Axis Lock vertical play?

I own a Griptilian, a Barrage, a Violi and a 940. I've gifted three other Barrages and lost a Mini Barrage somewhere in the yard. Not one has had any vertical or horizontal blade play.
 
Not so long ago, i eliminated my vertical blade play that way :D. Works like a charm now.
 
Maybe the lockbar is not parallel with the pivot. You can put some oil on the tang and on the 2 cutouts where the lockbar slide.
 
It seems to me that having some vertical play would be common in an Axis lock. Unless the lock bar and the slots it rides in is very closely dimensioned you will get a bit of up and down play. A little Torrance here and a little tolerance there and now a bit of play. Maybe I am way off base here but that is how I see it.
 
My vertical play issue was the pivot barrel was undersized to the blade’s bore by about 0.003". Fixed with a feeler gage by shimming the barrel.
 
I’ve had more Benchmade knives with blade centering issues than any other problems.

Only one knife had vertical play and that went away very quickly. About three days of use.

Even then, was just enough play to say it had some. Effectively zero.

IIRC, Every new Benchmade I have ever seen straight out of the box has been fine. Used has been another thing.
 
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Wolverine666 said:
Some say this blade play issue is unusual and none of their BM's have it. Others say it's quite common and most of their BM's suffer from it. Very interesting.
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An interesting observation I too have noticed. I have noticed this on a consistent basis.

"I've had ___ number of axis lock knives and none have any play whatsoever. "

"I've had ____ number of axis lock knives and they all developed blade play or had it out of the box."

Honestly most of my Spyderco knives needed adjusted from the factory to get right. I'm saying this as a Spyderco fan-boi.

I've just come to learn to relax a smidge about blade play. Life is better that way.
 
Ryan Hawkins said:
My 15 year old SOG Spec 2 has absolutely zero play, Yet 3 out of 5 of my Benchmades have side to side and vertical
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I have owned the SOG Vulcan, Mini Vulcan, Spec Ops II, Visionary and the Tomcat 3.0. All of these were made in Seki and used SOG's version of the axis-lock. Actually that was negotiated between SOG and Benchmade resulting in the slightly different Arc-lock. I was told this at the G.Sakai factory in Seki where they were being made. I have never encountered any blade play vertical or horizontal with these Seki made knives. On the other hand, I purchased a US made SOG Trident with there assisted open system and that was the only knife I have ever bought that I actually implemented a return on the same day of receipt. Unfortunately, SOG has moved away from Seki manufacture and I think they now only carry one or two models on their product line. But those loose blade assisted models gave SOG's folders a bad name to those who were not into SOG's Seki folders from the old days.

Meantime, I still own a BM Adamas, Griptilian, Bugout, mini bugout and they all came and remain rock solid with no play vertical or horizontal whatsoever. The only gripe I had was with the Griptilian not being sharp out of the box. So everyone's experiences do vary.
 
Brooks2 said:
Its a simple problem- Bench made does give enough of a crap to make sure each and every knife they let out the door is competitive with the quality of other knives offered in that price range. I believe it is the fault of Benchmade letting its QC go to shit and not poor design because as all these issues with sloppy axis locks were becoming a larger issue so were the issues relating to blade alignment and unequal blade grinds. The problem of poor execution on Benchmade knives is not isolated to just the axis lock, it is a problem with many parts on the knife such as the blade grind and the blade alignment. I could be wrong, but it seems reasonable to me.
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To say that BM does not "give enough of a crap" and that BM is "letting its QC go to shit" is extremely hyperbolic to say the least.
I have not found that to be even remotely true.
 
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allenC said:
To say that BM does not "give enough of a crap" and that BM is "letting its QC go to shit" is extremely hyperbolic to say the least.
I have not found that to be even remotely true.
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The biggest problem I have found with Benchmade is blade centering.
 
ive noticed a few of my benchmade knives were developing vertical blade play, and the plot twist was i would take them out here and there to exercise the mechanics so as to not be stiffened or erred with time and found such play. no tinkering with the pivot screw or others corrected it. so i either had to be okay with it or not, and i wasn't, so they were given away. --- on a side note, others here said that bench made has claimed that some blade play is acceptable within their own tolerances, and while a knife held together with moving parts should by no surprise have some play, the amount of play i found on them made me rethink using the knife for anything more than the occasional steak or 550PC cut, I've since moved to fixed blades, you can find a folding knife sized fixed blade, and there's no moving parts.
 
sabre cat said:
Yeah, but, less than perfect grinds don’t piss me off like blade centering problems.
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They both can be fixed (the blade centering can be a bit trickier IMO), but it’s annoying that I have to deal with it. My last full size grip was ground so piss poor it was nearly a chisel grind.
 
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I have one full sized Griptilian that was perfectly centered until I changed scales. If I put the stock scales back on, everything is perfect again. This tells me that the problem isn’t the knife, it’s the scales.

The interesting thing is that both sets of scales came from Benchmade.
 
I have not run into any Benchmade folders that I cannot center the blades of. Blade centering of Axis lock folders is the least of my concern among all possible issues.
 
KenHash said:
I have owned the SOG Vulcan, Mini Vulcan, Spec Ops II, Visionary and the Tomcat 3.0. All of these were made in Seki and used SOG's version of the axis-lock. Actually that was negotiated between SOG and Benchmade resulting in the slightly different Arc-lock. I was told this at the G.Sakai factory in Seki where they were being made. I have never encountered any blade play vertical or horizontal with these Seki made knives. On the other hand, I purchased a US made SOG Trident with there assisted open system and that was the only knife I have ever bought that I actually implemented a return on the same day of receipt. Unfortunately, SOG has moved away from Seki manufacture and I think they now only carry one or two models on their product line. But those loose blade assisted models gave SOG's folders a bad name to those who were not into SOG's Seki folders from the old days.

Meantime, I still own a BM Adamas, Griptilian, Bugout, mini bugout and they all came and remain rock solid with no play vertical or horizontal whatsoever. The only gripe I had was with the Griptilian not being sharp out of the box. So everyone's experiences do vary.
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SOGs new stuff is absolutely amazing. The XR lock (axis basically) is perfect
 
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