My first Victorinox QC issue

Daniel Moore

Daniel Moore

Joined
Jul 28, 2003
Messages
2,790
I just got a Super Tinker and the blade tip seems to catch on the spacer. The spacer at the end of the blade (when closed) is somehow catching the blade tip so when I push my thumb in the nail nick the tip clicks and shifts to the other side. Anyone else have this problem? :confused:

Edit 7/17: It turns out it's normal, I just haven't had a brand new 91mm SAK in a couple of years so I never noticed. :D
 
No, but that is surprising coming from Victorinox. I wonder if it will wear off in time or if you can maybe reach in there with a very thin fine diamond burr for a dremmel and maybe smooth that part that is catching down? Then again you may be able to reprofile the blade so the tip is not as long right where it catches. If not you may need to have them look it over.

It is kind of hard to follow where you are referring to, at least for me but I think I have it. Any way to show us a pic?
 
I have a Super Tinker I bought new (NGK) about 6 months ago - no issues like that.

MA, huh? Didn't know anyone else besides me in MA carried knives .. :D
 
None of my Vics have that problem . I did get a tinker with scissors a while back that has some side to side play with the phillips . Thinking about sending it back but haven't done it yet .
 
I once saw a SAK like that, the tip of the large blade was just barely scratching the spacer on the small blade end, fixed it with a few passes on a hone (sharpen the tip of the blade). I think the actual problem was in the kick of the blade, ground a little bit too much, made the blade go too far inside the handles.

Luis
 
Same problem here NeedleRemorse. If I let the blade snap close, the tip contacts the spacer.
 
If I'm understanding the problem, it seems a fix would be easy....bend the liner...they're aluminum. Maybe I'm wrong......:confused:
 
On one of my Victorinox knives, the small blade "sticks" to the spacer and moves slightly during opening and closing, so that when the small blade is closed it drags the spacer to a position where the tip of the large blade can hit it. Oiling it helped somewhat but the spacer still moves.
 
Larry: The liner's not bent, it's just that the tip is hitting the spacer at the tip when opening because the blade is too long. I looked on all of my other SAK's, and all of them seem to have it, but they have all been sharpened so it no longer catches. This knife is just the first brand now 91 mm SAK I've gotten since I started getting really into knives (Bladeforums) :D

Edit: Here's a drawing to explain what's happening:
sakdrawing.JPG


So the blade isn't catching on a burr of the liner like I thought, but instead I know that all SAK blades are built too long for the liner and end up digging into the liner, leaving a large gouge that they get stuck in until sharpened/the tip is worn down. The "catching" is less noticeable on some SAKs than others.
 
Chris:

I doubt if it was ever part of the design, but the fact that it's on every Swiss Army Knife I own down to a 20 year old Economy Waiter shows me that they're well aware of it and do not see it as a flaw, so I no longer believe it to be a QC issue. I mean, my Climber has a HUGE gouge, one of my Explorer's is pretty negligible. It's just an issue of a manufacturing a product that's going to retail for ~$25, each blade is ground a little differently. My knife seems to have been ground/sharpened in such a way that the geometry of the edge area curves more sharply to the tip than others in my little collection do, so the amount and geometry of the blade belly just decides how far it will dig into the aluminum spacers. My girlfriend's Climber has its gouge on the other side of the liner so that you don't notice the catching when opening it because it can't go any further in that direction.
 
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