I have noticed that if I want to adjust blade play, how quickly a knife opens, etc, I have control over most of it through tightening or loosening a torx screw here and there. I wonder how perfect we should expect our production knives to come to us out of the factory and can a lot of complaints be taken care of with a tighten or loosen here or there? Am I just lucky that I have been able to adjust out any blade play/tightness with just a few small adjustments to the pivot and scale torx screws? Should "tinkering" like this be an expectation that we have when we get a new (production) knife? Personally, I feel we just can't expect every production knife to come to us perfect and aside from really obvious defects, much of our issues with these knives might be fixed with just a bit of tinkering. What are the forums thoughts?
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Blade play, Ease of opening, closing, etc, How much is the buyers responsibility?
- Thread starter MRaymond
- Start date
- Joined
- Aug 16, 2008
- Messages
- 5,911
This is a somewhat profound notion - I can't disagree. In otherwords, how does a $50 production knife turn into a $75 production knife? Answer; make it function as any knife should within the confines of a warranty.
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Adjusting the pivot is pretty typical over time. As a new knife breaks in the pivot will loosen and may require adjustment to eliminate some minor wiggle. Even my Hinderer XM18 needed ajustments over time. The problem is when a special wrench/driver is needed to make even the most simple adjustments. I do agree that it shold not be neccassary to take a knife apart to make adjustments.
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- Nov 22, 2009
- Messages
- 11,601
This is potentially a deep subject.
There is probably not an easy answer.
I used to get pretty twisted over ease of opening, and blade play. I learned to re-work and customize my knives pretty well. I gained some powerful insight as to how difficult it can be to achieve this fine balance...I also developed a keener sense for spotting/detecting blade play (often times in areas where others could not detect the "play").
At some point I realized that my abilities to pick out flaws always grew faster than my ability to fix/build/afford items without these flaws...and so I decided to simply enjoy my knives in use.
I had two revelations...a small amount of blade play does not impact folder performance or safety, and no folder I have experienced seems to offer the feeling of a well made fixed blade.
Not trying to make any points or arguments here other than to share my findings/opinions.
There is probably not an easy answer.
I used to get pretty twisted over ease of opening, and blade play. I learned to re-work and customize my knives pretty well. I gained some powerful insight as to how difficult it can be to achieve this fine balance...I also developed a keener sense for spotting/detecting blade play (often times in areas where others could not detect the "play").
At some point I realized that my abilities to pick out flaws always grew faster than my ability to fix/build/afford items without these flaws...and so I decided to simply enjoy my knives in use.
I had two revelations...a small amount of blade play does not impact folder performance or safety, and no folder I have experienced seems to offer the feeling of a well made fixed blade.
Not trying to make any points or arguments here other than to share my findings/opinions.