Who else has the wooden Dragonfly kit?

Evil D · #1

I bought this kit for my 4 (almost 5) year old daughter, because her older brother (who's 10) got a Dfly for his 10th bday and she gets a little jealous every time we have our knives out playing with them. She's going around the house right now like she's hot stuff lol.

The kit was awesome...very precise laser cut pieces that fit together amazingly well for being wood. My only complaint is how fragile the lock is...she was able to pretty much break/defeat the lock by chipping a very small piece of wood off the tang of the blade, so now it closes like a slip joint but I'm fine with that because she really wasn't strong enough to press the lock in all the way (which is how it was broke in the first place).

We're gonna do some sanding on the handle to contour the edges and probably paint the handle pink and maybe carve something into the handle.

xceptnl · #2

David,

I broke mine as well. The instructions have clear warning about how fragile the lock interface areas can be. I do plan to take mine apart and stain the handle slabs a dark cherry and doing the blade and lock a light walnut.

Evil D · #3

xceptnl wrote:David,

I broke mine as well. The instructions have clear warning about how fragile the lock interface areas can be. I do plan to take mine apart and stain the handle slabs a dark cherry and doing the blade and lock a light walnut.

Yeah I saw that in the instructions...I just figured WOW it really doesn't take much. I think the problem is there isn't really much lock bar engagement at all...it's probably less than 1/6 since just a very tiny chip was enough to defeat the lock.

Enkidude · #4

Ive been meaning to get one for the same reason. My daughter is too young for knives, but always sees daddy with his knives. I think its a great way to introduce young ones and include them in our hobby.

thog94 · #5

I got 2 of them for the kids as stocking stuffers for Xmas. They are sitting in the draw where I put them back in December. I got them for the same reason that David did, but my son uses his Pingo or my Delica and my daughter doesn't seem to care about knives anymore. I've heard the same complaints about the locks as well as some of the handles being easy to split. Both kids have the CRKT version and those have held up. One of these days when it decides to rain cats and dogs, I'll break them out and we'll build them.

IG-88 · #6

Got 2 :)

1 to keep and 1 I've build with my son (age 8). Some years ago we did the "CRKT Nathans Knife" and it was great fun so I wanted to do that alover again. And to my surprise I was a walk in the park. My son was able to complete it without help, it seems the practice on the CRKT made him understand the basics of folder so it was not new anymore and he loved it even more than building the wooden CRKT!

I'll pick an extra one up for my youngest son so we can do this all over again. Possibly 2 future kinfemakers who knows :D

JLS · #7

Got one for my 6 year old and he built it by himself. The lock broke within about 2 weeks of near constant use, but he'd really enjoyed it. He also gets to play with a Delica trainer with his parents around and every once in a while, we take the time to actually cut something with a real knife.

I have a spare kit for my youngest as well, but she's not ready for it quite yet.

VashHash · #8

Gave one to my 4 yr old daughter for Christmas. She broke the lock that day. She likes to carry it in her pocket too. I bought one for myself and it's holding up fine. No broken lock yet. She'll be getting a delica trainer in a few more yrs.

SolidState · #9

I've got a D-fly kit with the same issue. Not to advertize, but Glenn Klecker (the inventor of this idea with Nathan's Knife kits) recently released a set of plastic kits that don't have the lockbar issue. They're tons of fun without the issues of wood.

einstein2001 · #10

I put a lanyard on mine and display it on my bookshelf. I get more questions about it than I do for my other knives on display.

Is that a wooden knife, Why?

Because its a Dragonfly :D

tonydahose · #11

my kids both have them. I am in the process of making yellow kauri handles for my daughter's knife.

phillipsted · #12

I wonder if I could get past TSA with one of those? It isn't really very sharp... Hmmmm. :cool:

TedP

rnbtexas · #13

I'll have to find the dragonfly version. Both kids have the CRKT version and they love them. Thanks for the heads up.

Detdaddy · #14

I got one for each of my 3 boys (ages 5, 7, 10) for Christmas. The 5 year old defeated his lock on the first day. But it still works really nice as a slipit. The other two are holding up well. This was a very cool idea by the Spyderco crew. The boys and I had fun building them. It gave the older 2 an idea how a knife lock works. The little one thinks he's cool carrying it around the house in his pocket. We haven't painted them yet, but that's on the to do list.

I took pics of the knives as we assembled them, and had intentions of posting them here in the forums. But I still can't figure out how to post pics... I'll figure it out one of these days. Also, we added a little wax on the back of the blade, where the back lock touches and then engages. (I can't think what that part is called). It really seemed to work well. The blades open and close very smooth.

BAL · #15

I got one for the boy. He messes around with it and opens and closes it occasionally
It doesn't really lock and work like the real thing, but hey it doesn't cost much and
you can see what's inside a knife. You can practice opening without getting cut.

Kev83 · #16

I was actually thinking about purchasing this for my 5 year old daughter because she loves to sit and watch daddy clean and sharpen his knives. I was just wondering about the difficulty level of her being able to do it by herself, of course I would her if she needed it but she's very headstrong and doesn't like to accept the help, but seeing these posts I think she'd do well with it. Thanks!

EdgeFUBAR · #17

I don't have one yet... I was thinking about getting them for stocking stuffers for Xmas. But, anyways try putting a couple drops of thin CA glue on any high stress areas. Thin CA will wick into the wood . Do this before assembly of course!!! I build model RC planes and this is common practice for reinforcing screw holes and what not. ( thin CA is basically superglue .. go to a hobby store to get the good stuff...any unused portion will come in handy)

A fun way to stain wood is with markers and highlighters . You could use pink and purple for the girls. Also this makes it very easy for kids to do it themselves.

BAL · #18

Kev, Dad can put it together and she can watch. Then she can do what ever she
wants to with it and imitate Dad.
(With the knife, not everything of course :cool: )

Mr Blonde · #19

I got two of these for my girls, I'm waiting for them to grow old enough for a crafts project like this.
The eldest is 3; she does love playing with her baliyo and 'stabbing' me with it like it's a sword...I got to fix that..she's not using a proper hammer grip and her targeting could use some improvement.

EzGoingKev · #20

What kind of wood are these made of?