Anybody seen this before??

[rajincagin]

I will contact Benchmade tomorrow for the real answer.

But will their answer satisfy? Or merely raise more questions? Uncertain, this thread is...

 

[Ajack60]

Or maybe they found a way to maximize their profit margin other than raising prices

 

[spketch]

The holes seem like a smart way to mark the blades for steel type. These are obviously marked before heat treat, at which point marking options are pretty limited. They could just keep the batches seperate, but if there was a mix up and blades were misplaced it would be difficult to figure out what type of steel they were.

Imagine if some blades were mislabeled and a knife nut found out... It would take years for people to stop jumping to the conclusion that their benchmade had a different steel than advertised because it chipped or wasn't sharpening well.

The marking holes are a good insurance policy for benchmade and probably help to streamline the production process, allowing them to keep prices where they are.

That said, the one on the right is a mess! They could make it a little cleaner than that.

 

[Gassyerik911]

It's all a conspiracy. I figured it out. Benchmade was founded in 1979, and each hole represents the amount of spies from Spyderco and Kershaw Benchmade has found trying to steal their manufacturing secrets. Let's just say that no one survives a stab in the chest from a diamond honed Adamas. Last year I purchased a mini griptilian and when I took it apart I was surprised to find 5 holes drilled into the blade. This is where my suspicions started. When I received an email from a mysterious person named "J.G." telling me of this conspiracy I knew it was my duty to investigate this atrocity. My suspicions where confirmed when I watched footage from Blade Show 2013 and saw Les de Asis (Founder of Benchmade) go up to Mr. Sal Glesser (Founder of Spyderco {If you don't know that leave this site and never come back]). Thanks to my keen lip reading skills I was able to make out the words, "Only five this year? You can do better than that." Not so coincidentally it was the same number of holes drilled into my Mini Grip! I alerted the local authorities. My worried cries were met with deafening laughter. This can't go unheard. Spread the word with #Holesfullofsecrets


All jokes aside spketch seems somewhere in the ballpark.

 

[ibute21]

Okay....I'll bite. The guys saying the holes were drilled to mark the blades. Well, if it was done with a drill press, why are the holes irregularly shaped? If it was done by hand, why don't we see chatter from the drill?

 

[spketch]

Okay....I'll bite. The guys saying the holes were drilled to mark the blades. Well, if it was done with a drill press, why are the holes irregularly shaped? If it was done by hand, why don't we see chatter from the drill?

That's a good question. They're probably done quick and dirty with a laser. According to some quick research that wouldn't leave neat holes.

 

[BellaBlades]

The holes are there to fill with extra oil to lubricate the washers.

Honestly, I have no idea. They look like a misfire from a lazer cutter.

1. That is ugly
2. If it is for marking, it a very pathetic way to do so.
3 I would not be happy about it on my knife.

 

[A Justice]

Several people should contact Benchmade, maybe get them to weigh in on this directly, here, so they can take additional questions (and if several people speak to QC agents, maybe find mismatching information as evidence of not knowing or a cover up lol).

I would say it's a remnant of the manufacturing process, like the small blemishes on the PM2 liners. Could be a way they get more knives in heat treat, by stringing them up or something... or the tool they use for handling works better then there is a small hole. None of the answers make much sense - it's a poor grease dispenser, and you'd think their employees aren't so retarded to make an ID system that changes with every batch. Very weird though, I don't think any of those reasons are good enough considering the damage done in a vital area - the handles would likely break before the tang I guess, but having several irregularly shaped holes on a portion of the knife that moves more than any other part would seem worrisome if I was in charge of the quality aspect of these things.

 

[fetzer85]

Am I the only one wondering if you bought these new or used? :what:

 

[killgar]

Are you sure they're genuine Benchmade's? Where did you buy them from? Looks to me like the kind of shoddy work that would be seen on fakes.

EDIT- Just looked at the pics again, I don't know about every Benchmade knife with an opening hole, but the five Benchmade's I have with opening holes all have ground edges on the holes (chamfered). Unlike yours which has just a flat-cut hole.

 

[KennyB]

The interesting thing is that the holes seem to be going in a circle around the pivot hole, but not precisely. Almost as if someone was trying to drill them on the same radius-line from the pivot hole by eye, but it looks more like a plasma cutter than a drill. Going by that, is it possible that these holes are done while cutting the blanks out? They could simply be start/end holes for the cutting process. If you look closer at the blade on the right, you can see two of the holes actually intersect each-other. It all seems to indicate that the positioning of the holes was done by hand.

I think the identification of steel is a good theory. Think if you're going to be cutting multiple blade blanks of the same shape, but of different steel. Unless you're sorting the blanks before each type of steel is cut, you'll have a bunch of different steel blanks that look all the same--except for the holes as a marker. This could be done quickly on the same machine that cuts the blanks ( laser or plasma cutter ) and easily: An operator would simply type in the coordinates and the number of blanks to cut for a particular piece of steel, and then add in whatever extra number of holes they need to keep track, the machine then reproducing the identifier mark on each blank as its cut. Then on top of that, the reason why it's not the same number of holes every time for one particular type of steel or knife, is because they only use a certain number of holes to identify the current batch. So for example, if they're making D2 and 154CM Griptillians one day, they might just only drill one hole to differentiate between the two steels. If the next day they're working with three different steels, they might do it differently, but main thing is probably just keeping the blanks separated while being able to cut as many blanks at the same time.

The only problem I have with this theory is that it seems like there's just way better ways to accomplish this. Marking the tangs is ideal, but I don't see why lighter marks wouldn't suffice. I guess in order to keep the different steels identified all through polishing, grinding and finishing the marks need to be deep, not just surface indicators. So the question might be, "Well, why not just drill a small shallow hole?" and I guess the answer would be the plasma/laser cutter bores a hole all the way through using less time and energy than to do so with a metal cutting bit of any sort.

I guess the key thing to remember is that we're talking about large volumes of production. Having a means to identify the steel blade blanks that is easily repeatable, not costly in terms of time or resources, and is simple for the workers that need to sort hundreds if not thousands of blanks quickly... Yeah, boring a certain number of holes in the tang during the cutting process makes a huge deal of sense to me. Makes me wonder what other companies think to do, it's possible they just use lighter surface indicators and just wait until the last step in the process to finish the blades.

But yeah... In the end I just can't help but think a professional company like this would find a more graceful solution. But hey, sometimes the simplest ideas are the ones that work the best. I'm not sure if I really agree with the idea that this compromises the knife's strength.

 

[treeshaker]

Termites !!!!

 

[jac_solar]

The interesting thing is that the holes seem to be going in a circle around the pivot hole, but not precisely. Almost as if someone was trying to drill them on the same radius-line from the pivot hole by eye, but it looks more like a plasma cutter than a drill. Going by that, is it possible that these holes are done while cutting the blanks out? They could simply be start/end holes for the cutting process. If you look closer at the blade on the right, you can see two of the holes actually intersect each-other. It all seems to indicate that the positioning of the holes was done by hand.

I think the identification of steel is a good theory. Think if you're going to be cutting multiple blade blanks of the same shape, but of different steel. Unless you're sorting the blanks before each type of steel is cut, you'll have a bunch of different steel blanks that look all the same--except for the holes as a marker. This could be done quickly on the same machine that cuts the blanks ( laser or plasma cutter ) and easily: An operator would simply type in the coordinates and the number of blanks to cut for a particular piece of steel, and then add in whatever extra number of holes they need to keep track, the machine then reproducing the identifier mark on each blank as its cut. Then on top of that, the reason why it's not the same number of holes every time for one particular type of steel or knife, is because they only use a certain number of holes to identify the current batch. So for example, if they're making D2 and 154CM Griptillians one day, they might just only drill one hole to differentiate between the two steels. If the next day they're working with three different steels, they might do it differently, but main thing is probably just keeping the blanks separated while being able to cut as many blanks at the same time.

The only problem I have with this theory is that it seems like there's just way better ways to accomplish this. Marking the tangs is ideal, but I don't see why lighter marks wouldn't suffice. I guess in order to keep the different steels identified all through polishing, grinding and finishing the marks need to be deep, not just surface indicators. So the question might be, "Well, why not just drill a small shallow hole?" and I guess the answer would be the plasma/laser cutter bores a hole all the way through using less time and energy than to do so with a metal cutting bit of any sort.

I guess the key thing to remember is that we're talking about large volumes of production. Having a means to identify the steel blade blanks that is easily repeatable, not costly in terms of time or resources, and is simple for the workers that need to sort hundreds if not thousands of blanks quickly... Yeah, boring a certain number of holes in the tang during the cutting process makes a huge deal of sense to me. Makes me wonder what other companies think to do, it's possible they just use lighter surface indicators and just wait until the last step in the process to finish the blades.

But yeah... In the end I just can't help but think a professional company like this would find a more graceful solution. But hey, sometimes the simplest ideas are the ones that work the best. I'm not sure if I really agree with the idea that this compromises the knife's strength.

It still doesn't make much sense to me. I don't think they suddenly switch steel types inbetween batches either -- they probably do one day, or one week, whatever, with a certain type of steel, then move on to the next.

 

[KennyB]

It still doesn't make much sense to me. I don't think they suddenly switch steel types inbetween batches either -- they probably do one day, or one week, whatever, with a certain type of steel, then move on to the next.

Yeah, true. I just can't help but think a company of this size and caliber would come up with such a disorganized method or even run the operation in such a way that it becomes a problem.

I think it's pretty likely that they're made during the blank-cutting process though. The holes look exactly like what a laser/plasma cutter would make, and I can't think of another time in production besides blank-cutting that such a process would be used.

I also think the way they're positioned in a sloppy radial around the pivot hole is telling, the positioning is definitely done by human eye/hand and is deliberate. I don't see them being mistakes... I mean it's feasible a person could start a cut at the wrong spot, stop, and have to start another place, but I can't see a person not scrapping a piece if they did so that many times trying to start just one cut. It's possible they could be "test" cuts to calibrate or adjust the machine, but again you'd think those pieces would be scrapped.

 

[Jens Schuetz]

Its probably some quality test they do on a few sample blades from each batch.
Instead of throwing them away they still put them into knives that still function perfectly fine.

Termites however is the best answer in my book :thumbup: Treeshaker

 

[Revival29]

This is very weird. Aliens? Then again, Aliens usually make perfect circles.

 

[The Mastiff]

It's possible they could be "test" cuts to calibrate or adjust the machine, but again you'd think those pieces would be scrapped

These good high quality steels are pretty expensive. Throwing away ( recycling back for scrap with the pieces of sheet the blanks were cut from) a perfectly good blank due to a few holes that don't affect performance and can't be seem normally doesn't make sense.

Calibration makes more sense to me than marking for steel type but I'm still curious. I normally don't like to speculate as it's a waste of time and energy.

 

[cchu518]

I'm lost. Are we talking about knives here or donuts and crop circles?

 

[Kyle_4]

Am I the only one wondering if you bought these new or used? :what:

Are you sure they're genuine Benchmade's? Where did you buy them from? Looks to me like the kind of shoddy work that would be seen on fakes.

EDIT- Just looked at the pics again, I don't know about every Benchmade knife with an opening hole, but the five Benchmade's I have with opening holes all have ground edges on the holes (chamfered). Unlike yours which has just a flat-cut hole.

The 555 was bought from a dealer brand new and the M4 was bought used off this site. The problem seems to happen more often on M4 blades from searching old threads. These are definitely genuine Benchmades.

 

[sirupatespecial]

I'm thinking, well not thinking just guessing, that the holes are there so if dirt, grease or grime build up that it has somewhere to go. Or not. In any case you would think that benchmade could have done a better job.

Geez.....