one and check. Here comes my CQC-7, I open it expertly in front of the fisherman, who was selling the oysters and I insert the blade into the shell's opening and twist. The oyster was fresh and alive, but imagine my horror when I noticed that the CQC-7's blade was dented again by the oyster's shell, and this time, in more places than one! At the same time, the fisherman had opened several oysters for other clients, using a plain, old kitchen knife, which had absolutely no signs of damage or tear.

I couldn't believe this. This was not a knife, this was a piece of junk. After I got home, I e-mailed Emerson again, this time mentioning that if I do not get a response within a week, I'll make the whole issue public, through M1911.ORG. Sure enough, after one week, nobody had bothered to answer me. I was really pissed off, this time, so the announcement went in the front page of my site. In the same time, I mentioned the problem to the M1911.ORG mailing list (475 members at that moment) and ask (a) if other people had the same problems with the CQC-7, (b) if they considered my usage of the knife, an abuse and (c) what they think of a company which does not answer their e-mails. I got several responses, from people much more knowledgeable than me on this subject. From those responses, it was apparent that at some time Emerson did indeed have a problem with the quality of their steel, several people mentioned that the blades were rusting, despite the Black-T coating. It was also a common response that indeed Emerson's attitude sucked!

One afternoon, I gave up again, and took the Lansky kit out again. Several hours later, the CQC-7 had again a decent edge, but I badly needed some massage, due to all that effort. One problem remained though, one of the dents was in the serrations area, and I didn't had the required stones to remove it. Oh well, that was not a big issue, the problem was that I was so frustrated with the knife and with Emerson's response (or rather the lack of it), that I retired the knife in my bedstand table drawer.

Among the responses I got from my site, was one from an Emerson retailer (as well as a PI and a knife trainer), Robin Brown (Brownie can be reached at ). Brownie assured me that Emerson does stand behind their products and suggested that I contact Emerson via a different method than e-mail. Calling them is an alternative, but the call charges from Greece to USA are not the cheapest ones on Earth. Brownie volunteered to contact Emerson for me, and soon after that, I received an e-mail from Emerson, apologizing for not answering my e-mails, and suggesting me to return the knife to them for repair or replacement, at their discretion.

I immediately packed the knife as best as I could and called DHL (the FEDEX equivalent) for the shipment. With a cost of almost 40 US$, the knife arrived at Emerson's headquarters on April 1st.

On April 22nd, I received a USPS package. It was from Emerson. I opened it, and guess what I found! YES! A brand new CQC-7B (as is the official model number for the tanto blade, half-serrated blade), shown below, together with a note from Ernest Emerson himself. In his note, Mr. Emerson informed me that all their knives are heat treated and inspected to Rockwell 57-59, and that my previous blade was the same. He explained that they do not make them any harder, because they want the knives not to break under hard use. A dull blade (according to his words) can be resharpened, a broken one cannot.

My new Emerson CQC-7B opened

Conclusions:

• I guess I had abused my previous knife, by using it to open oysters or do other mundane chores.
• Emerson do stand up behind their products, even though they do not read their e-mails.
• My new CQC-7 will never be drawn for cutting chores. It will remain constantly in my right trouser's pocket, for that case, when my life is at threat and my M-1911 is not with me (hopefully, CQC-7 will remain there for ever).
• I have to decide which one will be my mundane-chores knife.

My new Emerson CQC-7B closed

Two more thing that I noticed on the new CQC-7, is that (a) the main pin, around which the blade rotates, is now absolutely flat, on the side where the knife clip is located. In the past, CQC-7 had a protruding, round pin, which was not allowing the clip to be fully seated on the knife's surface, if you wanted to relocated the clip to the front of the knife. It looks as if this small problem has now been corrected. Not that it ever bothered me, I prefer the clip the way Emerson has it originally, so I never attemped to move it to its alternative position. (b) The second thing I noticed is (and this is kind of frustrating) that the blade, when in its closed position, is not centered between the liners and handle. I do not know if this is typical of Emerson's quality control, but you would expect that after all this fuss, they should have selected a perfect knife to send. I guess Emerson's quality control is not exactly the best in the industry.

In any case, I have to thank Ernest Emerson for the attention he showed to my case, as well as Brownie for helping me resolve this issue. Brownie is now my associate in the maintenance of this site.

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