I've been lurking (learning) for a while and joined because I have a question I couldn't find addressed in another thread, so my first post is about a problem. I recently bought a Chaparral and the lock is so tight I can't close the blade without a certain amount of pain and a disfigured thumb. The thin lock bar digs into my thumb and leaves what is becoming a combination of blister/callus and indentations. My wife tried closing the blade and couldn't do it using any method at all. I'm sure the lock is tighter than it should be but I don't see any way to make it better. The mechanism is pretty simple.

My favorite knife at the moment is a Spyderco Dragonfly 2 FRN which I find easy to open and close with one hand.

My thumb is getting shredded by the sharp edges and stiff mechanism on the Chaparral. I don't mind using two hands to close the knife but even that is difficult and painful.

I think it's best that I return it for a refund but I'm curious, if I buy another one should I expect something similar? Is the lock on the Chaparral really this difficult? I feel like there isn't enough room to get the bar down far enough to fully disengage the lock. I can't get it to fully release the blade, the best it will do is let me force it past a strong detent where the lock pops out of the notch.

I'm kind of disenchanted with the Chaparral at the moment. I should add that I did find a thread here in which the internal mechanism was exposed. I disassembled mine to the same state, cleaned everything, oiled it, put it back together and managed to make the blade a little smoother opening but it had no effect at all on the lock.

Any suggestions?