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Need help breaking in a knife

F

fluid_motion

Joined
Mar 2, 2013
Messages
132
So i recently bought an Aegis Knife Works mini xiphos in damascus (herringbone?) and I noticed that the lockbar tension was really strong. This made for a really hard detent and a not so smooth action due to the increased pressure on the detent ball. This is fine though as the knife has really early lockup and I wouldn't want to risk lock slippage by relieving some of the lockbar tension. So after a few days of flipping I got my index finger super buff and a mean callous on it. The problem is that I noticed that while opening and closing the blade, the pivot would also rotate. This doesn't affect the function of the knife, but it kind of annoys me to see the pivot spinning around with the blade. I've tried tightening the pivot so that it doesn't spin anymore but the action becomes incredibly stiff and I tried to break it in by repeatedly opening and closing the blade with two hands. After a while though, it would just loosen up again and the pivot would start to spin again. The knife is on ceramic bearings, and the question is that should I locktite and tighten the pivot so it is stiff and try to break in the knife like that? Or is there a better way to break in the knife.
 
This is interesting...

So you have a ton of pressure on the lock-bar, with super early lock-up.

Obviously this will put a lot of pressure in the detent ball, however being on ceramic bearings, once that pressure is passed, it should be as smooth as butter...is that the case?

Also, is the detent ball ceramic as well?

Can you post a few pics of the lock-up?

Your pivot screw should not move as you open or close a knife.
Without loctite, it will, but you will never even notice it until it's loose enough that you have play.

The blade is supposed to freely rotate on the pivot screw.

There's a lot going here, I would want to take the knife apart and take a closer look at everything, including tolerances.
 
It is not smooth after breaking past the detent due to the lockbar pressure on the blade dragging the detent ball across the blade. The detent ball appears to be steel and i've taken apart, cleaned, adjusted, and loctited it. I'll play with it for a while after the loctite cures and see how the action turns out.
 
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