Primarily responsible for my becoming active here after years of having an account but doing nothing with it was a SOG Flash 2 that was simply handed to me by a friend while at his house and asking for a knife to open a bottle of adult beverage, having lost my EDC knife of years literally earlier that day. It's not "me" but is functional, I thought it was a great gesture, and I figure I'd keep it just because (and fix it up if I could.)
I identified three problems with the knife that I couldn't fix without replacement parts:
1) the pivot screw's Allen recess was partially stripped, so I couldn't adjust it the way I wanted
2) the pocket clip was broken off (kind of a deal killer for me)
3) the detent ball and spring for the "safety" lever were missing, meaning that it could flop to the "safe" position unless wedged open with something, making reliable opening impossible.
I contacted SOG and told them the above, and I did not omit that I was given the knife by a friend and was not the original owner, had disassembled it to clean and hopefully repair it before contacting them, and based on the fact that the detent ball was missing, it'd probably been disassembled before as well. I was told that they wouldn't send replacement parts but for a $20 fee they would fix whatever was wrong with it, if it was possible to do so. So for $20 and a bubble mailer, I sent the knife off to them and it returned last night with all faults fixed (but incredible amounts of patina intact) and a sharpened blade. Not shaving sharp, but likely as sharp as it was when it shipped the first time.
Yes it's possibly silly to spend $20 plus shipping on a knife that I can buy new for $40-50 but a) I like keeping usable tools usable as long as possible and b) this one was given to me by a friend, a new one I would have bought at a gun store or from a faceless online retailer.
Anyway, the only complaint that I had was that there was awful side-side blade play but a little twist with an allen wrench fixed that right up; suddenly opening was very stiff though. I put a drop of 3-in-1 in there and worked it a few times while watching TV. Oddly, that didn't restore good action but the oil must have seeped completely wherever it needed to be (I assume the outside of the new pivot screw?) overnight as this morning it's 100%. There's a lesson about patience in there somewhere, I'm sure.
It still probably won't be my primary EDC knife but it's nice to have it and while I've seen plenty of posts relate similar stories from manufacturer of higher priced/higher end knives I figured that I would give SOG props for providing great service on a budget-priced knife.
I identified three problems with the knife that I couldn't fix without replacement parts:
1) the pivot screw's Allen recess was partially stripped, so I couldn't adjust it the way I wanted
2) the pocket clip was broken off (kind of a deal killer for me)
3) the detent ball and spring for the "safety" lever were missing, meaning that it could flop to the "safe" position unless wedged open with something, making reliable opening impossible.
I contacted SOG and told them the above, and I did not omit that I was given the knife by a friend and was not the original owner, had disassembled it to clean and hopefully repair it before contacting them, and based on the fact that the detent ball was missing, it'd probably been disassembled before as well. I was told that they wouldn't send replacement parts but for a $20 fee they would fix whatever was wrong with it, if it was possible to do so. So for $20 and a bubble mailer, I sent the knife off to them and it returned last night with all faults fixed (but incredible amounts of patina intact) and a sharpened blade. Not shaving sharp, but likely as sharp as it was when it shipped the first time.
Yes it's possibly silly to spend $20 plus shipping on a knife that I can buy new for $40-50 but a) I like keeping usable tools usable as long as possible and b) this one was given to me by a friend, a new one I would have bought at a gun store or from a faceless online retailer.
Anyway, the only complaint that I had was that there was awful side-side blade play but a little twist with an allen wrench fixed that right up; suddenly opening was very stiff though. I put a drop of 3-in-1 in there and worked it a few times while watching TV. Oddly, that didn't restore good action but the oil must have seeped completely wherever it needed to be (I assume the outside of the new pivot screw?) overnight as this morning it's 100%. There's a lesson about patience in there somewhere, I'm sure.
It still probably won't be my primary EDC knife but it's nice to have it and while I've seen plenty of posts relate similar stories from manufacturer of higher priced/higher end knives I figured that I would give SOG props for providing great service on a budget-priced knife.
