Bad Swisstool Spirit?

[Beery]

Can you put a straight edge down both sides of the arms and see if the "crowning" looks uniform too, Beery?

I just ran a T square along and down it, but it's hard to tell anything with a straight edge - many of the pieces are misaligned by design from one side of the handle to the other. The old mark 1 eyeball notices a number of tiny issues with the folds in the handles, but they seem to either be negligible or cancel each other out (which is probably also by design) I don't see anything that's yelling at me "Hey, I'm messed up". But like I said before, my Spirit X is one of the good ones.

[pingu]

I mean, heck, at the very lowest level of technology, they could do it the old fashioned way and have someone give them a final bash with a rubber mallet to align the handles before they do the final QC on function.

Early on in this I offered a completely uninformed and purely speculative musing that the QC check was tool alignment (in quite a crammed housing) and maybe that was achieved at the expense of handle alignment by a painful process (the rubber mallet  ).  I note that the most recent photograph posted shows very slight tip non-centering.  Possibly a different manifestation of the "stamped metal" construction.

[AimlessWanderer]

That might just be a trick of the light  We'd have to get enki to confirm (his pic, his tool)

[enki_ck]

Give me a minute.

[enki_ck]

I have both versions, with and without the shield on the plierhead.

Spirit X with the shield (unused):

From one side it draws a bit to the left, the other side is centered.




Spirit X without the shield (my user):

Both sides draw to the left.




I'd say the one with both sides drawing to the left has more even scales when closed, but on both of them it's less then a millimeter.

[pingu]

OK, the key to what I's going to explain is nothing to do with how well the machined faces/components are produced OR what tolerances they are working to....

Thanks for your explanation.  I can put to bed my concerns about plier head machining.  I can also appreciate the challenge in forming the curve and the fold in the handles.

Going back to my previous musings I recognised the challenge in fitting the plier head in a slim handle between so many tools to deliver all outside access.  A really nice objective but maybe a mass production challenge too far.

Comparing with Rebar where there is also some multi-dimensional folding at the plier end LM has the luxury of  only resting the plier head against the tools and only suffers a rare tolerance issue complaint of pliers jamming with awl deployed.

I'm happy with my current MT carry and MTs in reserve.  Probably not a user vacancy for a Spirit and for a collection I'd want it "perfect".    I might consider a future SwissTool purchase.  The straight handles look a less complex build.   Too heavy to carry but fine in the collection.

[pingu]

OK.  I've ordered one on a different Amazon product code (different blade style) so I can be sure I won't get the same one again.

Watch this space...

[Monrogue]

 

[ducttapetech]

I'd also add that those who have discounted these tools as "artwork", really outght to try them out as tools for a while too. Afterwards you might find that you REALLY like them 

They are OK. One of the ones I had perfectly aligned handles. It was one of the ealier ones. Really well made. Just to damn slippery when wet or oily. And hard to use when wearing gloves in the winter. Funny, I don't remember hearing people complaining about the handles when they first came out. Just the blade and the shears. 
And as far as pissing down on the other tools, it would have to piss up to hit my Surge.
Surge is taller.......lol!


Nate

[Top-Gear-24]

I received a new Spirit today, opened it up, it is as misaligned as Thunderpant's.
I m not sure I am keeping it.

  I know how you feel.  Can you post some pics of the head pivot before you return it?

Will do, has anyone check with Victorinox to see if they consider this misalignment NORMAL, are they going to do something to correct it?

None of my Leathermans has this issue, Rebar & ST300 handles are somewhat flexible, after heavy use there are some minor misalignment but not when they come out of the box.

Don't get me started on the Rebar ...

I can assure you there are plenty of flawed Rebars out of the box (same goes for a couple of Leatherman tools, ST300, Charge TTi, ...).  You can read about my first encounter with the Rebar here.

I have seen a broken rivet (Rebar), plier-head rubbing against phillips screwdriver/bit driver (Rebar/ST300/Wave), plier-head rubbing against PE knife (ST300), pliers not fully closing because the replaceable cutters didn't line up (Rebar), misaligned handles (Rebar/ST300), up and down play on locked tools (Rebar), Charge TTi with the same ruler (from 10cm to 20cm) on both sides (click here), and there's also the well known diamond-coated file rubbing on the Charge TTi series ...

Seems like most of our collections would be quite a bit smaller if we wrote of the tools that are not always 100% as they should be ... 

I own five Spirits, three regular ones with the butterblade, one black oxide Spirit X, and a Road Tour Spirit.  The three "butterknife" ones are quite old, I bought them at the local army-goods store and they had been lying there in a display case for a long time, the black oxide one also has the old style logo on the handles (Victorinox with the Vic shield left of the name), only the Road Tour has the new style logo (Victorinox with the Vic shield above the name).



Only one of them (one of the regular butterblade ones) lies completely flat, all the others have a slight misalignment, two almost not visable without placing the tool on a flat surface, one you can spot without placing the tool on a flat surface, and one (the black oxide one) with a more obvious misalignment. 

I would be lying if I said it didn't bother me, but on the other hand, I have yet to see any of the tools on a Spirit rubbing against something they should not be rubbing against, or any kind of up and down play on any of the locked tools, or ...

If you want a Victorinox plier-based tool with perfectly aligned handles you could get a Swisstool, just know there's more chance of up and down play on locked tools, more weight, and if you compare the tools on the Spirit with the ones on the Swisstool, you can notice that the ones on the Spirit are "more evolved" than the ones on the Swisstool.

As always, this is just my two cents  .

[pingu]

OK.  I've ordered one on a different Amazon product code (different blade style) so I can be sure I won't get the same one again.

Watch this space...

Received my Spirit and the "misalignment" is only 0.5mm so I'm keeping it

Looking at the tool closely I'm completely baffled how some are reportedly affected up to 3mm (e.g. my previous sample). The pliers jaws *must* be reasonably centred 3/4 of the way along the handle or tool would jam.  Nobody has reported non-parallel pliers or jamming so the plier handle housing must be parallel within the jaw clearance limits.

One thing I note is that the handle is thinner by 1.5mm at the tools pivot end.  In one of my handles when viewed against a straight edge there is a significant reduction in the 1/4 handle from the plier tip to the tools pivot.   This might fit with the handle forming process explained earlier.

I can see scope for tolerance build-up but I remain of the view that this is for Victorinox to solve not for me to explain or for potential customers to accept.

I like the tool a lot, particularly all outside access tools but the plain wire-cutters are short due to the intrusion of the soft wire-cutter position.   The cutter performance is poor with soft stranded copper wire compared with Rebar so the Spirit won't be my partner for electrical work but I'd take it camping for preference.

In the UK Spirit retails at almost twice the cost of Rebar, so its an expensive pair of (excellent) scissors.

[hiraethus]

From the misalignment on my Spirit I think there are two factors at work: the play in the pliers pivot and the tolerance on the length of the side plates. Mine are only out by 0.8mm though, or a little less than 0.5°over the length of the tool. I need to work out what a small variation in the centre-centre distance of one of the side plates would do to the angle of the handles.

Mucking about with this over lunch:

The two short lines represent the pliers/stack of tools and the long lines are the handle side plates.  I've assumed that the right hand line (the pliers end) is perpendicular to the side plates, and that the left hand line (the stack of tools) is allowed to be at an angle to the side plates.  I don't have a Spirit to hand today as I left it at home by mistake but I've guessed some representative dimensions.  A 0.1mm difference in the length of the handles (not an unreasonable tolerance, IMO, for sheet metal work) gives a 0.9mm misalignment in one end of the handle.  Halve the difference in length (to 0.05mm) and the misalignment goes down to 0.45mm.

[hiraethus]

I have another theory.

The Spirit side plates aren't parallel, on purpose.  The thickness of the handles at the pliers end is 14.3mm and the thickness of the handles at the tools end is 12.9mm.  I guess this is because of the added thickness of the lock buttons at the tools end and Vic didn't want them to stick out too far.

Both side plates are the same at the pliers end.  The handle side plates are different once you get to the tool end.  One handle side (the one with the Victorinox logo) plate has a folded section that extends further along its length (this is the bit that the spring plate/pliers rest is riveted to).  On the other side plate (with no logo) the folded section stops short of the spring.

If the tool was the same thickness across the tools and across the pliers, this wouldn't be an issue.  But, because they taper and there doesn't seem to be any part of the side plates that brings the region around the tool rivets back perpendicular to the rivets, something has to give when it's assembled.

My guess, based on what I can measure of the parallelism of the pliers and phillips/large flat driver to the handles, is that the side plate with the logo is stiffer than the other, and remains perpendicular to the rivets after assembly.  The other side plate is more flexible and is pulled out of line, causing the handle to pull to one side.  This happens in both handles, so a small misalignment is doubled because the same thing happens on both sides.

Edit: I don't want to come across as an apologist for poor QC or design on behalf of Vic, I'm just trying to figure how stuff is made and if there's anyway of fixing it.  Given the complex design of the handles, problems like this might be unavoidable, and a simpler, stiffer, easier to make stamping like a Rebar or Wave seems to remove these issues entirely (though you lose out on the all-outside-opening tool layout which I like).  I genuinely don't have a problem with the handle misalignment, but fully understand that there are others who do.   

[pingu]

I have another theory.

Well I'm glad somebody has a theory because from examination I'm baffled how this arises but not half as much baffled as why Victorinox thinks a "cannot be avoided" issue is appropriate to what recently was a tool pushing £100, even if that remark is from the same school of customer service as Leatherman's "if its got our name on it its ours"

I don't carry my Spirit much, when I do the circa 1mm doesn't bother me, but I am certain 3mm would.  What does prevent *me* making more use of it is the cutter, hopelessly compromised for straight length by the inclusion of the soft wire cutter notch.   While it makes a beautifully assured job of solid copper conductor it does not cleanly cut small or medium cable ties that my LM tools from Style PS up chomp through without protest.

That's why *I* cannot rate the Spirit highly.  Others may have different requirements.

 

[Kampfer]

I went to a store last week, inspected six new Spirit they just received, all have 3mm of misalignment.
"Cannot be avoided"
I personally never see such misalignment on any MT range from $10 Chinese knock off to $160 Charge Tti.


I would gladly purchase a couple of Spirit IF:
Victorinox states this misalignment is part of the design criteria and customers would see this misalignment on each single Spirit.
 

[Kampfer]

How about buying a fancy race car with mis-matched paint job? It doesn't effect its performance, it will still be the fastest car on the road.
Would you pay top dollars for it?

[Top-Gear-24]

Well, it's all relative ...

Over here I can buy a Spirit at the local outdoorstore for 94 Euro ($108) while a Wave would cost me 145 Euro ($167) at the same shop, so it's safe to say the Spirit is not the "fancy race car" over here, but the Wave is.  The Spirit is closer to the Rebar (89 Euro/$103) over here.

This is where I started my speech about what kind of flaws I encountered on some of my Leatherman tools (which I still like a lot, by the way), and how many of my Spirits lie flat on the table, and so on ...

Until I suddenly remembered I already posted that in this topic  .

[AimlessWanderer]

Well, it's all relative ...

Over here I can buy a Spirit at the local outdoorstore for 94 Euro ($108) while a Wave would cost me 145 Euro ($167) at the same shop, so it's safe to say the Spirit is not the "fancy race car" over here, but the Wave is.  The Spirit is closer to the Rebar (89 Euro/$103) over here.

This is where I started my speech about what kind of flaws I encountered on some of my Leatherman tools (which I still like a lot, by the way), and how many of my Spirits lie flat on the table, and so on ...

Until I suddenly remembered I already posted that in this topic  .

Yes, the Spirit is a mid priced tool over here too. Generally cheaper than a Wave (definitely a Charge) and even some of the non-standard MP600 models. More than a Rebar, but possibly around the price of an XE6 or slightly less.

[Etherealicer]

Well, it's all relative ...

Over here I can buy a Spirit at the local outdoorstore for 94 Euro ($108) while a Wave would cost me 145 Euro ($167) at the same shop, so it's safe to say the Spirit is not the "fancy race car" over here, but the Wave is.  The Spirit is closer to the Rebar (89 Euro/$103) over here.

This is where I started my speech about what kind of flaws I encountered on some of my Leatherman tools (which I still like a lot, by the way), and how many of my Spirits lie flat on the table, and so on ...

Until I suddenly remembered I already posted that in this topic  .

+1

Its a cosmetic flaw. Its not worth that much breath. Also, I just checked my Charge (current price here 180 USD), and it wobbles too... Interestingly only on one side, because not both handles have the same thickness they are 17.7 and 18.3mm thick (front) and 17.5 / 18mm at the back.
This made me measure the Spirit (actually 3 of 'em). They all are 12mm at front (where the pliers are) and 11 at the back. With my poor    sliding calliper there was no measurable difference. All of mine wobble 1mm, I therefore suggest that one side aligns to the front top, the other to the front bottom. Why, I don't know but the handles are asymmetrical and i guess its because of that.

[Amedio]

The handles of my Vic Spirit are misaligned when closed. But If I open it to use the pliers they are perfectly aligned. If I place it in the desk it will rest on 2 front rivets and the 2 locks in the back. Knowing how Victorinox work, i think it might be done on purpose. Similar to the small play on the liner lock on the 111mm vic, that is not a flaw, is smart design.

My theory, is that the holes where the handles are attached to the pliers are not parallel to the pliers axle. They may be designed so when you apply pressure on the handles, a small amount of that pressure would push bot jaws together. That would help preventing the pliers to build play after years of use and help with the wire cutter too, keeping bot cutting pieces together. The handles holes would be skew too, to make the trick less visible. And that could be the reason for them to close misaligned.

This is only a theory, I have no proof. My English is hard to understand even for me. I hope this sketch would help to explain what I meant. This would be a cross section of the pliers head, showing how with rivets non parallel to the axle an small component of the force applied would push both jaws together.



Of course some people would rather have a better looking and less functional tool, this is why Italians keep making cars  .

[Etherealicer]

Of course some people would rather have a better looking and less functional tool, this is why Italians keep making cars  .

[Top-Gear-24]

Of course some people would rather have a better looking and less functional tool, this is why Italians keep making cars  .

Ouch ...

 

[Pignut71]

^ Ouch indeed but very, very funny!


Sent using my chubby fingers...

[Pignut71]

I've just checked my Spirit X (newer model with the shield above "Victorinox") and it does have minimal wobble when placed on a flat surface, I reckon 1mm Max.
Doesn't bother me at all, I still think this is The Tool that all others should be benchmarked against in terms of quality.
Incidentally, it sits completely flat with the pliers in the open position.
Love it!


Sent using my chubby fingers...

[basilio]

Of course some people would rather have a better looking and less functional tool, this is why Italians keep making cars  .

Ehehe 

[magentus]

Good post Amedio.

I've just tried my Spirit on the table whilst open and it sits flat! I think you're on to something.

[Monrogue]

Good post Amedio.

I've just tried my Spirit on the table whilst open and it sits flat! I think you're on to something.

Mine's the same.  Slight misalignment when closed, but even when open.

Sent from my XT901 using Tapatalk

[thebullfrog]

I've owned 3 Spirits and every one was misaligned like that. I always assumed it was intentional. Are we saying there are actually some out there that aren't like that? 

[Top-Gear-24]

I've owned 3 Spirits and every one was misaligned like that. I always assumed it was intentional. Are we saying there are actually some out there that aren't like that? 

Out of the five Spirits I own, only one will lie completely flat on the table (happens to be my Spirit plus), two lie almost completely flat (one regular and my Road Tour), one is visibly misaligned (one of the regular), and the last one (my BO Spirit) has it quite bad (until you open it, once you open these Spirits, they al lie flat on the table).

[TazzieRob]

I've skimmed through this thread and not sure if this has been mentioned.

My theory is that the "misalignment" is intentional. It moves the thicker tools of the file and saw away from the plier head in the closed position, preventing damage to the pliers, saw and file. I can't imagine that with reports of more misalignment than not, that it I not in fact fully intentional and is a design product of the engineering process. The whole tool is a bit quirky in shape. Still works very well and looks amazing