I think this liner lock is safe, do you?

DaveH

DaveH

Joined
Dec 2, 1999
Messages
12,249
I have a question for you.

I recently acquired an inexpensive liner lock knife, the liner slips past the blade tang and wedges in the notch between the blade and handle.

Lockup seems solid, and I tried some pretty good spine whacks and no problem. For now I'd call this knife safe. Would you?

(Believe it or not this is the first liner lock I can remember that I've had this situation with)
 
I have a Spyderco Vesuvious that does the same thing and have yet to make it fail, I guess as long as the handle dont move away it may be just perfect :)
 
I would say NO at first thought since it has worn enough to go all the way to the right and fall in between the blade tang and liner/handle. That is not how it is designed to work. With that said, that is how it is designed to work if it were to fail. The liner would go all the way to the right and cause the blade to jam open instead of going back to the left and causing the blade to close up on youf fingers! OUCH. I would say send it to the company that made it for reconditioning. My son had a BM Sentinel, one of the first ones and the liner lock is coming very close to the situation you describe. Lockup is still fine and the blade is very tight when opened, but I told him we needed to send it back for a reconditioning. Another thing you might do, and I've not done this, yet:D , is to take it apart and with a hammer gently tap the leading edge of the liner lock. This can cuase a lengthning of the lock bar thus causing it to fall back on the blade tang. I would only do this if you don't mind perhaps really screwing up your knife. As I said this is something I HAVE NOT done so can't speak to the validity of it.
 
An exposed knife blade that you cannot secure is a serious safety hazard. If the lock fails in such a manner at the wrong time you could endanger yourself and others.
 
Originally posted by stjames
An exposed knife blade that you cannot secure is a serious safety hazard. If the lock fails in such a manner at the wrong time you could endanger yourself and others.
Click to expand...

I agree. The knife is already in a state of failure. I wouldn't trust it. But, if it's really cheap and there's no warranty, try the hammer idea...you never know. Even after that though I think I'd be hesitant to use it..........
 
Originally posted by DaveH
I have a question for you.

I recently acquired an inexpensive liner lock knife, the liner slips past the blade tang and wedges in the notch between the blade and handle.

Lockup seems solid, and I tried some pretty good spine whacks and no problem. For now I'd call this knife safe. Would you?

(Believe it or not this is the first liner lock I can remember that I've had this situation with)
Click to expand...
How much are your fingers worth to you? More than that knife? If so, I'd toss the damn thing out.
 
I think that it would be ok as an extremely light duty knife such as a letter opener but I wouldn't trust it for anything else.
Matt
 
I got this knife for free so I'm not complaining.

In fact it's an interesting knife in that the blade is heavy duty, but the liner is quite thin relative to what I expect nowadays.

The blade and handles look 97% like new, so I would tend to believe that it is a design or quality issue during initial manufacture.

Further, now that I'm looking at it, it looks like the thumb post is used also as a blade stop. I was going to dremel the handle a bit to get a better opening purchase on the thumb stud, it looks like if I did that then the thumb stud would just sit flush again to the handle. :rolleyes:

I don't know if this company even makes this knife any more, or what their return policy is.
I may look into returning it.

Anyway, thanks all for the input. :)
 
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