well, just my experience - in about april of '01 i purchased a spec ed smooth handle sifu from 1SKS, for $149 plus s and h - had the knife for about 3 weeks, and was playing around w/it one evening after shaprpening it, was practicing opening it if memory serves, and it closed up on me, cutting my finger fairly badly-upon closer examination, the lock was not locking at all - called 1SKS who gave me your em address and ya said to send it in, which i did, ya fixed it, - BUT the knife was not modified in any way,nor ever spine whacked, didnt eeven know what that was then, really hardly used at all, certainly not abused in any shape or form and ya fixed it, it appeared to me, by polishing the hinge end of the blade (which was now shiny, previously was black) and whatever ya did inside the knife - maybe i'm wrong but i think ya said it required fitting or something - would look at the email, but my PC crashed last week and i lost all my old email - but anyway, it does work fine now, thanks, and believe it or not i didnt even belong to bladeforums then, had heard about the knife in combat handguns magazine, and i think i did a search on the web for sifu, but anyway was several weeks before i started to check out BF - anyway, just for the record - i presume my knife was the one mentioned by bob? i live in round rock texas, remember me?? (really wonder if my luck is that bad lol, not trying top be an a$$hole i swear, i really wonder if it was mine)
sorry ya choose to close her up, but imho ya shoulda had a presence on your own forum, but we have all been over that
good luck to ya, best wishes
sifu