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Couple of quick axis lock questions.
- Thread starter Grateful
- Start date
- Joined
- May 1, 2010
- Messages
- 5,109
- My Kulgera "clicks" when it locks open.
- It's immediately obvious. You'll lose some tension on the side that has the broken spring. The knife should still lock and function with a single good spring. When one of the Omega springs broke in my Kulgera, I still carried it for about a week. When the second spring broke, I sent it in to Benchmade for repairs. Took about 10 business days total.
If the click is upon when the blade goes from 90%-ish open to actual lockup, yes. That's the omega springs pushing the AXIS bar into its locked position once the folder is opened wide enough so that the AXIS bar can move forward to the front end of the lock channel, combined with the sound of the actual blade making contact with the stop pin in some cases. You may also hear a click with closing, especially if it is a harder close. That is the reverse of the above in that the stop pin and AXIS also keep the knife closed (unless it is making noise from contact with the standoffs or backspacer, in which that is a problem)
I am sucking at explaining this as I don't know all the specific terminology, but this should help:
Upon fully opening, the blade base rotates to a point in which it no longer prevents the AXIS bar from going full forward (towards the blade), and so the omega springs then push the AXIS bar full forward with the tension that they generate and the lockup is complete. Notice the base of the blade is also contacting the stop pin---with openings with more momentum, part of the sound will be the back of the blade contacting the stop pin (which prevents the blade from opening past its point of lockup.)
The image also shows the omega springs in action. When both fail (very unusual), the knife technically can still lock up, but manual pressure (or jamming something in the rearward portion of the AXIS) is needed to keep the blade locked open/kept closed as the omega springs are what prevents the AXIS bar from floating completely freely. Because of the way this works, if both AXIS omega springs fail, the knife will neither stay closed or open on its own.
I tried taking one off to see the effects. The knife is still somewhat usable (at least mine locked up) although the lockup was not as strong and because the omega springs generate pressure on the AXIS bar, it was very noticeable as one side had more tension than the other, so the movement was far less smooth than what the AXIS lock normally is.
Luckily, replacing the omega springs is really easy (not sure if BM sends that part however-they prolly wont). If you have multiple BMs and an omega spring on one of your favorite EDCs breaks, you can always do a hot swap from a less used, show-only, or recently retired BM. If you happen to have the same base model, you can often swap out the entire AXIS housing with blade and all in like under a minute.
I am sucking at explaining this as I don't know all the specific terminology, but this should help:
Upon fully opening, the blade base rotates to a point in which it no longer prevents the AXIS bar from going full forward (towards the blade), and so the omega springs then push the AXIS bar full forward with the tension that they generate and the lockup is complete. Notice the base of the blade is also contacting the stop pin---with openings with more momentum, part of the sound will be the back of the blade contacting the stop pin (which prevents the blade from opening past its point of lockup.)
The image also shows the omega springs in action. When both fail (very unusual), the knife technically can still lock up, but manual pressure (or jamming something in the rearward portion of the AXIS) is needed to keep the blade locked open/kept closed as the omega springs are what prevents the AXIS bar from floating completely freely. Because of the way this works, if both AXIS omega springs fail, the knife will neither stay closed or open on its own.
I tried taking one off to see the effects. The knife is still somewhat usable (at least mine locked up) although the lockup was not as strong and because the omega springs generate pressure on the AXIS bar, it was very noticeable as one side had more tension than the other, so the movement was far less smooth than what the AXIS lock normally is.
Luckily, replacing the omega springs is really easy (not sure if BM sends that part however-they prolly wont). If you have multiple BMs and an omega spring on one of your favorite EDCs breaks, you can always do a hot swap from a less used, show-only, or recently retired BM. If you happen to have the same base model, you can often swap out the entire AXIS housing with blade and all in like under a minute.
Grateful
Gold Member
- Joined
- Oct 5, 2002
- Messages
- 4,570
Wow guys thanks for the quick replies. pnsxyr , that was a great explanation. Thanks for that. My 527 actually clicks in the first 20% or so of opening. It's nice and smooth but definetly clicks.
Anybody else experience this or does the clicking usually happen closer to the locked open position? Maybe it depends on the model?
Jim
Anybody else experience this or does the clicking usually happen closer to the locked open position? Maybe it depends on the model?
Jim
- Joined
- May 18, 1999
- Messages
- 1,709
That click is the Axis bar going over the detent. Grab the blade and open it v.e.r.y. slowly, and you probably won't hear it. My 586, 520, 810-1401 and 586 all do that.
Glad I saw your post...my BM mini-Grip does precisely that...a very soft click at about 20% open no matter how slow or fast I deploy. Been that way for just the last few months and I suspected it was the omega spring starting to fail? So far so good though...not affecting performance in any way.
