Blade play; Do we make too much over it?

Hey chickeneye, I love your ID...where's your buddy coonfinger? :D (It's a long story...sorry for sidetrackin...carry on :) )
 
yablanowitz said:
I think overall, we make far too much of it. On a hand-fitted custom, I would not accept it, but I've made enough stuff myself, and know enough about various manufacturing processes to accept some in production knives.
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That seems about right.

On a handmade custom, I wouldn't want any, I think, but on a production knife from a factory, a little is okay. By little, I mean that I can feel just a bit of side to side when I wiggle it.

I don't think under normal use it will get much worse. My Small Case sodbuster had a little, and that was 20 years ago. It still has a little. Has it gotten worse? Okay, to tell the truth, I don;'t know, I just am used to it and I use the heck out of it.

One place karen and I love to go camping, is Assateague Island National Seashore. They have some campsite that are paddle in only. Nice and remote and quiet. It's a barrier island and its sand. Everything grows in the sand; the dune grass, the pine trees in the back country, everything. And it gets everywhere, no matter how carefull you are. It gets in the tent, in the boat, in pockets. I don't know how, manybe some kind of magical ossmosis.:confused:

A camping trip to Assateague was the only time I cursed the fit of a sak. Some sand got inot the action, I don't know how, but I couldn't get the can opener or the awl blade open to save my life. It took many dunkings and working on it to clear it. It stayed "rough" feeling for days. That was the last time I took a sak to the island. I never had a problem with my old soddie, or my old Buck 301 that has some blade play. Last time out, I took the old Camillus I rescued from a yard sale, and no problemo. It got a little gritty, but it rinsed out well under some water from a canteen. I guess I'm gonna be a 1911 kind of guy.

I wonder if Kerry would make a knife with a little bit of play if one begged?
 
I have yet to see blade play affect the actual performance of a knife. That being said, it's not something I'm willing to tolerate very much. This is an issue of craftsmanship, and paying for it. Springs that are not flush, scales that have gaps, blades that are crooked also rarely affect performance. So where do you draw the line? A few knife nuts around here are willing to let their pet brands slide by with defects that they would never tolerate on imports a fraction of the price. Imports know this, and they're cleaning up their acts. They can't afford to be sloppy.

After being raised on ubiquitous and inexpensive SAKs, I have to say I'm pretty embarrassed with some of the higher dollar purchases I've made. When a $15 SAK or even a $10 Chinese traditional has better fit and finish than some more expensive, higher esteemed brands, I have to admit that sometimes, the emperor has no clothes.
 
Hi,

I have to admit that blade play does bother me. I dislike looseness in general. Particularly if I'm paying more than $10 for it.

Making a proper functioning slip-joint isn't rocket science. It's production work and Victorinox demonstrates everyday it isn't that hard to do it right every time.

I wonder JK, if the grit in your SAK didn't gall into the soft aluminum liners on you. They would be very hard to clean out then. Never been overly impressed by those soft aluminum liners.

dalee
 
I'm not real fond of blade play, especially on a higher priced slip joint. I think I acquired this preference over the years as I have many old Schrades, Pumas and Bucks that I used, that have side to side wobble.
 
jackknife said:
This is the same Bill that firmly believed that an object should be used for what it was designed for. This is the same Bill, that would take an 1846 Purdy rifle deer hunting on a friends farm. Some time later, when a man from some high falutin collector society heard about the rifle, and came to see it, he remarked that in its day, it would have been a great hunting rifle. When Bill told him off hand it still was, and that he'd bagged a nice buck with it, the man almost fainted.

Bill was against collecting things for the sake of collecting. To use his personal pocket knives, is to honor his memory everytime I use it for what it was made for.
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Sounds like my kind of guy Most of my deer rifles are over 100 years old Win 86 45/70 Win 86 45/90 win 86 50/110 exp. Win 1895 .405 win 95 .303 win 95 30/40us and
a .577 exp black powder double.
:thumbup:
 
jackknife said:
the only time I cursed the fit of a sak. Some sand got inot the action, I don't know how, but I couldn't get the can opener or the awl blade open to save my life. It took many dunkings and working on it to clear it. It stayed "rough" feeling for days. That was the last time I took a sak to the island.
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I had this happen when I was younger. Of course I couldn't afford a real SAK. Once I was crabbing in Charleston SC, I got some of the salt water and sand in the knife. You'd thought that you poured cement into the knife.
I have also seen this with another guy's knife at school. It was heck to open.

Yep SAK and sand don't mix. Maybe dalee is right, could be those dang liners.

God Bless
 
All of my knives are production knives. Until my more recent purchases, I had never had a slippie that didn't have a bit of blade play. Until I joined up at BF, I never even knew a slipjoint that didn't have a bit of play existed. But, that bit of blade play never stopped me from being able to cut whatever it was that I needed to cut with my knife.
 
KnifeHead said:
Blade play...one of my favorite subjects;):D
Beating_A_Dead_Horse_by_livius.gif


Seriously though, I don't think a knife can be made "too good". They should be made as tight as possible while maintaining good walk n talk. But, if the blade doesn't have some elbow room, the knife isn't going to work. It's maddening, I tell ya.

The tolerances are very close between great snap and sleepy blades....wobbly blades and no movement. I tiny bit of side to side play doesn't bother me. I would rather have that than have a blade that is sluggish.
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Dead horse indeed......:yawn:
 
Any maker who purposely builds in "slop" to a custom knife is doing themselves a disservice, it isn't even funny.

Custom made knives are supposed to be the best the maker can do AT THAT TIME. If I get a custom slipjoint that has play, I use a hammer to correct the play if I can, and refinish the bolsters, and if that is the case, shame on the maker....price is a factor, however. If it was an inexpensive custom, I have a hard time getting upset about it.

A factory blade is expected to have some slop, they are practically giving the things away.

When my Queen knives have slop, it is annoying.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
Shecky,

You will learn one way or another to stop trolling in this forum
Talk about the knives not the people. Deal in facts. No more warnings.
 
Kohai999 said:
A factory blade is expected to have some slop, they are practically giving the things away.
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Steven,

I kinda suspect that as well. Productions slippies have a very slim profit margin. However, in that case, I don't understand how these companies, Case Queen, got as big as they did.

God Bless
 
Bastid said:
Shecky,

You will learn one way or another to stop trolling in this forum
Talk about the knives not the people. Deal in facts. No more warnings.
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I'm not trolling. I addressed the OP. I backed up my contentions with my observations. I made no personal attack. This whole thread is not about objective facts. It's about subjective opinions.
 
shecky said:
I'm not trolling. I addressed the OP. I backed up my contentions with my observations. I made no personal attack. This whole thread is not about objective facts. It's about subjective opinions.
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Shecky, take this discussion to PM or email.
 
Blade play has always bothered me on new folding knives, no matter the make or model. If that is the case then I will send back the knife for repair or return and have always been compensated with a proper outcome since I deal with only quality brands, production and custom alike.

Over time however, with hard use, one has to expect this to occur and then its tollerable. Personally, several good whacks with a four pond rubber mallet on each side of the bolster or swing pin location while covered with a soft towell, and pretty much any slipjoint will tighten up. :) .. I have a similar philosophy to raising teenagers these days too :D :D


Anthony
 
I agree completely with sunnyd:

Blade play has always bothered me on new folding knives, no matter the make or model. If that is the case then I will send back the knife for repair or return and have always been compensated with a proper outcome since I deal with only quality brands, production and custom alike.

As far as I know, when it comes to "A factory blade is expected to have some slop" this is not correct. The two factory slipjoint knives and one linerlock I've ever had with blade play were fixed by the manufacturer. That being said, in the last 5 years in factory slipjoints I've bought 4 queens, 6 case and two Swiss Army. Not one of them had blade play.

Don't accept blade play in any new knife, factory or custom.
 
I've got to agree with sunnyd and brownshoe, I can't stand blade play in new folders. I'm fine with a little wobble developing after years of use, though.

I tend to be a bit anal about new knives. My thinking is that I don't really need them in a hurry, so I don't need to settle for one with flaws (minor as they might be). Returning a knife is huge problem for me because I'm not in the US and it can take forever for the knife to get back to the factory and later returned to me, and the chances of it being stolen by some postal worker (it happens a lot around here) increase. And it usually ends up costing more than the knife.

That's why I stopped buying Queen knives. I got two (a RAT pocket knife and a S&M mountainman) and they had NO edge, they didn't need a little sharpening, they needed grinding. They weren't cheap either.
 
This is an interesting subject to me for two reasons.

I'm one of those tedious perfectionist types that get annoyed by tools that are poorly built or don't work correctly. A knife that has a blade that wobbles around, even slightly, annoys me. Sure, it will still cut, probably just as well as a non wobbly version, but I just find it annoying. Having said that, unless you're a picky bugger like me or the blade is dangerously loose, there is probably no real reason to be concerned about a blade with a bit of movement in it.

A guy at work who is just getting into knives recently bought a Kershaw frame lock, (yes, I know, not exactly a traditional knife :) ), and when he got it the lock wouldn't engage properly. He decided to grind a little off it so it would work, unfortunately he ground just a fraction too much off and now, even though it locks OK, the result is a blade that wobbles up and down a little. He now doesn't like using it. He says he likes the knife, it cuts well and does what's needed, but he just hates that wobble.

I guess it all comes down to what you're prepared to accept.

I'm going to sidetrack the thread here slightly if you don't mind.

In a couple of previous posts I read of a 'Bill' who gave his knives to somebody. I also knew a Bill in America who was a friend of mine. He gave me a Case knife that he'd had for a long time, shortly after that he died. That knife stays in the pocket of whatever I'm wearing. Never gets used, just sits in the pocket unless I get it out and play with it in idle moments. In a strange way, Bill is still around.
 
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