Does the seb blade get easier to open with time??

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falz24

Joined
Nov 14, 2012
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25
First off I'm absolutely IN LOVE with my first sebenza. Had it for a few days now though and have been opening and closing til I'm blue in the face and I am having trouble opening it one handed. I've have even sat today trying to work it in by opening and closing over and over. It reminds me of having a gun whose trigger you can't pull a lot of the time.

The thumb stud is very small and smooth and on top of that it takes a considerable amount of pressure to open. A lot of the time I am unsuccessful the first try. I even gave it to my friend and (without even telling him that I was having this problem) he immediately said the same thing after trying to open it. He's very familiar with knives and carries a griptillian with him everywhere he goes and he commented on the difficulty opening as well.

Will it "break in" over time and open a lot easier as I wear in the knife? Is this commen? Has anyone else had experience with this? It doesn't instill a lot of confidence in me knowing that if I ever needed to open it quickly that there is a chance I would be unsuccessful. Opening the spyderco para2 was beyond easy to open and the seb is really giving me some trouble here....
 
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Sometimes the detent is a bit stiff on a new one. They get better with time. Also, in some instances, a good cleaning and lube job can make a difference.
 
They can sometimes be too stiff and then I do the un-recommended easing of the lock bar. With the knife open, I just push the lock bar back a bit to take some of the pressure off. Works great and still locks up tight with a loud click but now I can open it without rupturing my thumb :)
 
petrosil said:
They can sometimes be too stiff and then I do the un-recommended easing of the lock bar. With the knife open, I just push the lock bar back a bit to take some of the pressure off. Works great and still locks up tight with a loud click but now I can open it without rupturing my thumb :)
Click to expand...

If you do that, you better not be selling the knife afterward. I doubt many people here want an over travel stop on the Sebenza, like the Umnumzaan got because people were dicking with the lock bar tension...
 
:thumbup::thumbup:
Tripton said:
If you do that, you better not be selling the knife afterward. I doubt many people here want an over travel stop on the Sebenza, like the Umnumzaan got because people were dicking with the lock bar tension...
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My 25 was not as tight as you describe, but it was too tight initially. But it is now fine after some use. Try lubricating the pivot with Break Free or Rem Oil and then cycling the knife 100 times.
 
My new 25 is pretty tight as well, but not excessively so. It does take considerable pressure on the thumb stud to break the detent, but is super smooth after it does. I'm sure it's part technique for me too, as this is my first Sebenza. I'll be taking a look at the thread marthinus posted tonight when I have more time.

That said, after reading more about CRK than I care to admit prior to my purchasing, one of the things I formed an opinion about in the process was the design of the thumb studs. Chris has made it very clear that his knives are not meant to be flicked open. I believe he had that in mind when designing the small, aggressively tapered, smooth thumb studs on the Sebenza which inherently make flicking the blade open more difficult than the larger, more cylinder, slightly tapered, often textured thumb studs found on other knives that are indeed meant to be flicked open. I think this is why first time Sebenza owners, such as myself, need to figure out the "technique", which we have never needed before buying a CRK.

I'm not sure anyone at CRK would agree, but given how the thumb studs actually affect the deployment of the knife in a way that favors Chris' "no flicking" stance, there seems to be more to the design than aesthetics, which has historically been the answer when questioned about their shape and size.

Just my observations.
 
I am kind of repeating here but I think two things will help. One is taking knife apart and adding bit of the lube that came with it. The second is to open and close your knife constantly. Watching tv, sitting at work bored, etc. I am not sure how much the knife gets "broken in" vs fingers get stronger and used to that motion. Maybe some sort of combination. But when i first got mine, even using correct technique, it was not butter smooth. Now I can open it pretty damn quickly and smooth and easy.
 
I think the bulk of the issue is how you open the knife. Try holding it by the lanyard in one hand and opening with the other - I would imagine it will be easy to open. With one hand, I've found the trick is to not depress the clip into the lock bar but to almost pull down on the clip away from the blade as you open it.

Also, make sure to get a dab of lube on the ceramic ball and the track it rides in when the blade opens.
 
I'm guessing you have a small regular or 21 and if that's the case the above post is most relevant. The ergos on the small had your finger pushing on the clip which pushes on the lockbar making it hard to push open the thumb stud.

Try a downward sweeping motion that seems to work best with the smaller Sebenzas.

Congratulations on your first.
 
falz24 said:
How does he recommend you open the knife? With two hands??
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The normal way one should open one. Keep your thumb on the stud for the full ark. I don't move my wrist one bit, and(mosty always) use thumb motion only with any one hand opening knife.

I will fick a less expensive knife now and then though, but not often at all. Ficking is no faster for me, and I don't like the thought of the tang slamming into stop the pin.
 
I got my first CRK, a nib older model Zaan in November of 09'. I still remember how stiff it was. I opened it what seemed like hundreds of times
before it started to get smoother.

I asked the same question you did...the advice I got on this forum was what I described above.
 
Tripton said:
If you do that, you better not be selling the knife afterward. I doubt many people here want an over travel stop on the Sebenza, like the Umnumzaan got because people were dicking with the lock bar tension...
Click to expand...

I have never been even remotely tempted to sell any of my CRK's but thanks for that advice anyway...
 
Yes, they get better with time, and you can also listen the pivot bolt slightly but make sure you tighten it back up until there is no blade play whatsoever.

If it is still hard to open, then cycling it a bunch of times would help. In fact, I'd try that before messing with the pivot at all.

Hold the handle in one hand, grasp the spine of the blade at the top with your fingers in the other hand and rotate it almost open and then almost closed really quickly a couple of hundred times. Just real fast. That will mimic opening and closing cycles without engaging the lock.

I do that with most of my new knives to break them in quicker, especially my Emersons, but it will work with any knife. Instead of opening it and closing it a bunch of times over days or weeks, I do it in a few minutes.

Give that a try.
 
Problem solved. It was all technique. After reading this thread and the thread marthinus provided the link to I realized that this was all due to the fact that I was pressing down on the frame lock which was countering the pressure I was using to try and open the blade with my thumb.

This is because I am used to spyderco liner locks where you don't have to worry about pressing down the liner thus mitigating the pressure applied by ones thumb to open the blade.

So basically I just backed off the pressure I was putting on the frame lock and moved around my grip a little and now the thing opens like butter! From here it's just a matter of repetition until this new grip and motion becomes muscle memory.

Thanks guys!!
 
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One thing I figured out after playing with a lot of integral locks when getting started with them... Try opening the knife left handed, and get a good feel for the detent tension. Then try it right handed, if it's much harder than what you felt left handed, you're putting pressure on the lockbar with your fingers when opening righty.

Likewise, you can hold the knife in one hand with two fingers, then use the thumb and forefinger on the other hand and pull on the thumb studs gently until you defeat the detent. Repeat this several times getting a good feeling for how hard the detent is and if it's any harder when using one hand, you're again putting pressure on the lock bar with your fingers.

Hope that makes sense.
 
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straitr said:
One thing I figured out after playing with a lot of integral locks when getting started with them... Try opening the knife left handed, and get a good feel for the detent tension. Then try it right handed, if it's much harder than what you felt left handed, you're putting pressure on the lockbar with your fingers when opening righty.

Likewise, you can hold the knife in one hand with two fingers, then use the thumb and forefinger on the other hand and pull on the thumb studs gently until you defeat the detent. Repeat this several times getting a good feeling for how hard the detent is and if it's any harder when using one hand, you're again putting pressure on the lock bar with your fingers.

Hope that makes sense.
Click to expand...

Exactly
 
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