Do all chinooks have minor vertical blade play?

Maybe I didn't pull hard enough, but I didn't feel any the last time I tried with mine.
 
I just sent mine back for this very reason. I bought it new online and had just received it last week. The looseness of the blade was noticed right away.
FWIW, the gentleman I spoke with from Spyderco mentioned that blade play is quite uncommon with the Chinook-II model.
Personally, I have no doubt they will make good on it. I am quite sure that I just got one that was able to slip through QC.
Other than that, though, what little time I did have possession of it, I was so impressed with the stoutness and feel of it that I am seriously considering picking up another to keep it company.
 
Mine has a barely noticable amount of vertical play -- you have to grab the blade near the tip -- :eek: -- and really yank on it to feel it at all. I hadn't planned on sending it back but it's nice to know that that's an option.
 
Mine has alittle play. Not much, probably not enough for me to send it in.
No telling. I thought they all had alittle play.



Blades
 
Mine also has a little play, less than the Pacific Salt I have, but still enough to shift a bit when cutting cardboard or similar. It's pretty uncomfortable in such a big knife, particularly if you're used to other lock formats like liner-locks and the AXIS-lock where there typically is zero blade-play, but I'm very sure the lock won't fail.
 
My Chinook II doesn't really have any.

My Yojimbo, OTOH, has a teeny bit -- but not enough to motivate me to send it in ... at least yet.
 
Mine has some play. It gets quite bad if you squeeze down on the handle. I'd like it more with a compression lock.
 
My Chinook I has a lot of play.

My Chinook II might have a tiny, tiny bit of play.
 
Didn't notice at mine (actually my wife's, she seems to like big things) ;) . And she used it to break out coconuts with the back of the blade (knife open) :eek:
 
I was under the impression that lockbacks by nature will have a little bit of play. My chinook II had a little vertical play. You couldn't see it, but you could barely feel it when you grabbed the tip pushed up and down. I feel as though the lock is VERY strong though and I dont anticipate this tiny bit of play to be a factor.

How much play is acceptable in a lockback?
 
That's what I've been wondering. My Manix has more one time, less the next. Kind of weird. I thought that fooling around with the screws was changing it, but now I'm not so sure.
Could someone with absolutely rock solid lockup with zero play visually compare their lockup with this:
btw, that's White Lightning on the pivot. I don't know why it showed up so prominently in the pic...
 
Owen, great picture....what this shows is that there can be some "air" between the parts, enough to create movement, but totally irrelevant when it comes to the security of the lock itself. Look how much metal would have to be defeated for the lock to fail catastrophically.

BTW, cool washers.

EDIT: I am surprised the lock bar notch isn't deeeper though...
 
Geoff in Philly said:
EDIT: I am surprised the lock bar notch isn't deeeper though...
Click to expand...

If it made contact further down, wouldn't that require the "lever" (the part of the lock bar that drops in the notch) to be longer, less stiff against closing shear forces, and potentially weaker?
 
My Chinook has barely noticeable vertical movement. My Chinook II has zero, zip and nada play. 100% business. :)
 
Geoff in Philly said:
Owen, great picture....what this shows is that there can be some "air" between the parts, enough to create movement, but totally irrelevant when it comes to the security of the lock itself. Look how much metal would have to be defeated for the lock to fail catastrophically.
Click to expand...
Thanks, and I agree that the lock is not likely to fail. What concerns me is the loose tolerances of the locking bar in relation to the notch. The lock seems undersized. I know it can't be a perfect fit, because it has to be able to drop into place when the blade reaches the open position, but from the pic you can see that it is only making contact at the front up close to the top of the bar, near the thumbramp, and at the rear only the point at the back of the lockbar is hitting the notch. I think time and wear will only make this worse (the lockbar's not going to get any bigger!).
I just want to know if this is abnormal. I don't want to go through the motions of sending the knife back, and have it returned with a note telling me that it's "within our tolerances" or something like that.
The main reason I'm not happy, is that I've had plenty of FRN lockbacks with no play. Now I'm seeing these replies that "yeah, mine has a little play, I thought they all did".
If my $40-55 Spyderco lightweights have no play, why should the heavy-duty premium one with better materials I just paid $150 for have it? Why should anyone elses?

misque, you're in a perfect position to compare, since you have one with perfect lockup, and one with a little play...
 
I don't have a chinook2, but I have noticed that on other spydies, particularly the lockbacks, if you screw the pivot tighter, that vertical bladeplay will go off. Not only the horizontal bladeplay, but also the vertical.

But then again, you might not like it like that, because you won't be able to wristflick them open consistently.

I like to keep my pivots screwed tight, and open spydies the conventional way, with the thumb.

The newer lockback spydies don't have this vertical bladeplay problem, but some of the older ones I have do. If they have an adjustable pivot, screwing it tighter usually solves the problem.
 
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