Oh, so if a Leatherman breaks, it's an uncommon manufacturing flaw. But if a Victorinox scissors spring breaks, then they are all bad?
Some years ago, we found a Leatherman wave by the side of the road. The main blade was snapped off. My better half sent it back to Leatherman, they sent her a new one. She tried to carry it in her purse, but it was heavy as a small pistol, so it got tossed in the kitchen drawer. Didn't make sense to carry it as a glove box tool, as there is a real tool kit in the trunk. After a year or so, she gave it to our son in law. John was using it to tighten a bolt on our granddaughters swing set, and the plier jaw snapped off.
John boxed it up and sent it back to Leatherman. They sent him a new one. Good customer service, just like Victorinox. A few months later, one of the plier jaws snapped off again. Now, John may be a big boy, but he's not bionic. He tossed the Leatherman in a drawer.
So, manufactoring defect? Or should our family just from now on run down Leatherman?
Wow. Two in a row. That sucks.
I've never once busted an MT pliers head but I tend not push them as a hard as normal tools on account of the pivoting handles. But I did some Googling around and it seems that they are prone to breakage. Common theme seems be a combination of clamping and twisting. Leatherman has introduced beefier pliers heads over the years so it would appear they continue to evolve their design to meet the needs of harder use. I've wrecked enough Bucks to know that for my use, their design isn't strong enough for me so yeah, if you're nephew is regularly seeing breakage of Leatherman Wave pliers, I would consider moving up to a beefier design like the Surge or ST 300 (both of which have bigger pliers heads than the Wave) or recognize the limitations of the design.
EDITED TO ADD: Just to show I'm an equal opportunity curmudgeon, my Wave has deformed laterally under normal/hard shop use over the past 10 years or so. The handles no longer line up squarely. I don't think I'm a monster but I've clearly been squeezing on it more than the butterfly joints can handle. That's a basic weakness in the design compared to a regular set of pliers to be sure.
I count the problems of the scales and scissors springs that I've had with Victorinox to be a bit different in that they've repeatedly failed under normal use where hard pressure wasn't the issue (as it is with my Buck failures or your Leatherman failures). There's really no way for me to moderate my use to prevent damage so the only alternative has been to find more durable designs.
As for weight, we're in total agreement. As I noted in my earlier posts, if one wants a single tool in the pocket at under 4 oz, the basic camper pattern is a better bet than any pliers based MT. Above 4 oz, imo, is where you start to get into legitimate differences of opinion. The Leatherman Juice line (4-5 oz) is designed to be pocketable but is better compared to the larger SAKs. I use my full sized MTs as luggables (carried in my day pack as a back up) or hip worn (working on my property). I don't think they're particularly good EDC options, which is why I stick to my Opinel + Micra for EDC.
As for "running down" Leatherman, you should post any old way you want and should certainly speak to your experiences. I certainly didn't "run down" SAKs in my first post, just noted that preferences differ. I didn't mention quality negatives until somebody else raised the issue.
SAKs are great consumer knives. As I've said repeatedly here, they do a lot of things well for a lot of people. MTs and dedicated knives do to. Most things have limitations and noting that isn't "running things down", unless of course, the hearer is heavily invested emotionally in the subject.
:thumbup:
