Spyderco Forums

hahaha,
i’d be super happy with any sprint like this!

Bloke wrote:After reading Mr Glesser's post I reckon Spyderco would probably be better off going down the IKEA track and selling knives disassembled with assembly instructions. :cool:

If you can't put it all together yourself you could get your Mrs to do it or your local dealer would do it for you at a nominal fee.

If you loose any bits you can buy a bag of screws, washers, stand offs, bearings etc and go on your merry way. :)

I'm sure that's a joke (at least I think) but I would actually really enjoy having to assemble a knife. One of my other hobbies is radio controlled stuff and it used to always be an assemble it yourself affair. Lots of companies have moved to the prebuilt ready to run out of the box which is convenient but it removes a big part of the experience.

Bloke wrote:After reading Mr Glesser's post I reckon Spyderco would probably be better off going down the IKEA track and selling knives disassembled with assembly instructions. :cool: ..

I too assume you're joking. :) But, I would love to see a sprint come out as an "assemble yourself" model (with no warranty of course :D ). Designing a model that can be assembled by anyone with relatively consistent results would be a challenge, but it would be really cool. I'm imagining the wooden D'fly kit but with "real" parts. Love it!

Evil D wrote:

Bloke wrote:After reading Mr Glesser's post I reckon Spyderco would probably be better off going down the IKEA track and selling knives disassembled with assembly instructions. :cool:

If you can't put it all together yourself you could get your Mrs to do it or your local dealer would do it for you at a nominal fee.

If you loose any bits you can buy a bag of screws, washers, stand offs, bearings etc and go on your merry way. :)

I'm sure that's a joke (at least I think) but I would actually really enjoy having to assemble a knife. One of my other hobbies is radio controlled stuff and it used to always be an assemble it yourself affair. Lots of companies have moved to the prebuilt ready to run out of the box which is convenient but it removes a big part of the experience.

It was and it wasn't D. I'm like you and quite a few others I think and disassemble my knives when it takes my fancy but if I stuff things up I don't blame Spyderco or anyone else for my short comings.

I had no idea that Spyderco go through what they do because of fools and people without scruples and the my knife's broken or has a problem so I'll tell everyone on a public forum about my tales of woe wears a little thin too after a while.

I reckon this whole "disassemble your knife as a part of everyday knife ownership" trend is related to the rise of pocket knife as outfit accessory and fidget tool.

These days, a knife not only has to cut well, it has to have spectacular action. If it doesn't, then that seems to justify a complete strip down to address the issue. The mantra and advocate were not criticized on their performance, finishing, ergonomics, or their heat treat, but on their fidgetability.

I'm sure you have an increase in returns due to a metric that has no bearing on actual cutting use. Now, I love fidgeting with my knives, and I'll happily tweak them myself, but I don't expect spyderco to CATER to a subjective metric like that.

I second the restocking fee idea.

Other manufacturers say that taking their knives apart is ok. Maybe they are easy to disassemble. I have taken apart numerous pm2s, para 3s, and manix knives. All of which were beyond easy to reassemble. Oh well.

Never tried any of my other Spyderco, but I also didn't have them full of mud l, dirt, and God knows what else which is why I use those knives in particular the way I do. Easy to break down and give a good cleaning.

I find this thread illuminating. On one hand, lots of knife afficianados feel capable and motivated to disassemble their knives. On the other hand, Spyderco has seen a lot of knives returned after a poor customer reassembly. I haven’t yet tried to disassemble any of my knives, but I feel pretty comfortable sharpening them.

I think that many see disassembly as part of the routine maintenance of their knives. I’ve thought I might do that at some point myself, like if the pivot seemed to need to be cleaned and oiled. But I’m aware of the warranty. The revised warranty as of last year is valid for knives that are disassembled and then reassembled correctly. So if I decide to disassemble my knife, I feel I’d better be able to reassemble it correctly. For now I’m not going to try.

curlyhairedboy wrote:I reckon this whole "disassemble your knife as a part of everyday knife ownership" trend is related to the rise of pocket knife as outfit accessory and fidget tool.

I respectfully disagree. :)

I neither flick knives out of boredom nor view them as any sort of accessory and I don't pull them apart out of curiosity. However, if when I do buy a knife and the blade doesn't swing freely and evenly through it's 180deg arc a problem exists. I disassemble the knife if it was indeed made to be disassembled of course to investigate. I've found with knives that have liners it's usually the little blob of steel that fuses to the liner where the flame cutting process started and finished. I remove it, clean and lube everything, put it back together and I've fixed the problem.

Evil D wrote:

Bloke wrote:After reading Mr Glesser's post I reckon Spyderco would probably be better off going down the IKEA track and selling knives disassembled with assembly instructions. :cool:

If you can't put it all together yourself you could get your Mrs to do it or your local dealer would do it for you at a nominal fee.

If you loose any bits you can buy a bag of screws, washers, stand offs, bearings etc and go on your merry way. :)

I'm sure that's a joke (at least I think) but I would actually really enjoy having to assemble a knife. One of my other hobbies is radio controlled stuff and it used to always be an assemble it yourself affair. Lots of companies have moved to the prebuilt ready to run out of the box which is convenient but it removes a big part of the experience.

Did you notice how the quality dropped when some of the more well-known RC companies went to the RTR’s? I sure did. Poorly paid assembly labor I’m sure. :rolleyes: That’s about when I started building my own stunt/racing quad copters. :cool:

Gotta admit, I’d kind of love a build-it-yourself kit knife from Spyderco! :spyder:

:spyder: My personal opinion: I choose to buy Spyderco Knives because they are designed, built, tested, evaluated, and produced by EXPERTS. There is nothing left for me to do except enjoy the finished product. Now I will take my personal opinion and the loose change in my pocket and see if maybe I can buy a cup of coffee somewhere.

Xplorer wrote:

Bloke wrote:After reading Mr Glesser's post I reckon Spyderco would probably be better off going down the IKEA track and selling knives disassembled with assembly instructions. :cool: ..

I too assume you're joking. :) But, I would love to see a sprint come out as an "assemble yourself" model (with no warranty of course :D ). Designing a model that can be assembled by anyone with relatively consistent results would be a challenge, but it would be really cool. I'm imagining the wooden D'fly kit but with "real" parts. Love it!

You're a man after my own heart!

Disassembling and then returning a knife is deeply ugly. Once you've mucked around with it, it's yours. And it's even worse that dealers are saddling you with these after accepting a bad return, particularly after you just raised MAP to help them out. Seems like a pretty crappy thing to do to the company. And for what it's worth, I have zero problems with dealers saying "You take it apart, you bought it". Case closed.

You all likely know where I stand on knife disassembly, obviously, and that I'm a big advocate for being able to maintain one's own tools. A tool that you can't maintain isn't yours, it's just rented from fate. And a return to red loctite and a warranty-voided-by-disassembly policy would likely take Spyderco off of my table for good. And of course, given that many other makers have unrestrictive warranties and reasonably-locked-tite screws and have stayed in business despite using them, there must be another solution. And for what it's worth, I think selling (not necessarily sending for free) internal parts could well be a part of the solution. Sell maintenance kits, if you must, which comes with all the hardware and washers and such for a given model. That's a nice middle ground.

But given that I probably have some role in this, as an advocate for disassembly, this is a nice reminder to post a discussion video to this end, basically saying exactly what I said above: Once you take a knife apart, it's yours. Warranty issues happening down the road due to manufacturing defects aside, you tune it, you bought it. Sleazes gonna sleaze, and this is where dealers need to put their feet down, but this is something I'd assumed people just understood. And it seems that they don't. Oh, humans.

Bloke wrote:

curlyhairedboy wrote:I reckon this whole "disassemble your knife as a part of everyday knife ownership" trend is related to the rise of pocket knife as outfit accessory and fidget tool.

I respectfully disagree. :)

I neither flick knives out of boredom nor view them as any sort of accessory and I don't pull them apart out of curiosity. However, if when I do buy a knife and the blade doesn't swing freely and evenly through it's 180deg arc a problem exists. I disassemble the knife if it was indeed made to be disassembled of course to investigate. I've found with knives that have liners it's usually the little blob of steel that fuses to the liner where the flame cutting process started and finished. I remove it, clean and lube everything, put it back together and I've fixed the problem.

I think we agree! Those are the same steps I'd take. My point is more that while WE know what to do and how to do it, disassembly should not be the default recommended recourse for general audiences.

curlyhairedboy wrote:I think we agree! Those are the same steps I'd take. My point is more that while WE know what to do and how to do it, disassembly should not be the default recommended recourse for general audiences.

Yes we certainly do agree! :)

It's a little easier for some of us than it is for others, no doubt. In my case I'm a toolmaker/machinist by trade ... :rolleyes:

Who pays for all this? You take your new knife apart. You put it together. You screw up. You return it to the dealer but don’t mention that ugly fact. You get another knife. The dealer sells your screwed up knife as new. The next customer pays for your screw up. Or, the dealer returns it to Spyderco. Dealer pays. Spyderco sees it’s screwed up. Has to dump or sell as a second. Spyderco pays for the work involved and the devaluation of the original knife. Multiply this by 1000+.

Or, buyer returns knife to dealer. Dealer pays to send to Spyderco for evaluation — is it a warranty issue? If yes, dealer is reimbursed shipping cost, buyer is made whole by Spyderco. If not, buyer is notified of repair charge and return shipping which includes dealer's original shipping cost. Buyer's choice, pay to have it fixed and returned, or just returned.

SpyderPhreak wrote:
Did you notice how the quality dropped when some of the more well-known RC companies went to the RTR’s? I sure did. Poorly paid assembly labor I’m sure. :rolleyes: That’s about when I started building my own stunt/racing quad copters. :cool:

Gotta admit, I’d kind of love a build-it-yourself kit knife from Spyderco! :spyder:

I dunno about quality difference but I still have to go through it part by part screw by screw and make sure it's set up how I want it so an RTR is wasted on me.

Many dealers have no idea if a knife has been tampered with. Some of the employees that work at the knifecenter/GP/KW etc. can't tell a real Spyderco from a counterfeit that was placed in a box and returned. Tightening the screws on them is a different and very complicated decision I'm glad I don't have to make.

The liability issue is a good enough reason by itself to stop a manufacturer from selling something to put inside a knife without knowing the persons training and experience and qualifications. Even giving a nod or online directions assumes a certain amount of liability that will be used in a court case. Imagine the cost involved from one or two multi million dollar lawsuits. Just the insurance premium increases could put a company under. I'm not exaggerating either.

People will accept the decision or not. We are all different people. I for sure won't apologize to and agree with people who refuse to accept that a decision has been made but think they can badger the company into a new decision. Many seem to have similar personality traits and seem like people who only want to be told what they want to hear. That is unfortunate .

Joe

The Mastiff wrote:The liability issue is a good enough reason by itself to stop a manufacturer from selling something to put inside a knife without knowing the persons training and experience and qualifications. Even giving a nod or online directions assumes a certain amount of liability that will be used in a court case. Imagine the cost involved from one or two multi million dollar lawsuits. Just the insurance premium increases could put a company under. I'm not exaggerating either.

That's a great point, and one I hadn't considered, but one would think other companies who send out parts have found a way around this. It's a shame that in this country, "failing to prevent stupid" is enough to expose one to ambulance chasers.

NickShabazz wrote: You all likely know where I stand on knife disassembly, obviously, and that I'm a big advocate for being able to maintain one's own tools. A tool that you can't maintain isn't yours, it's just rented from fate.

I like to tinker some and have taken apart knives without issue before, but it's not something I do regularly and I really don't understand the position of promoting disassembly as part of "regular maintenance." In my mind there's not much more to it than maybe an occasional need to wash, dry, lube, and sharpen, which can all be accomplished without disassembling the knife.

I don't get it and it seems fairly irresponsible to me to promote the disassembly of products the manufacturer doesn't intend to be taken apart to every random dude (or lady) who comes across your channel. Respectably, of course, but that's my $0.02.

Evil D wrote:

SpyderPhreak wrote:
Did you notice how the quality dropped when some of the more well-known RC companies went to the RTR’s? I sure did. Poorly paid assembly labor I’m sure. :rolleyes: That’s about when I started building my own stunt/racing quad copters. :cool:

Gotta admit, I’d kind of love a build-it-yourself kit knife from Spyderco! :spyder:

I dunno about quality difference but I still have to go through it part by part screw by screw and make sure it's set up how I want it so an RTR is wasted on me.

Well, maybe not the quality of the product, but the build quality. Taking the whole thing apart and starting all over to make sure it’s right stinks. (Sorry about the bunny trail guys.)

The Mastiff wrote:Many dealers have no idea if a knife has been tampered with. Some of the employees that work at the knifecenter/GP/KW etc. can't tell a real Spyderco from a counterfeit that was placed in a box and returned.

Sadly, that’s a great point, and it certainly doesn’t help the issue.