The Benchmade LifeSharp Experience

So I’ve been reviewing Benchmade knives for a while now, with one of my earliest articles on here being a review of a Benchmade Casbah that I used for work and fishing. So I thought it was about time for me to use the warranty feature they always love bringing up for the first time: LifeSharp. The Benchmade LifeSharp program is a customer service feature that gives Benchmade owners free factory sharpening of their knives for life. So, with a few knives sitting around at home that needed some love after their reviews were done, especially a Mini Bedlam that had a nick taken out of it. I thought this was the perfect time to get these knives worked on before hunting season started.

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So, step one for me was going to the LifeSharp page online and ordering a prepaid envelope directly from them. This was simple; just put in the model numbers of the knives you are going to send in, and they send you the prepaid self-service kit. You can send up to 3 knives for any claim that has fixed blade knives or 5 knives if you are sending only folding knives. I paid a $10 shipping fee when I did this earlier this summer, but now I see it’s gone up to $20. For anyone who lives near an authorized Benchmade dealer, you can avoid paying any of this by dropping your knives off with the dealer to send into the LifeSharp program free of charge. After ordering the service kit, it took about 4 days to show up.

The kit included the big cardstock envelope, three cardstock sheaths, instructions, a plastic bag to seal the envelope, and a prepaid shipping label. The three sheaths are included to securely hold your folding knives and in case you are missing the sheath for your fixed blades. You insert the knife into the sheath, then remove the sticker protector from the tape to securely lock your knife into place in the sheath.

Once you have all the knives sheathed, you just put them back into the provided envelope. I just shipped my fixed blades: a Water Collection Intersect and 4″ Meatcrafter, in their original sheaths, while the Mini Bedlam was shipped in the provided sheath.

Once I got the knives in the envelope, I sealed it up with the provided plastic shipping bag and slapped the provided shipping label onto it. The final step was to drop it off at FedEx and wait for it to come back.

And wait, I did; it took about 3 or 4 weeks for the knives to be worked over and then shipped back to me. To be fair to Benchmade, shipping probably did take about 6 to 8 days, considering how I’m on the opposite corner of the country from them. So I will say if you are in a rush, the LifeSharp program might not be the route you want to go through.

The Benchmade LifeSharp Experience

The knives came back packed in almost the same way I shipped them out, except for them putting some foam padding on the Santoprene handle of the 4″ Meatcrafter.

Pulling them from the sheaths, I can see that the folks over at Benchmade did a great job and brought the knives back to just as sharp as they were when I first pulled them from their boxes. Even with the Mini Bedlam, where the nick was at least 1mm deep into the edge, they reground the edge to look brand new. I mean, I could have ground it out myself on my wetstones, but that would have probably taken an hour, and I would have also probably marred the blade coating while doing it. The 4″ meatcrafter is also in perfect condition now as well. When I had sent it in, I hadn’t touched it after hunting season last year, when we broke down 6 whitetail and countless waterfowl with it.

So overall, I found that the Benchmade LifeSharp program is a great perk of owning their knives. Is it the fastest way of sharpening your knives? No, not really. I would say think you are going to have about a 1 month turn around time between first ordering the service kit and getting your nice and sharp knives back. So if you are in a rush or only need 1 knife sharpened, maybe look at using a wetstone at home. But if you want to get that factory edge back, and if you have folding knives you just want worked on, the LifeSharp warranty is something I highly recommend any Benchmade owner take advantage of. Lastly, again, while you have to pay $20 to cover the shipping of the self-service kit, you can skip all that cost to yourself by going to an Authorized Benchmade dealer and having them send it out for you.

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