Lock wear

Ah, but you have to consider that many cage drivers (especially the behemoth and luxo car crowd) drive like the proverberial old lady. Lateral accelleration confuses them, they panic and slow. "Worlds best driving machine," yea, if the driver can drive.

"There was a magazine article when the Evo first came to America. It completely owned a bike around the road course." Which bike? For road course work, a super-moto type bike would give it a good run. Sharp turns are a problem with many sporty bikes.

Don't follow the drag scene, but it's traction and rules keeping bikes back. Potential is there. Besides, I thought we were discussing street cars (which also knocks out the heavy moded cars like RUF and such).

Its physics that keeps bikes back. Poor drag coefficient, small contact patch with the road, etc. Weight and potential agility are the pluses.

And, it's also rich, stupid teenagers adding to the problem. Hanging around a college/university town, I've observed them driving race cars on the street. The best one yet, a guy had one set up for World Rally (roll cage and all).
 
Boy, this is gettin' way off topic.

On target.

Liner-locks due seem to be persnickity. So, again, test 'em before you trust 'em. And then test periodically to make sure (which shouldn't be a problem as you regularly maintain the piece).
 
See, there's the big diff. I'm a rich stupid post grad. Unfortunately, not as wealthy as some of the dumber richer folks available that can buy these Jeeps etc that I refer to.

Also, excellent point about the bike racers. In my mind, everything is street. Had these guys been pro, no doubt he wouldn't have backed off. But I do make sure to differentiate between a guy who races professionally but is still a n00b and a real pro.

One side of my breaks is finally dying and it is ridiculously disrupting my drifting. It was getting a little hectic on the course a couple nights back, but tonight it was worthless...the car get wayyy too sideways...I spent the entire time trying to keep it straight. I kept breaking too late and entering turns too fast, and I suspect that one of my binders just isn't putting enough out and it upset it in turns.
 
My better judgement tells me not to jump on the bandwagon here, but I'm going too.

I can't argue with people who've tested more knives than I will ever own. But I will say this. There was a time, not too far back because I'm not really that old, when your choices were pretty much liner locks or lock backs. A lot of folks swore to the superiority of the lock back over the liner lock. But there was one problem with it: flick it open too much and it would break. Liner locks were judged to be superior for self defense applications because of this. Now we hear that liner locks aren't that safe; that they fail in the very situations that a tactical knife is likely to encounter. I'm not going to argue with that, especially since I've seen a lot of these "tactical" folders and they look pretty dang weak and flimsy. If you ask me, the problems with liner locks are more of a problem with the ruggedness of most of the "tactical" knives out there. These knives are mostly plastic and thin steel. You can bend them with your hands. Something that flimsy is NOT suitable for self defense in my opinion. I don't care who makes the knife, how much it costs, or that its blade is made of latest "super steel". And whose bright idea was it to start making liner locks out of titanium alloys? Most titanium alloys wear faster than spring steel, or at least that's what folks tell me. People are way too caught up in how thin and light weight knives are these days. Anything intended to be "tactical" ought to be over-engineered. That generally means big, thick, and heavy. Ever heard of the term "soldier proof"? So that's my two cents worth. Now I'll shut up and let people talk about cars :rolleyes:
 
In regards to titanium, most good knife makers compensate by increasing the amount of titanium. While the similar amount of strength to a comparable steel will be lighter in the titanium version, it will also be thicker. This is my understanding. This seems to represented in the one titanium framelock I have, where the slabs are significantly thicker than the steel/G10 scales on my para.
 
For combat, I agree with over-engineered (which to me is engineered correctly).

I like the saying,"if you can't fix it with a hammer, it's too complicated." Similiarly, too fragile.

But , then again, a human can only comfortably carry so much weight. Lighter knives are more likely to be carried.

The KISS principle also applies. Less moving parts, less failure potential.

The liner-lock has the potential to be a great lock, and often is. But as has been pointed out previously, it has to be engineered AND manufactured correctly.

So, look at ones that work right and examine the locks on knives your thinking of purchasing.

Recently, an aquaintance showed me a liner-lock that failed spine tests miserably. Examination revealed a mirror polished contact area on the tang. A few rubs (cross-hatched) with a medium Spyderco stone appears to have fixed the problem (hopefully for good).

Not a big fan of the liner lock, but they are so popular we might as well live with them and determine the "why"s of failures.
 
It is all about the ANGLE. A steep grind on the blade tang will not hold as effectively. Materials do matter, but the execution of the design matters more. The only linerlock knife I currently have is the new Foster's 1911 and it has a LAWKs secondary lock. The LAWKs works like a charm on this knife. I've had a Lone Wolf and a couple of CRK&T's with the LAWKs and they did not work as they should have. Never could find the right tension as the lock was either to loose, or to tight to engage.

As far as the concept of the LAWKs, it was designed by Ron Lake (LA) and Michael Walker (WK). If you remember, it was Michael Walker who "invented" the current liner lock. I suppose that he may have had some concerns about the lock or he wanted to make the linerlock the best it could be. With the LAWKs engaged it would take a tremendous amount of pressure to break it.
 
I like bikes too, but I wanted the SRT-4 versus, say, a used 350Z or another 2-seat sports car, because of the extra seats and cargo space. So a bike, though faster and cheaper, wouldn't work. For the money, bikes destroy cars. But cars have more potential (though cars usually only surpass bikes when tons of money is involved, of when comparing purpose-built race examples of each- such as F1 versus Moto GP). None of that matters, though, since I need something fun that can carry 5 people or several guitars, amps, and speaker cabs.

Anythewho, I think it is funny that framelocks are trusted and linerlocks are not. I understand the advantages of the framelock (less chance of slipping when white-knuckling since you actually push the lock further across the tang, and usually more material/thickness touching the tang for more friction), but I think they are not all *THAT* important. In other words, yes I think framelocks are better than linerlocks, all other things equal. But things are rarely equal, and I know that many linerlocks are better than many framelocks because of the rest of the knife isn't equal. The framelock on my Leek sure isn't as strong as the linerlock on my SERE 2000. Yes, they are totally different knives... but it is silly that some people will distrust the SERE and will trust the Leek just because of the names of the locks, rather than their actual merit.

In other words (again), I think the advantages of the framelock can be overriden by, or less signifigant than, other elements of the knife and the lockbar/tang contact. So a framelock (versus a liner lock) is an advantage, but not an end-all be-all, and not the last word on which knife has a stronger lock.
 
Well, as stupid and ignorant as I am, I'm going to stick with the Axis lock from Benchmade. :)

As far as cars go, I'll just stick with my non-race Honda Accord, or non-race GM or Ford. :)

Besides, I like to ride my bicycle (the pedal kind).
 
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