Taking knives apart

Sal Glesser

Sal Glesser

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Taking knives apart

Every month we get back hundreds of knives that have been returned to dealers. These knives have been played with, taken apart, re-assembled and then returned to the dealer as "new" for a refund. Dealers will just put them back on the shelf to send to some other poor customers that believes he's getting a new knife. It isn't a new knife; it has been taken apart and put back together by an amateur. Most (95%) of the time a knife is taken apart by an amateur it is not put back together properly so the new customer gets screwed by the previous customer.


Now we have the dealers return the knives to us so as to prevent this from happening. We then have to QC the knives a 2nd time and generally 2nd them. This is an expensive time taker and a loss to our company which has to be put into the costs of doing business which raises the costs of the products.


We ask our customers not to do this. We don't send out internal parts because it encourages customers to take apart their knives. These are not Tinker Toys or Lego sets, they re precision pieces. Follow our procedures and we will take care of you.


We've set up distributors all over the world to try to get the product to our customers and service their needs and problems. This is also expensive and many customers will complain about the cost and try to find ways around it, and then complain when they have a problem that circumvents all of the solutions we have tried to put into place.

We have not been able to figure out a way to sort this. Every month we get numerous customers getting on the forum and complaining publicly that we are screwing our customers. They want to have everything done the way they want it because “they have a reason”. We don’t expect them to understand all that is involved, and often they refuse to because they simply want what they want, which is often unreasonable and more costly to us than the solutions we have already put into place..


We set out policies to be able to solve issues and still make good products, please our customers and maintain a business. Perhaps this can be an ongoing discussion?


Thanx,


sal
 
Put a piece of paper in the box with big bold letters that says "Hey dummy, if you take apart this knife, all warranties and return policies are void!" So if they do take it apart, it's at their own risk. I'm sure this wont prevent them from doing it, but at least they can't say they missed the fine print of the existing disclaimer. And also maybe put together a training video for your dealer network, so they know how to inspect returns for signs of disassembly. Maybe that would reduce a small percentage of returns back to the HQ?
 
Not sure what the answer is here.

I think the return policy by the dealers is too laxed. Charge a restocking fee unless there is an issue. If there is an issue, then the dealer should send it to Spyderco.

At least on couple of occasions I have heard folks buying multiple of a knife, just so they can examine them and return the one which is less perfect. Also, see quite a few folks mentioning that their knife is not center perfectly, or action is not as smooth as it should be. Doubtlessly some will return such knife, after they tried to 'fix' it.

Also, in regards to dealer restocking a returned knife. Shouldn't they examine it before it is restocked and sold as new? Is that part of what they are getting paid for?
 
Not sure if it's feasible, but have you ever looked into putting in some sort of mechanism on the knives that would identify if they've been taken apart? Even something as simple as a proprietary compound you could stick into the torx slot on the pivot screws - something that anyone could easily remove, but would be obvious that it has been removed.

That being said, I don't think the people reading this are going to be representative of the "general public" who buy Spydercos at a sporting goods store and use them just as knives, and nothing else. I'll readily admit I tinker with most of my knives, including Spydercos (and $1000+ customs) - I've done that even before you moved off of permanent Loctite, going so far as to buy a cheap ceramic pot specifically for boiling knives to release the Loctite :). Of course, I never returned a knife after tinkering with it...

While I'm sure you have much more detailed market research than I have access to, I'd wager that experienced tinkerers are the minority of customers, but also buy many more knives than the average customers do - especially sprint runs and the specialty knives which likely have a higher per unit margin for Spyderco. I've only ever needed replacement parts for a Spyderco once (early on, when I was still learning to disengage Loctite) and was able to get them without much hassle (thanks Charlynn @ Spyderco!). However, I will say that I'd be less likely to direct my discretionary spending towards Spydercos, especially the more unusual/collectible ones, if I knew that I'd be SOL if I broke something and couldn't get it replaced. I'm fine with paying for replacement parts if I broke something, but I'd hate to have to throw out a knife altogether because those parts weren't available.

One option might be separating how you handle the core staple knives you sell (basic non-sprint Dragonflies, PM2s, etc.) from the more unique and esoteric knives. Assuming that a higher proportion of the staple knives are sold to non-hobbyist customers, putting in anti-tampering technology and rules around those makes more sense. At the same time, I think it would make sense to assume that the more esoteric knives will get tinkered with, allow for it (e.g., no Loctite, etc.) but then charge more for them to cover the additional cost to Spyderco of dealing with the fallout.
 
RC15 said:
Put a piece of paper in the box with big bold letters that says "Hey dummy, if you take apart this knife, all warranties and return policies are void!" So if they do take it apart, it's at their own risk.
Click to expand...
Return policies, maybe, but taking a knife apart to clean and maintain it is a regular part of the lifecycle of a knife. Some smaller manufacturers specifically say they WON'T cover damage to the knife under warranty that's been caused by LACK of maintenance.

A lot of people, myself included, go out of their way to avoid knives that have a blanket policy against end user maintenance and disassembly (including overuse of Loctite, proprietary hardware, etc.). I'm just some random guy, but when you have someone like Nick Shabazz recommending against knives that do that, it'll definitely affect sales.
 
I'm truly sorry that there is no good solution to this issue. As Ron White pointed out, "You can't fix stupid."

Personally, I'd wouldn't mind seeing pinned construction on everything, but I know it isn't practical from a manufacturing standpoint. Plus the fact that the same people who whine about the knife they screwed up would whine even more if they couldn't take it apart and screw it up. It would be great if you could come up with proprietary fasteners that no one else could get the tools for, but again those folks would whine about not being able to take them apart.
 
I've done that once, with a Mantra. Out of something about 70-100 knives I own, I sent back maybe 3. If I get a knife that doesn't seem to have the action it should have or the blade is offcenter etc. I take it apart and can fix it most times(for exampe a PITS that had a burr(for lack of a better term) from lasercutting or something in the pivot and was binding up really bad).
With the mantra I couldn't so I sent it back because there obviously was something fundamentally wrong with it.

As for a warranty void, I don't really care. I once used it because some screws stripped(soft phillips heads) and got new ones.

So overall, I don't really care if it voids the warranty etc. but if it's something really dumb(like soft screws with stupid fasteners or the really thin washers that used to be on spyderco flippers) then I kinda expect it to be fixed(well to get replacement parts to fix it myself)
 
Is there some kind of method for determining if a knife has been disassembled? Maybe reject returns from dealers if you find the knife has been tampered with. I myself have received "new" but not really new items and it's a bummer, but if it functions I usually just stick with it. Sorry to see this be a thorn in the side of such a good company. This does give some understanding to the increased prices (which unfortunately steers me away from the newer models). Perhaps if people didn't do this the prices wouldn't be so high.
 
I,
- tinker with my knives frequently and have fixed action and centering on multiple occasions
- have never sent a knife back
- would not be interested in lot of the knives if they were pinned - maintenance and customization

I can understand this being an issue, and would hate to be on the receiving end of getting a new knife that has been tinkered with.
 
I apologize if my thread caused a problem. Truth is, I do not take knives apart because I'm too dumb to put them back together. I bought the knife a few weeks ago knowing it was missing the pieces,thinking it wouldn't be a big deal to order a parts kit to fix it....oops....I probably should have checked with Spyderco first. Oh well lesson learned.
 
Unfortunately, I think dissasembly is a common symptom of our shared disease. I've stopped doing it entirely at this point, as I don't feel as though I gain any advantage through it, but I understand that so many of us want to tinker with our toys.

Not sure there's a particularly good solution to this one, sadly.
 
Warning for inappropriate content
I'm not a folder type ... despite that I have only one Military from 96'
I live in a small trans-oceanic country there is a Spyderco representative,
I have repeatedly addressed them for a regular washer.
what a hell of a hassle ... the great Spyderco is unable to deliver to his representative
literally a handful of parts.
Unlike Benchmade sends(and do not charge anything) but it's not my type I still love my Military :thumbsup:

Mr. Sal is not okay at all :thumbsdown:
 
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It seems the dealers don't have much skin in the game other than perhaps a shipping fee. I don't know why they would have no responsibility to inspect returns before refunding money, given the known issues expressed here, and also the possibility of counterfeits being returned for full refund. Why does Spyderco bear pretty much the whole burden?

Restocking fees would help for cases of people ordering and just deciding they don't like it - to offset the shipping fee incurred if the dealer paid the shipping fee.
 
There is no good answer to this problem. In the age of Amazon, et al., Spyderco knives have to be returnable to the vendor for any reason or no reason, which opens you up to knuckleheads and fraud. Big vendors would have a very difficult time inspecting Spyderco returns, and if a knife does not open smoothly or perfectly it might be a very subjective determination as to whether the consumer has screwed up the knife.

The real problem, which we cannot solve in this context, is that morality and decency among the buying public are declining at an alarming rate for reasons I will not address here. And so good makers and vendors and consumers suffer in the process.
 
Being in business providing a service ive learned a lesson, you can’t please everyone. At a certain point you have to stick to your business model. This may cause you to lose some customers. I find that those you lose weren’t loyal long term customers anyway and in the end nothing was really lost.
Business is business, money needs to be made, bills need to be paid, everything needs to run at some level of efficiency.
 
add a paper with every knife that says this. most people that do this are not even on the internet.
 
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