Any problems with your new Spyderco's?

kgriggs8 said:
It is cracked now and I think it has something to do with the air bubbles and pits in the steel. Need some advice.


Like Sal suggests send the Delica back to Spyderco. They need to see how it cracked to prevent a reoccurance. They also want to take care of their customers that have problems with their Spyderco knives like you.


Send it back.
 
I just looked at the Delica under 8X magnification. There are at least 4 air bubble pits that could be 6 depending on how you separate them. Some are close together and may be a single air bubble with two pits. Anyway, there is a crack from one side of the hole to the other and there is a pit right along the crack so I think that is the reason for it cracking. I looked at the other pits under my 8x lupe and I think I can see two more hairline cracks begining to form in two of the pits. I think I need to send the knife back since it may snap at some point if I use it hard.

Is the address for repairs still:
Spyderco, INC.
Attn: Warrenty and Repair
20011 Golden Gate Canyon Rd.
Golden, CO.
80403

Do I need to send a note along with it or will the problem be clear?
 
I bet Sal is thinking GEEZ I bust a hump to make good knives and these guys just criticize. We are just giving feedback. Spydies are great knives. :D
 
They really are great knives and the company really is a great company. I just sent in an integral clip Delica that was from one of the first production runs of that knife. I had it new in the box in my safe. When I got it out to carry it for the first time I noticed it had what I deemed to be excessive lateral and vertical movement of the blade when locked open or when opened and you held the lock bar depressed.

That was about 10 days ago. I just got a package in the mail this morning with a brand new Delica from Spyderco and a letter explaing the coverage under warranty. This new Delica is just like my old one only with VG10 steel on this one instead of G2 and a metal removable clip instead of the integral which is kind of sad in a way because that old one was a classic in it's own right but it was defective. The guys in QC agreed with me and replaced it. Now I gotta tell ya. Thats a warranty folks. That knife I sent them, although new in the box and unused was from like the early 90s.

And Sal that is the reason I have so many Spyderco knives. You back them up. I will always support you and your company just for that reason. But lets not forget that they are usually flawless perfection and the standard by which others are judged most of the time.
 
"I bet Sal is thinking GEEZ I bust a hump to make good knives and these guys just criticize."


Well....like I had said, maybe we are making Sal aware of the ongoing problems. Still NOT bashing Spyderco.


Another couple of things that I had noticed with the Manix, Assit & my new Stretch is that the Spyderhole to open it...each knife had a small bur that was noticeable. I had to take my little dremel & grind it off & then polish it up.
The Stretch's lock releases "Boye" (or whatever it is called....can't remember...it's late :-D ) indentation looks off center of the openingon the knifes handle....like the little divot is more towards the pivot instead of being centered.


I am just pointing these things out so in the near future things can get fixed on future knives.

AGAIN.....I am not promoting hate towards the knives....just pointing a few things out that I have been noticing with my newest knives.
 
I am not bashing Spyderco in any way. I just happen to have a problem and we are lucky enough to be able to talk the President of Spyderco on this forum. It really says something that a man like Sal Glesser, who I am sure has more important things on his mind than my little problems is going out of his way to make his customers happy. That is why I will continue to buy Spyderco knives, that is why I will be a lifetime customer. All products have a few defects that get through QC but it is the way they handle it that separates a company like Spyderco from many of the others.

I have nothing but praise for Sal, Spyderco and the knives they produce at great prices. They put premium grade steel in their knives and they do it for less than most other companies. They also know how to design a blade to be a real cutting tool and not just make a knife to be as tough as possible so it doesn't break. I think some companies are more concerned with not having to replace broken blades than making a knife that is easy to use.

I am new to Spyderco having bought my first one (Calypso Jr.) about 6 months ago. Since then, I have bought 6-7 more. I plan on buying at least 2-3 other models in the near future and probably many more over the years. I think Spyderco knives are some of the best designed knives with some of the best materials for the best price. I had a defect in a knife, it happens. What is interesting is that the president of Spyderco is probably more upset about it than I am. I get the feeling that Sal wants all his customers to be happy and his products to be perfect. Neither of these things are ever going to happen in any business but the fact that he seem to really care and try is more than enough for me to continue to buy from them and support them.
 
sixfeetdeep said:
Another couple of things that I had noticed with the Manix, Assit & my new Stretch is that the Spyderhole to open it...each knife had a small bur that was noticeable. I had to take my little dremel & grind it off & then polish it up.
I have a seki-made SS delica, it was my 1st spydie i got about 16yrs ago. the spyderhole is chamfered (sp?), & therefore much more comfortable to open. I have sanded down all of my newer spyderhole edges in an effort to chamfer them. I personally would like to see this little extra attention to detail back on the knives - but who knows what the demand-at-large is for that feature. I may be in the minority.
 
sixfeetdeep said:
Recently though, the overall quality of the knives seems to be going down.
To be honest, I agree with this statement.

I went to the local knife store last week in search of yet another Military. (Would have been my third.)

They had one in stock, and I was quite disappointed. The blade was extremely off center and had an odd grind near the choil. The edge near the choil seemed to be flaired out; almost like a miniature recurve. I was suprised to see that the edge was not all that sharp, and had trouble shaving. This was a brand new knife.

My other two Militarys were absolutely perfect.


Spyderco is my all time favorite knife manufacturer. They make outstanding knives, but it seems like there may be some QC issues as of late. Suprisingly, it seems as though most of the problem knives seem to be from the Golden, CO plant; not Seki.

I will continue to buy Spyderco knives, but will make an effort to try and actually handle the knife first.
 
"Suprisingly, it seems as though most of the problem knives seem to be from the Golden, CO plant; not Seki."

How do you know this? How many examples of each have you looked at to detremine this? I don't think you can make a statment like that without some facts to back it up. Not trying to be picky but it always bothers me when people make blanket statements like that based on just a few examples that they have seen.

BTW, my Delica with the air bubbles was a Seki knife. It had the nice chamfered hole and the grind was perfect. Everything about the knife is perfect except the air bubbles. It kind of makes me wonder how they could take the time to chamfer the hole and make the blade fit and center perfectly but miss the fact that there were 4-6 easily visable pits on the back of the spine. :confused:
 
ElectricZombie said:
Suprisingly, it seems as though most of the problem knives seem to be from the Golden, CO plant; not Seki.

I have to disagree with that statement. I own a Military, Para-Military, Dodo and Spyderfly and all have no QC issues whatsoever. Every manufacturer has some models that may slip past QC that have to be returned, but I don't think it's a major problem with Spyderco. The way I see it there are cosmetic blemishes that only nitpicking knife nuts will obsess about and then there are the manufacturing defects that may interfere with the knife's performance. This should be the biggest concern, in my opinion. I admit that I would like for all my knives to be centered in the handle when closed and blemish free out of the box, but it ain't a perfect world and we are talking about production knives here. I don't baby my knives and if they work as intended, I'll keep them.
 
I must admit that it does at times seem like a "bash list".

On the other hand, we think of it as perhaps time for some edge-u-cation on our knives.

It seems that to the "untrained eye", the "replacement panel" for changing carbide bits, in the Assist handle, was a crack in the handle.

To the "untrained eye", the Boye indent on our lockbacks is not centered in the opening, when the knife is opened or closed. But if you open the blade to the point where the lock bar is at it's greatest depth, you will see that it is now centered in the opening. The proper location of the dent is needed at its greatest depth, for function. "looks" taking the "back seat" to function.

We intentionally stopped chamferring the holes in our knives. we found that chamfers, while "looking cool", provided a ramp for the thumb to slip out of the hole, especially on our lockbaks which have a strong bias keeping the knife closed. Finding the optimum "edge" on the hole for grip is quite dificult and labor intesive. We could far more easily and cheaply chamfer the holes for "looks", but not at the expense of function. Again, the untrained eye is beefing when perhaps they should be asking? ;)

Most of what we do has a reason. Because you cannot obviously see that reason, does not make it a flaw.

That doesn't mean we are perfect, Pobody's Nerfect. But we do try to the best of our ability to make good knives for you. Our knives are made by people, just like you. They are proud of what they do and do well. We make thousands of knives every month. 95% of our letters are compliments and thanks.

I think if you compare, with a trained eye, you will find that Spyderco is among the top 10% of knifemakers in the world. And the more you learn about knives, the better Spyderco looks.

sal

----------------------------------------

The entire "business chain" from; raw materials, manufacturing, marketing, selling, distributing, shipping, warrantees, insurance, credit, etc. ALL EXISTS to service the ELU (End Line User). Remove the ELU from the equation and the entire business chain falls like a house of cards. We all work for you!
 
ElectricZombie said:
Spyderco is my all time favorite knife manufacturer. They make outstanding knives, but it seems like there may be some QC issues as of late. Suprisingly, it seems as though most of the problem knives seem to be from the Golden, CO plant; not Seki.
I agree, at least based on my personal experience, and have said the same thing here before. I've owned and carried Spydercos on and off for ~10 years now. starting with a SS Worker, and the only problems in initial quality I've had were with my two most recent folders, the Manix and Paramilitary(had a lockback go bad a few years ago, which Spyderco replaced).
I sent the Manix in, and it was taken care of.
I emailed about needing replacement screws/stop pin for the Paramilitary, since a screw had fallen out. Installing the new stop pin fixed the blade play, so that is taken care of, too.
I'm not at all disappointed in Spyderco's customer service. I'm disappointed that the only two Spydercos I've spent over $100 on are the ones that had problems.
btw, I'm also not bashing Spyderco. I had gone back to carrying my DDR CF EDC for work, and a small Sebenza everywhere else, but after getting the new screws and stop pin for the Paramilitary they went back in the drawer, and the Para went back to its #1 spot, both at work and away. That is high praise, IMO, as those are both outstanding knives.
btw, btw, I don't consider pointing out shortcomings "bashing" a company. There is room for improvement on most products. Sometimes making a small improvement might not be worth the cost or effort involved. Sometimes it might. Sometimes there are inconsistencies that need to be addressed.
I used to work quality assurance, and having problems pointed out by the customer was encouraged(of course we preferred to catch the problems without them ever getting to the customer, but it's not a perfect world we live in, and if you tested everything you made, you wouldn't have anything left to sell). Regardless of who discovered it, we couldn't fix the problem if we didn't know about it.
 
I for one am glad that opening holes aren't chamfered. I work a desk job, and I don't think of the skin on my fingers or thumbs as particularly tough, and I've never experienced the least bit of discomfort with Spyderco holes even when I'm sitting around opening and closing a knife repeatedly. The last knife I tried with a chamfered hole -- a Benchmade 630 -- was noticably more difficult to open than any of my Spydies. Downright slippery.

It just shows that you can't please everyone. In any case, sharp holes is not a manufacturing error -- it's purposeful -- and therefore cannot be a sign of Spyderco sliding down hill, can it?
 
I don't think the non-chamfered holes are a defect. I did not have any problems with the opening hole on my Native III when I opened it normally. However, it did cut me a couple of times when I was practicing the spydie drop :D. Again, this is not a manufacturing defect. I filed down the edges and my thumb slips a little bit more, but I'm happy.

Love Spydercos!
 
Keith Mayton said:
The last knife I tried with a chamfered hole -- a Benchmade 630 -- was noticably more difficult to open than any of my Spydies. Downright slippery.

Ditto that - I have a BM 556 (drop point, thumb studs) that I really like. I soon after acquired a BM 555 (sheepsfoot, oval chamfered opening hole) for which I had high hopes. Turns out that small opening hole, combined with the chamfered edge, made it near impossible for me to open the knife.

I haven't had this problem with any of the larger Benchmades that use a larger oval chamfered hole, but I will say that my experience mirrors Keith's: it is definitely not as easy to open as my Spyderco knives.

FWIW - I have not noticed a higher incidence of problems with Spydercos than other companies -- quite the opposite. If Spyderco QC is slipping, I'd say it has a long way to go before it reaches the level of some others...

Matthew
 
I am OCD about how my knives are made I admit it. I wish there was an A-1 category that cost a little extra but had been through a strict inspection. I would pay extra for the assurance that the knife was perfect. Vertical or horizontal play an average user would not notice bugs the dickens out of me. I would happily pay extra for a "perfect knife".
 
kgriggs8 said:
How do you know this? How many examples of each have you looked at to detremine this? I don't think you can make a statment like that without some facts to back it up. Not trying to be picky but it always bothers me when people make blanket statements like that based on just a few examples that they have seen.
I have purchased approximately 30 Spydercos over the years; some from Golden and some from Seki. I have also examined a minimum of 50 Spydercos that were fresh from the display case. The Seki knives were more consistant in terms of fit, finish, grinds, etc. I am not knocking the Golden made knives; I have a few that were perfect right out of the box. However, in my experience, the Seki made knives were more consistant.
 
My Starmate had some vertical play that I adjusted via the eccentric pivot.

My Native (FRN 440V) has some horizontal play, not too bad, and I can live with that, I bought it from a store like that. If only I could find the darn thing, it's around here somewhere.

Can't recall any real problems with my other Spydercos.

My most recent Spydercos, 2 Centofante IIIs, were perfect. I'll buy a few more, and other Spydercos as well.

Since my knives are all users I'm not really concened about cosmetic flaws? like little scratches, symmetrical grind lines, perfect centering of the blade, etc. "Good enough" cosmetics are good enough for me. But if I was collecting or planning to trade or resell them then I'd probably have higher standards.

Functional flaws are not acceptable, things like bad lockup, the blade having too much play - horizontal or vertical, blade too tight. But those problems have been rare with me.

Still, I like buying my folders from a store where I can see what I'm getting before I buy. This limits me to what the stores around here carry. Sending in problem knives after purchase for adjustment or replacement is kind of a problem as I live in Canada - shipping costs, Customs, etc.
 
I wish I had a store around here where I could look at Spydies. We have a new Dick's Sporting Goods store here. The clerk asked if he could show me a knife. I said no these are all AUS6 or 440A junk. I said I wished they would carry Spydercos. He agreed with me. He liked Spydies too. He had a Delica. Hopefully he will complain to management.
 
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