Benchmade Adamas realization

kafolarbear said:
All I'm saying is don't market a folder as "hard use" if it's lock fails where most other locks don't. People always argue that a certain test is "silly" or "abusive" but then ignore that some knives actually can handle these tests, and that's exactly why they're useful, to show us what's just marketing nonsense versus what actually works well. If lock strength was a complete non-factor after all, slip joints would still be popular. Marketing a product as being able to withstand abuse and then having it not withstand abuse is disingenuous, and it's surprising to see so many people here attacking those who's "hard use" knives did not stand up to either actual hard use or tests that could be indicative or performance during "hard use" that plenty of other knives pass with flying colors rather than question why these products aren't performing as advertised.
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Oh, dear. Does anyone want to tell him, or should I?
 
jux t said:
What about the first problem OP encountered, where the lock gave while cutting plastic straps? Should an Adamas not be expected to stay locked while cutting thick or tough material?
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That's an anecdotal account (correct me if I'm wrong, I've not seen video proof of that happening) but I've no reason to cast doubt on the OP so assuming that is accurate, I would expect an adamas (really almost any folder) to handle that and Benchmade should, and probably would, make that right.

I suspect if Benchmade hears many reports of this issue with this adamas, they will probably attempt to correct it.

jux t said:
There’s no excuse for a knife marketed towards heavy use to come unlocked because it got bound up while cutting thick material.
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Agree.

jux t said:
Should a heavy duty folder be able to stab without coming unlocked? Because that too can put downward pressure on the blade.
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Stabbing isn't really something I have a lot of call for with any knife, especially folders so I'd probably need more context but I suppose for the sake of fair discussion I'd expect most locking folders, certainly including the adamas, to stand up to moderate (reasonable?) stabbing.

jux t said:
Some members here suggest that folders should only be limited to the lightest cutting duties, and fixed blades for everything else.
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I don't feel that way. I don't feel you should have to baby a pocket knife, especially locking ones, but I also don't feel there are very many, if any, situations that call for much pressure or impact to the spine of a folder.

jux t said:
Personally, I’m not always going to tote a fixed blade, so I choose folding knives that won’t fold under light downward pressure because I want them for more than just cutting strings and apples.
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I don't take issue with that and I agree.
 
kafolarbear said:
By all means, go for it
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Victorinox is one of, if not the, largest knife companies in the world, which has been selling slipjoint non-locking knives for like 125 years. Wonder how popular they are? Eh, I'm sure they don't sell many knives. Heh, just kidding. Whoever your favorite knife company is, they would absolutely murder an entire truckload of puppies to have sales figures approaching even the same stratosphere as Victorinox.

Also, slipjoints aren't popular? I wish that were actually true, as I'm sure the rest of Great Eastern Cutlery's fans do as well. Oh, and in before folks who love Case knives (another company that sells hundreds and hundreds of thousands of knives a year) chime in.

Knife locks are to protect people who were doing something dumb with their knives. People got along without locking folding knives blades being in broad circulation for hundreds of years. It's only a recent phenomenon where it's become so important, and that's because a lot of people are ignorant and seem not to have ever been taught to use the right tool for the job. 🤷
 
a nephew gave me one years ago. It's so big and clunky, the blade shape is wrong for me and the stock is just too thick. I don't think I have carried it more than a few times.
 
Quiet said:
Victorinox is one of, if not the, largest knife companies in the world, which has been selling slipjoint non-locking knives for like 125 years. Wonder how popular they are? Eh, I'm sure they don't sell many knives. Heh, just kidding. Whoever your favorite knife company is, they would absolutely murder an entire truckload of puppies to have sales figures approaching even the same stratosphere as Victorinox.

Also, slipjoints aren't popular? I wish that were actually true, as I'm sure the rest of Great Eastern Cutlery's fans do as well. Oh, and in before folks who love Case knives (another company that sells hundreds and hundreds of thousands of knives a year) chime in.

Knife locks are to protect people who were doing something dumb with their knives. People got along without locking folding knives blades being in broad circulation for hundreds of years. It's only a recent phenomenon where it's become so important, and that's because a lot of people are ignorant and seem not to have ever been taught to use the right tool for the job. 🤷
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That's quite the purist take, like I said I'm not huge into folding knives but I can respect that opinion even if I disagree with it. I'm willing to bet the vast majority of knives sold today have one locking mechanism or the other, and I can think of plenty of cutting tasks where you might want a lock, especially if you're wedging the knife between pallet straps for instance.
 
kafolarbear said:
That's quite the purist take, like I said I'm not huge into folding knives but I can respect that opinion even if I disagree with it. I'm willing to bet the vast majority of knives sold today have one locking mechanism or the other, and I can think of plenty of cutting tasks where you might want a lock, especially if you're wedging the knife between pallet straps for instance.
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Victorinox sells millions of nonlocking knives all by themselves a year. Also, this is anecdotal but take a look at how many threads are in the different manufacturers' subs, and then take a look at the participation rate of the Traditionals section.

In any case, the point is that Traditionals are absolutely alive, well, and popular. Virtually every company (to include companies like Buck/Spyderco/Benchmade/We/Reate/Kizer/etc.) are offering slipjoint models these days, because they know that's a market they can't ignore*. Also, wedging a knife in between wood and pallet straps is absolutely a job a slipjoint could do. And I hate to have to say it, because I enjoy the Adamas, but a properly sharpened slipjoint would actually have a much easier time of that particular task.


* Because it's a popular genre.
 
I’ve put my buck 110 through harder use than what OP described. And that is by no means a strong folder.

I’ve only ever bought Benchmades to resell (sometimes I spot em for ~$20 on the bay or on OfferUp) so I don’t have any personal experience with them in-use.

With that being said, I’ve seen folks like Scott Gossman put his Adamas through brutal use without failure.

Perhaps it’s a serious quality control issue? Or maybe the design has an achilles heel of some sort? I’m not sure.

Regardless, I’m glad you weren’t hurt real serious by the lock failures, and I hope your luck improves with your other knives!
 
MolokaiRider said:
This thread made me buy another Cold Steel Recon 1 Tanto.

For tactical banana batoning purposes only.
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I nearly bought one of those the other day, but I need another 4" folder like I need a hole in the head;) I opted for the Holdout with the 6" blade because why be subtle.

One thing I will say, while I'm not a huge CS fan, I dunno if there is any other lock i would trust more than a Triad lock when it comes to using a folder like a fixed blade. Such a ridiculously strong lock.
 
Steely_Gunz said:
I nearly bought one of those the other day, but I need another 4" folder like I need a hole in the head;) I opted for the Holdout with the 6" blade because why be subtle.

One thing I will say, while I'm not a huge CS fan, I dunno if there is any other lock i would trust more than a Triad lock when it comes to using a folder like a fixed blade. Such a ridiculously strong lock.
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I'm on your schedule.

To be fair to Benchmade, I have taken a hard look at the Adamas, as its design is right up my alley. I just have a stupid mental block on buying folders for near 300 bucks. Which is actually ridiculous, as my accumulated folders are waaaaay north of that number.

I am an admitted CS Fanboy, despite the crappy GSM direction.

The triad is the only lock that I sort of maybe trust using in an abusive way.

Whelp, Imma get back to stabbing this car hood and slashing some meat boots. Gotta keep them bills paid.

🤣
 
Someone might have already said something along this line, but I don’t have time to read this entire thread, lol.
The AD20 is in my opinion an all around better version of the Adamas.
And if you can’t get a hold of an AD20, I’d still go for an AD20.5 over an Adamas.
 
Quiet said:
Victorinox sells millions of nonlocking knives all by themselves a year. Also, this is anecdotal but take a look at how many threads are in the different manufacturers' subs, and then take a look at the participation rate of the Traditionals section.

In any case, the point is that Traditionals are absolutely alive, well, and popular. Virtually every company (to include companies like Buck/Spyderco/Benchmade/We/Reate/Kizer/etc.) are offering slipjoint models these days, because they know that's a market they can't ignore*. Also, wedging a knife in between wood and pallet straps is absolutely a job a slipjoint could do. And I hate to have to say it, because I enjoy the Adamas, but a properly sharpened slipjoint would actually have a much easier time of that particular task.


* Because it's a popular genre.
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And that absolutely pales in comparison to the tens of millions of other mostly locking knives people buy from mostly no name Chinese brands or the likes of Gerber/Kershaw/Boker etc. Sure most folding knife companies have some slip joint offerings but it's not that big a portion of the market share. Especially when you start getting to higher end knives, you start to see fewer and fewer slipjoint options. Anyways, this is all getting away from the original argument. If you disagree that "hard use" should even be a category for folding knives, that's a whole different argument, and one where we might actually finding ourselves agreeing a lot more than you might think. But as long as companies are marketing folding knives to be super tough tanks, people shouldn't be buying these knives and having the locks fail like the OP's did. Everyone wants to rag on him for batonning with the knife which I agree is dumb but ignores it failed on him before that too, that straight up shouldn't have happened and this lock defect is not unique to the OP.
 
Lee D said:
Victorinox makes 45,000 knives/day. How many of those do you think are locking models?
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And there are companies besides victroniox who output similar volumes of knives, that don't make slipjoints at all or where slipjoints are only a small amount of their offerings, not to mention all the nameless gas station knife brands along with all the Gerber type brands of the world who sell a huge volume of knives, almost none of them being slipjoints.
 
Lee D said:
I’m genuinely curious, who?
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It's an assumption, and a pretty fair one I think. Unless you believe that victorinox has a majority market share of knives. I'd be willing to bet Gerber gets somewhat close, apparently they use something like nearly 700,000 pounds of steel a year in their knives. If you figure the average Gerber weighs about 3 ounces, and lets say maybe 2 of those 3 ounces is blade steel, that's like 5.6 million knives a year for a super rough estimate. Not quite the 10 million a year claimed by victorinox, but that's just one knife manufacturer and afaik, none of their knives are slip joints.
 
kafolarbear said:
It's an assumption, and a pretty fair one I think. Unless you believe that victorinox has a majority market share of knives. I'd be willing to bet Gerber gets somewhat close, apparently they use something like nearly 700,000 pounds of steel a year in their knives. If you figure the average Gerber weighs about 3 ounces, and lets say maybe 2 of those 3 ounces is blade steel, that's like 5.6 million knives a year for a super rough estimate. Not quite the 10 million a year claimed by victorinox, but that's just one knife manufacturer and afaik, none of their knives are slip joints.
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Ok, Dude. Just quit. Average weight of all Gerbers = 3 ounces? There are single makers that produce more than Viktorinox?

Stop flailing in the dark and abandon this argument.

I’d like to add that of all the folks who’ve joined in this thread, only the OP has Adamas failure. Just let this fight go and find a vulnerable looking windmill.
 
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