Leafstorm

65535

65535

Joined
Mar 14, 2007
Messages
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Has anyone experience an almost gritty or coarse feel when opening and closing their leafstorm? It seems to be the detent ball sliding across the blade which has a semi rough grind on it, I imagine it'll wear in fine, but just curious if anyone experienced it.
 
Mine has been smooth.

Did you try flushing with a few drops of lube? Sometimes a bit of "dirt" from the factory is left in the pivot area of knives.
 
You have to flick it a lot.
Let me borrow it for a day and it will be silky smooth.:p
 
I've found that alot of my knives with Ti framelock or Ti liner locks have this same problem. Now I don't own a Leafstorm (yet) but I will say that I've had the problem with a MT LCC, Small Sebenza, and a Kershaw SG2/Ti. I've tried working it out on all of them by constant opening and closing. Sometimes it makes the grinding worse. In the case of the Small Sebenza, I had to send the knife back to CRK. When I did this I ordered a tube of their flourinated grease as well. When I received the knife back from CRK it was silky smooth. I decided that I'd open all my "grindy" knives and lube with the flourinated grease. Not one of them makes a grinding sound now. A bit o grease on the washers, a dot on the detent ball bearing, and a small smudge in the area where the detent passes over the blade and everything is silky smooth and silent now. It's a been a few weeks since I applied the grease and I still have no problem. Even after EDCing the Sebbie for that time, and I'm sure a bunch of dirt and debris has found it's way into the knife, the knife is still smooth and grind free. I thought that $15 was bit much for a couple measly ounces of grease, but man this stuff is worth it!
 
I agree with the Ti connection. I have encountered that feeling in several Ti knives but they all seem to smooth out after time
 
Ti frame has nothing to do with grinding noise. you will notice same "roughness" on a damascus blade frame lock.

Both of the LeafStorms I bought exhibit the same roughness/grinding noise. One is better than the other. When disassembled you can see where Spyderco has manually polished the grind marks to try and eliminate this grinding noise, but some are better than others.

Detent ball looks like hardened steel ball rather than ceramic ball like Sebenza.On a Sebenza the ceramic ball wears a circular "ball race" on the blade for super smoothness. After a couple of weeks of use my LeafStorm is smoothing out but no groove in blade yet and probably won't see one. I'm guessing ball and blade are same hardness.

Update: I guess ball must be slightly harder than blade as I am starting to see a very tiny circular groove showing on blade tang.
 
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My leaf storm is a bit gritty as well. I've used it for 2 weeks and its starting to go away.:thumbup:
 
That detent ball needs lubing...just as important as lubing pivot. A grease type lube works best and you don't want too much as it will attract pocket lint and grit.

What I have found that works best is rubbing a bit of lube on both sides of a business card and working it between ball and blade while holding lock bar open a bit.
 
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