Emersons don't like lateral stress?

fulloflead

fulloflead

Joined
May 3, 2002
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I own about a dozen Emersons including the older Benchmade/Emersons.

One strange thing I've noticed is that they all don't seem to tolerate much lateral stress. I mean, they don't break, but if I apply the slightest amount of lateral stress (prying) with the knife open, afterward, the knife blade will rub the liners upon opening and closing.

After applying any kind of lateral stress, I have to then reapply an opposite lateral stress to get the blade to recenter in the handle.

Basically, if I ever use any of my knives in any way that applies any kind of sideways force (say, breaking a string or plastic band off a box), when I go to close the knife, it rubs the liners. I then, have to open the knife and flex the knife with my hands in the opposite way to get it to sit centered in the handle again when closed.

On the plus side, this means I can always get an Emerson to recenter in the handle by flexing (or rebending) the whole thing with my hands.

On the down side, it takes very little lateral stress to cause an Emerson to go off-center and start to rub a liner.

I appreciate the fact that I've never even come close to breaking an Emerson but, on the other hand, I have been embarrassed, on more than one occasion, by the fact that I need to take my "super tough Emerson tactical knife" in both hands and flex it to get it to close right again when I'm done.

I know that Emerson does one liner in steel and the other in titanium for cost-effectiveness and lock performance, but I wonder if they should rethink this and go with thicker/stronger liners on both sides, of whatever material, to be less susceptible to the slightest lateral stress as they seem to be.
 
I knew more than a few Emersons had only one side Ti. Well a few things to consider: it is expensive to make anything in the Ol' US, thank you congress, also using thicker liners would negate the draw for getting a custom such as the HMMV-K. I recommend you try a frame lock such as the Comrade or HD-7. This is not to say I disagree with you in the slightest, your experience should not happen.
 
if the older ones do it they are all ti/ti liners FWIW so that wouldnt have anything to do with it, i dont think many ever had the ti/ss liners, according to ernie anyway and they have now gone back to all ti/ti.

i havent ever noticed that with mine, but i dont pry with them either, i'll have to do like ya say and see if mine do the same.
 
I have found that the 7b series and the super 7 tolerate that type of stress the best. I don't why that is exactly but I think it has something to do with blade length and size of the pivot etc. I would assume the 14 would good as well as the mini 7's for this reason. Big full size pivot and smaller blade that just makes it a bit more stout or robust for such things. I also have found that I like my pivots tightened to where it takes conscious effort to open them. Smooth mind you but you have to want to open the knife to open it. I also don't like the wave feature at all and I think that waving it open contributes much to the degradation of the lock over a short period of time if you wave it consistently to open the knife. I have found this to be true on a 13 I owned. Definetly smoothed out the opening sequence for the knife but the liner lock started hitting past center in a short period time. keepem sharp
 
i also think waving is hard on the liner lock EKI's, but if ya dont do it compulsively/obbsessively it takes a pretty good while to cause probs,

mine dont seem to do what fullof's do, not bad anyway, maybe i keep the pivots a little tighter??
 
I would go crazy if my knife did that...
And come on guys... He doesnt need a pry bar to pop plastic or string from a box... A knife should be able to do this fine//
 
When I still worked as a chainsaw operator my knives saw a fair bit of prying and the like.
I dont remember ever having the blade "loosen" on me doing that sort of stuff.
 
Open your knives and hold your two thumbs near the pivot and flex the knife a little. Then close the knife and see if the blade is still centered in the handle. In my experience, this small amount of flexing (which doesn't require prying a door open to place on a knife, just fairly normal work) will cause the blade to go off-center or rub the liners. Then I have to flex it the opposite way to get them to go back.

In fairness, I do keep the pivot loose enough for there to be a tiny bit of play to allow it to wave open reliably. I hadn't thought of the pivot being the issue. I always assumed the frame was flexing.

.
 
On my new mini cqc-7, I tightened the pivot screw quite a bit, so that when the blade is close, I really can't move the blade at all. It maybe moves 1 mm with light pressure.

The opening action is smooth but definitely not super easy. Once opened, there is no flex at all, even with pretty stong finger pressure.

I had the same with my cqc-14, where if I wanted it to open easily, I had to loosen the pivot screw a fair bit and introduce blade play. It was only a 1/4 of a turn difference in the pivot screw, but made a big difference. I think I prefer to have the blade be nice and secure once opened, even if it sacrifices some opening speed.

Granted, neither of my emersons were over 3 months old : )
 
So I guess that's the tradeoff. I'll try and keep 'em well lubed so they open well even with the pivot tight.

.
 
I just played around with a few knives and it does seem to depend on how tight the pivot is.

Lycosa said:
True---but that chain saw loosened yer brain!
:)
Click to expand...

Yup, all that fresh air cant have been good for me either :p
 
the 1st EKI i ever had, a CQC7, i had the pivot loose to make it inertia open better (it was a pre-waved '7) and it rubbed the liners, thought there was a problem with it then i figured out the pivot was just too loose, it still locked up fine and all but it was scuffing the black coating which has always bothered me lol.
 
when you send your knife back to EKI, they always manage to align/center the blade just right, which allows a smooth wave opening and no bladerub. but everytime I disassemble the knife to clean/lube it, I can never find that "center".
 
The few times I took the pivot screw out and reassembled, the blade always went back to where it was, when closed.

The only think I can recommend is that you make sure that the non-screw end, of the pivot assembly, is seated.

You can do this by assembling loosely, then pressing on the non-screwdriver side and making sure it is all the way in.

Then maybe hold the blade in the center, when closed or open and see when it moves.

The centering shouldn't come from the pivot screw though, I think that comes from the alignment of the liners, which don't change when you take out the pivot screw.

This is just from my limited experience.
 
Hello, Im new here and have a question, I recently got a Mini Commander, And after opening it a few times the pivot screw seems to loosen its self, and the blade is nearly touching the liner when closed. Is this normal?:confused:
 
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