Can someone explain "blade play" to me and how to fix it?

[ThreeWorlds]

Hello everyone,

I was just wondering if someone here could explain to me in detail, what blade play is, how it develops, and what it does to your knife? I think I have some idea, but everything I know about knives I have basically learned just from reading online since there isn't anyone around me who shares my interest in sharp shiny things .... I *think* that my Spyderco Meerkat has developed some horizontal bladeplay but I am not sure (since I don't know exactly what *is* considered bladeplay ) ... anyway, any explanations and pointers about how to fix it would be appreciated. Thanks! :thumbup:

 

[rebeltf]

Hold your handle steady in your hand, carefully try to move the blade side to side and back to front , if there is any movement , that is blade play.
Best way to observe it is to buy a cheap pos 1$ knife at the gas station and as soon as you get outside do that test , there's your blade play example.

Blade play is pretty natural (unfortunatly) from use to hard use. If you abuse your knife you can expect everything from hard core play to outright failure of the lock , etc.
If you own a knife with torx screws for the pivot , you can always tighten it to your satisfaction , also here's an example. My CRKT Prowler had no play but to further prevent that from the eventuality I installed phos bronze washers and took out the teflon washers it came with. It is small things like that , that can nip blade play in the bud.

 

[ThreeWorlds]

is this in the locked position? Because that's definitely what my Meerkat is doing. I haven't used it hard but I have opened it with some force and tried left-hand opening (not really workable) ... the pivot is not torx screws, unfortunately

 

[STR]

Blade play can be lateral or vertical or both. There are ways to adjust both on most knives.

If the knife has an adjustable pivot pin you simply tighten it up. If not you can still tighten a pin by using a Gillette style thin razor blade and sticking that in wedging it between the handle scale and the blade until the edge touches the pin. Then tap the head of the pin with a ball peen and it should tighten right up. In most all cases pulling the razor blade out requires vice grips. The blade should be much better.

For lockbacks with vertical play the adjustment is usually done to the lock bar where it mates to the blade. Using a a standard flat head screwdriver you place it half way off the edge of the interface and tap it once on each side and reinstall it. This usually tightens up a knife that moves a little.

For other style knives changing out the stop pin to a bigger diameter can do the trick. You can also adjust liner and frame locks by heating up the lock face and tapping a flat head 3/32 round punch about 1mm from the edge of the interface effectively squishing out a couple thousandsths more lock to contact the blade eliminating over travel of the lock and/or blade play.

STR