Large Regular Sebenza Review

Kevin, CK uses a half moon shape on their blade to fit "around" the stop pin.
 
Chris is one of the ones I had in mind who do it this way. I haven't been able to really figure out how much that helps and it also means one must standardize the stop pin diameter for every knife.

My knives, for example, have only limited parts interchangibility between knives, even the same model knife. Other than the pivots, screws and clips pretty much each part is made and fitted to the one knife.


BTW, my comments in this thread aren't meant to excuse those who build shoddy knives. Any knife should be usable as a knife! Some knives are certainly better made and designed than others.

AND I sure DO NOT think Chris Reeve or Spyderco build anything but very finely engineered knives of superb quality! I own knives from both companies!!

Hard use = higher failure rates and more wear and tear of the equipment.
 
Well, OK Brownshoe, having taken the suggested chill pill, I now, very calmly ask you, what production knife or knives do you believe exhibit a higher level of fit and finish, and consistantly so, than a Sebenza? Now, remember, I am not talking about personal preferences here, which include things like: tip up/down, blade shapes, handle ergos, visual design, etc, what I am talking about is simply the quality of the knife, ie. materials, F&F, smoothness/precision, knife to knife consistancy and attrention to detail, which production knives are you claiming are superior to the Sebenza in these regards? I have yet to see a production knife in the same league as the Sebenza in these areas, let alone superior, but maybe you are aware of one I am not?
 
Kevin Wilkins said:
Some simple "reverse engineering" should suffice there! There aren't any big secrets in heat treating and there aren't that many stainless steels to choose from either. The solution to the problem of a round stop pin contacting against a flat blade rear is tough. You need to increase the contact point from a tiny tangent on the stop pin. Some use a rounded contact surface on the blade, but I don't know how much this really helps.
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I didn't see the particular thread so I wasn't sure what the "better idea" was on the stop pin. I still think that is one area when it comes to folders that has not been tinkered with enough on the design side of things. A lot of folks don't like liner locks and that's one lock I have always liked for the type of work we do - pretty easy to keep clean and doesn't clog up too much when it comes to nasty conditions. My bitch has always been with stop pins and pivot pins. If you can get those two parts of the equation more precise and better designed then a lot of the liner lock problems would go away.

Jeff
 
That's right, don't hold back Brownshoe. I would also like to know of all the superior production knives that surpass the Sebenza. Oh yeah, and make mine a dedicated left hand openning framelock. I think you might be able to save me a whole lot of money! :rolleyes:
 
R.A.T. said:
My bitch has always been with stop pins and pivot pins. If you can get those two parts of the equation more precise and better designed then a lot of the liner lock problems would go away.
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What do you think of Darrell Ralph's Maxx design, where the thumbstuds act as stop pins? This would have two pins impacting twice or more the surface than a blade, since they hit the handle slabs.
 
Esav,

I think it's a better idea than what we normally see with the blade hitting on a small portion of a small stop pin.

Ken Onion's new lock (not sure what he calls it) uses the thumstuds on the blade as both a lock and a stop. It's the best lock design/idea I have seen yet. The only way it can fail is to shear the pin. Not sure if Kershaw has it out yet in production.

I also like the idea of radiusing the stop portion of the tang where it contacts the stop pin for a larger contact area. Also, if you can get the stop pin as far away from the pivot pin as possible then the force on the stop pin decreases drastically.

Jeff
 
I should have run through my knives before that last post :) The Strider SnG also uses dual thumbstuds as blade stops, against radiused handle slab contact points.

Bob Dozier's tab lock is even better: it's a liner lock that contacts the full height of the tang, serving as lock and stop bar together.
 
I think there are a lot of good designs and designers out there. I like folks who think outside of the box and try to build a better mousetrap, instead of just copying something someone else does and calling it "new."
 
Esav Benyamin said:
I should have run through my knives before that last post :) The Strider SnG also uses dual thumbstuds as blade stops, against radiused handle slab contact points.

Bob Dozier's tab lock is even better: it's a liner lock that contacts the full height of the tang, serving as lock and stop bar together.
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Esav, well, yes and no. The thumb studs aren't really thumb studs, they are dedicated stop pins, at least according to Strider, who designed the SnG/SMF to be opened with the hole. Some use those stop as studs, but it's not their intended use.

Secondly, on most SnG's and SMF's, only one of those stops really contacts the handle, and generally, there is a small gap between one stop and the handle cutout it rests in, but, I still think this is a stronger design than the conventional cross pin stop, and even though only one pin is actually contacting the handle, if that one should fail, or budge for any reason, the other would kick in at some point.
 
OK, I just reached into my pocket and pulled out my SnG. Snapped open the blade by pushing on the ... stop pins :) Both of them either contact the handle slabs together or one misses by a microscopic distance.

I understand what you're saying, but they look like thumbstuds, so that's as good a name for them as any, especially since they work as thumbstuds also, and they both do come close to hitting the handles together, so if one does first, the other will soon do it too, once the first contacter wears down a bit.

Anyway, it's the idea of pins external to the blade rather than internal to the handle that I was noticing. The CUDA Maxx "thumbstuds" are so closely tucked in to the handle that I cannot use them to open the blade, and always use the flipper/guard.
 
I've wondered how well the knives using the thumbstud (or similiar) and the frame of the knife as stop pin device would hold up to slinging the blade open? You should have more contact area but the frame is bound to be softer than the stubs so I wonder about battering damage to the frame. The amount of deformation doesnt need to be much to change the lockup of the knife. Do any of these knves have hardened insets in the fame at the contact point with the thunbstuds?

Isn't one side of the frame on the Striders made of G-10? If so, I dont think you want to use that as the contact point for the thumb stud type stop device. Maybe that's why it only contacts on one side? I have never had a chance to examine any Strider folder other than an AR.
 
Neither the Maxx nor the SnG have hardened inserts. Both are titanium handled framelocks, the SnG being one side titanium. On both, the studs rest in a radiused recess on the handle. The studs on the Maxx are almost twice the diameter of those on the SnG. Both are good sellers, out there in real world use, with no mention that I've heard of about the lock shifting. (I may just be hard of hearing :) )
 
Kevin Wilkins said:
I've wondered how well the knives using the thumbstud (or similiar) and the frame of the knife as stop pin device would hold up to slinging the blade open? You should have more contact area but the frame is bound to be softer than the stubs so I wonder about battering damage to the frame. The amount of deformation doesnt need to be much to change the lockup of the knife. Do any of these knves have hardened insets in the fame at the contact point with the thunbstuds?
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The new Onion lock actually uses an angled portion of the frame that the studs ride up and over to lock. If any wear occurs it will not change how tight it locks up because the thumbstud/lock just moves a little further back on the taper and lockup is still tight
 
The Onion design sounds really cool, are there any pics out there?
 
Hi Esav.

FYI. I had a knife made by Butch Vallotin that had dual thumbstuds that used the scale as a stop. It was at least 10 years ago.

sal
 
Sal, thumbstuds are really handy. On the Extrema Ratio folders, the thumbstuds are also the kick: they contact the frame when the blade is closed to keep the edge from bumping into the inside of the handle and dulling itself.

See, if you didn't use that funny little opening hole, you might never have had to come up with the ball lock, the compression lock ... :D
 
Scott Dog said:
Can someone give me a reasonable explanation as to why flipping open a folder is so important.
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It comes up constantly on the tactical forums mainly for speed, and it has other applications for opening in other conditions where fine motor skills are not possible. Recently around here the temp has dropped and in such conditions manipulating thumbs studs and similar can be difficult, but its still readily possible to snap out a blade.

The point it ridiculus in the extreme as you have a folder costing 10x entry level production sticking abuse clauses on actions the lower level knives are designed to take - and it claims to be for the same level, or higher tasks. Its not like the Sebenza is promoted as a light use paper cutter. It gets the hard use label - which is the problem as Brownshoe noted.

For x-mas I got, as is common, a number of small inexpensive knives (<$5). One of them is a made in Taiwan liner lock. The blade was flicked open 500 times, it stops against a *plastic* backstop - yes plastic. The blade has no play. I then spine whacked it off of clear pine 5 times leaving dents in the pine. The blade has no play and still locks securely.

Now consider that these two uses get abusive claims from the Sebenza. This is the problem. You can't simply look at what a product offers but what its competition does as well. As for saying that you can do it, but its just noted covered. Promoting knife use which is not covered by warrenty is simply hype. This is what the knife can do - however you can't actually test this yourself without voiding the warrenty. The only meaningful performance claims are those covered by the manufacturer *UNDER* the warrenty.

Sal of course you can break anything. I recently bought two video games for my brother, the store I shop from offers a one year full warrenty on their CD's, including large scratches. The one year scratch warrenty is a hell of a safety net, especially when you have younger kids borrowing games from time to time. Is it abusive to scratch up a CD, yeah, in this case the abuse doesn't even void the warrenty. The games by the way are not cheap, high end games are ~$75 a shot.

There is a valid point in regards to the amount of force, not so much with flicking as you can only humanly exert so much force, and unless you are faster than Bruce Lee, this isn't much because the inertia of the blade is small. Now if you really bump the blade size up like Ralph has done on 6" folders, the impact energies get larger, but it isn't a problem for his knives - thus they are superior in design, which means the Sebenza is inferior in that respect.

As for Spine Whacking, if you extend spine whacking up to the work Harvey has done, its pretty heavy indeed. However even here, he has tested lots of high end folders which stand it fine, so again the marekt has superior folders which can take such impacts. So have other people by the way, he was just one of the first to do full speed high energy impacts and post about them so he should get the nod for starting that type of lock testing in my viewpoint.

So again, you have to look at what else it out there, this is where the inferior/superior claim can be made. What does a product offer *compared* to the rest of the market.

-Cliff
 
It comes up constantly on the tactical forums mainly for speed, and it has other applications for opening in other conditions where fine motor skills are not possible. Recently around here the temp has dropped and in such conditions manipulating thumbs studs and similar can be difficult, but its still readily possible to snap out a blade.
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Have humans really become such wimps that we can't open a folding knife if the temp has dropped to whatever temp it is that you are referring to? What the heck did our forefathers do when they needed to open their pocket knives? They certainly didn't flick open their slip-joints! If people are really becoming that big of pansies, maybe they ought to get themselves a fixed blade. No flicking necessary and you can whack the spine to hearts content.

It seems Cliff, that you have a beef with Chris Reeve, as you are always bashing his product. If I remember correctly, Chris has designed several models of knives that are intended to be abused... They all have hollow handles. Chris did what any intelligent maker would do... Design a knife for it's intended purpose! Your comments remind me of an old friend that thought his Jeep was a Dune Buggy. He was jumping it every chance he got and generally driving it like a dumb A$$. When he finally bent it's axels, guess what the dealership told him... NOT COVERED DUE TO ABUSE! Knives as well as anything else should be judged what they are designed to do not what you or anyone else deems they should do. It you have a problem with Chris's knives why don't you ask him what it's intended purpose is and let us all know so that we don't have to read a bunch of pumped up, misleading, un-backed information. But then that would end your little game wouldn't it? Never mind!
 
So if I understand Cliff's argument, a $2000 Warenski , which costs 50 times more then a $40 CRKT, should have no trouble standing up to some spine whacks and flicking and what not? That's a perfectly valid thing to do then?
 
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