My damaged wave

Long story short, my roommate asked to borrow the pliers on my leatherman wave. He also decided to use the knife on my wave as a pry bar, and slashed his thumb open. He was so surprised, he flung my knife, open, at the concrete floor. It hit tip first.

The tip is completely banged up. I also think the hinge may have been damaged, since it's a lot more difficult to open up now. The rest of the tools seem fine.

I'm going to oil the knife, see if it loosens up. For the tip, I think I'm going to have to grind it down with a file, and then resharpen.

Any advice or comments would be appreciated.

I now understand why some people are so reluctant to lend others their tools!

I'd make the guy buy me a new one...

I would knock damaged wave around on my room mates head to see if I couldn't get a new one to appear. Be patient though some times can take hours to get this magic trick to work properly but with enough head knocking the new one will appear.

You have my sympathy. I hate loaning tools to non-tool-savvy people -- especially tools I care about.

A sharp file can easily reshape 420 stainless, which is the knife steel in the standard Wave / Wave II. As long as you don't put it on a power grinder, you won't do any harm.

If the hinge and lock work acceptably, things will probably get back to normal after a bit of use. However, don't hesitate to send it to Leatherman customer service; they've seen worse, and repaired it without hassles.

Never, ever loan your leatherman out. I guess its appropriate that he drew blood though.

Sorry about your loss.

Before trying to regrind the blade send it to leathermann. Costumer service will probably repair or replace it. Once you try to reshaple the blade you will void the warerenty. Have rommate pay for the shipping.

leatherman will probley send you a new one--i busted the
blade off my old one and sent it in to have a new one put on--
i admitted i used the blade to try and PRY a pine lump off
a tree for a fire starter..to my surprize i got another one.
no charge..i try not to do dumb stuff with that one

Lending it to my roommate was probably one of the dumbest things I've done in a while. I figured he couldn't do too much damage to it just using the pliers. I still can't believe he managed to do more damage in 5 minutes than I had done in almost a year of use. Sadly, a replacement seems out of the question. There's no way I'll be able to get my roommate to replace it now.

Also, I don't think the amount of damage warrants sending it back to leatherman. Admittedly, the tip will never be the same, but the knife is still in good, usable condition, and the rest of the tool still functions perfectly. (By the way, the hinge seems to have loosened back up)

I'm a little worried hearing that reshaping the blade voids the warranty, but I still think I'm going to go with a simple file job.

Never loan out your leatherman
Never loan that person anything of yours you value.
Make him buy you a new one equal or better (by your standards)
See that he gets anger management classes.

I don't think minor field repairs to the blade tip will void your warranty (not in practice anyway). I've seen much worse sent to Leatherman and they fixed/replaced it without a hassle.

Obvious, unreasonable abuse may be another matter -- such as burning the blades on a high-speed grinder and then demanding a replacement. They may well forgive you the first time, even though they're not obligated to.

I don't know if Leatherman tracks returns; they probably do. If you abuse tools outrageously, and constantly demand warranty service, you may get a less friendly reception over time. That's seems only fair (to me).

I never lend out anything (tools, money, etc) that I can't afford to live without if I don't get it back or it gets damaged.

Consequently, of course, I lend out very few items.

I don't see why reshaping the blade would void the warranty. Sharpen it enough over the years and you've reshaped it. Besides, those tips are so pointy that it's pretty easy to break off 1/8".

Purchase a new wave..

Hand him the one he damaged, along with the receipt for the new one..

Tell him that is what he owes you, period.

He owes you that. He bungled up your piece of kit, accept nothing less than a full replacement.