Is a Native III good for throwing? ....cuz I'm gonna!!!!

L

Lavan

Joined
Nov 8, 2000
Messages
2,301
I once had a Native III that was a nice knife. I bragged about it on here even.
Well, it's a MONSTER now. I put a drop of oil on the smooth (but tight) action and it turned into a grip strengthener. OK, sez I, I'll ask on the forum. "Soak in water" I was told. OK. L i t t l e ....better, but still a hefty full tractor pull to get open. Thumbhole? Oh, you mean the NAIL PULLER?

So....today.... I tried ....GRAPHITE! Dry, black, slippery (?) graphite. A puff. Oh oh. kinda hard. TWO PUFFS.....yahoooo......a gritty, chattery, absolute MESS. Showed the wife. She....laffed. Yes, laffed at the thing.

Energine! Full strength. The FLAMMABLE one. No "safety" fluid for me.

Made it into a nice carpenter's square. Except it wasn't SQUARE.

This is driving me CRAZY! It now has some WD40 on it and it is.....PASSABLE. Passable in the sense that it opens and closes. About as hard as it was the FIRST time it went bad.

Is this the best I can hope for? What about boiling it in butter? Lard? Oil? Molten lead?

Any, I mean ANY other ideas of what to do with this thing? I know what I'd LIKE to do, but don't want to go to the emergency room.

GRRRRRRRRRRR

:grumpy: :barf: :mad:

..........................

I can see light on the SIDES of the blade. Not much, but light, so I know the grip isn't binding. It just HAS to be the pivot. What is the pivot made of? Surely it is larger than the lil peened nail that holds it together. Is there a bushing inside?

help.
 
My native III is stiffer than I'd like. Maybe Sal will chime in offer some solution other than water washing. Are the new III's any better?
Still a good knife,
 
Sorry the water didn't work for you, worked for me :confused:

Have you tried militec yet? Maybe get it all cleaned up: remove all the oil, grease, butter, etc and then 3-4 applications of militec over the span of a few days.
http://www.militec-1.com/balisong.html

ot: my friend looked at my native III, said "how do you throw this?", then proceeded to throw it into the dirt :rolleyes:
 
This story, and others like it, is one reason why Spyderco should change from
a riveted pivot to an adjustable pivot screw. Right?

Manifest: That's funny, about the knife throwing. It's happened to me, also.
 
What about Dri-Slide or any of the Moly disulfide stuff? Other than not knowing who sells it, do you think it would work?

I just switched knives today back to my old soft Browning 734.

Can NOT put up with that binding POS Native. It ....works....now, but so much worse than when I got it (but didn't have the sense not to oil it) that I can't even stand to look at the thing.
 
Okay, here's an idea. Instead of lube, try some sort of light (water soluable!) abrasive compound, you know, jewler's rouge, toothpaste, etc. Get some down in the pivot on spend a good half hour working the blade around. That's what the good ol' boys aroud here would do if they wanted their Buck knife to snap open at the flick of a wrist. You probably don't want your's quite that loose, but you should at least be able to make it workable.
 
Hi Lavan. the III's were admittedly too tight. We're working on a fix, but that's still for future pieces. You might send it in, call it to my attention. We'll see what we can do.

sal
 
This is odd. My III came smooth and SLIGHTLY tight. I can now flick open, spyder drop etc. with reasonable effort and easily one hand open with either hand. Was there a QA issue with the pivots? Still I would have preferred something adjustable but UK penknife --> full disassembly. Yes I'm still anxious :)

Note: I haven't oiled or otherwise lubricated the knife.
 
Not much is going to help it except maybe storeing it half open.The spring is the problem.On the first runs the spring was to stong.I had a numbered one and it was as you descibe.I got a later model and it was much better.The blue forum model is ok too.
 
So recap: its a spring problem not a friction problem. Lube won't help.

I'm just wondering what sort of effect all this gunk is having :S
 
Yep its the spring.All the cleaning a lubeing shouldn't hurt.
 
u812......I even tried holding the spring IN and working the blade. Still bindy.

Sal.....I am sending it in. Hope you can find the problem.
 
Lavan:

You might try completely cleaning the thing of any lubricants you used before sending it in so Sal has something in good order to work with and observe.
 
I got a numbered one and it has loosened up from way too tight to nearly perfect in a couple of months of normal usage. Only problem is I can't open ANY of my Spydies for a while cuz I sliced my right thumb to the bone oiling a carbon steel stockman. Owww! :eek:
 
Sal, My Native III is too tight also, You can see my previous posts on the Native. Is there any point in sending my Native III in?
 
Hi Fudo. "Too tight" is a relative thing. I don't know that there is anything that I can do with the current pieces. I'll have to check out Lavans.

Sometimes customers expect lockbacks to be as easy as linerlocks to open, and this just can't happen and still have a safe knife.

I' doing an upgrade on the model, but no changes will occur until next year.

We have many customers that really like the "authority" of the Native III spring which provides for a very safe secure knife.

sal
 
I like the strong snap of lock backs,IMO the S30V Native could be a little stronger and I have heard that the newest ones are.The blue Native 3 I have is about perfect,feels like an endura on opening.The #ed black Native 3 would have my thumb sore with several openings.
 
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