New Emerson Owner with Commander Blade center problems.

xiuxiu1313

xiuxiu1313

Gold Member
Joined
Sep 14, 2010
Messages
408
Hey all,

So I picked up my first Emerson! It's a Commander SF. Love the ergos, love the blade shape/finish and of course who doesn't love the wave feature. Little sketchy on the unfinished surface areas, and the badly cut backspacer (looks like a drunk 12 year old did it) but who cares, this was meant to be a user for me. The main problem I'm having is with the blade centering, when closed the blade is pretty far left (towards the liner lock) and actually grinds against the liner when opening. If I loosen the pivot screw (looser than i would like) the blade will center, but then has a ton of play in the closed position and also grinds against the liner and has a lot of blade play when open. I have tried pulling the second detent in on the right liner. This helps a little with the centering, but then the knife literally has no detent holding it closed. The lock side detent ball is there, but it's about 1/4 " from actually going into the detent hole on the liner side. It seems that the second detent is the only one that actually acts as a true detent and the one of the left is to simply prevent the liner from grinding on the tang. Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to get this baby working well. Sorry this is so long.

Thanks!
 
Centering issues I had with Emersons were fixed by taking it apart, cleaning and reassembling.

When reassembling, put all the screws in at the same time and tighten all at the same time--as in a little bit on each screw on both sides.
 
Loosen the pivot screw and all the body screws. Fold a piece of paper a few times and wedge it between the blade and handle so that it pushes the blade opposite the side that it's off center. Then tighten all the screws and see if it centers it a bit. This helped my Commander a little bit, at least it stopped it from scraping the sides.

Don't use a dremel like on your Strider SMF :)
 
LOL! Thanks man. I think I am actually going to cut my losses and take advantage of the exchange policy that BladeHQ offers. Change of pace for me, I usually go right to the dremmel as you know.
 
Yeah if you're not happy with it I'd just return it. In my experience the CQC7s i've purchased have been made much better than the larger Emersons. My CQC8 and Commander both scraped the sides out of the box. My 7 was perfect.
 
Don't know about BladeHQ but lots of sellers will eyeball a knife for you if you ask and try to eliminate the issues you're concerned about before they ship you one.
 
Take the knife apart and push in the detent spring tab a little with a screwdriver. I do it to all of my Emersons.
 
Last edited:
mongomondo said:
Loosen the pivot screw and all the body screws. Fold a piece of paper a few times and wedge it between the blade and handle so that it pushes the blade opposite the side that it's off center. Then tighten all the screws and see if it centers it a bit. This helped my Commander a little bit, at least it stopped it from scraping the sides.

Don't use a dremel like on your Strider SMF :)
Click to expand...

Is this the same as the Military blade centering trick? Your description has me guessing? With the Military as you may know, the wedge is placed between the handle and the blade on the same side that the rubbing is going on. Can you confirm plz?
 
cziv said:
Is this the same as the Military blade centering trick? Your description has me guessing? With the Military as you may know, the wedge is placed between the handle and the blade on the same side that the rubbing is going on. Can you confirm plz?
Click to expand...

Yes you're right. I didn't describe it very clearly.
 
I usually correct it by just taking everything apart and cleaning and putting back together. Some of them still are a little off center but doesnt affect anything, and my knives get seriously used so much it doesnt bother me at all! Love them Emersons!
 
Sorry about resurrecting an old thread. I feel like a grave digger. I just got a mini commander and had some centering issues. I used the paper trick, and now it is perfect. I wanted to extend my thanks to mongomondo. My mini commander is now perfectly centered with no play.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top