BM 43 Broke

Hawaiian

Hawaiian

Joined
May 18, 2000
Messages
3,743
I have been around for awhile, but only recently got bit by the balisong bug. Got my first quality one, a BM 43last week. At first, I thought great knife, could feel the quality. But, now one handle sticks and the blade does not swing freely. I lubed it and it made no change. So, I plan to order a torx set and loosen the pin screw. Is there loc-tite on the screw? Any tips would be be appreciated. I had heard the 42 had similar problems, de ja vu? :mad:
 
I copied my reply from one of the other threads about this situation, it will hopefully answer most of your questions:

First, apply whatever lubricant you prefer for your knife joints to the handles/blade. Now, take out the torx screw on one handle so that you know for sure what the handle feels like when it swings freely. Hold the handle with the screw still in place and the blade together horizontally, or parallel to the ground. Let the handle without the screw swing freely so it is perpendicular to the ground (you will have a 90 degree angle between the handles). Once you get a feel for how the loose handle should behave, put some loc-tite on the screw and screw it back in. You will find and obvious point where if you tighten it up x amount, it still swings freely as though the screw was still removed. However, if you tighten it up just the slightest bit more you will see that the handle slightly binds to the blade and doesn’t rotate as freely as before. You obviously want the “x” amount of tightness in this case. Once you get it right, do the same to the other side, let your knife sit for about a half hour for the glue to dry, and you should be good to go.

Also, there is Loctite on the screw but it's the temporary kind so you shouldn't have any problem getting it out.
 
Thanks McMahan. I printed out and kept the instructions. But after thinking about it, this is a new knife and this is not acceptable. I will return it to Benchmade and have them fix it. This is the first Benchmade product I have purchased, and I am not a happy camper right now. :mad:
 
That’s a good point, it should have come to you in perfect working order. The only thing is, eventually you will have to invest in a torx wrench anyway to tighten up the handles after a lot of use. You might as well buy a wrench and go ahead and try to loosen the screw yourself since as I understand it it does not void the warranty to adjust the torx screws. If it works, great, you just saved yourself the cost of shipping the knife back to Benchmade and the wait to get it back. If you can’t fix it, you can still send it back to Benchmade because you will not have voided the warranty. I think that either way it is worth a shot.
 
I agree with McMahan here totally- all the BM's I've recieved have required the slightest of tweaking. The only semi-major thing that I'mm having a problem with is on my 43: you don't have to squeeze the handles to lock it closed. You do, although, have to squeeze hard to lock it open, which is all that really matters so I don't care too much. This is essentially my latch-drop-in-a-flash knife, so I guess it helps.

All my Benchmades still flip solidly though, and all I've used on them is just a torx driver and some WD-40
 
I had a similar problem with the 43 that I picked up, I used a BUNCH of White Lightening and let it dry and then worked the crap out of it and now it's working great, love the blade on this knife! And it arrived fairly sharp, I do believe that BM is back on track as far as sharpening goes, also received a BM450 Terzuola designed folder that arrived very sharp, nice small knife!

G2
 
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