New HEST Folder hard to open

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soapboxpreacher

Joined
Apr 3, 2010
Messages
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For those of you who have a HEST Folder is yours very hard to open? Mine requires a lot of force (Pushing) to open. I fear my thumb is going to chase it into the blade. I have to push substantially hard on the thumbstud to get it open. It is brand new straight out of the box and I am wondering if it needs to be worked in or if I should send it in. But honestly it is not smooth until about 1/2" of the blade is out. Then it slides out pretty well. Let me know. It is certainly a tank!!!
 
Nope...didnt know you could. The lock is also so damn tight...I am not overlly impressed with the quality. Not that it is bad but it might be because it is so new and these are some of the first off the line.
 
I assumed you are right handed otherwise just follow this but do it on the left handed version.

When your palm is holding the handle, some forces being applied from the fingers, pushing the Ti piece onto the surface of the blade, squeezing it and hence you felt the resistance.

Simply lock and unlock for sometime. I did mine for 20 times and now i get the hang of opening it.

Just curious though, have you try to "wave" your HEST?:D
 
Mine was like you describe yours to be, but after loosening the pivot and working the lockbar all day until my thumb hurt, it is really smooth now.
 
soapboxpreacher said:
Nope...didnt know you could. The lock is also so damn tight...I am not overlly impressed with the quality. Not that it is bad but it might be because it is so new and these are some of the first off the line.
Click to expand...

To the best of my knowledge all of the HEST folders were shipped with the pivot tightened down to avoid any issues with customs inspectors. You have to loosed the pivot with the tool you got with the knife to where it suits you. What exactly are your "quality" issues?
 
The pivot on mine was all gunk'd (this is a technical term) up with grease and metal particles when I first received it, I was also similarly disappointed. Two things that I noticed were "wrong".

1) The pivot was indeed tight

2) The inherent design of the frame lock makes it difficult to open if you don't know how to do it

#1 is an easy enough fix, just loosen the pivot (use a hex wrench and the two prong side of the "Mr. DPx" tool included with the knife). I went the further step of disassembling mine, cleaning it all out, and then using liberal amounts of RemOil on anything that moved. It opens as fast as an assisted now, and completely smooth as butter.

#2 takes a little learning. There's a ball in the frame lock and a corresponding divot on the blade. The idea is to keep the blade "locked" in place while in your pocket. The problem is, if you squeeze on the lock while attempting to open the blade (as most naturally do since it doesn't make a difference with a liner lock), this just pushes that ball further in to the divot making it even harder to open. The trick is to keep your fingers free of the lock bar when opening. It's easiest to use the pocket clip to "aim" your fingers right, the rest is just "learning". You can also take it apart and grind off the little ball (since it doesn't serve any other purpose), but the nice thing is that if you can train yourself to open it properly, you can leave the pivot relatively loose and rely on the ball for locking the blade closed, making speedy opening (once you learn how to do it properly ;) ) easy as pie.

And thus concludes my wall'o'text. :D
 
Mine has exactly the same problem, I tried to loosen the pivot on the special screw side (open with the special tool), but it didn't help even after I took the screw off the knife; then I tried to loosen the other side with the regular torx screw, I found it to be really really really tight, I'm not sure about the size, it seems like the T10 to be a bit smaller (but T15 is definitely too big), I tried to turn as hard as I could before I felt I would either strip the screw or break my torx wrench, so I wonder if I was doing it wrong or was it a different type of screw?

Thanks in advance!
 
hard retention ball, reason and solution:
- The knife has the clip down. When you carry your knife into the pocket you must be sure that the blade remain the the close position
- be careful when you open the knife, do not push with the fingers to the titanium frame.
- after some days of using the knife all the movements will be softer
 
dongbeiren said:
Mine has exactly the same problem, I tried to loosen the pivot on the special screw side (open with the special tool), but it didn't help even after I took the screw off the knife; then I tried to loosen the other side with the regular torx screw, I found it to be really really really tight, I'm not sure about the size, it seems like the T10 to be a bit smaller (but T15 is definitely too big), I tried to turn as hard as I could before I felt I would either strip the screw or break my torx wrench, so I wonder if I was doing it wrong or was it a different type of screw?
Thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

It is "allen 2.5"
 
I've seen lots of people say the action is stiff on this knife, but I got one yesterday, and it's fine. Not the kind of knife that will fly open with a touch of the thumb, but no problem to operate with the thumb or to wave out of the pocket. My only gripe is that the clip could be a bit stiffer, and probably doesn't need to be so long given that its so deep-carry. But overall, its a great knife.
 
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