lock backs question

[RescueRiley]

Greetings all, I'm usuallyover on the widerness and survival training forum but I have a couple of questions and thought I'd pay you guys a visit...I spend alot of time in the woods, hiking fishing hunting bumming around, I'm very selfconcious about carrying a fixed blade as I have recieved some negative comments from people on the trail, I'm not talking about a rambo knife either more like a mora...well any way I recently purchased a buck 112 I had one when I was a kid and loved it. I realize now why I loved it so much it feels really great in my hand. However there is a very miniscule bit of play in the blade when in the locked position. It's a small bit most people wouldn;t even notice it, but I'm ocd about knives..My question is whether or not it is normal to have a small amount of play in lock back knives? whether it will weaken the knife over time, and whether it'll worsen? I notice on my my schrade and victorinox slipjoints there is no play but they are nonlocking And I think need to be snug by virtue of design. any help would be great thanks.

 

[flyfishrman]

Alot of knives with one handed opening features have a bit of play. In my opinion the less the better and none is the best. Not much reason for a two handed opener like your Buck to have blade play. It should open nicely and lock up like a vault. As with anything else you can take 10 of the same knife straight off of the store shelf and they will all walk and talk a bit differently. One way to make sure that you get exactly what you want is to ask the store clerk to pull out every knife in the pattern you are interested in buying. Take them all out open and close them, inspect how well the blade is centered between the liners, check how seamless the blade fits against the backspring when open, blade play etc. Don't drop your hard earned dough unless you're getting exactly what you want. If you just can't find what you want there are a whole lot of talented custom makers that would take good care of you! Probably not a lot of help, but my two cents none the less.

 

[yablanowitz]

A small amount of vertical play is pretty common. Often it is caused by the clearances between the pins and the holes on the blade and lockbar pivots. Open the knife, rest the edge on a firm disposable surface such as cardboard or an old magazine and press down firmly while watching the blade/lockbar joint. Usually when I do this, I find the blade and lockbar are moving up as a unit, and spring tension on the lockbar moves the blade back the other way when pressure is released.

Normal wear from opening and closing the knife will cause this play to increase over time. How much it increases is another matter. Some knives never develop noticeable play, others get unusable, especially if they start with a lot of slop.

You can avoid the problem altogether by spending enough money on the knife to get one fitted tightly. Mass produced knives have to have larger clearances to speed the assembly process, customs and semi-customs don't.

 

[Mick57]

I'd post this over in the Buck forum or do a search there. You'll get plenty of responses from the Buckeroos concerning this.