Got first Spyderco, somewhat disappointed...

[kennethsime]

I got my first Native 5 recently, and in some ways I agree: it was a bit of a disappointment. It isn't quite as smooth to operate as my other Spydercos, and definitely not as "flickable."

If you want the smoothest action, and highest flick ability and fidgetability, I'd recommend you pick up a Para 3 in G-10, or maybe a Domino. They really are quite nice to play with, and they cut pretty darn well too.

Tha Native 5 has a couple of things "going against it":

• Lockbacks take awhile to break in, especially the lightweights.
• No thumb ramp, or "Spyder hump" means you don't get the same kind of leverage to fling the blade open.

Of course, it's also got a lot going for it:

• Lockbacks are very secure, and easy to operate.
• No thumb ramp, or "Spyder hump" means it's very compact in the pocket.
• Tremendous cutting power in a very compact, lightweight design.
• Great ergonomics
• Made in the USA

Overall, I like my Native 5. I don't carry it as much as my Para 3s, but it's definitely a keeper.

It can be difficult to describe a knife's "action" over the internet. I'll echo the other commenters here that if you got the knife from eBay and it is really truly painful to operate, you may have a counterfeit, a factory second, or an otherwise-used model. No Spyderco should really be painful to operate, although if you're cycling the knife open + closed hundreds of times in a sitting you're likely going to develop some hot spots.

If the grittiness really is like a grinding of metal, that's probably what you're doing. Counterfeit or not, you'll probably want to take the knife apart and clean it out. Go slow, use good torx drivers, a little lube on the pivot, and a little blue lactite on the screws.

When in doubt, send it in to Spyderco and they'll fix it up for a nominal fee (or identify it as counterfeit). if it is counterfeit, eBay has pretty good buyer protection.

[soc_monki]

One thing, he said he used some cutting board oil and you're saying to use something else to lube the knife. Cutting board oil is mineral oil, so it should be just fine as a lube for the knife.

[JohnDoe99]

You have to break it in. The Native will always have a tight feel because of how heavy the lock is but the grittiness will go away as it wears. I like the heavy lock bar as it increases security. It's only bad if you like to flick your knife open.

Please dont change it.

[VashHash]

I'd do another round of WD-40 personally. Sometimes my older broken in knives get stuff in them or on them and become gritty. I usually oil and blow them out or wipe down everything that's exposed. Check the bearing surfaces for any scratches too. If you're seeing any scratches where the lock bar interacts with the back of the blade you could have trash in there somewhere. Maybe depress the lock bar while the knife is closed so you can blow air under it.

[JRinFL]

Even a single grain of sand in the wrong place can cause this. It happens all the time on my Salts, and flushing under water seems to cure it. Oil after drying on M4!

[BobABQ]

I hope the OP hasn’t open and closed it so quickly and often enough to cause some galling between the lock bar and the blade tang.

I agree with everyone who recommends a good flush and lube.

[FlyingMoose]

Was it advertised as being factory new on eBay? Or used?

I think I'd suck it up and send it in to Spyderco. I wouldn't take it apart before doing that.

I will do that next time I'm in the US (hopefully within the next year, depending on what COVID does). But it seems to be doing much better now with the cutting board oil (which is mostly minral oil).

[FlyingMoose]

Yea I'd like to see some pictures of it. I was quite surprised to hear that this was the model he had. Pretty awesome first Spyderco to have if it's indeed genuine!

Took some quick pics with my iPhone

[FlyingMoose]

I hope the OP hasn’t open and closed it so quickly and often enough to cause some galling between the lock bar and the blade tang.

I agree with everyone who recommends a good flush and lube.

I was wondering about galling/spalling too, and after some more searching it seems that silicone oil doesn't work especially well. Never knew that...

The good news is that after working it some more with mineral (cutting board) oil it's almost totally smooth now.

[The Mastiff]

I'd say you have gotten some excellent advice and some terrible advice as well. OK, my advice. Never try to take a brand new Spyderco apart to "fix" it. If it's that bad the Spyderco people need to see it to find where things went wrong. If you send a new knife in for that and you haven't messed it up yourself you won't have to pay $25. If you took it apart trying to fix it how will they know you didn't cause whatever trouble there is.

Any new Spyderco of mine gets cleaned as soon as I get it. A good quality clean dry paper towel gets folded up several time and I use it to clean any gunk if any from the pivot area. Then I lube it. I use a dry spray aerosol pfte lube that won't hold grit in. It needs very little to almost no lube. This isn't a engine powered machine that builds up heat and destroys the bearing surface. I have Spyderco lockbacks going back into the early 90's that just keep getting better and smoother with this sort of care.

In older days it was common to find a waxy buffer grit stuck down in the pivot that wasn't found by the factory and that caused a grinding sound until cleaned out. The last few years it has been rare to find anything dirt or grit there. They have also been doing better edges at the factory as well lately. They keep getting better and better IMO.

If something bad is wrong when new return it or better yet send it to the factory. That helps them eliminate problems. They are really good about that. Welcome to Spyderco forums Flying Moose.

Joe

[The Mastiff]

Nice knife by the way. That should last a lifetime and CPM M4 steel is one of the all time best knife steels. Amazing stuff! My guess is there was a stray piece of the blade coating stuck in there doing what you described. Washing it out with oil then cleaning it with a clean cloth or paper towel should do it if that is the case. By the way when using cloth in the pivot make sure it isn't shedding threads. Enough in the pivot will cause less than optimum performance as well as being hard to get rid of.

[TkoK83Spy]

One thing to be careful of with all this oiling with the natural G10 scales, is if you go too heavy the oils will be visible through the scales. I'm not sure how ocd you are, but I know when I had my first BHQ exclusive and took it apart to clean and lube it, I overdid it and it drove me crazy.

[Joshua J.]

I've never had a "good" knife before, but I've heard of the brand Spyderco over the years, so I figured that's the brand I should get.

I got a Native 5, which I received yesterday.

It was kind of stiff to open at first, so I did a little searching and the recommendation is to sit there watching TV and opening and closing it, which is what I've been doing. It seemed to be a little gritty but I figured that was just how they are at first.

I opened/closed it for an hour or so (probly several hundred times) and it just seemed to get harder to open and more gritty.

I don't mean that it actually feels like it has grit in it, but sort of a grinding metal together feeling. It was also starting to squeak a little bit.

I put a drop of heavy oil on the part of the back of the blade that rubs against the locking bar but that didn't seem to help at all, which surprised me. If I hold in the lever it's a little smoother, and will fall open a bit, but it still feels awful, especially for something so expensive. I got the impression that part of what made Spyderco good is the feeling of opening and closing it, but I have a $5 utility knife that feel much nicer.

I realize that the lock-back type won't feel the same as some of the other types, but this thing feels awful. I could certainly never open it with just one hand and it's even kind of difficult with 2 hands, my fingers are getting tired from opening/closing it because it's so tough to do.

The more I open/close it, the more "grindy" it feels and it keeps getting harder to move. Do I just need to cycle it a few thousand more times?

I checked the screws that hold in the blade and they're not especially tight. The blade will wiggle back and forth while the knife is closed, not quite enough to touch the sides but it's not being pinched.

I'd rather not take it apart if I don't have to, but I'd like to hear any suggestions.

There is a phenomenon where, at random, metal on metal action will become VERY sticky.
I've had this happen with about a dozen knives (out of nearly a hundred over the decades). LinerLock/RIL(Framelock) knives will do the same thing with the ball detent and it's equally mysterious.

First identify if this is actually the lock bar and blade tang contact that is the source of gritty feel. If the blade action feels fine when the lock bar is held away from the blade tang then you've just got a random sticky lockbar.

My #1 recommendation is Tuf-Glide, that stuff is the king of slick.
If you're comfortable taking things apart and not complaining if you screw up, I would do the full disassembly to give it a proper thorough cleaning before applying Tuf-Glide.
If you really don't like the idea of disassembly you're lucky this is a lock-back and the contact surface is easy to access.

Not that lube is a guaranteed fix. If memory serves me, sometimes the only solution was to throw the knife in a drawer and forget about it for a few weeks. "Time" seems to be more of a solution than "Cycles", sometimes it will go away without any manipulation.

Not the kind of thing you want to hear about a new grail knife, but if you just carry it and use it normally the phenomenon should go away in a few weeks all the same, so you're probably just best off to enjoy the knife and remind yourself the condition is only temporary.

If I knew for certain how to fix it I'd probably get a PhD out of the research because as far as I know right now it's a complete mystery to everyone.

[ugaarguy]

Since shipping costs are prohibitive, are you comfortable taking it apart? If so, don't try to drive the lock bar pivot pin out - it's wider in the center, so you need to carefully lift the scales off of it. Otherwise, The Native 5 is really easy to take apart and put back together. I'd strongly recommend taking it apart and using a weak solvent like isopropyl alcohol to get the WD 40 and everything else out of there. WD 40 is a protectant, and I've seen that protectant film it leaves gum up the internals of more guns than I can count. Clean and dry everything, then get very lightly use your cutting board oil to lube it. The N5 doesn't need much lubricant. Also, don't over tighten the screw in the middle of the handle. That screw can cause the handles to bind on the lock bar, and that can make your Native really tight and difficult to open. I hope this helps.

[Michael Janich]

Three things to bear in mind with the Native 5 and DLC-coated blades:

The "humpless" design of the Native 5 (and all Natives) puts the Round Hole lower in relationship to the pivot. The trade-off for that narrower profile is less leverage when opening the knife one handed.

The Native 5 has a true concentric pivot. That means the radius from the pivot pin to the arc of the profile of the tang remains the same throughout the arc. That means there is constant, consistent pressure on the tang throughout the opening arc. Some other back locks have a shorter radius near the terminus of the opening arc, so their actions feel "lighter" toward the end of the arc. Constant pressure is different than "feeling gritty," but requires enough experience with different knives to perceive the difference.

DLC-coated blades are typically bead blasted to prep their surfaces for coating. This creates a rougher surface than a satin or tumbled finish that allows the coating to bond, but also requires more "breaking in" than an uncoated blade.

Stay safe,

Mike

[JRinFL]

Thanks Michael, all good information to know.

[spyderwolf]

The Native doesn't have the hump,like the D4,and that lowers the hole almost in line with the pivot.This is way it's harder to open.Like on the Sebenza,the thumb motion should be an arc,not a straight line,and it takes a little practice to develop the right muscle memory.Give it time,don't hurry so much,like she said.

It's difficult to open even with two hands, I wouldn't mind if I can't flip it open with my thumb, I'd just like to use it normally.

Stop messing with it,and send it to Spyderco.If it's that bad,you got a lemon.It happens,but they have excellent customer service.

[FlyingMoose]

I want to thank everyone for all the help and suggestions in this thread. The Spyderco community is very welcoming.

My current dilemma is trying to decide what color the natural G-10 sides are. My dad and I both think it looks green, but my girlfriend and my mom both say it's not green at all (and my mom is especially good with color and has worked in several industries where color is very important).

[TomAiello]

The accepted answer is 'Jade' I think.

[soc_monki]

They are jade, or natural G10. That is the color of the resin without any dyes, and it's also used in a lot of electrical equipment as it is non conductive.

I really enjoy the look with a dlc blade!