ARtsig1
Banned
- Joined
- Jul 20, 2000
- Messages
- 3,692
In the past month I have been fortunate enough to end up with two of Mike Obenauf's large model 2 framelocks. One was a special order by me directly to Mike and resulted in an "extra beefy" framelocker. The second one I bought off the forums and am the 3 rd person to own it and it still looks 100% mint. I have been carrying these two, in a rotation, since they came. The locks lock up better than any framelock knife I have owned, and I have owned several other customs along with what I consider to be the standard by which all other framelocks are judged, the Sebenza. With that said I had only one gripe and that is the slick metal surface. I have given some thought to sending these knives to CheckerMarx and have a portion of each handle half checkered for an enhanced grip. Until I do I thought I would try something else. I had been reading in a back issue of TK how the author, while evaluating the BM Pinnacle, had applied stair tread tape to the handle to give a more secure grip. Off to Ace Hardware I went and found the very product that had been talked about. This is called Stair-Tread Tape and is made by 3M so it is some good stuff. The color is a medium gray and the molded texture is very grainy but being a rubbery product it is not rough on the hand and boy does it ever help the grip! I used a sheet of paper and traced the outline of the handle then cut it out and worked it till I got the pattern I wanted. I then traced it on some posterboard and cut that out so that I have a template. Next I traced on the backside of the tape since it is peel off paper. Using a SHARP pair of scissors I cut out the pattern, carefully peeled off the paper to expose the adhesive, and applied it to the handle. Went right on and STUCK with no movement. The handles were cleaned before hand in order to degrease them. On the front side I put a strip about
3.5" X 3/4" and on the back side just a little piece about 3/4" square with a thin strip running another 2.5" along the top of the backside handle. Once applied I used a round pencil and with firm pressure rolled over the tape to make sure it adhered at all points.
The end product looks really good as the gray tape contrasts nicely against the glass beaded surface of the titanium handle. Now comes the test as I will carry it tomorrow and see how acts when drawn from the pocket several times and put back several times. Guess we'll see if 3M is indeed the king of adhesives!!

3.5" X 3/4" and on the back side just a little piece about 3/4" square with a thin strip running another 2.5" along the top of the backside handle. Once applied I used a round pencil and with firm pressure rolled over the tape to make sure it adhered at all points.
The end product looks really good as the gray tape contrasts nicely against the glass beaded surface of the titanium handle. Now comes the test as I will carry it tomorrow and see how acts when drawn from the pocket several times and put back several times. Guess we'll see if 3M is indeed the king of adhesives!!



