Do the world class brands care about action, centering and lockup?

H

Hellasharp

Joined
Feb 17, 2023
Messages
143
Curmedgeons- cover your eyes. Helpful folks- lend me your ears 😅

Lately I’ve been really infactuated w Spyderco and I now own more spydie than any other maker (only ~8 this far) Not because they’re perfect, but almost because their imperfections and risk taking is somewhat charming in an Alfa Romeo type of way.

On that topic, it boggles my mind that nearly every Spyderco I’ve rec’d, whether from an AD or the exchange has come needing to be tuned for action, centering or play, sometimes all 3. In fact, the brand new ones from big dealers I won’t mention have been the worst…. Contrast that with nearly every single cheap or mid priced Chinese or Asian made folder came with perfect action, centering and rock solid lockup OOTB

What gives? Same goes for the new and used benchmades as All but my 940 has minor blade play which they say is normal but my ghetto axis ganzo (which costs about a Big Mac) locked up like a safe and was perfectly centered.

Are these just not things that world class makers care about? Or am I expecting too much or focusing on things that shoudont matter?

I happen to be good at working on things so I’m able to eventually tune things out which tells me they could’ve gotten it right at the Golden plant to begin with.

Not at all bashing as I don’t have anything on my wish list besides more spy. Just trying to understand what variables goes into this and if the enlightened can educate me on manufacturing standards. Thanks!
 
Hellasharp said:
Curmedgeons- cover your eyes. Helpful folks- lend me your ears 😅

Lately I’ve been really infactuated w Spyderco and I now own more spydie than any other maker (only ~8 this far) Not because they’re perfect, but almost because their imperfections and risk taking is somewhat charming in an Alfa Romeo type of way.

On that topic, it boggles my mind that nearly every Spyderco I’ve rec’d, whether from an AD or the exchange has come needing to be tuned for action, centering or play, sometimes all 3. In fact, the brand new ones from big dealers I won’t mention have been the worst…. Contrast that with nearly every single cheap or mid priced Chinese or Asian made folder came with perfect action, centering and rock solid lockup OOTB

What gives? Same goes for the new and used benchmades as All but my 940 has minor blade play which they say is normal but my ghetto axis ganzo (which costs about a Big Mac) locked up like a safe and was perfectly centered.

Are these just not things that world class makers care about? Or am I expecting too much or focusing on things that shoudont matter?

I happen to be good at working on things so I’m able to eventually tune things out which tells me they could’ve gotten it right at the Golden plant to begin with.

Not at all bashing as I don’t have anything on my wish list besides more spy. Just trying to understand what variables goes into this and if the enlightened can educate me on manufacturing standards. Thanks!
Click to expand...
I love the Spyderco line-up more than any other - great designs, constant new offerings and variations, and knowing that more of the same will keep on coming. I'll probably buy 6-10 each year as long as I'm buying knives. But I agree about many (not "most") "needing to be tuned for action, centering or play". It hasn't been any big deal to "tune" the tight ones for opening and closing;however, I've had a few with really bad centering. It's irritating that my most recent PM2's blade is almost touching...but it's not. I've tried everything and that's just where it wants to be. It sort of reminds me of a Polish hat company that I buy a few hats a year from. A '59' is sometimes a 59, but it's often a 58 or 60. They used to have ways to measure such things, that were never inaccurate - you'd think knife companies would as well.

(I only have one Benchmade, and it is flawless). Still - their line-up is not as interesting.
 
runscott said:
I love the Spyderco line-up more than any other - great designs, constant new offerings and variations, and knowing that more of the same will keep on coming. I'll probably buy 6-10 each year as long as I'm buying knives. But I agree about many (not "most") "needing to be tuned for action, centering or play". It hasn't been any big deal to "tune" the tight ones for opening and closing;however, I've had a few with really bad centering. It's irritating that my most recent PM2's blade is almost touching...but it's not. I've tried everything and that's just where it wants to be. It sort of reminds me of a Polish hat company that I buy a few hats a year from. A '59' is sometimes a 59, but it's often a 58 or 60. They used to have ways to measure such things, that were never inaccurate - you'd think knife companies would as well.

(I only have one Benchmade, and it is flawless). Still - their line-up is not as interesting.
Click to expand...
Yeah the centering is weird.
The crucarta I bought from a forum friendly dealer came looking like a cripple (no offense to the disabled sorry) . Same with a standard s45vn pm2 and shaman s30v - both had ‘gritty’ action, unreliable shutting and blades looking like an orca fin at sea world.

Crucarta had to go back and the dealer was cool about it, gave away the shaman to a friend and I can’t for the life of me find that standard pm2 which may be a good thing :D

But I still want more for whatever reason lol
 
Hellasharp said:
Yeah the centering is weird.
The crucarta I bought from a forum friendly dealer came looking like a cripple (no offense to the disabled sorry) . Same with a standard s45vn pm2 and shaman s30v - both had ‘gritty’ action, unreliable shutting and blades looking like an orca fin at sea world.

Crucarta had to go back and the dealer was cool about it, gave away the shaman to a friend and I can’t for the life of me find that standard pm2 which may be a good thing :D

But I still want more for whatever reason lol
Click to expand...
Centering is one of those things that I never paid any attention to until I read about it in this forum :) Now I know that I should get irritated about it; however, my crooked PM2 is probably my favorite knife, so I guess my old mindset wins.
 
Never had an issue with a brand new Spyderco. I have created a few issues with what I call normal use and they've fixed what I did.

If you're not seeing the quality you need from a brand take a step up to the next tier. Look at Chris Reeve Knives for a really nice package without overblown frou frou features.
 
Burke said:
I don't know for certain but it seems possible to me that the knives produced where labor is super cheap have a bit more hand-fitting and tuning than the ones produced in more expensive countries.
Click to expand...
Hmmm you might be on to something.

One of my uneducated guesses was that spy uses a ton of g10 (nearly all my spy are) which may have more flex? Hence why the loosening/tightening of the handle screws while putting pressure on the blade trick works more often than not.
 
Hellasharp said:
Hmmm you might be on to something.

One of my uneducated guesses was that spy uses a ton of g10 (nearly all my spy are) which may have more flex? Hence why the loosening/tightening of the handle screws while putting pressure on the blade trick works more often than not.
Click to expand...
Yes, I did what you described and it helped my PM2 noticeably.
 
(I am counting only new knives here.)

I have handled well over 100 Benchmades, including knives that I have bought and knives that I have tested in local stores.
* One Stryker auto had poor centering
* One Mini Reflex Auto had blade play when locked open
* One Barrage was hard to open
* One Mini Infidel was very dull on one edge near the heel--over 800 BESS, which is terrible
The rest were fine. On 3, I think, I have loosened the pivot screw by 1/8th turn or less to get the blade to drop closed, but a lot of people would not care about that.

The local stores have very few Spydercos, but I have bought over 20. About a third of them have compression locks and all but one of those have been perfect--a Caribbean Salt still requires a slight nudge to drop shut.

I've bought 3 or 4 Byrds as I recall, and all of them needed work, although a Meadowlark is the knife I use most now. I took it apart 3 times to adjust the spring to be able to flick it open. It is getting stiff again, but it may just need cleaning. I think the Byrds were all made in mainland China. I have never bought other Spyderco knives that were made there.

The back locks have varied a lot. About a half were fine out of the box, another half needed a lot of breaking in or disassembly. A couple needed two hands to open out of the box, but one of those just had the pivot screw ridiculously tight.; the other, a Native 5, went back to the dealer.

Of my two Spyderco fixed blades, the Enuff was great out of the box but the ARK averaged over 400 BESS, which is pretty bad for a company that sells sharpening tools.

So I agree that Spyderco quality control leaves a lot to be desired.
 
Last edited:
I have owned dozens and dozens of Spyderco folders. I've only had a couple that had issues. Lock stick and blade centering. Never had a single issue with Benchmade, but in my opinion they are way overpriced.
 
I have two each of the Native 5, PM 2, and Manix 2 in different blade steels. QC on all have been good and I haven't had a problem with any of them. They've all come with reasonably good edges, blades centered, and only needed the pivot loosened up a bit to bring the action more to my liking.
 
Ironbut said:
QC on all have been good and I haven't had a problem with any of them.
Click to expand...
I guess one of my main questions (which can likely only be answered by someone with knowledge of the manuf process) is, are blade centering and open close action actually part of the QC proces and what’s considered tolderable?

You can throw a stone in any direction on BF and find spydies that are off centered and Benchmade blade play is an actual thing. For some reason a lot more as compared to the import world and I’m trying to figure out why (but B Burke laid down a pretty strong theory)
 
Yes.

My 110 and 112 Ranger pros have slight blade play when closed, but it doesn't bother me.

With the amount of Spydercos produced there's bound to be some that are less than perfect, that's manufacturing.

My CRKs are about as perfect as can be.
 
Hellasharp said:
You can throw a stone in any direction on BF and find spydies that are off centered and Benchmade blade play is an actual thing. For some reason a lot more as compared to the import world and I’m trying to figure out why
Click to expand...
A lot of people on BF own Spyderco or Benchmade knives that are moderately expensive.
People on the Internet like to complain, especially about things that are expensive.
 
I have about 40 Spyderco knives so obviously a fan but it’s always a crapshoot when I get a new one. The uneven grinds are my biggest complaint. Drives me crazy when I buy a Cold Steel Taiwan made folder and it’s literally perfect every time (grinds, centering, lock up, etc). I always think, c’mon Spyderco, can’t you do better than a $50 Cold Steel?
 
Locutus D'Borg said:
Honestly, I never considered centering unless the blade rubs. And I never cared about drop-shutty. But i have learned that if you ever want to sell, it better be centered. Cause others care.
Click to expand...
Exactly. My off-center ones are all permanent so I didn't say anything to sellers as they arrived. But it does make me wonder if some owners dump their off-center ones on ebay and discussion forum classifieds.
 
It's all subjective and comparing brands won't get you far. For everyone who bought an off-center Spyderco and a perfect Civivi, there's another guy who's Civivi wouldn't lock up but his Spyderco was spot on. Insert any two brands and the same will be true. Unless someone was going to take 100 knives from brand X, Y, and Z and compare how many were off center, how many had bad lockup, and how many had bad action, it's all just internet stories. Some things will always pass QC that shouldn't, and we don't really know what is a pass/fail from any individual company besides obvious flaws.

Even if you were to do such an experiment, what's acceptable vs. not? We talking the tip (with a possibly uneven grind) being 1/64" off center or 1/16"? What's bad lockup? A tiny bit of blade play or failing a spine whack? What about lock stick? Maybe it will break in maybe it will stick forever. How about action? Should everything be expected to flick open and drop shut right out of the box?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top