BM 635 Mini Skirmish - Two questions

pafka

pafka

Joined
Sep 12, 2007
Messages
338
Greetings,

yesterday I received my new BM Mini Skirmish. So far it looks as a neat knife, though I probably expected a little more. Here is why:

Smoothness of opening. When opening using thumb hole (which involves very slight pressure on the blade towards the handle), I cannot complete whole process fluently. It's like the blade doesn't slide very well. I don't have this problem with other knives (mostly Spydercos, SOGs). When I try to open with two hands, simply draging the blade out, it's ok. I've searched bladeforums, and it looks like the washers in BM635 aren't as good as they could be, so I assume this problem is caused by this? Changing washers to teflon or bronze could fix this? Or is it just some initial stiffness that will go away?

Second thing is lock related. I don't have much experience with monolocks/framelocks, only linerlocks. The problem is, when I open the blade slowly, the lock won't engage much (when opening fast/with force, it's ok), I then need to apply some (very little) force to push the liner deeper into blade tang. I understand that this behavior is normal due to the principle of monolock, but I can't believe that the spring could be this weak - as I said, I need to push just very gently to engage the lock. Also disengaging the lock is quite easy and doesn't require much strength, which is in contrast with what I've read about Skirmish lock. So could you please tell me - is this normal? Is it possible that I've just got one of the weaker locks?

Thanks for reading and pardon my english please:)
Take care
Pavel
 
Well, for your first point, things should end up fine one way or another. One possibility for the lack of ease opening is just the initial stiffness of a new knife. Most of the Benchmades I've bought (and they're they only brand I really own currently) have started out a little stiffer to open than I would like. This is something that has just fixed itself, entirely on its own. It's a process that takes some time, probably upwards of a hundred opening/closing cycles (not sure how much upwards; could be 102, could be 489). Another possibility is that the pivot screw is just screwed on too tight. The solution here is to take a torx bit and make it a touch looser. I'd personally open/close it a bunch more before playing with pivot tension, as I've found that the initial stiffness does indeed go away on its own. You could also add some lubricant if you think the knife doesn't have enough/any. I personally believe there's likely no problem with the washers. They're probably phosphor-bronze, which seems fine, though in my experience, they may take 100 to 300 open/close cycles to feel nice and buttery smooth. Ultimately, though, this difficulty opening is likely not a warranty issue, and is something that will either work itself out, or you can adjust as you please.

As for your second point, regarding the lock, this does sound a bit more abnormal. I have also heard a lot about the great strength of the Skirmish lock, and find it odd that you could get yours to disengage easily. Actually, is it that it disengages easily from normal, intentional attempts to disengage it? Or is it disengaging in situations that it shouldn't (squeezing the knife with your hand, making cutting motions, etc.)? If you can't get it to disengage in any simulated-use-situations (such as cutting through cardboard), then I wouldn't worry about how easy it is to intentionally unlock. But if it is disengaging when it shouldn't, then you likely have a knife that merits warranty work.

In sum, the ease of opening shouldn't be much of an issue, either with more opening/closing, or with pivot adjustment/whatever. But if the lock truly is causing a problem, then I'd recommend either sending back to Benchmade, or returning it to the store you got it, and get a new one. There may also be some knife-tinkering tricks you could use to modify the knife yourself to lock up properly, but I don't have the technical expertise to make any good recommendations there. Other forum members might be able to give you some advice on such modifications, though.

Sorry for the lengthy post...
 
elmora2, thanks for your reply. It's good to hear that there is a chance for smoother opening in the future, I'll give it a try and will be playing with the knife more to speed up the process (which is what I'd done anyway;) ).

As for the lock, you got me little worried. I will definitely try to simulate some accidental disengaging (unfortunately I don't have the knife with me at the moment). I sincerely hope that my doubts come from my lack of experience with framelocks, since returning the knife would be troubling (first, knife is from USA store, I'm from Europe, second, the knife is intended as a Christmas gift).

Thanks again, I'll put the lock to the test and we'll see.
 
Well, I don't want to worry you too much. Without seeing the knife, it's hard to say how much of a problem there might really be. I mean, if the ease of disengaging is only experienced when intentionally unlocking it to close it, then the relatively little tension there may even be more useful than having a really strong/stiff bar. Only way to tell on this, really, is to see if it disengages at any point when you normally wouldn't want it to.

And out of curiosity, when you say the lock isn't making it very far onto the blade, about how far is "not very far"? In my opinion, 40-50% would be ideal. Also, in my opinion, anything over about 65% in a new knife is too much, as it doesn't leave what I feel to be sufficient room for wear. And on the low side of things, I think that 25%, on a good lock (such as is generally produced by quality companies like Benchmade), ought to be plenty for a solid lockup. I might be a little skeptical of a lock bar that went only, say, 10% across the blade.

And finally, the nice thing about frame (Mono, etc.) locks is that they kind of inherently protect against accidentally disengaging the lock. That is, when you use the knife, you're normally gripping/squeezing around the whole handle, and in the process putting pressure on the lock bar in such a way that it pushes it towards the locked position. So in general, this means you'll at least keep the knife locked up where it is, and may even (with enough pressure) make it more solidly locked than it originally started out.

And speaking of Europe, I'll be heading over there myself in just about a week. Won't be going to the Czech Republic, though, otherwise I'd offer to work out some way of swapping your Skirmish with one bought in a store here and verified to work properly. As it is, though, I don't think I'd be able to get it to you any more effectively than a store here in the States.
 
elmora2 said:
And out of curiosity, when you say the lock isn't making it very far onto the blade, about how far is "not very far"? In my opinion, 40-50% would be ideal. Also, in my opinion, anything over about 65% in a new knife is too much, as it doesn't leave what I feel to be sufficient room for wear. And on the low side of things, I think that 25%, on a good lock (such as is generally produced by quality companies like Benchmade), ought to be plenty for a solid lockup. I might be a little skeptical of a lock bar that went only, say, 10% across the blade.
Click to expand...

Well, I'd say that (when opened properly) the liner goes to about half the depth of the blade, which is ok I guess - no problem there. Only when I open the blade slowly, then the liner locks very little and I have to push it deeper - again, about half way into tang. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll try to take some later today (I have only lousy cell phone camera though). My concern is about strength of the spring, or, when I think of it, maybe lack of friction between liner and blade tang when disengaging, if that's possible.

elmora2 said:
Won't be going to the Czech Republic, though, otherwise I'd offer to work out some way of swapping your Skirmish with one bought in a store here and verified to work properly. As it is, though, I don't think I'd be able to get it to you any more effectively than a store here in the States.
Click to expand...
Looks like you are a really kind person :thumbup: Maybe I'll ask on our local Czech forum for comparison.

Again, maybe I'm just making something out of nothing - more testing of my knife is definitely needed.
Thanks!
 
A fix you can perform at home, and I have done this before with absolute success, is to disassemble your knife, and then give the lock a little more bend outward, being sure not to bend it out too far. This will make the lock bar stiffer to disengage and will also set the lockbar deeper on the blade tang with a slow opening. I don't know how you feel about working on your own knives, and this will, technically, void the BM warranty, but it is a really simple fix and beats sending it back to the states. Also, when new you will sometimes get that type of lockup so I would at least work through 100 openings before doing anything just to see what effect that has on the lockup. When the lock sets deeper on the blade is it still easy to disengage?
 
pafka -

I initially had the same "problem" with slowly opening the blade of my mini-skirmish. (mine opened very smoothly though)

The problem disappeared with more use. And FWIW, I never experienced any accidental disengagement of the lock.

Best of luck to you!
 
My 635 is one of my favorite and most trusted knives. I think it will really grow on you.

That said, I did have a couple issues with it out of the box. The first was the lock engagement issue you mention. I never had any failures, but I lacked confidence in the lock-up. So I did exactly what cutter17 suggested, i.e. dissassembled the knife and bent the lockbar inward just a little bit to make it stiffer. After that it locked up with authority.

The second thing was, the pivot screw tended to loosen on it's own, causing the blade to rub the handle after several openings and closings. A little bit of lock-tite on the pivot screw threads fixed that problem.

With these simple adjustments, I daresay the knife is now pretty close to perfect.

I wouldn't worry about the nylatron washers. I think they are perfectly fine. More likely the pivot screw tension just needs to be adjusted.

Enjoy your 635! Great knife!
 
I've tried playing with this knife more, let's see if I have to worry about something.
This is how the lock engages when opening slowly:



And this is where the liner goes when I press it hard / or when I open the knife quickly, or, god forbid, with wrist flicking:



When I tried to 'accidentaly' disengage the lock, I found out that I can open the lock with the first knuckle on my index finger moving to the right - when I try that is. And the tooth at the end of the edge bites hard:)! But I don't see that happening in regular knife duty, with full hand grip - it's not likely to happen.

So I guess it's allright, and hopefully the opening will be smoother after some time.

cutter17: thanks for your advice, I will suggest this to my father. I am supprised that it voids the warranty though! But knifemaking companies have to protect themselves I guess.

It will probably take some time before I and my father will be trusting framelocks/monolocks, since we are used to lockback knives, but with BM635, I think we will be fine:)

Again, thanks everybody
 
It doesn't look to me like the locking bar has any angle cut so it matches the angled blade base. Looks rather straight cut while the blade is angled. My Blade Tech Rijbak is a frame lock and its got matching angles on both, so it's lock-up is tight and the same no matter how it's opened. My Kershaw Ti-Bump has a frame lock that barely goes behind the blade base just as the first photo of your BM shows. (Maybe a little better) Seems to have pretty solid lockup irregardless.
 
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