Avanti Dilettanti | How i fixed my Dragonfly

utor · #1

Hey guys - small story:
Some time ago i disassebled my G-10 Dragonfly in order to dye the scales to proper black. That worked out fine, but when I put the knive back together I appearently made a big mistake by putting in the spring the wrong way around. That resulted I long term in the break of the backspacer (and the knive opening IBW but luckely I realized and nothing happend).

I reported this to Spyderco but it came clear to me that A.) it was my own fault and B.) it would be pretty expensive to send the knive one more time around the world. So i tried to repair it myself. First approach was glueing it together with epoxy but this proved not to be solid enough.

So I cut out of a old G-10 handle of a Vex a new backspacer an with some tweaking and bending in actually works okay. Just having a normal drill and a dremel, the result is not very beautiful but functional.

"The fit and finish is excellent on utor`s custom knives" :cool:

So want I wanted to say by this longish story? Be careful when you dissable your knive - not just because you loose warranty - and especially put the backsping of the dragonfly in the right way around.

:D
utor

Jazz · #2

Nice repair job!

vaisforlovers · #3

I like the finished product. Nicely done!

Evil D · #4

Personally I would be looking for a cheap, maybe broken blade Dfly to salvage parts from.

utor · #5

Evil D wrote:Personally I would be looking for a cheap, maybe broken blade Dfly to salvage parts from.

yeah, that would be much better, but it`s not as easy as it seems. Since the `fly broke somewhen in spring I am eyballing the `bay and so on, but here in germany, all you can find is mint condition collectors knives for 120+ €.

So as a temporary solution, the repair was my only alternative. But I am not really happy with it as well. Also the very nice open/close tension is slightly changed, due to my not very precise work.

:confused:
so where would you look, Evil D?

Evil D · #6

utor wrote:yeah, that would be much better, but it`s not as easy as it seems. Since the `fly broke somewhen in spring I am eyballing the `bay and so on, but here in germany, all you can find is mint condition collectors knives for 120+ €.

So as a temporary solution, the repair was my only alternative. But I am not really happy with it as well. Also the very nice open/close tension is slightly changed, due to my not very precise work.

:confused:
so where would you look, Evil D?

What's the shipping rate from the states like? Find what you want here, have a forum member buy it and ship it to you? If you found a broken knife here in the states, had me order it for you, and I took just that part out, you wouldn't have to worry about customs or anything like that since there's no blade.

Holland · #7

Awesome repair job! Looks great :)

Donut · #8

That's some superb fit and finish :)

I bet you could fix that with a little sandpaper!