Large Vantage 20CV lock face

D

David Richardson

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I had the great idea recently to swap the liners of my Large Vantage in 20CV to an older screwed set (rather than pinned). The 20CV blade has 2 washers and is easier to re-assemble with screed liners. And I just prefer them.

Not possible. I tried with an older set of liners. The lock would not engage. Then I tried another set. Nope. Then I tired a modern set of liners. Still won't work. The lock face on the 20CV blade is larger than on the others. Seems odd that Buck would change the machining for the blade and the liners for a small run of knives.

20CV blade is in the middle. FYI, from left to right the blades are S35VN, S30V, 20CV, 13C26, and 420HC.

QGsgdKa.jpg
 
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Nice photo showing the machining differences. As is required during factory assembly, fine tuning the lock interface might be needed. By the sounds of it, the liner is not able to travel onto the tang at all. So you might need to file the blade tang slowly and evenly to achieve the proper lockup. But, by doing so you probably won't be able to put that blade back in its original liner. It would surely have too much travel and late lockup.
 
plb said:
Nice photo showing the machining differences. As is required during factory assembly, fine tuning the lock interface might be needed. By the sounds of it, the liner is not able to travel onto the tang at all. So you might need to file the blade tang slowly and evenly to achieve the proper lockup. But, by doing so you probably won't be able to put that blade back in its original liner. It would surely have too much travel and late lockup.
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Interesting - you're thinking it's a tuning issue. I honestly had not considered that. This is far enough off from the other blades I assumed it was intentionally machined differently. I'd be a little surprised if their manufacturing allowed this much variation.

But if so I could see them having liners with different lock bar lengths to allow for machining differences in the blades (like a small, medium, large situation). I used to work at a tool maker and I get that things change as your tooling gets worn and parts can go out of spec or get to the acceptable margin. Given this was a small run maybe they used older tooling that has some wear? Wild guess on my part.

jbmonkey said:
will the other steels fit and work?
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In the 20CV liners? Yes, but they're well past where most of us want to see lockup. So they work but not in a way most of us would consider acceptable.

I always assumed any Vantage blade would fit into any Vantage liners. Bad assumption (and expectation) on my part.
 
thanks for the info. yes Sir. that way.

I'm thinking since the 20cv vantage was a small special run for a particular dealer, maybe the specs were a bit different. maybe the dealer asked for earlier lockup or something spec wise for less return potential? im making that up as in just guessing with no facts.
 
jbmonkey said:
thanks for the info. yes Sir. that way.

I'm thinking since the 20cv vantage was a small special run for a particular dealer, maybe the specs were a bit different. maybe the dealer asked for earlier lockup or something spec wise for less return potential? im making that up as in just guessing with no facts.
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Could be. The lockup on my 20CV version isn't significantly earlier than most other Vantages I've had. I do have one with very late lockup.

Changing their machining specs for a small run doesn't make a lot of sense. I'm thinking plb's idea that this is just a machining difference makes the most sense, despite being a significant difference.
 
We made an across the board change to the way we cut our lock surfaces a couple years back. This resulted in a much better lock strength and more consistency in where the liner falls on the lock. Every run is set up to the model we are making to account for variances in materials and blade sizing. There would be a good chance that new lock style would be swappable with new lock styles, but old vs new is a slim chance.

Jeff
 
Thanks for the reply and explanation, Jeff. Most of my other Vantages are certainly more than 2 years old, so this all makes sense.

I have a newer 420HC Vantage, but of course that will have pinned liners. Sounds like getting the 20CV blade into non-pinned liners isn't an option. Not an issue at all and will not affect the satisfaction I get from that 20CV Vantage.

Great example of Buck support going over and above.
 
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Thanks Jeff for setting us straight. I would be interested in knowing why in David's photo the tangs are so different. Are the 420hc blades fine-blanked and the other, harder steels plasma cut or water jetted?
 
Having been in a bus manufacturing plant working in the design and setups for prototypes with engineers I learned there was a reason why they are made a certain way from one variant to another. I know it’s not the same as a folding liner lock flipper pocket knife but there’s probably some similarities. In a Pocket knife the tolerances are very small in the 1/1000 of an inch degree and the lock face is a critical point as well as the pivot for it to function properly. I don’t know but I can imagine that the difference in the parts of pinned models and the screwed together models has much to do with the design limits and to eliminate problems of mis-assembly and mis-adjustments. I know there was a lot of complaints early on of blade alignment/centering for the vantage model and had nothing to do with function or defects. I think of blade centering about the same as parting hair. It’s left, right or center and has no effect on health and well being, it’s a personal preference and mostly psychological. Lol
 
I successfully installed my 20CV blade and micarta scales into an older screwed frame from an S30V pro. No filing, it just worked. Photos if necessary.

Perhaps the different end grinds (the half circle cutouts) are there to identify the blade material prior to finishing. This was true for another model. Could be for aerodynamics too... but what do I know...:rolleyes:
 
MT_Pokt said:
I successfully installed my 20CV blade and micarta scales into an older screwed frame from an S30V pro. No filing, it just worked. Photos if necessary.

Perhaps the different end grinds (the half circle cutouts) are there to identify the blade material prior to finishing. This was true for another model. Could be for aerodynamics too... but what do I know...:rolleyes:
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I had thought about what you did with mine but after taking it apart, cleaning lubing and tuning it, it works great so I kept it in the pinned frame. It’s a great knife! I wish they made one with a 3.6 inch blade.
 
Lesknife said:
Having been in a bus manufacturing plant working in the design and setups for prototypes with engineers I learned there was a reason why they are made a certain way from one variant to another. I know it’s not the same as a folding liner lock flipper pocket knife but there’s probably some similarities. In a Pocket knife the tolerances are very small in the 1/1000 of an inch degree and the lock face is a critical point as well as the pivot for it to function properly. I don’t know but I can imagine that the difference in the parts of pinned models and the screwed together models has much to do with the design limits and to eliminate problems of mis-assembly and mis-adjustments. I know there was a lot of complaints early on of blade alignment/centering for the vantage model and had nothing to do with function or defects. I think of blade centering about the same as parting hair. It’s left, right or center and has no effect on health and well being, it’s a personal preference and mostly psychological. Lol
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I should have been more clear. Most of those blades came out of pinned models. I have a few more and can remove all my Vantage blades and compare those from pinned to non-pinned liners if that's helpful.

MT_Pokt said:
I successfully installed my 20CV blade and micarta scales into an older screwed frame from an S30V pro. No filing, it just worked. Photos if necessary.

Perhaps the different end grinds (the half circle cutouts) are there to identify the blade material prior to finishing. This was true for another model. Could be for aerodynamics too... but what do I know...:rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Very interesting and thanks for sharing that info. I have another 20CV Vantage that's NIB so I didn't want to disassemble it. I'll try with that one. I'll also check my other pinned and unpinned liners. May be a few days before I can make time for this.
 
David Richardson said:
I had the great idea recently to swap the liners of my Large Vantage in 20CV to an older screwed set (rather than pinned). The 20CV blade has 2 washers and is easier to re-assemble with screed liners. And I just prefer them.

Not possible. I tried with an older set of liners. The lock would not engage. Then I tried another set. Nope. Then I tired a modern set of liners. Still won't work. The lock face on the 20CV blade is larger than on the others. Seems odd that Buck would change the machining for the blade and the liners for a small run of knives.

20CV blade is in the middle. FYI, from left to right the blades are S35VN, S30V, 20CV, 13C26, and 420HC.

QGsgdKa.jpg
Click to expand...
Not sure why the reliefs on the non-420 version. I believe it had to do with not hitting the corner of the wheel that makes the lock surface, but not sure. That doesn't explain why the 420 version does not have it. I think the 2 reliefs on the blades were material marks that never got removed/updated when we changed how we ID the material on raw blades. ymmv
 
Lesknife said:
I had thought about what you did with mine but after taking it apart, cleaning lubing and tuning it, it works great so I kept it in the pinned frame. It’s a great knife! I wish they made one with a 3.6 inch blade.
Click to expand...

I'd go for a bigger version too, but I was surprised when I compared the Vantage large select to the 112 slim select:



The Vantage blade kinda dwarfs the 112. The Vantage is 4.0 oz and the 112 is 2.6 oz. Imagine how heavy a scaled up Vantage would be.
 
J Hubbard said:
Not sure why the reliefs on the non-420 version. I believe it had to do with not hitting the corner of the wheel that makes the lock surface, but not sure. That doesn't explain why the 420 version does not have it. I think the 2 reliefs on the blades were material marks that never got removed/updated when we changed how we ID the material on raw blades. ymmv
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Mr. Hubbard, what is your "new" method of identifying raw blade steel? PMI gun?
 
Interesting. None of the blades I have disassembled have these holes. They must all be more recent. The only Vantages I have and know to be older are 420HC, so they won't have holes either.
 
David Richardson said:
Interesting. None of the blades I have disassembled have these holes. They must all be more recent. The only Vantages I have and know to be older are 420HC, so they won't have holes either.
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The vantage has divots on the back just above the lock face to id the metal. The holes are in the 110 blade as the back of the 110 is the slip surface for the back spring lock.
 
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