Have you had a broken Omega spring in an Axis lock folder?

[Psychopomp]

When the springs break ... where is it? Where they wrap around the bar, bend into the liner or both?

Here's an old picture I snapped of the broken spring in my 710. My guess is some gunk got in there and put stress on the spring until it broke. I noticed one day that it wasn't opening very smoothly and decided to open it up and take a look. It still locked open just fine though, so I wouldn't be too concerned about having only one spring.

 

[mat_890]

Honestly, polls on fora like this are essentially useless as a scientific or quantitative exercise. There's nothing about them at all that lines up with good survey methodology.

Care to elaborate the difference from a online poll to a regular telephone poll?

You can't be forced to tell the truth on either
You can't be forced to answer on either
I suppose you can't use random selection, but in theory if everyone who sees this pole and has a benchmade votes, we would have the entire population making random selection irrelevant.

So unless there is a systematic difference in the durability of springs between those who use axis locks and are not a member of bladefoums and those who use axis locks and are a member of badeforums I see this as 'scientific' as a survey can be. Limitations would include those who see the poll and choose not to vote, and those who choose to lie.

Like I said before the only thing 'essentially useless' is opinion.

Side note - Online political polls as I'm sure many of you know, do have a massive bias. There is indeed a systematic difference in those who visit...say republican sites vs those who choose not to.

 

[Brian Sargent]

Here's an old picture I snapped of the broken spring in my 710. My guess is some gunk got in there and put stress on the spring until it broke. I noticed one day that it wasn't opening very smoothly and decided to open it up and take a look. It still locked open just fine though, so I wouldn't be too concerned about having only one spring.

Thanks for the picture!

Man, broke almost right it the middle.

I was thinking that a stress riser could develop at the sharp bends at the ends.

I guess the middle is actually where the most flexing is happening.

Wonder if they break in different spots or consistently in one spot.

 

[Cynic2701]

I can do math too, I still don't believe the story though.

Fair enough. It is, after all, an anecdote from someone on the internet you don't know.

 

[Brennanscott]

Fair enough. It is, after all, an anecdote from someone on the internet you don't know.

:thumbup:

 

[KennyB]

Thanks for the picture!

Man, broke almost right it the middle.

I was thinking that a stress riser could develop at the sharp bends at the ends.

I guess the middle is actually where the most flexing is happening.

Wonder if they break in different spots or consistently in one spot.

Mine both broke at the very middle of the curve, both on the same spot.

I don't want to get into the discussion of how likely it is that others will have spring failures, how many break, etc...

I will say that I replaced the springs with ones I bent out of nickel-plated, steel guitar strings. I've sense cycled the lock open and close many, many more times than I did in the course of breaking both original springs. So all I can say is that my self-fashioned, guitar string springs are better than Benchmade's; I can't say why, but just by the fact that they've outlasted the Benchmades makes me think there's problems. Not only have they outlasted the ones I got from Benchmade by the same amount, but I've literally been trying to break them and haven't been successful.

I don't think it would be a problem if Benchmade didn't void your warranty for disassembly though. I didn't have the money to ship mine off just to get the spring replaced and opted to have a usable knife instead. So now my warranty is void. When you really think about the implications of that... Benchmade won't stand behind their knife now that I've disassembled it, and I had to disassemble it for springs that didn't last nearly as long as my self-fashioned guitar-string springs. I don't think that should happen on a knife that they suggest a $205 retail on.

Either they should change their warranty policy or make springs that won't fail. For anyone. Ever.

I'm not a big gun guy, but I wonder something... There are springs in revolvers right? How often do they break? I can't recall if I've ever heard of someone breaking a spring in a revolver, and I'm just trying to think of something else that's spring-based to compare them too.

P.S.

FlatMtnBkr is a really cool guy. He bent and shipped me some springs when I didn't have the cash to send mine into BM. I had found the funds to make my own by the time they got here, but I've still got his waiting for backup when the time comes.

 

[Cotherion]

You know, seeing that picture of the broken spring one can see that if one pulls the lock rod furthest to the back/left one can see that the springs are going to bend by a lot. I have been told by Mechanical Engineers that the life of a spring depends on the deflection or strain. And that the relationship is not linear.

What I'm saying is imagine drilling an itty bitty hole further to the left to slot the Omega spring. That way the springs do not bend so much hence increased lifecycle. Of course if it done then the Omega Spring needs to be redesign it's shape slightly.

Another thing, could Benchmade used little helical springs like the ZT0500 on either side? Do you guys think it's possible? Not sure since it's got a tight space to fill. Would be nice if Benchmade could join this discussion

 

[Psychopomp]

There's my home made guitar string spring. Not the prettiest in the world, but it works.

 

[JNewell]

I agree, it's not. Telephone polls are useless. The "best," which may not be very good, is something like the J.D. Power surveys.

I'd still be interested in any sort of data sort based on model. They're not all the same.

Care to elaborate the difference from a online poll to a regular telephone poll?

You can't be forced to tell the truth on either
You can't be forced to answer on either
I suppose you can't use random selection, but in theory if everyone who sees this pole and has a benchmade votes, we would have the entire population making random selection irrelevant.

So unless there is a systematic difference in the durability of springs between those who use axis locks and are not a member of bladefoums and those who use axis locks and are a member of badeforums I see this as 'scientific' as a survey can be. Limitations would include those who see the poll and choose not to vote, and those who choose to lie.

Like I said before the only thing 'essentially useless' is opinion.

Side note - Online political polls as I'm sure many of you know, do have a massive bias. There is indeed a systematic difference in those who visit...say republican sites vs those who choose not to.

 

[JNewell]

I'm not a big gun guy, but I wonder something... There are springs in revolvers right? How often do they break? I can't recall if I've ever heard of someone breaking a spring in a revolver, and I'm just trying to think of something else that's spring-based to compare them too.

Flat springs were/are notorious for breaking. One of Bill Ruger's big selling points, especially with his single action revolvers, was music wire coil springs. I don't recall ever reading about one breaking, though it must happen. Depending on how the spring was designed into the gun, it's possible that it would go on working without anyone noticing that it had broken until someone disassembled the gun.

 

[darthsoaker]

...I'm betting it's 99% honesty here...

Your betting on 99% accuracy on an anonymous online poll?

 

[mat_890]

Your betting on 99% accuracy on an anonymous online poll?

I believe he said honesty, and its not entirely anonymous.


Now what is interesting is the steady decline in % of people who report a failure. Anyone who has ever taken a statistics class will know that once you hit the magic number of '25' responses, its statistically unlikely that the balance will fluctuate more then a few percent.

Has this poll been linked to the benchmade forum?

 

[OrdnanceBubbaUSMC]

Your betting on 99% accuracy on an anonymous online poll?

Hmm....maybe not exactly 99%, but that is kinda just thrown out there. For things like this I tend to be more trusting. I feel like the knife-loving and gun-loving community in general are trustworthy men and women, often with a good deal of old fashion values.

All in all the accuracy seems pretty good to me since it goes with what I would have estimated (roughly 10%) based on hanging around the knife forums for over a decade now.

If it was some thing like 2% or 40% it would seem more fishy. The weakness of the springs and likelihood of bad batches over the years seems evident. The results coincide with that, off and on reports, and the fact that some play flippy, spinny with knives like crazy and others fear even putting finger-prints on expensive knives.

We could still make it +/- 2% to bring it to 8-12% accounting for people just goofing around.

 

[darthsoaker]

Hmm....maybe not exactly 99%, but that is kinda just thrown out there. For things like this I tend to be more trusting. I feel like the knife-loving and gun-loving community in general are trustworthy men and women, often with a good deal of old fashion values.

I'd like to think that too, but just go to the FEEDBACK forum to see that quite the case.

 

[softrockrenegade]

Great poll !!! This will help with the misconception that the springs are a problem with the axis lock !!!

 

[KennyB]

Regardless of the percentage of incident, what sticks out to me is that I rectified the problem and still haven't experienced any spring failure with self-fashioned springs made out of higher quality metal. I don't know what BM used, but I don't it was $1 per meter like the stuff I bought as that would probably get spendy in production. However, having not been able to make that stuff fail, and then considering all the people without failure on the BM metal used in the springs, I think it would be safe to say that there's some kind of QC issue where some knives are getting springs that aren't up to snuff.

 

[OrdnanceBubbaUSMC]

darthsoaker, I hear that, money changes things for some people. I'd rather starve than cheat or be dishonest, and it's happened already...

I do appreciate the people telling their story, putting up the photos, etc. Hopefully nobody thinks the people who are relaying a broken spring or problem are knocking down their favorite knife/knives. I would get a couple axis models if they had some variety of them at Griptillian prices.

 

[Psychopomp]

Hopefully nobody thinks the people who are relaying a broken spring or problem are knocking down their favorite knife/knives. I would get a couple axis models if they had some variety of them at Griptillian prices.

Aside from the 710 which I absolutely adore, I'm not much of a Benchmade fan. The broken omega spring was more of a mild irritation to me and I didn't hold it against the knife or the company. I used that knife hard, and a tiny little piece of spring broke, not a big deal.

I still think the Axis lock is one of the better locks on the market if you have to have a locking folder (which I don't, I'm a slipjoint kind of guy these days), and I'd certainly consider buying another Axis locking folder if it caught my eye.

 

[Brennanscott]

You know, seeing that picture of the broken spring one can see that if one pulls the lock rod furthest to the back/left one can see that the springs are going to bend by a lot. I have been told by Mechanical Engineers that the life of a spring depends on the deflection or strain. And that the relationship is not linear.

What I'm saying is imagine drilling an itty bitty hole further to the left to slot the Omega spring. That way the springs do not bend so much hence increased lifecycle. Of course if it done then the Omega Spring needs to be redesign it's shape slightly.

Another thing, could Benchmade used little helical springs like the ZT0500 on either side? Do you guys think it's possible? Not sure since it's got a tight space to fill. Would be nice if Benchmade could join this discussion

So not one but more than one mechanical engineer felt compelled to tell you that the life of a spring depends on the deflection or strain? And they also have felt compelled to tell you that the relationship is not linear? I am so glad you could come to this forum.

 

[Cotherion]

So not one but more than one mechanical engineer felt compelled to tell you that the life of a spring depends on the deflection or strain? And they also have felt compelled to tell you that the relationship is not linear? I am so glad you could come to this forum.

I speak what I heard. I'm not saying it's gospel truth cause it isn't my field so I'm not going to upset if someone says it's wrong.

They were Zublin engineers from Germany who came to install a machine for me. We were discussing a problem and they told me that.

Now I have no idea if you are being sarcastic bu if you were then you should not be. I have no bad intention in participating and should not deserve crap treatment. If I'm wrong then so be it but don't go personal.

However if you really mean you like my participation, I apologize for the above paragraph and say thanks.