Tuff not so Tuff...

Evil D · #261

Cliff Stamp wrote:I don't know the guy personally, but he could simply not be that invested in the product/company/designer. Have you really never used something, found it to be horribly defective (in your opinion) and then just threw it out. If someone asked you, is it that unlikely that would be your first instinct.

I have never handled one of those knives, interesting design, and yes if I had one and it was problematic I would make a call/email and then return it, but simply because someone does not doesn't mean absolutely they are trolling.

Yeah, i've come across total pieces of crap before. This one time i bought a sprayer head for my gardening hose...it was one of those 10 way adjustable sprayers. It cost me about $5. I used it a few times, it leaked like crazy, i threw it away. I got it at Walmart and didn't keep the receipt, and taking it back and dealing with the return line and all that crap wasn't worth the hassle of $5 to me.

Then again, there is no "crappy garden hose sprayer head" forum where there's a community of people all sharing experiences with these sprayer heads, and i wouldn't call myself a garden hose sprayer head enthusiast. I guess i just can't understand that whole perspective. I don't see why a person would join a forum just to come and talk about how crappy a knife was and not even bother to give them the chance to figure out why it was so crappy. If it was genuinely just a piece of trash to be thrown away, why even bother talking to Ed about it?

Aaaaand with that, i'm done with this thread until someone actually sends a knife in and we see some real results. There's no point in anyone arguing over mythical make believe broken knives.

Blerv · #262

I didn't go so far as to assume malicious intent; I got stuck on the lack of any evidence. As mentioned I wouldn't expect anyone to trust me without at least one of these:

* pictures/video (any phone)
* a well written and respectful report
* word from company staff validating the report

Without any of them it makes it very difficult. As we have stated from page one this is the least efficient path. Giving the maker no chance to help isn't very fair (to anyone). Ed even promised "something in return" to a broken Tuff from DC. :confused:

Cliff Stamp · #263

Evil D wrote:I don't see why a person would join a forum just to come and talk about how crappy a knife was and not even bother to give them the chance to figure out why it was so crappy.

That isn't an accurate description of what happened :

-he has been a member for some time before now
-he attempted to contact Sal about the issues
-he discussed the issues with the designer showing a clear intent to provide useful information

Assuming he was not a troll how would being called one help the situation? Assuming he was one then it also just makes it worse as that is what trolls want.

KardinalSyn · #264

I suppose it is finally DCDesigns decision to send or not. I will not go to judge the OP. it is after all his money and his choice.

Only thing Is that since I also own one and since it is a brand new knife which has been in development for seven years or more, I am just dying to know more.

speedcut · #265

The Tuff is the tuffest frame lock out there there is no question about it but u have to remember that all framelocks can fail...

dbcad · #266

Cliff Stamp wrote:That isn't an accurate description of what happened :

-he has been a member for some time before now
-he attempted to contact Sal about the issues
-he discussed the issues with the designer showing a clear intent to provide useful information

Assuming he was not a troll how would being called one help the situation? Assuming he was one then it also just makes it worse as that is what trolls want.

Agreed with your points Cliff :) , however without some kind of concrete evidence on a lock failure topic I have a tough time believing when the topic has run for this length of time without resolution :)

I'd like to believe everything I read and take it at face value. However the recalcitrance the OP and fellow Tuff Lock critisizers have shown where it comes to sending the knves in for evaluation raises concern and doubt.

It's incumbent on the complainees now to provide evidence from a source that is universally trusted.

Initially everyone is believed for what they post :) When a major complaint such as this comes up and remains unresolved without any kind of evidence for 3+ weeks the entire premise of the thread becomes suspect, as well as the OP.

Just the nature of this fickle medium and how the same words can be read in many different ways

Looking forward to a resolution :)

Cliff Stamp · #267

dbcad wrote: When a major complaint such as this comes up and remains unresolved without any kind of evidence for 3+ weeks the entire premise of the thread becomes suspect, as well as the OP

I think there are two issues :

-strength of claim
-character of OP

If I had made a similar statement but then never returned the knife I would not see it as unreasonable if someone used that to degrade the strength of the claim. However moving to the second stage is a bit problematic as again not everyone is as passionate about knives or knives from particular companies.

I would agree however that if you are going to make a fairly public complaint about a knife and the maker does ask you to return it for inspection then it would be the honorable action to do so, barring something which makes that extremely difficult/expensive in which case let them know of that issue.

JNewell · #268

Did I read this too fast, or does the first part of this relate only to design and manufacturing preferences rather than to actual knife strength/failure?

mark408 wrote:Ed, i hope you don't get offended ...I am just posting this pm to show a timeline to the few talkin smack here.

08-27-2012, 05:51 PM

Ed Schempp

Spyderco Forum Registered User

Join Date: Sep 2004Location: Ephrata, Washington USAPosts: 689

Re: Tuff

Originally Posted by mark408

Originally Posted by Ed Schempp

Originally Posted by mark408

Hi Ed, i just read your post #11.

I have handled 4 Tuffs right out of the box and they were all ridiculously tight.

I took one apart yesterday and these are my observations and opinions.

QC is terrible (IMO)...the spyder hole and frame edges are very sharp...the spyder holes on all of them will cut the finger and did.....the liner was also very sharp and has the potential to cut.

The pivot has no room for adjustment and minimal loostening will allow the blade to become off center...the ridiculous lock bar tention adds greatly to the effect.

I believe the O.D of the washers are to small for the size of the blade and the tension of the lock bar.

Tollerences are off and when the pivot os tightened the stacking twists the frame and both sides do not sit flat on the washers.

When the blade is in the closed position the tip is so close to the edge of the frame there is absoloutelt no room for any lack of detent.

I like the look of the knife and the materials used or i would not have wasted the energy...i do not buy the hard use answer for the tension on the lock bar.

I have many "hard use" knives and this kind of tension is not needed (IMO)...remember that at the end of the day, the highest percentage of purchasers of this knife will only cut paper ,boxes,etc....

This knife has great potential but i predict that the tension will kill it for most...already you see many have been sold as soon as received.

I have cleaned this knife up and am giving it a fair shot but I'm also considering dumping it...just don't feel the pro's are worth the cons and really feel the QC was terrible.

Just my honest opinions.

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Mark
Hi Mark, thanks for your observations. The sharpness is the Spyderco hole are a spec that spyderco determines. This can be remedied by paper or stone demurring.

The short lock bar increases the failure strength tremendously. Frame locks and liner locks that use this leaf spring fail at surprising low pressures. In order to make the knife tuffer than others comes down to shortening the leaf to get the strength.

Some of these decisions I have no input. The knife does get easier to operate with use. The sharpness of the Spyder hole and the tension of the lock bar are something it takes getting used to. I have carry mine for about among and I can operate the knife without too much difficultly, but I have farmer hands.

I have taken mine apart and reassembled. I don't think it is a qc problem but an issue with Spyderco specs on the knife.

Spyderco breaks 3 of every design to find the failure strength. This knife was designed with a different lock that was stronger but in violation of another patent, my lock was stronger and smoother than any design marketed, but legal fees being what they are, Spydeco made some decisions.

This contractor usually does great work and usually does some operations that even the Japanese knives don't include.

Sorry that you have had some dissatisfaction with the piece, and I do appreciate your candid feedback...Take Care...Ed Thanks for the reply ED....I chamfered and polished the spyder hole to my liking and i have taken the knife apart several times and carefully masaged contact areas....the knife is actually very tollerable at this point while still retaining a strong detent to kkep the blade safely closed....one thing i have found is this knife operates much better with grease rather than oil which makes sense do to the presure from the lock bar....the detent ball has a great amount of friction against the 3V....do you think the 3V has a greater affect opposed to another steel.

Is there a specific reason the detent ball rides on the very outside radius of the blade ?

Thanks. Mark Hi Mark,
The detent balls are generally hardened 440 C and shouldn't wear against the 3V, it shouldn't be a problem. The detent rides on a radius outside the pivot bushing as close to the pivot hole as possible. Then when you release the blade the detent ball rides up on the tang immediately in the arc. There is just a lot of side pressure from the lock bar. Remember the goal of this knife was to approach fixed blade strength...Take Care...Ed

The Mastiff · #269

Did I read this too fast, or does the first part of this relate only to design and manufacturing preferences rather than to actual knife strength/failure?

No, you read it right. He seems to be pleased that Ed answered him but it totally goes over his head that his preferences mean squat to anybody but him.

The QC on mine is excellent and I'm extremely pleased with it.

This ( below)tells me all I need to know about the dynamics of his personality and would invalidate his statements even if I didn't already know better.

I like the look of the knife and the materials used or i would not have wasted the energy...i do not buy the hard use answer for the tension on the lock bar.

I have many "hard use" knives and this kind of tension is not needed (IMO)...remember that at the end of the day, the highest percentage of purchasers of this knife will only cut paper ,boxes,etc....

Anybody that tells the designer, who just happens to be Ed That he doesn't believe him, and seems to think he knows better in any event is full of himself, to put it as politely as I care too.

Joe

JNewell · #270

Thanks, Joe.

- John

KardinalSyn · #271

I am glad I do not have dainty fingers that get cut due to a Spydie hole.

IMHO the Tuff is the folder that I have been searching for my entire life. I had one single issue with it which I told Mr Ed about and to which he replied to my satisfaction and for which I appreciate Spyderco and its team a lot more. I don't foresee myself buying another knife for a very long time. It's hard to beat perfect.

Jet B · #272

Okay, before reading the rest of this post I want to set my motives straight for posting this. First, it's only for the benefit of any other Tuff owner that might have a similar situation as mine and to prevent them from an accidental injury. Also, it's for the one or two people who want some kind of proof before they will believe another persons word.

And I am not trashing on Spyderco. I am a fan of their company and the way it is run. Most of my knives are Spyderco, and will continue to be so in the future.

I just grip the knife with two hands and press firmly into the wood straight down. It would be the same force as if you were simply pressing it straight down into something. The forward swept angle of the blade is going to put the force on the lock when pressing straight down.

I do have a bit of an early lock up, but the metal insert is fully engaged. Force against the lock just causes the lock to slide across the tang and disengage.

I'm not a huge guy, so I don't believe that I have any kind of super human strength and shouldn't be able to disengage this lock with a bare two handed grip pressing straight down like this. I have already emailed Spyderco and am just waiting to hear back before sending it in. This is my first beefy frame lock knife so I don't know what I should expect from this thing really. If Spyderco says it shouldn't do this, then I will send it in to them to have a look at it. I'm sure it's something simple.

Sorry I couldn't make a video but it takes two hands to hold the knife. The last picture is of the knife after the lock fails.

Maybe this type of pressure isn't proper use of a Frame lock, but in that case then my opinion is that the lock doesn't fit the design philosophy of a folder that is supposed to approach the strength of a fixed blade.

Just my 2 cents.

*edit: To clarify, I have not taken my knife apart. It hasn't even needed a pivot adjustment or anything. I have lubed it with WD-40, Silicone spray, and 3 in 1 oil in the past. However, I washed it with hot soapy water and wiped it down with a Q-tip before this last test to make sure excessive lube wasn't causing the lock to slip.

dbcad · #273

It looks like this is a problem that needs to be evaluated and looked at by the manufacturer. I wouldn't think the knife is supposed to act this way. If the original post had been composed in a similar way the responses would probably been a lot different

Thank you for your candor and calm even tone :) It makes a difference

It would be best if Spyderco could look at the knife and reproduce what you have described.

flipe8 · #274

Cliff Stamp wrote:I think there are two issues :

-strength of claim
-character of OP

I tend to agree on this. As with anything, there are absolutely possibilities of things having flaws or defects and I believe it benefits everyone going forward if any problems/flaws/defects are fixed.
The character of a member can only be based on our experiences with that member and how he/she acts on the forums(unless you know a person outside the forums). I've personnally had a less than positive exchange with one of the posters in this thread and know he's had run-ins with other members of different forums and was also banned from a couple other forums. As result, I take his posts here with a fair bit of salt and believe his character will show itself sooner or later.

#275

Threads like this are discouraging. Not only do I lose sleep over them, but they also cost us thousands in lost sales.

Hi Cliff, The original poster hasn't posted again (unless I missed something) and he hasn't sent the knife in. Mark was not the OP.

Regarding the OP, I've met DC and I got the impression he was a good kid. Perhaps he just blew off Spyderco, or he feels bad about his post. Perhaps he will return? I know he took 6 months to pay for his Bushcraft blade that I chased down for him, but he did collect it. Perhaps time constraints are not a priority, or he just forgot. Hard to believe he was being malicious. Maybe he was just venting. I vented once. :o

We can banter words till the cows come home, but until I can see the knife in question, test it and get it under a microscope, there isn't much I can say or do, other than to apologise. Ed has been here all week and he too was hoping to receive one or more of the knives in question. As of Friday, nothing has come in. It's a new model and we need to watch closely.

Mark,

I didn't say you didn't try to reach me, I said i didn't get it. If you can send me the dates of your emails, letters or ?, I can try to chase them down. Try to keep in mind that I travel a great deal. Between travel prep, travel and followup, I'm gone about half the time. Considering that I get several hundred emails a day, some stack up. that's why I have staff.

Either way, my response can only be: Please send in the knife. It is not possible for me to discuss a failure about a knife without having the knife. The best way is always to send in the knife, perhaps include a note to me. Charlynn will usually chase me down on the question, especially with a new model.

We always take care of our customers and have been doing so for more than 30 years. That's how we got our reputation. We've many times taken care of overseas customers as well. We either replace the knife or buy it back. On a few occassions, our customers have been unfrienbdly, in which case we usually just pay them for their purchase and suggest they go elsewhere. Most of this couold have been avoided if the original failed piece was returned. We certainly jumped on the Nilakka when a problem appeared. And Pekka, like Ed was all over it right away.

As far as knives go, we ship thousands of knives each week. Problems are not common and those that do occur are a small percentage of what we produce. We've yet to get any Tuff's back. At any rate, we are going to stop shipping the model until we can get this sorted. Thanx for all of your thoughts and input. Shame it had to get "testy".

sal

speedcut · #276

I just did this test to my Tuff and it passed with flying colors....IMHO this is the best frame lock I ever seen ...Good God stop searching for the needle in the hey stack ...My congratulations to Ed Schempp - my favourite knife designer- and to the good ol team of Spyderco.... :spyder:

gbelleh · #277

I can't get my Tuff to fail either.

Jet B · #278

sal wrote:Threads like this are discouraging. Not only do I lose sleep over them, but they also cost us thousands in lost sales.

Hi Cliff, The original poster hasn't posted again (unless I missed something) and he hasn't sent the knife in. Mark was not the OP.

Regarding the OP, I've met DC and I got the impression he was a good kid. Perhaps he just blew off Spyderco, or he feels bad about his post. Perhaps he will return? I know he took 6 months to pay for his Bushcraft blade that I chased down for him, but he did collect it. Perhaps time constraints are not a priority, or he just forgot. Hard to believe he was being malicious. Maybe he was just venting. I vented once. :o

We can banter words till the cows come home, but until I can see the knife in question, test it and get it under a microscope, there isn't much I can say or do, other than to apologise. Ed has been here all week and he too was hoping to receive one or more of the knives in question. As of Friday, nothing has come in. It's a new model and we need to watch closely.

Mark,

I didn't say you didn't try to reach me, I said i didn't get it. If you can send me the dates of your emails, letters or ?, I can try to chase them down. Try to keep in mind that I travel a great deal. Between travel prep, travel and followup, I'm gone about half the time. Considering that I get several hundred emails a day, some stack up. that's why I have staff.

Either way, my response can only be: Please send in the knife. It is not possible for me to discuss a failure about a knife without having the knife. The best way is always to send in the knife, perhaps include a note to me. Charlynn will usually chase me down on the question, especially with a new model.

We always take care of our customers and have been doing so for more than 30 years. That's how we got our reputation. We've many times taken care of overseas customers as well. We either replace the knife or buy it back. On a few occassions, our customers have been unfrienbdly, in which case we usually just pay them for their purchase and suggest they go elsewhere. Most of this couold have been avoided if the original failed piece was returned. We certainly jumped on the Nilakka when a problem appeared. And Pekka, like Ed was all over it right away.

As far as knives go, we ship thousands of knives each week. Problems are not common and those that do occur are a small percentage of what we produce. We've yet to get any Tuff's back. At any rate, we are going to stop shipping the model until we can get this sorted. Thanx for all of your thoughts and input. Shame it had to get "testy".

sal

Sal, I sincerely apologize if my adding to the thread caused you any grief. I respect the way you run your company and wouldn't want to do anything to disparage the reputation of Spyderco. I wish there were more companies out there run with ethics like yours.

I wouldn't have made my own thread about my problem with my Tuff, and I guess rather than jumping in and adding to this thread I should have just waited for the email response from you folks when you had time. I will send my knife in right away if it's likely to be a warranty issue. I just don't want to go to the expense until someone at Spyderco told me that the lock shouldn't close when I put force on it in the way I did. Like I said in my post, I really don't have much personal experience with Frame Locks. When I put the same pressure on my Para 2 it just wants to push right into the wood, not close.

I will stop keeping this thread alive now and just wait for an email response. If I don't hear back from Spyderco next week, maybe I will give a call. Just so you know, I do appreciate the fact that you always bring exotic steels and new designs to your customers, and I hope these kinds of small issues don't discourage that company philosophy. I'm not in any kind of panic without using my Tuff. I have enough other Spydies around to keep my pockets full.

Sincerely,
Michael Lingard

The Deacon · #279

Michael, please note that I'm not saying the lock should behave that way, but that does appear to be a rather contrived grip. At least it does not resemble any way I'd ever consider holding a knife I was using. I realize testing lock security using a normal grip can involve a degree of risk, even on a knife with a 50/50 choil, but one of the supposed "pluses" of a Reeve Integral style frame lock over a Walker style liner lock is that your grip tends to keep the lock engaged, rather than potentially helping it accidentally disengage.

Ed Schempp · #280

I'm on my way home for a wonderful time in Golden. I'm disappointed that I didn't get the opportunity to avail myself to Spyderco's extensive evaluation equipment to deal with this problem. To my knowledge and experience Spyderco is the most responsible company in dealing with exactly this type of problem. I spent hours in the assembly area watching Ti-militarys being assembled. On every assemblers bench is a secure piece or UHMD plastic that is well worn from several hard spine whacks tho ensure this problem does not occur.
I've seen a large box of knives of one model and one manufacture sitting in Sals office that was never shipped to the end line user that did not meet specification. Spyderco did not ship any of these knives and ate the cost of the models development and production.
I'm going to stick my neck out an speculate on possible causes of these failures. There are two possible explanation, First is the possibility of the lock bar insert being a thousandth or two short, the second is the radiused ramp being slightly proud.
Experience has taught me that most liner or frame lock can be disengaged by spine whacking creating an exact harmonic vibrating the lock bar and causing the lock to fail. By intensive testing and engineering and not rushing this knife to production I believed that this would not be a problem with this design. Either of these problems would be discovered with Spydercos advanced equipment and their and my extension experience.
I have a great deal of trust in the sub contractor that produced this knife, his work, compared to most manufactures of quality knives is the best I have seen.
I have have a huge respect for spyderco and their ethics which has grown over the near dozen years that I have had the honor of working with this company.
I want to thank my English instructors for teaching me that when ever I put something in writing I should expect that at some point confidentiality will not be respected, and to prepare myself for the reaction of folks that my communication is not directed. The Internet and one stroke forwarding has made those lessons more than true.
I totally trust Sals decision not to ship this model until this issue is resolved. When I return home I will try and recreate the problems mentioned and discover the cause of these problems...Take Care...Ed