Has an axis lock failed on anyone?

Gryffin said:
The best liner lock designs don't have angled tangs, they have a concave tang. That way, the amount of wear required to move further right increases exponentially as the knife wears.
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Not exponentially. The locking liner moves in an arc. Arcing the tang face keeps the relationship between liner and tang the same as it wears, ensuring a good life of quality lockup.

It doesn't increase the amount of wear needed exponentially.

Phil
 
On our Military, which is a liner lock, we use an "offset arc" which leaves a little "hook" at the bottom of the ramp. It was a concept developed by Vince Ford some time ago. It adds another degree of reliability to the ramp of a Walker linerlock.

lock reliability and safety is a big issue with us.

BTW, the Axis is an excellent design and Benchmade does a good job with it. It's been around since the early 90's and has developed nicely.

Thanx Joe, Actually, I'm a knife nut steel junky inventor, that just happens to own the company. ;)

Hi AM, you can send it in, we can check it out. The design of the lock should self adjust for wear or play.

sal

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The entire "business chain" from; raw materials, invention, design, manufacturing, marketing, selling, distributing, shipping, warrantees, insurance, credit, etc. ALL EXISTS to service the ELU (End Line User). Remove the ELU from the equation and the entire business chain falls like a house of cards. We all work for you!
 
You cannot help but applaud Sal Glesser. What other knife company CEO would build knives all day then come here in the evening and take heat? That is one of the reasons Spyderco gets first consideration when I buy a knife.:thumbup:
 
phatch said:
Not exponentially. The locking liner moves in an arc. Arcing the tang face keeps the relationship between liner and tang the same as it wears, ensuring a good life of quality lockup.
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Not true, at least on the ones in my own collection that I've examined.

The arc of the blade tang is not the same arc as the locking liner travels, and is both angled steeper (like a non-radiused liner lock), to ensure that the liner wedges in place; and also has a smaller radius, so that as it wears, it takes more and more wear to move the same increment to the right. That's what I meant by "exponentially".

One of the benefits of this design is that it can break-in quickly, with the locking liner moving right initially until both surfaces develop a tight fit, then slow down and pretty much cease movement as it wears further.

You bring up an interesting point, though; a plain angled blade tang might actually develop play faster, if the angle isn't just right, since as the liner moves right in an arc, the angled tang might provide less engagement as it wears. That would explain why some really crappy liner locks not only wear quickly, but actully seem to "pick up speed" as they wear, until the liner runs over the right edge of the tang.

This is why liner locks are so tricky. Not enough angle (or radius) on the blade tang, and it wears quickly; too steep an angle or radius, and liner is susceptible to popping off of the tang and failing, possibly causing injury.
 
STR said:
The axis locks can get crud in them and pocket lint can jam the spring from working.

These kind of 'my dog is better than your dog' threads are always amusing. Thanks for the laughs guys.

STR
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So, my dog isn´t as bad as described.:D

The slots and the space between the scales and liners for the omega spring to move back and forth on the axis seem to be prone to get lint and everything inside. But on two models, the 520 and the 806 i looked inside after good a half year or more of constant edc and found very very little.

Never did that what i found disturb any function.

Reminding my time as a lockback carrier, the most important thing to get a folder full of lint or not is, to have it clipped in your pocket or not. I guess, that is the main point.

In fact, axis locks have so many parts, that it is easy to think about failure. Easier than on locks, build more simple, indeed the compression. But i think the only drawback on axis is, that you can easiely imagine failures more than they really happen.

Considering lint, any clipped folder should stand up against it well. Tip down better than tip up.

Hope, my dog is as good as others.:D
 
Never had any vertical play on a compression lock. Sometimes, if you open the blade very slowly, the lockpin doesn't engage as far as when the blade is slammed into place, and then you might feel a bit of an up down motion, but it is essentiall self-tightening. If you move the blade a couple of times the lockpin really seats itself between tang and anvil pin and there is no vertical bladeplay whatsoever, same if you open it hard, on mine at least. Never had any problems with a blade not being centered in a compression lock either, and I kind of doubt that that has anything to do with the lock. That seems to me more a problem of scales, liner, and/or pivot.

As to wear: The compression lock wears the same as a liner does, but if adjusted correctly there is plenty of compensation due to the angled surface on the tang and then you still have the manual compensation by turning either anvil pin or pivot pin (depending on model).
 
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