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Can I trust Spyderco lockback?
- Thread starter BigDude
- Start date
DennisStrickland
BANNED
- Joined
- Jun 24, 2009
- Messages
- 5,040
i have used various lockbacks since the 70s. never had a failure except on one custom bought in 1978. i beleive failure is mostly caused by poor maintenance mainly getting mechanisms dirty or clogged with foriegn material.
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2008
- Messages
- 4,367
Are they sending back the Persian and your $5 MO, too?
- Joined
- Aug 9, 2007
- Messages
- 761
People sometimes forget the fundamental difference between folders and FBs.
A fixed blade is, end to end, one piece of metal.
A folder, compared to a fixed blade, is broken in the middle, and shouldn't be expected to perform like it isn't. This is common sense, and stands regardless of what lock the knife has.
Any lock, if well made, will keep the knife open. The things that make a lock fail are abuse and idiocy, and no lock is immune to these. I have trusted spyderco's lockback Enduras, but would trust their liner-locking Military just as much if I owned one. Or look at Peter Martizelli's knives, with their double-liner locks. Two leafsprings, one over the other. I'd trust one of those, too. The difference is made by product quality. I see videos of liner knives being thrust clean through sheet metal and hardwood, one guy even used the spine of his Emerson to hammer nails into a 2x4. It's not practical real world testing by any stretch, but it makes me thing the liner and frame locks, or the good ones at least, are just as strong and trustworthy as any other kind of lock. No one mechanism is inherently superior, at least not on a technical basis.
Both liner and spine based locks produce a similar coefficient of friction, because both have moving parts of similar size, performing the same action over and over. Liner locks are compression-based locks. Lockbacks, contrastingly, are tension-based. I'm unsure of which might be 'better,' pushing or pulling, but I note that the lockbacks I've owned - several 110s and several Enduras - have always at some point developed a degree of vertical wiggle. Not enough to make me worry, mind you, since they're well-made knives and I trusted them, but enough to be an irritation. I've had liner and frame locks do the same thing, but I've also had a few - my Reeves, my Kershaws, and one very sturdy Hissatsu folder - that have remained rock solid and without play, even through considerable hard use over several years.
Personally, I like the liner and frame based locks. It's not that I think they're stronger, because I don't. It's just a matter of what feels right to me. Nothing against lockbacks, either. The ones I had, I enjoyed. I'll likely even buy one again sometime - maybe one of Cold Steel's pocket swords
- but for now, if I had to take sides, well...you know...
A fixed blade is, end to end, one piece of metal.
A folder, compared to a fixed blade, is broken in the middle, and shouldn't be expected to perform like it isn't. This is common sense, and stands regardless of what lock the knife has.
Any lock, if well made, will keep the knife open. The things that make a lock fail are abuse and idiocy, and no lock is immune to these. I have trusted spyderco's lockback Enduras, but would trust their liner-locking Military just as much if I owned one. Or look at Peter Martizelli's knives, with their double-liner locks. Two leafsprings, one over the other. I'd trust one of those, too. The difference is made by product quality. I see videos of liner knives being thrust clean through sheet metal and hardwood, one guy even used the spine of his Emerson to hammer nails into a 2x4. It's not practical real world testing by any stretch, but it makes me thing the liner and frame locks, or the good ones at least, are just as strong and trustworthy as any other kind of lock. No one mechanism is inherently superior, at least not on a technical basis.
Both liner and spine based locks produce a similar coefficient of friction, because both have moving parts of similar size, performing the same action over and over. Liner locks are compression-based locks. Lockbacks, contrastingly, are tension-based. I'm unsure of which might be 'better,' pushing or pulling, but I note that the lockbacks I've owned - several 110s and several Enduras - have always at some point developed a degree of vertical wiggle. Not enough to make me worry, mind you, since they're well-made knives and I trusted them, but enough to be an irritation. I've had liner and frame locks do the same thing, but I've also had a few - my Reeves, my Kershaws, and one very sturdy Hissatsu folder - that have remained rock solid and without play, even through considerable hard use over several years.
Personally, I like the liner and frame based locks. It's not that I think they're stronger, because I don't. It's just a matter of what feels right to me. Nothing against lockbacks, either. The ones I had, I enjoyed. I'll likely even buy one again sometime - maybe one of Cold Steel's pocket swords
- but for now, if I had to take sides, well...you know...I've never used my folders for prying or anything stupid like that. I never abuse any of my knives. The only knives I give a good beating are my choppers when batoning, but that's what they're made for. Oh, and cheap Moras for scraping blobs of concrete while working construction. The case of my failed lockback had nothing to do with incorrect handling. In every industry and in every product line, those few rotten eggs pass the assembly line.