Lateral movement on folders?

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Guardrail

Joined
Jun 6, 2005
Messages
122
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What is considered acceptable lateral movement on a folder? I have a Trident that has about 1/16 of an inch wiggle at the end of the blade and have never used it hard. I've tightened the hex and all it does is slow the SAT a bit. I've never owned any other brand folders like Benchmade, Spyderco etc.. so I'm not sure how to compare it to them.

TIA!
 
Out of curiousity, why doesn't the Trident Folder have a stainless liners near the pivot for strength?

Was it done for cost purposes or was their a specific design need that benefited from not having them.
I suppose this is a queston for one of the SOG guys.

TIA,

-Guard...
 
My Trident TF-3 tigershark folder has a little lateral movement as well. I believe this is normal for that model because I inspected three or four of the same model before I purchased mine, and they all had a little lateral blade movement. :)
 
Guardrail

From our experiences with the Flash, which uses the same handle material, we decided that liners near the pivot were not necessary. The Zytel around the pivot area is very think and almost impossible to damage. To date I do not know of any knife Flash or Trident folder with damage near the pivot that liners would have helped. The knives we get back with damage in that area have been run over by a car or something catastrophic like that.

Chris
 
I have a Trident and I know of two others who have one. All of these knives have play in the blades about 3mm at the tip. It seems that all the knives mentioned in this thread have the same condition. Is this a design flaw or intentional. Tightening the pivot screw only slows the blade like mentioned. I have a Benchmade Apparition and a Kershaw Leek and neither has any blade movement.
 
Tac,

I sent mine in for warranty a few weeks back. When it returns I'll let you know how it came out.

Cheers!
 
Guardrail said:
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What is considered acceptable lateral movement on a folder? I have a Trident that has about 1/16 of an inch wiggle at the end of the blade and have never used it hard. I've tightened the hex and all it does is slow the SAT a bit. I've never owned any other brand folders like Benchmade, Spyderco etc.. so I'm not sure how to compare it to them.

TIA!
Click to expand...
Some side to side play is normal. To get the assisted action to work correctly, that play must be there. If I remember correctly, it has something to do with where the spring mechanism needs to be to work correctly (it's located along side the blade, between the blade and the liner). There's just no way to have those parts in that location and not have some blade wiggle. The play does not effect the function or stability of the knife. Trust me, SOG worked a long time to get that action correct. If you tightened it up, you'll mess up the "assist"...and the blade play may not go away.

[I saw this post right after writing this response to someone else in another thread...so this is just a cut-n-paste from there...saves time.] :)
 
Much appreciated for the info. I thought it may have been intentional to have some minor play. I know comparing it to other brands isn't relevant as the internal mechanism is different. I've been a SOG fan for too long to think that a junk product would ever be produced. It's been many moons since I wrote in these forums and any SOG question I had was answered by Ron. Now that Ron seems to have left SOG he still answers questions. Cheers mate.
 
Just a quick update. I got my Trident back and like always they took good care of me. They replaced the torsion spring and gave it a fresh edge. It has a very slight movement now, but nothing what it was before.

Cheers!
 
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