upset about Delica wave (fuming actually)

R

rusty edge

Joined
Nov 2, 2005
Messages
161
I went to the gun show today and saw a guy sharpening knives, so I though I would see what a "professional" sharpening job was like. The guy ground the crap outta my beautiful Delica wave. It was sharp, but he must have shortened the width of the knife (spine to edge) by an 1/8" or so, and the grind was ugly, uneven and now my knife has a slight recurve to it:mad:
Im really bummed out, pretty much ruined the knife for me:grumpy:

Maybe Sal can answer me; what are my options? I know this isn't a warranty issue because it isn't Spyderco's fault that I let some idiot ruin the blade, so I'm willing to pay for repairs. Could they put a new waved blade on for me, or should I send it to somebody and have the blade flat ground. I wish I had a digi camera, but all the Spydie fans would get a tear in their eye if they saw this blade.
Any suggetions???
 
Sorry you got suckered into that one ...

Yes you can send it into Spyderco and they'll clean it up for you for a nominal fee and it will take a few weeks or you could do it yourself.

If you have access to a coarse benchstone or better still an extra coarse diamond stone (you could even buy a $2 puck style coarse axe sharpening stone and achieve the same thing), you could clean up the edge and even up the bevel in no time flat.

Don't try to sharpen by slicing the stone as you normally would ... instead, bear down with both hands on the blade; use a drawing motion back and forth on the stone progressivley moving the blade from end to end. Once you have the blade shape and bevels cleaned up then go back to your preferred sharpening method.

Chalk it up to experience ... :o
 
You should have stuck it in his eye :mad:
Personal policy - I never let someone else sharpen my knives, and I never use a knife I didn't sharpen. You just found out why on the first part.
I'm sure Spyderco can replace the blade for a fee.
 
Life's lessons learned.

Get a sharpmaker and UF stones and keep your own knife sharp. Sending it into Spyderco is my second choice.
 
Outlaw probably has the best option. Maybe you can talk to Sal or Kristy here and get a decent deal. What was that guy thinking, providing a service that he wasn't even good at. Imagine if your knife had been a Sebenza or something. I would have inserted his grinder in his rear end.
 
spyderknut said:
Get a sharpmaker and UF stones and keep your own knife sharp.
Click to expand...

Definitely buy yourself a Sharpmaker. My only regret with mine is why the heck I didn't buy it sooner. (And I'm not sharpening-challenged ...... I learned to use Arkansas stones when I was about 10 and am quite proficient with them. But the Sharpmaker is simply a better system. And don't even get me started on what it'll do for serrations.)
 
Death's Head said:
What was that guy thinking, providing a service that he wasn't even good at.
Click to expand...

Welcome to modern day America. Today, anyone thinks they can offer anything to anyone. I chalk this up to the way we raise kids today. Rather than making sure they can do things and that they take pride in what they do, we raise them to feel good about whatever they do, however they do it. "False" self esteem has replaced results based self esteem. We have a whole generation of folks who were rased this way.

I was recently discussing this with my kids. In days gone by, you had to apprentice (sometimes for a LONG time) before you could hang out your own shingle. If you just "never got it" you would move on to some other line of work. Nobody has that kind of patience anymore. A very few professions (medical?) still require some limited internship but they are the exception. For most anything else, the best you can hope for is a degree or some sort of certification. Nothing can replace time learning a skill from a master of that skill.

Okay - end soapbox speech.

Ken
 
Life lesson learned. I hesitate to send it into repair because Spyderco charges a $20 fee for non-warranty repairs plus $5 for return shipping. I know from past experience that it cost me around $8 to ship a knife to Spyderco from here, so I am looking at spending $33 to fix a knife I only paid $48 for. I might make a project out of this knife unless somebody has other suggestions.
BTW, I own a sharpmaker. I let this guy at the show sharpen my knife because he had a nice looking setup and I wanted to see what a supposed "professional" job was like:thumbdn: .
Anybody know how to turn it into a full flat ground maybe?
 
I think Vivi did this to a SE Police recently. Search the forum you'll probably find it. Everyone advised "Don't do it" and I fell into that camp but I think it turned out pretty well IIRC.

Ken
 
Rat Finkenstein said:
Why not just see if you can order a replacement blade from Spyderco, and install it yourself?
Click to expand...

That is a fantastic idea! I didn't even think of it, I really hope that I can do this because that would save alot of time/money and I will still have the old blade to fool around with.
Sal or anybody from Spyderco care to answer if I can order just a blade?
 
I saw a guy at the local gunshow who was charging $2.00 to sharpen knives. I almost had him do my carry knife at the time (Spyderco Para-Military) but then I watched him for a while. He had a belt sander and he was laying the blade flat on it and giving it sort of a convex edge, if you could call it that. It looked really sloppy and like it was scratching up the blade of the guy's knife who he was working on.

I then noticed that he was a "custom" knife maker and he had some of his knives out for sale. I looked over his knives and saw that he didn't have much talent at making knives either. The points were all blunted and the edges and grinds were uneven.

The guy was a joke and I would let him sharpen my cheapest kitchen knives let alone a Spyderco.

I would say that you get what you pay for but that is not the case. I would not pay $2.00 to have my knife ruined by an idiot anymore than I would pay $10.00 to have a jackass work on one of my guns.

If I had an old shovel that needed to be sharpened, then maybe I would let him come over to my house and do it for free but only if he cleaned all the mud off the shovel and planted a few trees in my backyard like I have been meaning to do. I would expect him to come over everyday during the summer and water them as well.
 
Well, might I suggest that you do some cool work on the ruined blade. After all, you can't go wrong--it's only up from here. So maybe put a hardcore recurve on that guy, be creative.
 
The torx screw construction of the Delica4 makes disassembly very easy. I put digital green handles on my waved Delica4 in about ten minutes' time. There's a tutorial on the process on Spyderco's own forum. Search for "Lego Delica." Of course, this procedure voids the warantee, but really, it's simple.
 
Actually, the Delica4 and Endura4 can be disassembled without voiding the warranty. If you can't get it back together, or break something trying, that is not covered by warranty. As I understand it, the spring holder indexes to the liners with somewhat flimsy bosses that are very easy to screw up. You need to assemble both liners to the spacer, insert the spring and lockbar, and put the blade in last to keep from tearing up the knife.
 
with all the cost of shipping and blade replacement, my advice is that you buy yourself a new waved Delica, then chalk the incident up as experience. If the blade width has been reduced considerably, you could also get someone to mod the blade for you (taking care not to ruin the HT) and make it a wharnie. It will make a cool box-cutter.
 
I work a lot of Gun & Knife shows (Indy 1500 this weekend) and see this quite a bit - some guy set up with his "magic wheel" or whatever, sharpening/ruining peoples knives for from $2-$5. Grant you, there are some people doing quality work, but more often than not, it's a butcher job. I always have my Sharpmaker set up, and although I sometimes charge, it's usually a freebie, 'cause I'm selling Sharpmakers not the sharpening itself. Sell a lot of them that way, or at the very least, make a friend and potential future customer. This isn't saying I'm that great at sharpening, but more a comment on how easy it is to get great results with the Sharpmaker.
 
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