Issue with my Southard flipper

G

gunzablazin8582

Joined
May 1, 2012
Messages
130
I have owned my Spyderco Southard for a good while now, probably 6-7 months, and I've never had an issue until yesterday. I picked it out of my case to carry and it functioned beautifully as always. During the day I didn't use it for anything outside of opening 6 or 7 packages at work. During my lunch break I was flipping it open and closed and I began to notice that it was slowly becoming extremely gritty feeling. It felt like it came on over the course of 15-20 flips until it became impossible to open it using the flipper and closing it became very difficult. I opened it up to see if it was dirty but found nothing. When I got home I opened it again and gave it a good cleaning and reapplied some lubricant and it felt fine again. This morning I take it out of the case and began flipping it and again after 15-20 times it started to get gritty feeling again but now I can hear a faint grinding noise. I took it down again and everything looks fine to me, no dirt, no lint, no damage, etc. I'm not sure what's going on, perhaps an issue with the detent ball?
Have any of you has similar issues with the Southard or other knives? I'm open to any suggestions or tips.
 
I sent a Para 2 back once that had a similar issue. Not for sure what caused it(a washer maybe ???), but I sent it in and it came back perfect.

I hadn't taken the knife apart though. You may have voided your warranty.
Give them a call or send it in and see(if you don't get it fixed yourself). Good luck.
 
I had the exact same issue with mine. put some lube on the detent ball with a q tip & u should be good to go. Hope that works for u :)
 
Double ditto, I don't have a southard but similar experience with my PM2 and Sebenza, compression/liner lock detent ball sometimes gets a little dirty with use, cleaning that can help if that's the cause.
 
Same exact issue happened to my Southard too. Thankfully, the q-tip and oil trick solved the problem for the detent ball
 
Mine developed a pronounced flat spot on the detent ball. I pressed it (the ball) out and put it back in with the ball rotated so it wasn't on top. Works perfect now.
 
Detent balls unfortunately do this a lot. I've had this happen on custom and production knives. No worries, everything is cool.
 
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