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Military liner material
- Thread starter bitter1
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Is it okay if I keep believing it is Ti 
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2009
- Messages
- 2,932
Thanks knifenut!
Your statement inspired me to educate myself a little. I did a search about titanium performance in locks compared to stainless.
Its an oldy but a goody: http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=270980&highlight=titanium+performance+lock
To be honest, I had previously thought that titanium was a be all end all kind of material.
For some applications, yes. but when you're not worried about weight, corrosion, or bragging rights it's usually better to just stick with steel.
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The liners are stainless steel. My guess is that they are 410 stainless steel.
A magnet will stick to the liners of a Spyderco Military.
The frame lock Military is titanium.
Titanium brings a lot to the table. Titanium is lighter in weight than stainless steel and in a beefy frame lock this is a bigger deal than in a liner lock although the weight difference in a bigger knife can still be significant at times in some folders that are stainless. Titanium allows anodizing if one so wishes to make their folder a color. Titanium tends to stick or have a galling tendency to dissimilar metals and itself so an otherwise iffy lock contact can still work and work quite well if the lock is titanium since it is so forgiving for what some would call a bad contact angle or type. Stainless is not as forgiving for a bad contact at all so the fact that Spyderco uses stainless tells you that they focus and pay attention to the small specifics of lock contact relationship in the mating of the lock to the blade to make it work so well.
Corrosion resistance is another thing ti brings to the table but for most all applications stainless steel like those used in liners holds up quite well so its really not much of an advantage unless you hang around a lot of salt water. Ti will resist a lot of chemicals, acids and so on as well as tolerate extremes of temperatures better than steel. Ti also has a very good memory so the titanium locks tend to snap back to shape in extreme situations where a stainless one would be permanently deformed. Ti is said to have a higher strength to weight ratio and indeed it does but a .050 stainless lock is significantly stronger than a same thickness titanium lock. Both are more than adequate for most uses in a folder.
STR
A magnet will stick to the liners of a Spyderco Military.
The frame lock Military is titanium.
Titanium brings a lot to the table. Titanium is lighter in weight than stainless steel and in a beefy frame lock this is a bigger deal than in a liner lock although the weight difference in a bigger knife can still be significant at times in some folders that are stainless. Titanium allows anodizing if one so wishes to make their folder a color. Titanium tends to stick or have a galling tendency to dissimilar metals and itself so an otherwise iffy lock contact can still work and work quite well if the lock is titanium since it is so forgiving for what some would call a bad contact angle or type. Stainless is not as forgiving for a bad contact at all so the fact that Spyderco uses stainless tells you that they focus and pay attention to the small specifics of lock contact relationship in the mating of the lock to the blade to make it work so well.
Corrosion resistance is another thing ti brings to the table but for most all applications stainless steel like those used in liners holds up quite well so its really not much of an advantage unless you hang around a lot of salt water. Ti will resist a lot of chemicals, acids and so on as well as tolerate extremes of temperatures better than steel. Ti also has a very good memory so the titanium locks tend to snap back to shape in extreme situations where a stainless one would be permanently deformed. Ti is said to have a higher strength to weight ratio and indeed it does but a .050 stainless lock is significantly stronger than a same thickness titanium lock. Both are more than adequate for most uses in a folder.
STR