Mini Adamas - Return, Send to benchmade or keep?

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Mar 1, 2022
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Hi all,
I am relatively new to the knife game. Before this year I bought a number of affordable knives, but this past year began exploring high quality manufacturers.
I recently purchased a Mini Adamas. Im not really into the tactical style, but something about that knife design is just beautiful, not to mention it feels so good in hand.

In any case, when I first took delivery of the knife, everything seemed nice and tight. After a day or so, i noticed that the knife had a some amount vertical blade play -- enough to catch my attention and bother me.
I read up on the forums that this is often caused by the the "tolerance gap" between the pivot and the pivot hole on the blade. It seems there is some variance in Benchmade's manufacturing, where some blades have less of a gap, some more. I checked this by disengaging the lock and pushing / pulling the blade, during which I could feel the gap.

I also read on some advice on the forums to clean up the knife pivot and washers. I polished the washers (I actually found there was a slight deformation that i was able to flatten). I applied a slight amount of lubricant on the pivot and washers, applied some graphite to the tang. And spent some time actuating the axis lock, in order to encourage surfaces to mate and break-in the knife.

After all these efforts, the knife seems to have improved quite a bit. The up and down play is now much more solid. Now when I rock the blade, with light to moderate pressure the knife blade play is barely noticeable. With moderate + pressure the blade play is still there, but less pronounced.

One important detail worth mentioning is that the remaining vertical blade play is also accompanied by movement of the axis lock (like im fighting the tension of the lock). And if I push forward the lock, blade play disappears.

In any case, the reason I am posting is to get some perspective from those of you with more experience in the knife game. Given the current state of my knife, would you be happy with the knife?
Part of me is wondering if I exchange the knife, maybe I would get an example with tighter tolerances and no play at all (the flip side being I could get one with worse play).
I could keep my knife and send it in to Benchmade to see if they could further improve the action?


What are you thoughts knife community?
 
What are you thoughts knife community?
Returning the knife shouldn't be an option you're considering... once you disassembled the knife and polished the washers, it's yours.

Personally I would stop fooling with it and just use it, I had more than one Benchmade that just needed to be opened and closed repeatedly for the axis bar to settle into place.

If you're not happy with it, send it in to Benchmade.
 
Returning the knife shouldn't be an option you're considering... once you disassembled the knife and polished the washers, it's yours.

Personally I would stop fooling with it and just use it, I had more than one Benchmade that just needed to be opened and closed repeatedly for the axis bar to settle into place.

If you're not happy with it, send it in to Benchmade.
Good call. I def won't return.
It does seem to be locking up more and more solid each day -- so I have more confidence in the lock at this point.
This is my first Benchmade/ Axis lock and it's def a different animal than my collection dominated by liner and frame locks.
 
Another question I do have is (as I mentioned) when I push / pull on the blade, the axis lock moves a bit, which causes little bit of a click as it moves.
Should the axis lock give like that? It doesn't feel like it's going to fail or slip out of the locked position. Just wondering if this might cause undo wear.
 
Personally I would stop fooling with it and just use it, I had more than one Benchmade that just needed to be opened and closed repeatedly for the axis bar to settle into place.

The axis lock definitely needs a little while to break in. I don't consider adjusting anything on them until at least a week after I got it.

OP, if you want to speed the process up, put on your favorite movie or TV show, and just open and close the knife as you watch. It should smooth out and the lock bar will settle in to place.
 
The Axis lock and the safety on my new custom Barrage were very stiff and gritty feeling when new, but it has broken in nicely after a week of repeated opening and closing. I know Benchmade knives aren't exactly cheap, but they would probably cost twice as much if they came from the factory "pre broken-in".
 
Another question I do have is (as I mentioned) when I push / pull on the blade, the axis lock moves a bit, which causes little bit of a click as it moves.
Should the axis lock give like that? It doesn't feel like it's going to fail or slip out of the locked position. Just wondering if this might cause undo wear.

It sounds you just need to pull and release the Axis bar repeatedly to break it in; no need to actually fold/unfold the blade.
 
I wanted to follow up on this post for future reference.
I emailed Benchmade and they told me that the blade play is not within spec and to send it in.
I sent it in, and within a less than two weeks the had the knife back to me.

I don't know what kind of voodoo the worked but the knife has absolutely no blade play now.
Interesting thing is that there previous posts stating that they sent in their Mini Adamas and it came back with the same vertical blade play problem.
So either they figured out how to fix it, or I got lucky and the tech that took apart my knife was particularly good.

In any case, I am happy with the knife now and want to give a big shoutout to Benchmade for their awesome customer service.
 
Good to hear that.

Please report back after you use or play with it for a while, including after disassemble. I have a knife of another brand with some blade play. The manufacturer "fixed" The issue. But it reappeared after I later took it apart and put back.
 
Good to hear that.

Please report back after you use or play with it for a while, including after disassemble. I have a knife of another brand with some blade play. The manufacturer "fixed" The issue. But it reappeared after I later took it apart and put back.
Will do!
This is why I am super hesitant to make any adjustments to the knife. Right now the knife feels a little bit too tight, but I'm afraid if I mess with the pivot the blade play will come back.
At this point I'll use the knife as is and will let everything wear in before I make any more adjustments. I'll check back in when time comes to do a clean and lube.
 
I think it's smart to let it break in and not adjust it for a bit. I didn't like the blade play in mine and cranked it a bit tighter. It's not a floppy fidget now, but I noticed after a week or carry and use it is glass smooth and nowhere near as stiff to deploy. It's not the pivot working loose because the blade play is nonexistent. Those bronze washer work in nicely. I think most Minis could come from the factory tighter, but a lot of people would hate having to break them in.

The more I use this knife, the more I really like it. It's kinda kicked everything out of my pocket. Lotta performance for the going price.
 
Just received mine and it has no play in any direction. Very happy with this knife and glad you got yours worked out and BM took care of you .

eJxqexN.jpg
 
Just received mine and it has no play in any direction. Very happy with this knife and glad you got yours worked out and BM took care of you .

eJxqexN.jpg
I got the same one! Doesn't the burgundy micarta looks amazing? And damn, that handle those scales feel so good and so solid. Congrats on the new knife!
 
So I bought one of the early mini Adamas and had some noticeable blade play in the one I bought. About 0.5 mm movement in the blade tip and the knife would rattle if I shock it. So I returned it to the dealer for inspection and got it back with just a statement that other knives in their inventory had similar blade play. This did not work itself out over time and was enough to be annoying.

I did notice that there was noticable play between the blade and the pivot screw not just when the blade was locked but was most pronounced when the blade was semi deployed. The pivot screw isn't actually round but has a milled off part that will prevent it from rotating in relation to the scales. This is supposed to eliminate the risk of the pivot screw working itself loose when you open and close the knife repeatedly. But this also increases the risk of movement between the pivot screw and blade if the tolerances are even slightly too wide.

So I went ahead and sent the blade in to Benchmade for warranty service, which isn't something I would do lightly as I needed to ship the knife from Europe to the US, including the hassle with customs. But the guys at Benchmades warranty department fixed the issue. It took me a couple of hours to notice what they had actually done to fix the issue. In my case what they did was to make a blade swap swap, even though the knife I sent in was basically brand new. I know this because I bought the standard 273GY-1 and what I got back was a knife with the 273BK-2201 blade with the "Limited edition" below the Silbert design logo on the blade.
 
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