Lil LionSpy

[50an6xy06r6n]

I just received my Lil Lionspy - I think it's a really well built knife.

I do have a question, however.

Is the detent supposed to be as WEAK as it is? I backed the pivot off to make it a bit faster so I could "flick" it, and the ultra-weak detent makes that difficult. I can see the detent ball just *barely* falls in the shallow detent well in the blade - like if that detent well was deeper, for better detent ball engagement, that would fix the "problem."

Before I do anything drastic like disassembling and attempting to modify the knife, I want to make sure that this is how it comes from the factory and isn't defective.

I can pretty easily snap the blade out by flicking my wrist with the blade fully closed and only holding the scales (not engaging the thumb hole at all.)

Thanks.

I don't think the detent is really that weak. At least on mine I feel like it more has to do with the fact that the relative positioning of the spyderhole and pivot that doesn't let you build up enough force in your thumb (I assume you're using your thumb) to flick it all the way out before the detent breaks. I can't flick it out with my thumb, but I can spyderflick it very consistently. Makes a satisfying popping when the lock engages too (I think the G10 helps with that).

 

[OmarShablotnik]

I don't think the detent is really that weak. At least on mine I feel like it more has to do with the fact that the relative positioning of the spyderhole and pivot that doesn't let you build up enough force in your thumb (I assume you're using your thumb) to flick it all the way out before the detent breaks. I can't flick it out with my thumb, but I can spyderflick it very consistently. Makes a satisfying popping when the lock engages too (I think the G10 helps with that).

For me, it's definitely the detent. I can pop it with my thumb quite easily. It's the middle finger back-side spydie flick that I have to hold and concentrate on to get to work. Again, because the detent is sooooooooo weak on mine.

Now. About the geometry of the spydie hole vs the pivot. As an engineer, I could sit here and talk about that for a long time. In short - that's not it; or, at least, it shouldn't be on a well executed knife. I suspect that the sizes of our hands and what makes a comfortable deploying grip is quite different. So the geometry works for you on that spydie flick. It doesn't for me. However, a better-than-poor detent would allow the force to load and deploy the knife well the way I do it. Again, I could expound on this for a while. LOL

 

[50an6xy06r6n]

For me, it's definitely the detent. I can pop it with my thumb quite easily. It's the middle finger back-side spydie flick that I have to hold and concentrate on to get to work. Again, because the detent is sooooooooo weak on mine.

Now. About the geometry of the spydie hole vs the pivot. As an engineer, I could sit here and talk about that for a long time. In short - that's not it; or, at least, it shouldn't be on a well executed knife. I suspect that the sizes of our hands and what makes a comfortable deploying grip is quite different. So the geometry works for you on that spydie flick. It doesn't for me. However, a better-than-poor detent would allow the force to load and deploy the knife well the way I do it. Again, I could expound on this for a while. LOL

Hmm... The fact that your ability to flick the blade out is the opposite of mine certainly seems to indicate that it mostly has to do with either the detent or our respective hand sizes/grips.

However as another engineer I'd like to respectfully disagree regarding the positioning of the spyderhole and the pivot. While the lateral load that the detent can bear before breaking will always be the same (unless you push on the lockbar, which is another grip thing), the force you actually build up in your finger before the blade pops out will vary depending on the angle between the direction you're pushing and the direction of the pivot (with relation to your finger). In the instant after you break the detent, your finger will still be in contact with the spyderhole and consequently still pushing the blade out.

While a perfect detent might require less contact time, done positive amount of contact time is still required to impart the energy required to open the blade all the way (work = force × distance, roughly).

But anyway, if the angle mentioned above is smaller, you build up more force in your finger (force = detentForce/sin(angle)), which necessitates a shorter travel distance (Also, as the blade deploys, the force component going in the direction of travel increases drastically (and even more drastically depending on that angle; the relationship is a cosine)). This is significant because the while point of the flick is that you're not pushing the blade open the whole time; you give it a short push and our flies out the rest of the way itself. This is something I've noted from flicking knives out over the years: if you push towards the pivot, it flies out more readily. (Note: I was able to thumb flick the Lil Lionspy by sticking my thumb through the hole rather than just using the pad to increase contact time)

Aaaaanyway TL;DR is that I still think angle matters. If there's a flaw in the reasoning I'd love to hear it

Cheers, and enjoy the knife flicking!

 

[OmarShablotnik]

So great to talk to someone who speaks my language!

Alright, here goes my thinking.

If the direction of your deploying force (the line that your finger or thumb travels when making the flicking motion) is perfectly perpendicular to the lever/moment arm - or the radial line between your finger/thumb contact point with the spydie hole and the pivot - then the force applied is a torque force to induce rotation. The build up of that torque force is resisted solely by the detent. Build up enough force with the detent that when it breaks there's enough torque in play to snap the blade open through its resistive forces (friction on the pivot, moment of inertia, etc) The length of the lever arm is linearly multiplicative of the torque force, all that. Ok, I think we're on the same page. I'm 100% on board with your descriptions and assessments and find it refreshing that I don't have to explain the second part about a nice acute angle and how that's handy because the net force has to start higher to get it moving then rapidly increases as the force continues to be applied and the angle changes as the blade starts to move.

Now, all of that said, my comfortable thumb flicking grip applies the deploying force at a nice acute angle to the lever arm, inducing the action that you describe in your paragraph regarding the smaller angle. Conversely (and again, due to the size of my hands and muscle memory from flicking other knives, etc,) my comfortable grip for middle finger flicking is much closer to perpendicular to the moment arm. Therefore the force buildup is much more dependent on the detent - hence my desire for a stronger one.