I bought a Poliwog. It had a problem with the lock area. There is a small cutout which makes room for part of the lock to move back, but it was not centered causing part of the lock to bump into the handle at the deepest point, which was annoying but not unsafe, so I fixed it. It was also missing a washer, and the side of the blade got scratched on the handle, so I made a washer to fit the knife and all was well. Despite these annoying issues, I liked the knife so much I decided to not only make it a regular user, but also purchase a SECOND one to keep in my smaller "fancy" collection of knives I keep in mint condition.
When the second knife arrived, not only did the blade also touch the handle when opening, but it appeared to have the same defect in the handle cutout.
The washer issue was a mystery. It would be weird to get 2 knives in a row with the same part missing, so I was wondering if maybe it was not meant to have 2 washers. I called a couple of dealers, one of them the fine folks at New Graham, and asked them to look at theirs. They were not able to tell for sure if theirs actually had a second washer or not. They said at the very least the blade was closer to one handle slab than the other and it might not have the second washer. However, since my first knife was improved immensely by adding a second, though much thinner, washer, I was fairly certain it was supposed to have two.
Since the second knife was going to be in the "fancy collection," I didn't want it to be a home repair job (which normally doesn't bother me, but this was to be one of my few "shelf queens" or whatever you call it). I didn't want to mess with it at all or even open the blade too many times to cause any blade scratches, so I mailed it to Spyderco to be fixed, along with a letter explaining in detail exactly what was wrong. E-mail and phone number included of course.
The knife came back without a SINGLE thing having been done to it. A note written on the return form said the cutout in the handle is supposed to line up with the spring, not the ball, or something like that. That was not only incorrect but also not an answer to the problem. The spring goes all the way into the handle and has no need for a small cutout accross the slabs. The cutout is clearly for a piston piece which, at the front end, is wider than the inside of the handle by a hair. Plus, the cutout doesn't actually line up with the spring or the piston or the ball or ANYTHING on the knife. But my complaint was it not lining up with the piston piece, not the ball or spring. The note also gave me a number to call if I had questions.
I considered not bothering to call, because it wouldn't be the first time I tried getting a manufacturer to fix something clearly not correct but they didn't consider it "wrong" because the knife still works. I am used to that by now, which is one of the reasons why I usually just fix things myself.
But, being so fixed on that issue, I didn't realize right away that the second washer was still missing! I thought for sure they would fix that, or else state that the knife is only supposed to have one, but they must have forgotten about that issue.
Since I wasted money shipping the knife for absolutely no reason, I figured a call was due. I am not "cheap" as long as I am actually getting SOMETHING for my money (or else I wouldn't be buying $100 spyderco knives in quantities of 2). It could be a stick of gum for $10, but it shouldn't be nothing at all. On the handle cutout issue, they said the knife seemed to be working and they could not get it to do what happened on my first knife. Nonetheless, I though the knife was clearly not made well so I wanted to make sure they understood what was wrong with it, functional knife or not, since their first answer sounded like they didn't understand what I meant.
That didn't really go anywhere, so I said if the knife I sent to them was working (which seemed to be his final view of it) and my first knife was working, I'll move on the the second issue of the washers.
This next part kind of surprised me. He asked me if I thought it really needed the second washer. Until that point, he wanted to focus strictly on how he saw the knife as functioning properly (my opinion on what looked like an obvious blunder in manufacturing was just my opinion). Now he was asking for my input on what parts were necessary to build this knife? Normally I love giving input on anything at all, but the irony of this was definitely what I thought of first. But I still explained how the knife functioned without the washer (mainly the blade hitting the handle and the impossibility of finding a correct adjustment for the pivot, both of which can be caused on any knife by leaving off a needed washer). I also repeated the fact that my first knife was fixed by adding a washer, so I would like to have the missing washer sent to me. It's interesting to note that even by this point I still had not received an official word on whether the Poliwog is supposed to leave the factory with one washer or two. You would think that would be relevent.
Next I was informed that taking the knife apart to do this would void the warranty. I'm not sure if that was meant as a reason why they didn't want to send the washer or if it was just informative. Either way, irony struck again because the warranty I was warned against voiding had already failed to replace a missing part once, and the coverage of which apparently did not apply to my opinion of the finer points of things anyway. So I told him that 1. I don't care about the warranty any more, and 2. they already failed to replace the missing part when I sent it in, so I would rather just do it myself. (the concept of paying $9 to ship a knife to have a 3 cent washer replaced seemed ridiculous to me to begin with, so I definitely didn't want to pay that again)
But what would the day be without also being asked how they are supposed to know the washer wasn't lost when I took the knife apart? A standard argument for that type of policy I am aware, but I didn't take apart the second knife, I sent it to them. I explained this in the letter, and previously on this phone call, how I didn't want to mess around with it so I DIDN'T open the second knife and instead sent it to them. I explained this again since he asked. But the ironic part, and this makes number 3 for the conversation, is that someone at Spyderco first forgot to replace the washer and didn't even mention the issue when they sent the knife back, then this person didn't seem to even be sure if his own product should have two washers or not, and MY competence was being questioned!
But he did say he would send me the washer, so I will be glad when that arrives.
I also got a defective sheath for my SPOT I ordered from the Spyderco website. It's bent and doesn't fit well. I sent it back today, maybe that will be a better experience.
When the second knife arrived, not only did the blade also touch the handle when opening, but it appeared to have the same defect in the handle cutout.
The washer issue was a mystery. It would be weird to get 2 knives in a row with the same part missing, so I was wondering if maybe it was not meant to have 2 washers. I called a couple of dealers, one of them the fine folks at New Graham, and asked them to look at theirs. They were not able to tell for sure if theirs actually had a second washer or not. They said at the very least the blade was closer to one handle slab than the other and it might not have the second washer. However, since my first knife was improved immensely by adding a second, though much thinner, washer, I was fairly certain it was supposed to have two.
Since the second knife was going to be in the "fancy collection," I didn't want it to be a home repair job (which normally doesn't bother me, but this was to be one of my few "shelf queens" or whatever you call it). I didn't want to mess with it at all or even open the blade too many times to cause any blade scratches, so I mailed it to Spyderco to be fixed, along with a letter explaining in detail exactly what was wrong. E-mail and phone number included of course.
The knife came back without a SINGLE thing having been done to it. A note written on the return form said the cutout in the handle is supposed to line up with the spring, not the ball, or something like that. That was not only incorrect but also not an answer to the problem. The spring goes all the way into the handle and has no need for a small cutout accross the slabs. The cutout is clearly for a piston piece which, at the front end, is wider than the inside of the handle by a hair. Plus, the cutout doesn't actually line up with the spring or the piston or the ball or ANYTHING on the knife. But my complaint was it not lining up with the piston piece, not the ball or spring. The note also gave me a number to call if I had questions.
I considered not bothering to call, because it wouldn't be the first time I tried getting a manufacturer to fix something clearly not correct but they didn't consider it "wrong" because the knife still works. I am used to that by now, which is one of the reasons why I usually just fix things myself.
But, being so fixed on that issue, I didn't realize right away that the second washer was still missing! I thought for sure they would fix that, or else state that the knife is only supposed to have one, but they must have forgotten about that issue.
Since I wasted money shipping the knife for absolutely no reason, I figured a call was due. I am not "cheap" as long as I am actually getting SOMETHING for my money (or else I wouldn't be buying $100 spyderco knives in quantities of 2). It could be a stick of gum for $10, but it shouldn't be nothing at all. On the handle cutout issue, they said the knife seemed to be working and they could not get it to do what happened on my first knife. Nonetheless, I though the knife was clearly not made well so I wanted to make sure they understood what was wrong with it, functional knife or not, since their first answer sounded like they didn't understand what I meant.
That didn't really go anywhere, so I said if the knife I sent to them was working (which seemed to be his final view of it) and my first knife was working, I'll move on the the second issue of the washers.
This next part kind of surprised me. He asked me if I thought it really needed the second washer. Until that point, he wanted to focus strictly on how he saw the knife as functioning properly (my opinion on what looked like an obvious blunder in manufacturing was just my opinion). Now he was asking for my input on what parts were necessary to build this knife? Normally I love giving input on anything at all, but the irony of this was definitely what I thought of first. But I still explained how the knife functioned without the washer (mainly the blade hitting the handle and the impossibility of finding a correct adjustment for the pivot, both of which can be caused on any knife by leaving off a needed washer). I also repeated the fact that my first knife was fixed by adding a washer, so I would like to have the missing washer sent to me. It's interesting to note that even by this point I still had not received an official word on whether the Poliwog is supposed to leave the factory with one washer or two. You would think that would be relevent.
Next I was informed that taking the knife apart to do this would void the warranty. I'm not sure if that was meant as a reason why they didn't want to send the washer or if it was just informative. Either way, irony struck again because the warranty I was warned against voiding had already failed to replace a missing part once, and the coverage of which apparently did not apply to my opinion of the finer points of things anyway. So I told him that 1. I don't care about the warranty any more, and 2. they already failed to replace the missing part when I sent it in, so I would rather just do it myself. (the concept of paying $9 to ship a knife to have a 3 cent washer replaced seemed ridiculous to me to begin with, so I definitely didn't want to pay that again)
But what would the day be without also being asked how they are supposed to know the washer wasn't lost when I took the knife apart? A standard argument for that type of policy I am aware, but I didn't take apart the second knife, I sent it to them. I explained this in the letter, and previously on this phone call, how I didn't want to mess around with it so I DIDN'T open the second knife and instead sent it to them. I explained this again since he asked. But the ironic part, and this makes number 3 for the conversation, is that someone at Spyderco first forgot to replace the washer and didn't even mention the issue when they sent the knife back, then this person didn't seem to even be sure if his own product should have two washers or not, and MY competence was being questioned!
But he did say he would send me the washer, so I will be glad when that arrives.
I also got a defective sheath for my SPOT I ordered from the Spyderco website. It's bent and doesn't fit well. I sent it back today, maybe that will be a better experience.
