Buck/Mayo vertical Blade Play - possible cures ?

K

Klaus

Joined
Dec 3, 2001
Messages
219
I´m one of the probably first 20 to get one of the initial 172´s sold through Larry - actually now I´m on my third knife already after getting help from Joe twice already being unhappy with it - there is an old thread about that here on the Buck forum too.

After some recent postings like in the Buck/Mayo passaround/review thread I got encouraged to post again as some vertical blade play similar to mine was reported by multiple other 172 Buck/Mayo users too as well. My first one had a bent blade tip, the second one had the vertical blade play - and the third one does as well - so it seems not too uncommon as also documented by those other posts.

As I had been waiting around 2 months without knife on each occasion as it seems the knifes were on short supply and also didn´t wanted to humiliate Joe and all the other good people at Buck with being unhappy again - I wrote back to Joe after the third trial that it was Ok now and that I finally received a nice knife. What I didn´t wrote at that time was that this knife still had some vertical play, not too much actually, but worse than my 20 USD Kershaw Vapor (Ken Onion) or 50 USD Camillus EDC (Darrel Ralph) framelocks which lock up solid without any play at all.

In comparing the frame lock bar / blade area I think Buck did change the "slope" of the end of the frame lock from "straight" to "sloped" in between the first and later batches which to me shows that there was some work done in that particular part of this great knife.

The knife instead of breaking in over time as I hoped does show more vertical play now than originally and in addition to that the locking bar now bends as much into the knife body that its almost touching the opposite frame. So I really question myself for spending 200 bucks for a knife which shows more blade play than 20 / 50 USD framelocks from lesser competitors - and with the lock bar almost touching the opposite frame I fear this will get even worse.

What still makes me wonder is that the lock engagement / blade play does depend on the method of opening. When I do open the knife two-handed with some force or flick it open most of the times the lock bar fully engages and the blade is solid as a rock, no play at all. When opening the knife by what I believe is its intended method, one-handed through the "Mayo-hole", I can never achieve a satisfying non-play lock.

Now for my question(s):

Am I just too stupid to properly open this specific knife and can consider myself lucky to be able to properly open and securely lock the Vapor & EDC knifes without similar trouble ?

Is the knife even supposed to properly lock-up one-handed ?

Are the various differing reports from #172 Buck/Mayo users on secure lockup vs blade-play possibly related to different opening methods ?

Are those different opening methods also responsible for the "raised eyebrows" at Buck when I sent my second knife in with what I believed was vertical blade play and Buck said it had no play at all when reaching them.

And similar with the third one where Joe @ Buck stated it was tested by multiple experts and was to the finest standards when I immediately had some vertical blade play again using a one-handed approach.

Now please guys set me straight, am I too anal on non-blade-play lockup ? Am I doing something wrong in comparing the 172 Buck/Mayo with Vapor and EDC in regards to secure lockup vs Blade play ?

I don´t want to question Buck or Tom Mayo but it still bugs me.

TIA

Klaus
 
Klaus,
I sure am sorry to hear that you are disappointed with the knife. I do know that it was examined be several employees here and there was only the slightest amount of blade play. The only way we could get that play was with a lot of force on the backbone of the blade. This force causes the liner to flex very slightly and that is when you feel the play. I have seen this with other liner lock models too.
I am not saying this to diminish your concerns so I hope you will not be offended. I wish there was an easy way to quickly take a look at the knife and know for sure.

The one thing that does concern me is that you told me that "I still had to bend the lock in a little to get a lockup satisfying to me (no complaint though) it works great now."
I was assuming this was in reference to where the liner contacted the blade. We have found that users of liner locks tend to fall into three categories, those that want the liner to barely engage, those that want 50% engagement on the blade surface, and those that want the liner to almost touch the other side. Naturally, our specification is only going to make 1/3 of the people happy but the spec is tested to ensure a good lock up and locking integrity.
Once that liner is bent, it changes a lot of things in the knife. It will be very hard to know now what it is now.
In any event, our engineers are keeping close tabs on the knife and will always be looking for ways to improve it.
I hope this helps,
 
Dear Joe,

thanks for answering

Actually as I wrote to you I did bent the locking bar slightly inwards to get less blade play with the knife - which helped a bit initially but after some time now the vertical play which still was there increased again and the lock bar is almost touching the opposite frame already now so there isn´t much room to manouever anymore I think. From the point of lock bar positioning I think the initial batch was pretty much to the "barely engaged" side while the two I received since then would more fall into the "almost touch the other side" category. Regarding my preferences I must say I just don´t care as long as the knife locks up solid with no play.

Coming back to my problem - based on your point that my knife was examined by several employees and was up to snuff I initially thought that I would just have to live with what I got on the third go - and after some trials and almost getting rid of what I consider inacceptable vertical blade play by bending the liner inward and trying to find the most perfect position for the stop pin I thought I give it a rest and try to make friends with what I still consider a very great knife and design - expecting that it might brake in further and get better.

Now my re-take on the whole thing was caused by actually two issues - the knifes play getting worse instead of better and the same problem of vertical blade play getting voiced by others on the forum as well. Now I started to wonder and found that difference in solid lockup vs blade play depending on the method of opening and wanted to ask on the forum if possibly this might be the reason for those differing reports or if its still my knife not being up to spec or if I would just fall into that too stupid or too anal category and shut up.

BTW - I personally don´t think my slight inward bending of the lock bar (which was even proposed by Tom Mayo in another post to another Buck/Mayo owner) is the cause of the problem but probably was just an inefficient try to fix it on my own.

But still I´m wondering about the questions I posted initially, what exactly is the knife supposed to do, what would be an acceptable amount of blade play ? Is it OK to only have a solid lockup when opened by flick or two-handed which I only do rarely for just that purpose and only with this knife and will one-handed opening just not "do it" - and not do it "by design" or only with my knife - as various differing reports on blade play/solid lock are flowing around I´m still trying to get a better feeling on like I said above, a) are all knifes like that, b) just mine and possibly some more, c) I´m just too stupid or too spoiled.

In case of being too spoiled I would need to express my Kudos to Kershaw/Onion/Vapor and Camillus/Ralph/EDC for this as I still can only compare the Buck/Mayo with the mentioned Vapor and EDC which are 20 and 50 USD framelock knifes and they do lock up solid with no play at all, at least mine do. Having no Sebenza to compare to and the Vapor/EDC having stainless steel lock bars it might be the Titannium is the culprit despite the heat-treating I think Buck is doing to harden that area, but what do I know.

Anyway, and please Joe don´t get me wrong, I didn´t wanted to wash my dirty laundry in public and yes I could have emailed you directly. And actually I did email Buck after Bill from QC posted in the passaround thread where the knife had vertical play too and others posted too theirs is similar and I mentioned I would happily send mine in to review such as the passaround knife was passed-around further and not sent in, I did mention our email communication and that the knife was my third already and all that - but I never got any response back on that email which I sent on 9/12 - not to you though I have to admit.

And to end my rant - yes I´m a little dissappointed in what I still believe is one of the greatest knife designs around, it just drives me nuts when I one-handed open the Buck/Mayo which I carry as EDC and get no solid lockup - and compare it to my "beater" knife, a 20 USD Kershaw Vapor which cost me 20 bucks and it locks up as solid as a safe, always, and is still as smooth to open as can be. And I would have liked the Buck/Mayo so much better from the materials, the company behind it, the design, the designer, pretty much everything, if only it would properly do what a frame-lock should, properly lock.

And I do feel ashamed towards you personally Joe, for still not being a happy customer. I know you had been trying to take care of me as only you and Buck are famous for, even with the knifes being short you managed to get new ones to me twice already (even after some wait)but please try to understand me as well. I might be too anal when it comes to blade play but having knives costing a tenth of the Buck/Mayo and locking up as solid as can be I really think a knife which cost me 200 bucks should be at least as solid and smooth too.

What are we supposed to do now - should I sent it in one more time to your attention ? I really would love to finally get a blade-play free #172 Buck/Mayo, really.

Thanks and best regards

Klaus
 
Klaus,
How do you get this blade play? What method are you using to determine that there is play?
 
Joe,

when I open the knife one-handed and take the tip of the blade with my other hand it doesn´t take much force to move the blade up and down - depending it seems on the "force" used or whatever other factors when opening one-handed this can be from slight to pretty much. I really don´t think that I´m overly picky as other framelocks I have at hand (Camillus EDC and Kersahw Vapor) do lock up solid with no blade play at all when opened in a similar fashion.

Thanks

Klaus
 
Klaus,
You are certainly welcome to send it in and we will take a look at it again for you.
 
Thank you Joe,

I´ll sent it to your attention this week

Hopefully it won´t take as long this time

Thanks

Klaus
 
Sent the knife in to Buck last week and I will report back here on how long it took this (third) time to make it back to me and if hopefully the then fixed third or maybe possibly the forth knife will finally be what I hoped for.

And I have to fully agree with some new comments out of the Buck/Mayo passaround:

Quote: ... now my huge complaint is the blade vertical play....not it isnt a large amount of play but it is play, and that just isnt right on this kind of knife. i think it is becouse of the lock bar going over soo far and the grinding of it and the tang of the blade. i think tis thse grinds that allow it to slip back just a little bit, thusly alowing the blade an amount of vertical play. this should never occur ina knife that costs this much. ENDQUOTE

And my thanks go to the pass-around crew for voicing their concerns which made me try again to finally get a satisfyingly locking #172.

Klaus
 
Hi Markus,

Joe emailed he expects it to be shipping this week

Thanks

Klaus

Edit: Got the Buck/Mayo in yesterday 25th November. This one is all I hoped for - nice lockup, no blade play, no rough edges, no bent blade - I´m a happy camper now and this knife is really gourgeous.

Thanks to Joe and Buck and Tom Mayo as well for such a great knife

Thanks to the forum for keeping me trying to get a "right" one - this one really deserves all the praise not to say hype for this knife.

Now I´m waiting for the larger one :D

Klaus
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top