Mysterious up-and-down blade-play when knife is closed... help???

[NervousTicMotion]

So I know a people say quality control with Boker can be hit and miss but I fell in love with the look of the Boker Pipsqueak and decided to order one. Got it in the mail last week and been carrying it since then. At first, I felt like the lockup was way too early (probably 10%) so I loosened the pivot screw a little bit.

Here's the issue: When I keep the pivot screw a bit looser, the lockup improves all the way up to about %45 (which is great), however, no matter how much I loosen it, it then creates a little bit of up-and-down blade play when the knife is closed. It's not a crazy amount of play, but for $190 I don't want to have any play at all. If I tighten the pivot screw to the point where there is no play when closed, the blade becomes tighter to open and close and the lockup becomes virtually non-existent So it's clear this pivot's construction doesn't have ball bearings or else tightening the screw wouldn't affect the blades ability to open and close, right?

I actually called the repair shop at Boker and he recommended I send it in to him to have a look at. If I send it in and he's unable to fix it though, then he'd have to send it off to Germany (for which the turnaround time is up to 2-4 months), or just place an order and replace it with a new Pipsqueak all-together.

So do any of you experts out there have any possible suggestions or philosophies on what my issue could be? For the record, the detent ball catches nice and strong, the lockup (even when early) is always rock-solid and the blade centering is perfect. This is a great knife, I'm just trying to figure out if this is some issue that might NOT require me to send the knife away to Boker...

Help?

 

[mrdeus]

My first thought was that the pivot hole is a bit too big in relation to the pin. I've noticed that you can kinda shift the blade slightly when half open on a couple of my high-end knives. Not an issue at all since the lockup is solid. I haven't thought to check for vertical play when closed though, to be honest.

edit: the lockup isn't affected by how hard I crank down the pivot on those knives, though.

 

[Poez]

Well, I guess the lock up on that knife is too early to your taste: that is the only issue that I see here. Why are you concerned about amount of lock up: the knife seems totally unsuitable for any kind of stubbing or self-defence? (any folding knife is pretty much unsuitable for stubbing or self-defence if you ask me, but Pipssqueak in particular would be sort of ridiculous!) Just use it and the lock-up will shift with use: particularly in the beginning. Or have it replaced: if it is critical for you.

 

[rpttrsn]

"So it's clear this pivot's construction doesn't have ball bearings or else tightening the screw wouldn't affect the blades ability to open and close, right?"

Tightening the pivot screw, even with ball bearings, can affect how hard it is to open the blade on some knives. I have a Spyderco Brad Southard Flipper w/ball bearings and the tightness of the screws makes a big difference. If you have screws in the frame for the scales you might want to loosen them along with the pivot screw and adjust you knife from there by snugging up slowly on all while checking for blade center, lock-up and ease of opening. At times to make the adjustment to center the blade you need to have one side of the scales tight and push up on the other side while tightening to get the blade centered. Some knives the handles are not positioned the same in relation to the pivot and this can cause problems. Hope this helps.

 

[NervousTicMotion]

My first thought was that the pivot hole is a bit too big in relation to the pin. I've noticed that you can kinda shift the blade slightly when half open on a couple of my high-end knives. Not an issue at all since the lockup is solid. I haven't thought to check for vertical play when closed though, to be honest.

edit: the lockup isn't affected by how hard I crank down the pivot on those knives, though.

Hmm, yeah I hadn't thought of the hole to pin size ratio. Not sure what I could possibly do about that though :/

 

[NervousTicMotion]

Well, I guess the lock up on that knife is too early to your taste: that is the only issue that I see here. Why are you concerned about amount of lock up: the knife seems totally unsuitable for any kind of stubbing or self-defence? (any folding knife is pretty much unsuitable for stubbing or self-defence if you ask me, but Pipssqueak in particular would be sort of ridiculous!) Just use it and the lock-up will shift with use: particularly in the beginning. Or have it replaced: if it is critical for you.

I only care about the amount of lockup for safety's sake I suppose. I'd never want the knife to close on me of course. But ya know, I also just feel like when you pay for a quality knife, you want it to feel like high quality all the way around. The minor amount of blade play when closed really doesn't affect the strength of the lockup like I said, so I guess I just want the knife to feel rock solid even when closed. Haha but you're right, this is by no means a tactical knife, to be honest it's almost more like a beefy glorified box opener Nice little tank of a knife overall though.

 

[NervousTicMotion]

Well, I guess the lock up on that knife is too early to your taste: that is the only issue that I see here. Why are you concerned about amount of lock up: the knife seems totally unsuitable for any kind of stubbing or self-defence? (any folding knife is pretty much unsuitable for stubbing or self-defence if you ask me, but Pipssqueak in particular would be sort of ridiculous!) Just use it and the lock-up will shift with use: particularly in the beginning. Or have it replaced: if it is critical for you.

I only care about the amount of lockup for safety's sake I suppose. I'd never want the knife to close on me of course. But ya know, I also just feel like when you pay for a quality knife, you want it to feel like high quality all the way around. The minor amount of blade play when closed really doesn't affect the strength of the lockup like I said, so I guess I just want the knife to feel rock solid even when closed. Haha but you're right, this is by no means a tactical knife, to be honest it's almost more like a beefy glorified box opener Nice little tank of a knife overall though.