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Are simple replacement parts hard for you to find?

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I was stunned when the stop pin went flying off of my new Kizer Maddox (Mikkel Willumsen design.) I couldn't find it anywhere - the sucker was lost.

I contacted Kizer for a replacement who, after requesting photos of the knife and the name of the seller, told me "We may be out of them."

What?

Two mailing attempts and 2 months later I finally received a new stop pin from Kizer. The service rep was friendly and helpful. However, even though I offered to pay for faster shipping, no deal. Slug mail from China.

Replacement parts for knives can be a bitch to find. Even the right screws for goodness sake. My question, why?

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Kavik
5531
Sep 30, 2018
My guess would be that many of the parts are machined in house, not off the shelf pre-fabbed pieces jigsawed in to work with the design of each knife. So, unless the manufacturer plans for people to lose parts and keeps extras on hand, you may have no other options for getting replacements
I think sometimes we take for granted how unique even production knives may need to be in order to get perfect spacing, tight tolerances, and good pivot action. It's going to be easier to make it themselves how they need it, specific to each knife, rather than build their design around such a small piece.
I'm not familiar with the inner workings of that particular knife, but generally speaking, a stop pin has to be the right diameter to stop blade movement when open and closed, and the length will be different depending on blade width, spacing between blade and handles, and how deep they sit into the handles. And depending on the manufacturer they will be different diameter, they can be straight cylinders, they can have shoulders milled into them to be thicker in the center, I've even had ones i swear are slightly tapered on the ends from the way they seem to stick in their holes
In other words, sometimes a pin is not a pin is not a pin
GeorgeMX
113
Sep 30, 2018
KavikThank you
enkidu
313
Oct 7, 2018
KavikGreat answer! Given current CNC driven manufacturing and sub-1k manufacturing, I doubt if most manufacturers keep around spare parts in any great quantity for all the knife variations they make. Hopefully they keep the CAD/CAM specs and programs around.
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